Bentley Little - The Association

They're doing it. They're keeping track of it. Don't think they aren 't.

Barry freed the paper from the grating and read it. "It's an order for all residents to attend the Bonita Vista anti- rally at eight o'clock tonight."

"Order?"

"That's what it says." He handed her the notice, then used his key to unlock the door. They walked inside.

"According to this, they'll fine us if we don't show up. Is that legal?"

"I don't know. I have a feeling that it is, though. That's one thing they don't seem to screw up on. However outrageous their actions, they always seem to come down on this side of the law."

"According to Sheriff Hitman . Not exactly an unimpeachable source in my mind."

"I'll call Jeremy. He'll be able to tell us." He locked the door behind them, threw the deadbolt.

Barry went downstairs and dialed Jeremy's number, but midway through the first ring, a robotic female voice came on the line and said, "I'm sorry. Due to a heavy call volume, all circuits are busy. Please try again."

The call was cut off, leaving only a dial tone.

He tried again.

And again.

And again and again and again. Over an hour period, he must have dialed Jeremy's number thirty times, but in each instance he received the same recorded message. He finally gave up, throwing the phone across the room in frustration. It bounced harmlessly on the carpet.

Not only couldn't they leave, but they could not contact the outside world. They were cut off here, effectively isolated, and he could not help thinking that it was entirely intentional, that it was part of the association's goal. He would not be surprised to learn that Bonita Vista had its own switchboard and that all incoming and outgoing calls were routed through there, giving the association the power to censor and monitor all of its residents' phone messages.

Neither he nor Maureen could think of any way to get past the armed guard save the Convoy option, and they so tired of staring at each other across the living room as they fruitlessly tried to brainstorm.

Maureen finally went down-1 stairs to work on her web page while Barry headed upstairsf to make himself an early lunch.

Mike called just after noon. "Did you get the notice?"

"You're the one who left that for me?"

"No. I got one, too. I was just wondering what your plans are."

"I don't know yet."

"They can level a fine against you. And if you don't pay it, they can put a lien on your house."

"I'm so glad we live in a democracy."

"We live in a gated community," Mike corrected him. "The two are mutually exclusive."

"What are you going to do?"

"Go."

"Me, too, I suppose."

"I've got an extra baseball bat if you want one," Mike said.

Baseball bat? Barry felt an unfamiliar shudder pass through him as he thought of wielding a weapon against another person. "You really think there's going to be trouble?"

"I have no idea, but I want to be prepared. Better safe than sorry, as they say."

Barry hung up and told Maureen that he was going to attend the anti-rally, explaining that if there was any hope of preventing violence it would be through a show of strength, a display of numbers.

He'd expected an argument, but she was defeated and resigned and said that she'd go, too, that since they'd been forced into this situation and there was no way they could avoid it, they might as well face it head on.

They spent the afternoon restlessly, trying to find tasks with which to occupy their minds and take up time, but the hours crept by slowly as they shifted desultorily from one unfinished household chore to another. Maureen finally ended up reading a magazine on the couch, while Barry watched Court TV and then a political talk show on CNBC.

Neither of them was hungry, but they forced themselves to eat an early dinner and then wash the dishes together.

They watched the local news, the national news, Entertainment Tonight.

And then it was time to go.

There'd been only a half hour of rain in the late afternoon, but the temperature had not returned to the high heat of midday and the evening was unusually cool. Maureen put on a jacket, Barry changed into a long-sleeved shirt. They locked up the house and started walking.

The sun had gone down only recently and they'd been able to see from the house before they left that the western sky still carried a tinge of orange, but it was dark down here among the pines. Night arrived early on the forest floor.

There were others on the road ahead of them: two couples and a family of four. Barry could see their silhouetted forms in the occasional swatches of porch light that spread out from the driveways of the dispersed houses. Neither he nor Maureen spoke, but there was a low-grade murmur audible through the trees and bushes at the bottom of the hill. The sounds of a crowd.

The noise grew louder as they rounded the curve in the road. From a side street, another couple emerged, carrying flashlights trained on the pavement before them. Barry was tempted to say hello, to try and talk with them, find out if they knew anything more about what was happening than he did, but they were not people he recognized and for all he knew they could be association supporters.

He and Maureen were walking hand in hand, and he squeezed her fingers and slowed the pace, holding back until the other couple moved far enough ahead.

She understood without him having to say a word.

"You can't tell who's on which side," she said quietly"I after the couple pulled away.

He nodded. "It's best to be careful."

The trees on the left disappeared, the land flattening out as they came to the cleared site of communal property. The pool was done, Barry saw, and filled, the water reflecting back the blackness of the sky above. To the right of the pool, a rough wood frame and cement foundation were already in place for the community center.

The volunteers had been busy.

They walked quickly past the site. In horror fiction, even his own, evil was usually ascribed to locations that were old, that had troubled histories, not to places that were not even finished, that had only a future and not a past or present. But everything was bassackwards here, and the newly completed pool and partially constructed community center seemed imbued with malevolence and engendered within him a shivery sense of revulsion.

They passed Frank and Audrey's house, passed the lighted tennis courts.

The street straightened out.

Here was the crowd.

There must have been close to a hundred people milling around. Powerful halogens atop the guard shack illuminated a large section of road and gave the surrounding trees a flat, painted look. Although most of the residents had walked down, there were quite a few cars and trucks--the people who lived on the other side of the hills, no doubt. They were parked in rows in front of the gate, as though to buttress the defenses. The sheriff's cruiser was behind the kiosk, by itself.

It looked like a block party. People were laughing, talking, drinking beer. The only indication that anything was out of the ordinary was the strict line of demarcation, the gate, beyond which was dark, empty silence. And the fact that nearly everyone was armed. He saw no guns, other than those being examined by the sheriff and the guard inside the kiosk, but people were carrying hammers and bats and tire irons. He saw a woman with a carving knife talking to a man wielding a pool cue.

"I don't like this," Maureen whispered.

Barry didn't either. There was something unsettling about seeing ordinary people, upscale neighbors and casual acquaintances, gathered together for the purpose of fighting an opposition mob from the wrong side of the tracks.

"Here they come!" someone yelled.

Barry looked south, over the vehicles, through the interstices of the gate. There was a line of headlights visible through the trees, snaking up the road toward Bonita Vista. He was reminded of Universal's Frankenstein films and the hoary cliche ' of angry villagers storming the mad scientist's castle, pitchforks and torches held aloft.