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CommunityBy Graham MastertonSevern House Publishers LimitedCopyright © 2013 Graham MastertonAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-84751-484-4CHAPTER 1The pick-up first appeared in Michael's rear-view mirror about twelve miles north of Weed.It kept its distance at least a half-mile behind them, too far away for Michael to make out what kind of pick-up it was, but its halogen headlights were fixed on high beam, and so even at that distance they were irritatingly bright.'Inconsiderate schmuck,' said Michael, but only to himself, under his breath, because Tasha was sleeping. He flipped his mirror to anti-glare, but even that didn't stop him from being dazzled.About eight miles north of Weed, it started to snow. Not thickly, just light whirly stuff that flew into the windshield and skipped diagonally across the highway. The sky was slate-gray, but as they came around the next curve, the pine trees thinned out, and Mount Shasta appeared, its snowy peaks shining orange in the very last light of the day.'Hey,' said Michael, giving Tasha a nudge. 'Mount Shasta.'She opened her eyes and blinked at him. 'What did you say?''Mount Shasta. Right there.''Oh my God, it's amazing. It doesn't even look real.''Fifth highest peak in the Cascade Range,' he told her.'You would know that.''I also happen to know that it's four thousand three hundred twenty-two meters high, with an estimated volume of eight hundred fifty cubic kilometers.'Tasha punched his arm. 'Why do you always have to reduce everything to numbers? Look at it, it's so spiritual.''Excuse me, I can do spiritual. The Modocs believe that the sky spirit Skell came down to live on top of Mount Shasta. Not only that, a race of aliens called Lemurians are supposed to have made their home inside it, in a network of tunnels. And those New Age people are convinced that it's one of America's principal hubs of psychic energy.''I just think it's beautiful. It's so serene.'Now and then, the mountain disappeared behind the trees, and each time when it reappeared its orange glow had faded a little more, until the sun went down and all they could see was its upper slopes, chilly and white in the gathering darkness. Mount Shasta was as lonely as God, somebody had once written about it, and as white as the winter moon.Michael hadn't intended to drive through Siskiyou County after nightfall, especially if it was snowing, or windy, but they had blown a tire just outside Yreka and they were running over an hour behind schedule. He had booked a room for them at the Comfort Inn in Weed for six pm, and it was already a quarter after seven.Tasha stretched herself. 'You shouldn't let me go to sleep like that,' she complained. 'I won't be able to sleep tonight now.''Who said anything about sleeping?'She punched his arm again and said, 'Who do you think you're kidding? I know you. Ten-thirty precisely and you close your eyes and not even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could wake you.'Michael checked his rear-view mirror again. The pick-up was still behind them, still with its headlights on high. If he hadn't been so anxious to make up time he would have slowed down and let it pass.He didn't argue with Tasha because he knew that she was right – he did zonk off as soon as his head hit the pillow. To be fair to him, though, he had been driving nearly three hundred miles every day, all the way up coastal highway 101 as far as Renton, near Seattle, to visit Tasha's sister Rody and her boring husband David. Now they were heading back home to San Francisco the quicker way, on Interstate 5. This trip was what they jokingly called their 'jumping-the-gun-eymoon'. They had decided to move in together two weeks ago, but they weren't planning to get married until April at the earliest.'I'm so hungry,' said Tasha. 'I don't know why. That cheeseburger we had at the Black Bear Diner – that was just enormous.''I don't know where the hell you put it,' said Michael. 'You're so darned skinny, when you eat something that size I'm amazed you don't look pregnant.''I have an incredibly efficient metabolism, that's why. Everything I eat turns into pure energy.'Michael couldn't disagree with that, either. Tasha was tireless. She ran her own craft store on Mission Street, Tickle Your Fancy, selling scented candles and handmade greetings cards and hand-knitted baby clothes. She was small and pretty in a sharp, Slavic way, with straight blonde hair and blue-gray eyes and a little snub nose, and Michael had fallen for her on the very first evening that they had been introduced, even though they couldn't have been more different.Michael liked sitting in silence and thinking and analyzing stuff. Tasha liked running and Zumba and making things with her hands. And singing. She was always singing. Usually high, wistful songs like 'I Can't Make You Love Me'.The halogen headlights flashed in Michael's mirror and he lifted his hand to shield his eyes. 'Dumb ass has been following me for miles with his lights full on.'Tasha twisted around in her seat. 'He probably doesn't realize. Why don't you let him pass?''Because I'd have to slow down and we're late already.''What does it matter? It's not like we're meeting anybody. Anyhow, it looks like he's gaining on us.'Michael checked his mirror again, his eyes narrowed against the glare. 