“What do we do with the ones that go crazy? If we put them out on the street, they might lead someone back here.”
“Put them down in the basement.” On his earlier reconnoitre of the building, Robert had seen that the steps to the cellar were gone. Anyone thrown down there—­assuming they survived the eighteen-foot drop—would have no way of getting back out again. “Put the dead ones down there, too. They might as well have some company.”
Sabatini was sorting the limp bodies now. Two thirds of the kids were still alive. So I was right about younger subjects surviving better. All to the good. There’ll be no lack of subjects. Thousands of kids vanish every year, Robert thought.
Almost as soon as the dead bodies were cleared away, the Screamers started to awaken. They were harder to dispose of than he’d expected; supernatural strength seemed to go hand-in-hand with violent psychosis, and his operatives had to play rough. Fortunately only five of the surviving subjects needed that treatment, and with the doors between the kitchen and the front room shut, he couldn’t even hear them screaming once they’d been dumped in the basement.
And if their presence lured that pointy-eared claim-jumper Aerune back again, that was all to the good. A steel knife through the gut should settle him down and make him see reason.
Soon, the Survivors started to rouse, staring around themselves with wide, disbelieving eyes. There was a skinny blonde brat who seemed to be their leader. She glared at Lintel in terrified defiance, her mascara running down her painted cheeks in thick black streaks.
It doesn’t get any better than this, Robert a