The screaming was in the shelter walls. It quivered in the floor and ceiling and walls. But there was really no sound. Nothing could penetrate here; no sound or light. Kelsey looked around the small enclosure. "It may be longer—"
"It's only a warning," Alice said. "There may not be a real air-raid at all."
"Talk!" he suddenly screamed at her. "Let's talk! Talk to me—"
But the superficial things slipped away and she couldn't remember any of them. She wanted to take him in her arms, but she couldn't do that now because it wasn't real. She couldn't talk about all those meaningless things. Maybe now nothing would be enough to satisfy Kelsey's hollow fear.
With Gloria, with all of them, Alice knew that Kelsey had always been alone. More alone, more horribly alone, than she had ever been. For Kelsey had nothing inside of him to keep him company, or to sincerely share with another.
He had no love in him.
She tried to comfort him, but he was on his knees, shivering and whimpering. Then he tried to beat his way out through the door. She pulled him back and he fell sobbing on the floor, squirming and rubbing his hands and his face into the floor as though to get some feeling of life from it.
The trembling of the walls and floor continued, very gently as though even that was somehow being polite, as though even that was trying to make things not so discomforting.
Kelsey was whining and sobbing. "I've got to get out—get out. There's a shelter—a communal shelter. The project place—people—lots of people—"