'You're right. And it's about time, too.'Not only was the pick-up gaining on them, it was gaining on them fast. Now it was only twenty-five feet behind them and the whole interior of Michael's Torrent was filled with blinding white light.Michael moved as far over to the right-hand side of the highway as he could, so that the pick-up would have plenty of room to pass. But it continued to tailgate them, and now it was so close that it was almost touching the Torrent.'What's he doing?' Michael protested. 'Guy's some kind of a lunatic!'He jammed his foot down harder on the gas, and they began to pull away, but within seconds the pick-up had closed the distance again. He swerved left, and then right, and then left again, so that the Torrent's tires howled in a high-pitched chorus, but the pick-up kept after them like an attack dog.'Oh my God!' Tasha cried out. 'He's going to kill us!'Michael touched the brakes, but when he did so the pick-up bumped into them, with a deep, hollow thud. For a split-second he lost control, and the Torrent snaked from side to side.'Michael!' screamed Tasha, gripping the door handle tightly with one hand and pressing the other hand flat against the glove box.The pick-up bumped into them again, harder this time. The Torrent slewed sideways across the blacktop, with Michael frantically spinning the steering wheel. All he could see was revolving headlights and flying snow. He stood on the brake pedal, trying to slow them both down, but the pick-up rammed into the passenger-side door and forced them right off the blacktop and on to the median strip, which was all rough grass and rocks.A deafening bang was followed by a series of jolts and groans and screeching noises. Michael and Tasha were thrown violently from side to side, and then the Torrent rolled over and over and over, three times, with its roof buckling and its doors caving in and its windows bursting.Michael saw Tasha's arms and legs flailing. He felt as if they were being flung around in a giant tumble-dryer, and the tumbling seemed to go on and on as if it would never stop. Their shoulders collided, their heads knocked together, and then he saw Tasha's head hitting the roof.The Torrent rolled right over on to the northbound side of the highway, where it tilted on its side and then rocked to a standstill, upside-down.It was almost completely dark. Michael, hanging twisted in his seat-belt, could see only Tasha's left side, with one thin arm in its pale blue sleeve caught crookedly between the armrests. He levered himself upward with his knees, trying to reach his seat-belt catch. As he did so he glimpsed the back of her head. Her blonde hair was glistening with blood, and he thought that he could see a triangular fragment of white bone sticking out.'Tasha?' he said hoarsely. His seat-belt was pressing across his throat and he could hardly breathe. 'Tasha, can you hear me?'She didn't answer. He lifted himself up again, and this time he managed to grope around with his left hand and grab hold of the seat-belt catch and hang on to it. He pushed the release button with his thumb but it was jammed.'Tasha?' he said again. 'Tasha, just tell me that you're OK, darling. Please.'Very gradually, the crushed and misshapen interior of the Torrent began to fill up with light. Part of the vinyl roof-lining was hanging down so Michael found it difficult to see anything out of his window. Don't tell me that pick-up's coming back. Haven't they done enough to us already?He jabbed at the seat-belt catch again and again, but still it refused to budge. Either it had bent, or he was hanging from it too heavily, so that it couldn't unlatch.The light grew brighter and brighter. He could clearly see now that Tasha's skull had been smashed, and from the way that she was hanging there, motionless, she looked very much as if she were dead. Even so – people with serious head injuries often survive, don't they? She could be still alive. Oh dear God, please let her still be alive. I don't care if she needs looking after for the rest of her life. Just please let her still be alive.Michael managed to lean forward as well as lever himself up a little, so that his left shoulder was wedged hard against his door. He heaved himself sideways to take some of his weight off the seat-belt catch, and the third time he pushed the release button, it clicked open and he fell heavily on his hands and knees on to the upturned roof.Immediately, he turned to Tasha. 'Tasha, can you hear me, sweetheart? Tasha, it's Michael. Wake up, darling, please!'He carefully extricated her skinny wrist from between the armrests, and drew back the sleeve of her sweater, so that he could feel if she still had a pulse. He couldn't detect one, but then he told himself that he wasn't a paramedic, so he didn't know for sure if he was feeling in the right place, and she did still feel warm.He took hold of her seat-belt catch in both hands, ready to try and release her. He didn't want her to drop down to the roof as hard as he had, in case she knocked her head and worsened her head injury, or in case she had fractured her spine.'Here we go, darling,' he said. 