"Very interesting."
"Well, it isn't so, is it, Aunt Twylee?"
The room was filled with blinding blue-white light, and the walls quaked at the sound of a monstrous thunderclap.
The old Martian glanced nervously at the clock on the wall. "My, it is getting late," she said as she fondled the knife in her hands.
"You Martians wouldn't do anything like that, would you?"
"You want the truth, don't you, dear?" Aunt Twylee asked, smiling, as she walked to the table where Marilou sat.
"'Course I do, Aunt Twylee," she said.
Her scream was answered and smothered by the horrendous roar of the thunder, and the piercing hiss of the rain that fell in sheets. In great volumes of water, it fell, as though the heavens were attempting to wash the sins of man from the universe and into non-existence in the void beyond the void.
Marilou lay beside the other children. Aunt Twylee smiled at them, closed the bedroom door and returned to the kitchen.