A/N - only my second story so any comments are welcome.
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Jobs were scarce round these parts. You took what you could get and were just grateful for the chance to make a decent living. This place was close to his home and it meant he didn't have to travel into Gillette every day - that was why he'd stuck with the job for so long.
It didn't mean he had to like the place though. And he didn't like it.
His cousin had heard that it was officially registered as VA Hospital but that was a load of horse-crap. Since when was a VA Hospital full of little kids? Anyone who worked there could see it was some sort of military school. He didn't know why they had to lie about it though. Unless maybe it was a tax dodge or something?
But he was just a janitor. It was none of his business what they pretended the place was. He needed the job so he did the same as everyone else - he kept his mouth shut and he didn't ask too many questions. Not out loud anyway.
Besides, apart from all the mystery, it wasn't that bad a job. It sure paid well and considering the number of kids in the place, it was always damn near spotless so the work was easy enough. When his own boys were that age, you'd sometimes think a tornado had whipped right through the whole house, stirring everything up in its wake. There'd be juice cartons and crayons and toys all over the place. But he'd never minded. They'd been kids and that was just what kids did.
Not the kids here though. He'd never once seen any toys or colouring books anywhere, never once had wipe down sticky fingerprints or clean up spilt juice. Most of the time, all he had to do was run a mop over the floor.
But easy money or not, he still didn't like the place. It just didn't feel right. Everyone was always on edge all the time, like they were watching their back but didn't quite know what they should be watching out for. Nobody just chatted or talked about the weather. And there were so many rules and regulations he could hardly keep track of them.
Like, nobody was allowed to go anywhere near the basement. That was one of the first rules he'd been told when he started. He'd tried asking why, but they'd made it pretty clear that 'rule number two' was that nobody asked about the basement.
He'd heard some pretty wild rumours about what was down there though. One of the maintenance guys swore blind he'd seen a little werewolf or something sneaking around but that was just crazy talk. The guy had probably been knocking back liquor on the job or something. He'd disappeared not long afterwards too. Left a wife and couple of kids behind - the fool was probably propping up some bar in Cheyenne or Casper or someplace by now, wasting his life on cheap booze and even cheaper hookers.
Sometimes though, late at night, when he was alone, he'd get this strange prickling on the back of his neck like he was being watched or something. It was probably just the kids messing around, trying to spook him.
He'd finished his shift early one evening a few months back. And when he headed over to staff locker room to dump his overalls and grab his jacket, he saw some kid sneaking out of the room. The boy disappeared into the shadows before he got a look at his face but he'd seen enough to know the kid was different from the others.
He looked tall enough to be a teenager, which made him older than any of the other children he'd seen around. And he had long hair, all the way down his back, not shaved off like the rest of them. The kid looked kind of scrawny too, like he could do with a few hot meals inside of him.
Anyway, the ham and cheese sandwich he'd left in his locker earlier that night was gone. He didn't know for sure, but he figured the kid must have taken it. And children don't just steal food for no reason, right? So the boy must have been hungry. Now he always made sure he brought an extra sandwich or a candy bar or something and he'd just leave it sitting out by his locker each night. He'd not spotted the boy again but whatever food he left out would always be gone by the time he finished his shift.
He didn't mention it to anybody else though. He'd been ordered to have "no unauthorised contact" with any of the children. Another one of the rules. He wasn't even supposed to reply if they spoke to him. Not that any of them ever had done. And that bothered him.
These kids were just too damn quiet for his liking. There was something unnatural about it. Some of the women who worked in the kitchens reckoned they weren't even real children, said they were zombies or robots or something. But that was just more crazy talk by people who were old enough to know better. Still, these kids were awfully quiet. Children that age should be screaming and hollering and laughing and playing and getting into all sorts of mischief.
Maybe that was why he liked working the evening shift best. The kids were usually asleep then, or in bed anyway, so the silence just didn't seem quite so strange.
There weren't as many guards around at night either. The guards made him nervous. In all the time he'd been there, he'd never quite worked out who they were supposed to be guarding.
But the evening shift did have some drawbacks.
One night, he'd been cleaning the floors in the dorms as normal when he saw one of the kids shaking and twitching in his bed. At first he'd thought the child was just having a bad dream. But when he'd got closer, he could see the kid was having some sort of fit. Hell, the boy was damn near swallowing his own tongue. It was the scariest thing he'd ever seen. He'd yelled for the guards in the corridor outside to get a doctor or to call an ambulance. Then Colonel Lydecker had arrived and told him to take the rest of the night off, that they'd handle it from there. So he just finished up and he went home. No questions asked.
The next night, that kid's bed had been stripped right down. It had lain empty ever since. And that was over 6 months ago.
He'd cleaned the floors of nearly every room in this building at one time or another, including the Infirmary, but he'd never once seen that kid again.
Something in his gut told him he never would.
That child wasn't ever coming back and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that something bad happened and that somehow it was his fault, that maybe he shouldn't have called those guards. He knew he hadn't imagined the accusations in the eyes of the other kids from that dorm when he went in there on his rounds the next night. It was the first real sign of emotion he'd ever seen in them and it chilled his soul that he'd somehow done wrong by them.
So when he walked into that dorm tonight and saw it happening all over again, saw those same convulsions racking through another poor child's terrified young body, all that guilt had come flooding right back. And he knew that he couldn't tell the guards.
Not this time.
If the boy really needed help, the other kids would call for it. Somehow he knew they'd all look out for each other and didn't want his interference.
But still, he needed to put his own mind at ease. He needed to be sure in his heart that he was doing the right thing. So, quickly and quietly, trying not to alert the guards, he walked over to the boy and slipped a card out of his pocket and into the boy's shaking hands. His own mother had given it to him years ago and told him to always carry it for protection. Well right now, this child needed the protection more than he did. And he knew he'd done the right thing when he saw the shaking ease a little and felt child's small hands relax within his grasp.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, refuge in danger, pray for us.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, help of the abandoned, pray for us.
Our Lady of the Scared Heart, Mother of the orphan and the destitute, pray for us.
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Hope of the hopeless, pray for us.
Tonight, when he hung up his overalls at the end of his shift and returned home to his wife and his three beautiful sons, he would remember to pray for this child. And he would pray for the child that had disappeared. And for the long-haired boy in the locker room.
He would pray for all of them, pray that the Lady would watch over them and protect them, always and forever.
Somebody had to.