'Easy does it.'But suddenly the light brightened to such an intensity that it bleached the color out of everything, and the inside of the Torrent was turned into an overexposed photograph. Before Michael could unfasten Tasha's seat-belt, he was overwhelmed by the four-trumpet blast of an air horn, and the stentorian bellow of a diesel engine. The horn blasted again and again, and then he heard the rubbery slithering of locked wheels on asphalt.The slithering seemed to go on endlessly, growing louder and louder, until it began to sound like high-pitched, staccato laughter – hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee! Then Michael felt a massive collision and the Torrent was slammed across the highway, spinning around and around in circles on its roof.It ended up by the side of the interstate, crumpled up like a badly wrapped parcel.The driver of the huge red Kenworth tractor-trailer parked his rig by the side of the highway and then shut down his bellowing engine, so that the only sound was the wind blowing the snow between his wheels. He unhooked his CB handset and said, 'Bear Baiter, this is Bear Baiter, do you copy? I have a real bad mess-'em-up just past the six-mile marker north of Weed on I-Five! These folks are going to be needing a meat wagon, and fast! Better inform the Boy Scouts, too!'As soon as he had made his call, he swung himself down from his cab and jogged across the scrub toward the wreckage. He was less than halfway there, however, when he heard an ambulance siren whooping and scribbling, and saw red and white lights flashing through the snow.CHAPTER 2'Well, good morning!' said a warm, woman's voice.Michael tried to lift his head to see who it was, but he couldn't. His neck was held fast in a high pink polythene collar, and when he tried to raise his hands, he found that he couldn't move his arms, either. His ankles were fastened, too.He was strapped flat on his back, so that all he could see were pale green ceiling tiles, with diagonal stripes of wintry sunshine across them, and two fluorescent light-fittings, and part of a curtained screen with large green water lilies printed on it.'Where am I?' he croaked. His throat was dry and his tongue felt as if it were three times its normal size, and coated with very fine sand.He heard a man talking in a deep, soft mumble, and then a woman's face suddenly appeared, looking down at him. She was ginger-haired, green-eyed, with a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Michael would have guessed her age at early forties. She was wearing a white overall with the italic initials TSC embroidered in green on the breast pocket.She smiled at him and said, 'How do you feel? Or should I say "what do you feel"?'Michael stared at her for a long time, trying to work out if he knew her. His vision was blurry and he found it hard to focus on her clearly. There was something familiar about her – but, no, he didn't know who she was. She looked like a doctor or a nurse.'I feel ... tired, still,' he told her. 'Have I been asleep for very long?'She brushed back his fringe with her fingertips, almost as if he were a small boy. 'Yes ... you have. But you're awake now. That's the important thing.'He heard the man talking again. He was speaking very quietly, but Michael distinctly heard him say '... Yes, I believe he will ... but not for some weeks yet.''Where am I?' he asked, straining again to lift up his head. 'I don't know where I am.'Now the man appeared. He, too, was wearing a white overall with TSC on the pocket. He was tall, rather Arab-looking, with a shiny bald head but luxuriant black eyebrows. He was quite handsome, even though his nose was rather fleshy, and his eyes were very dark brown, but glittery, as if he had just been counting out gold coins in Ali Baba's cave.He said, in his thick but reassuring voice, 'This is the Trinity-Shasta Clinic, near Mount Shasta, and I am Doctor Hamid. You have been involved in a serious accident, my dear sir, and it is something of a miracle that you are still with us.''An accident? What kind of an accident?''A traffic accident, on the interstate. Your car overturned and you were almost killed.'Michael tried for a third time to lift his head, but the doctor pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead. 'Please to lie very still. Your neck was dislocated. We had to operate on you to fuse together two of the vertebrae in order to achieve realignment of your spinal column. We have every hope that you will recover completely, but I have to warn you that this usually takes some months.''I feel like somebody's been beating up on me, and then kicking me while I was down.''That doesn't surprise me at all,' said Doctor Hamid, smoothly. 'One of the common symptoms of a serious neck injury such as yours is chronic pain in many different locations all over your body. But we have been giving you intravenous analgesics to ease your discomfort, and we will continue to do so for as long as you need them.'Michael frowned, and said, 'Where did you say this was?''Trinity-Shasta Clinic, near Mount Shasta.''Mount Shasta? What the hell am I doing way up here?'The red-haired woman drew up a chair close to his bed and sat down. 'This is the nearest trauma clinic to the location where you had your accident,' she said. 'You were lucky. Well – you weren't lucky to have your accident, I'm not saying that. But Trinity-Shasta has one of the most advanced spinal units in the country. If you'd been taken in to some small-town emergency room, you could well have died, or been paralysed from the neck down for the rest of your life.''I'm still trying to think what I'm doing near Mount Shasta. The last thing I remember I was ...'He stopped. What was the last thing that he could remember? Talking to somebody about something in some bar. He could remember the stained-glass window over the door, and the raucous sound of people laughing, but he couldn't think where it was, or who he had been talking to, or what they had been talking about.The red-haired woman said, 'Don't worry about it. It's not important. It will all come back to you. Are you thirsty? Maybe you'd like some water or some cranberry juice.' (Continues...)Excerpted from Community by Graham Masterton. Copyright © 2013 Graham Masterton. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
