Community by Graham Masterton

not too hungry,’ he said, putting down his fork. ‘I have so much spinning around in my head.’
    â€˜Are you beginning to remember things?’
    â€˜I get flashes, but nothing really clear. I keep hearing this woman’s voice saying “
you shouldn’t
”, and I see some bright lights, and shadows, and I smell this flowery perfume for a second, but that’s about it.’
    Isobel looked at him for a while without saying anything. She had her hair tied up in a peacock-blue scarf because she had been cooking, but with her fringe off her face her high forehead and her wide brown eyes were even more striking than usual.
    â€˜You don’t know if this is real, do you?’ she asked him.
    He said nothing, but he could tell that his eyes had given him away.
    â€˜I felt exactly the same,’ she said. ‘In the first few weeks that I was here, I wasn’t even sure that I was me. Sometimes I thought that I was dreaming. If it hadn’t been for Emilio, I don’t know what I would have done. Emilio always kept me grounded.’
    â€˜So who was he, Emilio?’
    Isobel pushed her bowl away. ‘He was my companion, the same way that you are.’
    â€˜Were you lovers?’
    â€˜I don’t know whether you have the right to ask me that.’
    There was a very long pause between them, but then she said, ‘Emilio was much older than you. Seventy-one. But – yes, we were lovers. In a different way than you and me. More … how can I put it? More like floating down a stream together, on a summer afternoon.’
    She stood up, and came around the kitchen table, and stood behind him. She took hold of his shoulders and gently began to massage his neck muscles with her thumbs.
    â€˜You’re so tense,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should come to bed.’
    Michael said, ‘I still have no idea who I am. How can I come to bed with you when I don’t even know who I am?’
    â€˜You’re Greg. You have an apartment in San Francisco and a sister called Sue and a mother who cares about you and you probably have more friends than you can count. What else do you need to know?’
    â€˜I need to know if all of this is true. Just like you said, I need to know if all of this is
real
. I’m beginning to suspect that amnesia is the least of my problems. I’m beginning to see things that aren’t possible. People keep saying things to me which I can’t understand.’
    He twisted around in his chair and looked up at her.
    â€˜Do I feel real to you?’ she asked him.
    She took hold of his hand and gently pulled him out of his chair. Then she put her arms around him and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth. Michael closed his eyes while they kissed, and all he could hear was Isobel’s breathing, and the hesitant ticking of the electric clock over the range, and the soft clicking of their own lips.
    When she had finished kissing him, Isobel brushed back his hair with her fingertips and smiled at him possessively, as if she had won the right to have him. Taking hold of his hand again, she led him through to her bedroom. It was decorated plainly, with magnolia-painted walls and a built-in closet with mirrored doors. The king-size bed was covered with a silky pink quilt, and silky pink cushions were heaped up over the pillows.
    Propped up against the cushions was a skinny rag doll, with disproportionately long legs and arms, and a mass of silvery-gray ringlets. Her face was dead white and her eyes were made of black buttons, like a shark’s eyes. Her mouth was nothing but a sewn-up slit. She wore a long striped dress in black and gray, trimmed with black ribbons.
    â€˜That is one scary-looking dolly,’ said Michael.
    â€˜Isn’t she just? She came with the house, when they moved me in here. I call her Belle, because of all her ringlets. Like, “Belle” as in “bell ringer”. But here