Read Online Community by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

attention.’
    â€˜Tell me about it.’
    Jack said, ‘You and me, we should get together, have a few beers, see if we can’t straighten our heads out. There is no greater cure-all for un-straight heads than a six-pack of Coors.’
    â€˜I’m on Piracetam, and about a dozen other meds. I don’t know if the doctors will allow me to drink. Besides, does Trinity have a bar? Does it even have a market?’
    At that moment, a smiling middle-aged woman came up to them. She had very red lipstick and a dress that looked as if it had been made out of a chintz couch cover. ‘You young men, you should mingle! There are so many people here who are dying to meet you! It’s not too often that we get new faces here in Trinity!’
    â€˜Oh, sure,’ said Michael. He patted Jack on the shoulder and said, ‘Catch up later, OK?’
    â€˜What did she mean “mingle”?’ asked Jack.
    â€˜It means talking to the first old coot you bump into, followed by the next old coot, and so on, until you’re all cooted out.’
    â€˜
Right
,’ said Jack, with an undisguised lack of enthusiasm. ‘See you later, dude.’
    Michael smiled and nodded at the older residents as he weaved his way down the room, but it was the girl in the blue bobble hat who he was headed for. He found her sitting on a plain bentwood chair next to the end of the refreshment table, with a glass of Russian tea and a cookie on the table beside her. She was wearing a blue cable-knit sweater to match her hat, and jeans, and her ankles were neatly crossed.
    She looked as if she were thinking about something serious, because she had a vexed little furrow in the middle of her forehead. A gray-haired man in a droopy maroon cardigan was standing close to her, but as Michael approached he shrugged and walked away, as if he had tried to talk to her but she hadn’t answered him.
    Michael stood in front of her and looked down at her with a feeling like no feeling he had ever experienced before – or no feeling that he could remember, anyhow. He had no idea who she was, and yet everything about her seemed so perfect. Her blue-gray eyes, her high cheekbones, her slightly parted lips.
    â€˜Hi,’ he said. He put down his half-eaten slice of pizza and wiped his hand on his jeans. ‘My name’s Greg. You look like you’re worried about something and I was wondering if that something was something I could help you with.’
    She didn’t respond for at least five full seconds. He was just about to repeat himself when she raised her eyes and said, ‘What?’
    He gave her a smile. ‘I said, my name’s Greg and you look like you’re worried about something.’
    She was staring at him with such intensity that he began to wonder if he had tomato sauce on his chin, and he defensively wiped it with the back of his hand.
    â€˜Yes,’ she said. ‘I heard you the first time.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜And, no, I’m not worried. I was thinking about what I have to do when I get back home, that’s all.’
    â€˜OK. And what
do
you have to do when you get back home?’
    Again, there was at least a five-second pause. But then her eyes widened and she let out a terrible ear-splitting scream, her hands clutching the seat of the chair, her whole body rigid. The scream went on and on until she ran out of breath, and then she inhaled with a sound like somebody dragging a saw across a metal drainpipe, and started screaming again.
    â€˜Hey!’ said Michael, and took hold of her shoulders, trying to steady her. But she twisted violently out of his grasp and drummed her heels on the floor and went on screaming and screaming.
    By now the residents had gathered around them. One of the men said, ‘Slap her!
Slap
her! It’s the only way! Shock her out of it!’
    â€˜Cold water!’ croaked an elderly woman. ‘That’ll do it! That’s what my