“Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?”
“No.”
They went to the door.
“I don’t imagine the room will like being turned off,” said the father.
“Nothing ever likes to die – even a room.”
“I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off?”
“Paranoia is thick around here today,” said David McClean. “You can follow it like a spoor. Hello. He bent and picked up a bloody scarf. This yours?”
“No.” George Hadley’s face was rigid. “It belongs to Lydia.”
They went to the fuse box together and threw the switch that killed the nursery.
The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture.