Bentley Little - The Association

The other houses had power.

It was just her.

She felt her way back to the bed and crawled in quickly, closing her eyes and willing herself to fall asleep.

But sleep would not come. Instead, she remained wide awake, her mind racing, trying to remember all of the things Ray had told her, all of the details, wishing he had written them down so she'd have a reference, corroboration, proof.

No, not proof. They were too good for that.

Her mind was going in circles, but at least it kept her from thinking about the power and why it had been turned off and the fact that there was someone on her property, snooping around her house, probably trying to get in.

There'd been other incidents on previous nights but none of them had ever escalated to anything dangerous or physically threatening, and she prayed that such would be the case tonight.

She tried to stop thinking, tried to count sheep, tried to think of black nothingness, but no matter what she did she remained wide awake.

She heard noises in the dark: the house creaking; the outside cries of nocturnal birds; coyote howls; crickets; an occasional tapping that could have been tree branches in the wind, could have been ...

something else. Gradually, all of these sounds seemed to coalesce, some disappearing, others gaining in strength, until she heardA

voice.

At first she thought it was her imagination. It sounded like a young boy, but it was speaking gibberish, not making any sense. Just as the cacophony of night sounds had blended to form the voice, so too did the unintelligible syllables differentiate themselves into recognizable words.

Her name.

"Liz!" the voice called playfully. "Lizzy!"

It came from everywhere, came from nowhere, and she could not tell if it originated outside the house or inside.

"Lizzy! Lizzy !Lizzy !"

Now it didn't sound so much like a little boy. Instead, it had the odd high-pitched timbre of a midget or speech that had been electronically altered. She pulled the covers up over her head, the way she'd done as a child, but that didn't block out the sound, and she tucked the edges of the blanket under her body, under her head, leaving her hands free to plug her ears and keep out the voice.

She knew it was there, though, even if she couldn't hear it, and she remained unwillingly awake until morning, her arms, hands, and fingers falling asleep and tingling but remaining glued to her ears until a hint of dawn light could be discerned through the material of the covers.

At six o'clock, the power came back on, lights suddenly blazing, televisions blasting out morning news programs, and it was then that she knew it was finally safe to get out of bed. She quickly threw on a robe and rushed from room to room, checking windows, checking doors, but everything seemed to be secure and in place. No one had gotten in during the night.

She was not brave enough to go out on the deck and look around, but through the windows she saw no impaled cats or decapitated dogs or any signs of vandalism, and she assumed that all was right.

"Thank God," she breathed.

She was eating breakfast--more cheese on toast, this time with coffee--when she heard a knock at the front door.

She jumped, startled, and nearly dropped her cup. She considered hiding, not answering the door, pretending she was asleep or in the shower, but the knock came again. Louder this time, more insistent.

She put down her coffee cup and walked out to the foyer. Closing one eye, she looked through the door's peephole.

Jasper Calhoun.

Liz sucked in her breath. She could not remember ever seeing the association president outside of an official function--the annual meeting or one of the numerous disciplinary hearings--and to find him standing on her porch this early in the morning, dressed in his robes, was more than a little disconcerting.

Was he the one who had been playing with her power last night?

He looked straight at the peephole, smiling. "I see you Elizabeth.

Open up."

That was impossible, she knew. The peephole was a security device, visibility only went one way, and for that, one had to place an eye almost directly on the tiny glass circle. There was no way he could even know she was on the other side of this door. Still, her instinctive reaction was to pull away, move back, retreat into the house.

"Come on, Elizabeth. I want to talk to you."

There seemed something odd about his face, as though he were wearing makeup or a mask, and a shiver passed through her as she studied him through the convex glass.

"You know I've been trying to call you," he said. "I know you're not answering your phone."

She held her breath, willing him to go away, afraid of moving, afraid of making any sound that would confirm her presence.

"I'm not leaving until you open that door and speak to me."

She'd been planning to remain here forever if need be, safe inside her fortress, but suddenly she unlocked and unbolted the door, yanking it open. "Get the hell off my property!" she demanded.

He spread his hands benignly in a gesture of tolerance that was no doubt meant to seem sincere but that came across as parody. "Elizabeth, Elizabeth."

"Stop harassing me and get the hell off my porch!"

"Harassing you?" He chuckled as if the idea had never before occurred to him, as though such an intention were the furthest thing from his mind. "I just came to ask you a question.

A very important question on behalf of the board."

"Whatever it is, the answer's no. Now go away and leave me alone."

"We met earlier this week in closed executive session, and unanimously decided that we would like to extend you an offer to join our august body."

She blinked, caught off guard. "What?"

Calhoun smiled, and once again she shivered, unnerved by the odd appearance of his face, by the thick layer of flesh-colored makeup that here, outside in the open air, lent him a weirdly unnatural aspect. Had he always looked this way? Either she couldn't remember or she hadn't noticed. She was reminded of the time she'd seen the filming of a car commercial back in New Jersey. The commercial announcer had looked perfectly normal on television, but in real life the amount of pancake makeup he'd been wearing made him appear grotesque. Perhaps Calhoun did the same thing, tailoring his appearance so he would look regal and magisterial conducting a meeting on the dais of a room with dim lighting, even though it had the exact opposite effect in direct sunlight.

But why would he be wearing makeup? What was he trying to hide under there? Her chill refused to go away.

"We would be very grateful if you would accept our offer to join the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Board of Directors."

"Why?"

Calhoun put on what he no doubt thought was a friendly, inviting expression. "You're a full-time resident, you've been here a long time, you know and are friendly with a lot of the newer, younger homeowners. You also have time enough to handle the workload. Frankly, we can't think of a better or more appropriate candidate."

This made no sense. What were they trying to do? Buy her off? She took a deep breath, tried to think this through logically, but she'd barely slept for the past week, had been under constant pressure, and her thought processes were scrambled.

What would Ray do?

"How about it, Elizabeth? What do you say?"

She spoke slowly. "Let me get this straight. You killed my husband, and now you want me to join your tea party?"

Calhoun's smile disappeared, the expression on his face hardening.

"That is a false and scurrilous accusation, one that will not be tolerated. I am sorry for the loss of your husband, as are we all, and we are prepared to allow you a certain amount of leeway. But there is no way that we can allow you to go around spreading lies and vicious rumors--"