“No.”
“Then tell me what happened to the children, Mr. Smith. I want details.”
“Details?.”
“Yes, Mr. King. About your students.”
“I told you. They’re gone.”
“Where did they go?”
“We were there for weeks. We had no food. We had no medicine. Some of the kids were drinking from these pools, these nasty pools. We tried to keep them corralled, but they kept wandering off. Some just disappeared. Some just dwindled away. One little girl had asthma. It was horrible.”
Nurse Smith glanced down at her notes.
“And then?”
Shawn glared at her for a long time. Finally, he chuckled, nasty, rueful, bitter. His face screwed up into a sneer and he said, “The rest were taken.”
Zorn’s mouth fell open.
“Dear Lord,” he whispered.
Nurse Smith seemed pleased.
“Taken? By whom?”
Shawn shook his head. H
