The man started walking again, his head bent low like a man who was going to the gallows or something. Steele started to ask him again why they’d not moved, but the man started talking. Steele could hear the sadness in his voice.
“I suppose for some of us, this is better. We get to talk to those that need us. There is a whole floor of people here that can talk to us, you know. They call it the geriatric floor, but we call it the fun floor. I think in a way we might offer them comfort before they pass. Most of them go on now, but we...well, we like it here. We’re used to it, I guess.” Steele could understand that, he supposed. “There do be a few of us that should have moved on, I guess. Those that just sit in the corner waiting. Don’t know what they might be waiting on, but there they wait.”
“And you’re their keeper of sorts.” The man laughed again, and that was when he’d let a little of his hold go on his body. He’d been shot about ten times in the chest and once in the head. He’d not been a good man when he lived, apparently, and someone had made him pay dearly. “How long have you been here?”
“Long time. When I first died, so long ago now that I rarely think about it, I wasn’t what you might call a cooperative person. Gave those men and women meant to help me a bit of a bad time of it. They kept adding onto my sentence over and over until I guess I finally got it.” His laughter this time was bitter and cold. “I have had more years here than I did living. But I’m making up for it now. I’m sort of an ambassador to this place. Making sure we get what we need, and I even set up this sort of schedule for the dying. You know, matching up them with someone that might have a few things to share with them. It’s been working well for us all.”
“I want to thank you for that.” He waved Steele off, but he knew the man was proud of what he was doing. “When you have a need, something that you can’t get, let me know and I’ll see that you get it.” The man, Conner he said his name was, told him he’d do that.
“This here is what you want. Oh, and Nurse Bessie said to show you the way out. Ain’t that pretty, but you’ll see sunlight soon enough.” Steele nodded as he picked up the first box of files. “The ones you’d be looking for are in there. She said them boys had been passed over. So’s you know, two of them are here now.” Steele looked around, seeing several young men, as well as a couple of small children. It was sad to think they’d lost their lives so young.
“Can they talk to me?” Conner said he’d ask but not to count on much. When he returned a few minutes later with a young man, Steele knew his name. His file was the first one he’d pulled out. Garth Bell. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah, you’re that guy who sends us on if we wanna go. I don’t, just so you know. I got me a nice gig going here and—” The back of his head snapped forward, and Steele had to cover his laughter with a cough. Conner had been there long enough to know he could tap someone when needed. “He said that I wasn’t to bullshit you. That you needed me to help you. What do I get out of this?”
“Years off your sentence if you want it.” The boy looked at Conner, then back at him and shrugged. “There’s a family, the Bruces. They’re suing a friend of mine for running when things got out of hand. I was trying to find something on them so that they won’t win.”
“Mitch.” Steele said that was right and asked him how he knew his name. “‘Cause I was there that night. The night he lit out of there like his pants were on fire. Him and this kid by the name of Thomas—let me think on his last name—but they were being tied up when I seen them. I go back there sometimes to just piss them off, but I can’t do much.”
“When you were there, did you see anything else? I mean...well, what sort of things they were doing to them?” The kid looked around, and then when Conner moved on, Steele waited. There was going to be a story here, and he was sure it was going to be horrific.
“I know what they did to us boys there. Did it to me too until I hanged myself one night. Buried me in the back yard so that nobody would know what they’d done. Not that anybody would have visited my grave anyway, but I just got all wrapped up in a dirty sheet and tossed in the ground.” Steele decided he would make sure the boy got what he deserved in the way of a proper grave and marker. “Anyway, I could see they were planning to rape them both. Tied them to the bed with them cuffs, they had. Used them on me a few times too, but now I got me a little power and blasted them right off Mitch. He helped that other boy out when them other two were down. Thomas near tore off that man’s dick...penis, and the woman got herself kicked in the face a few times and they was down, let me tell you.”