Free Community by Graham Masterton

husband always did to me!’
    Michael tried to pry the girl’s hands away from the seat of the chair but now she was becoming so hysterical that she was bumping the chair up and down on the floor and he had to grab hold of the rungs to stop her from pitching herself backward.
    â€˜It’s OK!’ he kept telling her. ‘Everything’s OK! Please – try to calm down!’
    She stared at him wildly with her eyes bulging. She looked almost as if she hated him. She was obviously exhausted from screaming but she wouldn’t stop, with her lungs heaving and spit flying out of her mouth.
    â€˜Please,’ Michael begged her. ‘Please calm down.’
    But at that moment Kingsley Vane appeared, moving the residents firmly out of his way. ‘Let me through, please. Thank you. Let me through.’
    Over the girl’s screaming, Michael shouted, ‘I don’t know what happened! I started to talk to her, and she was fine at first …’
    Kingsley Vane didn’t reply, but nodded as if he understood exactly. Without hesitation he knelt down on one knee beside the girl and took her into his arms. She was still screaming but he lifted her bodily off the chair and then stood up, cradling her as if she were a child. She stopped screaming almost at once, and nestled her head underneath his chin.
    â€˜She’ll be all right,’ said Kingsley Vane. ‘Sometimes the realization is more than they can bear.’
    With that, he turned around and carried her out of the room, with the residents all stepping back to let him through.
    Jack came up to Michael, shaking his head. ‘What in the name of all that’s holy was
that
shit about? What did you say to that poor girl to make her holler like that?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Michael. He suddenly realized that he was shaking.
    â€˜You must have done
something
to upset her,’ said Jack.
    Michael turned away. With no warning at all, his eyes had filled with tears, and he didn’t want Jack to see that he was crying.

SEVEN
    T hat evening, Isobel served them a supper of spicy chicken casserole and sauté potatoes, which they ate together, sitting side-by-side at the counter in the blue-tiled kitchen. Afterward, Isobel said, ‘Go on, you go sit down and watch TV. I’ll clear up. Don’t worry – next time it’s your turn.’
    Michael eased himself down on the couch in the living room and switched on the television. He found that he was halfway through an episode of
Unforgettable.
    Isobel slammed the dishwasher door and then came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. ‘How about a nightcap?’ she asked him. ‘I have a bottle of Shiraz that my neighbors gave me the last time they came to dinner, but we never got around to opening it.’
    â€˜Whoa, I’m not too sure I should be drinking alcohol.’
    â€˜Oh, come on. One won’t hurt.’
    â€˜You ever watch this program?’ asked Michael. ‘
Unforgettable
?’
    Isobel peered at the screen short-sightedly. ‘Can’t say that I ever have. It probably makes me sound like a feather-brain, but I prefer comedies, and soaps. Real life is tragic enough already, that’s what I always say, without having to watch made-up tragedy on TV. You know what Francis Bacon said.’
    â€˜I can’t say that I do. Or if I did, I can’t remember.’
    â€˜He said: “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.” That’s why I don’t watch programs about serial killers, or whatever.’
    â€˜And you call yourself a feather-brain?’
    â€˜Well, I don’t know if Doctor Connor told you, but I used to be an English teacher. Until my accident, that is.’
    â€˜Do you miss it? Would you ever go back to it?’
    Isobel shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
    Michael waited for her to