Bentley Little - The Association

There'd be no pitchforks or torches this time, though.

Flashlights, maybe.

Possibly guns.

The crowd grew momentarily silent, as though the gravity of the situation had suddenly and simultaneously sunk in with all of them, as though they realized that there was a very realistic possibility of violence. Barry felt a knot of dread forming in the pit of his stomach.

Pickups and old Chevys, boat like Buicks and battered Jeeps began parking along the dirt shoulder abutting the ditch outside Bonita Vista and quickly became so numerous that succeeding vehicles were forced to spread out into the middle of the street.

He looked over at Hitman standing next to the guard, the two of them loading their weapons, and he wondered again why the sheriff was so pro-Bonita Vista, why he would sacrifice the integrity of his job to do the bidding of the home-1 owners' association. It didn't make any sense. He didn't| even live here.

Did he?

The thought had never occurred to him before, and Barry was surprised at himself for overlooking so obvious a connection. Greg Davidson was a local boy made good who'd moved up into the environs of Bonita Vista.

Maybe die same was true for Hitman . It would account for a lot, and he thought it was more than possible that Hitman had been lured to Bonita Vista, that the sheriff had been actively solicited by the association's board and perhaps given a deal on financing and annual dues in order to recruit him to their side.

Beyond the gate, car doors were being slammed, engines were shutting off, though no one was stepping forward. A buzz passed through the crowd of Bonita Vistans , a repeated phrase that did not quite make it to where Barry and Maureen stood.

Moments later, the Corbanites started marching en masse, a ragtag group of angry ranchers, construction workers, mechanics, and business owners who appeared ready to storm the gates. Barry recognized some of the people in the crowd. Hank. Joe. Lyle. Bert. He felt sick to his stomach, but self preservation trumped loyalty and social conscience any day of the week, and he was prepared to help fend off an assault.

Mike was right. He couldn't stand idly by while his home was under attack.

He just hoped there wouldn't be any injuries.

Or dead is He took Maureen's hand, squeezed it. Her fingers were cold, her body shivering. To his right was the ruddy-faced redneck who'd harassed the Mexican handyman. The fat bastard was in his element, grinning from ear to ear as he pulled a crossbow from the back of his pickup.

"My old buddies," Maureen said, nodding to her left, and Barry saw Chuck Shea and Terry Abbey walking purposefully forward, swinging bats.

In his mind, he'd considered the Bonita Vista people soft compared to the townies, rich, pampered, slumming city folk as opposed to rough, tough, hard scrabble manual laborers, but he saw now that that was an incorrect generalization. If anything, the Corbanites , despite their very visible and understandable anger, seemed awkward and amateurish, unorganized in their opposition, while the Bonita Vistans seemed prepared, methodical, and capable.

Was it the association's influence?

Barry thought not, and that was the frightening thing. They were this way on their own.

The sheriff and the guard aligned themselves near the stone pillars at each end of the gate, many of the more gung ho and enthusiastic residents filling the space in between.

All of a sudden, the crowd grew completely silent, individuals stopping in place, their attention drawn to someone or something in the pines behind him. Barry turned and saw a line of six old men in black robes standing at the edge of the lighted area, next to the trees. Odd gold stripes and insignia decorated the formal garb, and for some reason he thought of that jackass William Rehnquist during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, decked out in the robes of a Supreme Court Justice that were desecrated by ridiculous homemade gold stripes supposedly inspired by Gilbert and Sullivan. There was the same sort of absurdity here, only there was also an element of menace, a hint of something dark, dangerous, and fundamentally wrong.

All eyes remained on the six figures. He thought the men would move forward and take charge, but they remained in place and there was something odd about that, too. The one in the middle appeared to be the leader, and Barry had no doubt that this was the president, the famous Jasper Calhoun. Liz had told Maureen something about Calhoun's peculiar appearance, had said there was some-1 thing unnatural in the way he looked, and while it could have been the angle of the lights, could have been the fault] of distance, Barry thought that all of the board members seemed strange, each of their too-white faces bizarre and abnormal.

The townspeople had reached the gate and were massing behind the giant iron barrier.

"You killed our son!" a woman screamed, her face red and teary, features distorted by rage.

Another man grabbed one of the ornamental crosspieces and started shaking the gate. "Murderers!" he cried. "Murderers!"

Other voices were raised, threats and epithets were shouted.

"Call out the volunteers," the president said in a loud stentorian voice, and his speech overrode all competing sounds. He raised his right hand. There was the faint noise of a whip cracking, and from the trees behind the board members emerged three rows of shirtless men. The volunteers marched onto the road and pressed past Barry and Maureen, heading toward the gate. They were the same men who had been working on the pool and the community center, and this close he saw that some were missing hands. Others had serious facial scars or walked with limps. He thought of Kenny Tolkin's eye patch.

Greg Davidson passed by him, staring blankly, the right side of his head shaved, that ear gone. The crowd parted before the volunteers, allowing them through. They carried no weapons, bore no clubs or guns or blades, but there was about them the hard, unyielding purpose of those who would stop at nothing to achieve their goal. They were Bonita Vista's army, Barry thought, and he wondered if their appearance was as big a surprise to everyone else as it was to him. Nearly all of the residents had brought weapons of some sort, obviously assuming they would be needed, but it appeared now that they would only be a last-ditch backup. The volunteers would be the first line of defense.

Barry watched them go past, far more than he and Maureen had seen before.

"Why are they acting like that?" Maureen said, a quiver in her voice betraying the fear she felt.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"They look like they're ...hypnotized or something."

Unseen, Frank Hodges had moved next to her. "They're indentured," he said shortly. "They couldn't pay their dues."

Neil Campbell, ever-present clipboard in hand, was suddenly on the other side of Barry. "Read your handbook. It explains all about indenture."

"Open the gates!" the president commanded, and the twin metal doors swung slowly outward, pushing protesting townspeople out of the way.

"You bastards can't treat us like this!" a woman screamed.

Bert from the coffee shop raised a shotgun. "You know what you did! We know what you did! And we won't stand for it!"

The volunteers marched through the open gateway.

And the fighting started.

There was a sick feeling in Barry's guts as he watched the shirtless men remorselessly punch grieving mothers in the stomach, watched them grab rifles from townspeople and use them to club the owners' heads. It felt odd to be standing here like this, overseeing the battlefield like generals while others fought on their behalf, and he was suddenly disgusted by his neighbors, by himself, by everyone involved with this travesty.

Surprisingly, thankfully, there were no shots fired, but the conflict was brutal nonetheless, with both sides actively attempting to maim and injure their opponents, and his horror intensified as he saw an one-armed volunteer use his one hand to gouge at the eyes of an elderly man in rancher's J overalls.