Bentley Little - The Association

With a roar, Calhoun came at him, robes flapping like the wings of some crazed black bird. Barry felt an instinctive rush of primal fear. His first impulse was to run, to duck left or right, get out of the way, but he held his ground and punched into the oncoming figure, experiencing a grim satisfaction as his fist connected with what felt like the president's stomach.

He hadn't anticipated such an abrupt attack. He'd half expected to have the ground rules spelled out, to be told beforehand what was and was not acceptable, maybe even to shake hands and count off ten paces before turning to fight, but apparently all was fair in war and an association dispute, and he knew now that he'd better use whatever dirty tricks or underhanded techniques he could--because Calhoun certainly would.

He'd hit the old man with everything he had, putting weight and momentum behind his punch, but the president barely seemed to feel it.

He lurched sideways, then turned, lashing out with hands that looked more like claws. Barry was only just able to avoid their reach, and then Calhoun head-butted him hard in the face.

He felt his nose explode. Blood flooded into his throat and shards of bone seemed to shoot under the skin of his cheeks like needles.

He fell backward onto the sawdust and heard rather than felt his head hit the hard-packed dirt below: a sharp whip crack that cut off with a dull solid thud.

He looked up and saw a double ring of faces looking over the edge, all of them yelling and cheering wildly. His gaze happened upon Curtis, the gate guard, and Frank. Both of them were smiling cruelly, happy to see him in pain.

The arena shook as an explosion louder and clearer than the background thunder, a noise that sounded like too-close cannon fire, rocked the building. Lightning had hit the skylight, cracking the thick safety glass, and through a fracture in the ceiling, rainwater began leaking down in a dripping curtain that bisected the ring, soaked the sawdust, and somehow put out the fire in Dylan's hanging head. Barry grinned crazily. "It's a sign from God!" he yelled at Calhoun "He's bringing down His wrath on all you motherfuckers!"

The president remained nonplussed. "There is no God," he said.

Barry felt woozy, warm blood from his shattered nose and the wound at the back of his head mingling with the cold wetness of die rain on his scalp, but he retained enough presence of mind to roll as Calhoun attempted to stomp on his face.

A black boot barely missed his head, and he reached out and grabbed the attached leg, digging his fingers into flesh. He yanked hard, putting all of his weight behind it, and Calhoun was momentarily thrown off balance. Barry staggered to his feet and ran toward the north end of the arena to get away from the president, trying to gain time and formulate a fighting strategy. Think! he told himself. He tried to remember a rule or regulation that would prohibit this fight or at least put an end to it. The only thing Calhoun respected was the C, C, and Rs --it was his law, his Bible, and if Barry could come up with an association ordinance that addressed this specific situation, he could get out of it.

Otherwise, he would be killed.

He reached the north wall and turned to face Calhoun. The old man was running, robes flapping, the lightning heightening his expression of demonic glee.

Robes flapping.

Robes.

That was it! Barry suddenly remembered Mike, volunteering because he was fined a hundred dollars for going outside in the morning to pick up his newspaper while wearing a bathrobe. It was against the rules, Mike said, for a person to appear outside his house wearing a robe.

But this was inside Calhoun's house, not outside. And he wasn't wearing a bathrobe. It was more like a judge's robe.

Did the rules specify a bathrobe, though, or was the wording vague? Did it simply say "robe," meaning any robe? He didn't know. But this was a chance he had to take.

Calhoun was getting closer.

And while the president might not be outside of his house now, he had been outside of it in his robes before. By the gate, during the confrontation with the Corbanites . And at the annual meeting, in the community center. And when he'd talked to Barry and the FBI agent.

The old man was almost upon him.

But what regulation prohibited that? What was it Mike had said? He'd mentioned it specifically, spelled out the exact rule he had broken.

Think!

Was it Article Three? Article Five?

"Article Eight!" Barry screamed. He stepped aside as the president lunged for him, pointed at the old man. "Article Eight! No one may wear a robe outside his house!" It was a paraphrase, probably a gross generalization, and it was all that he recalled from what Mike had said, but it did the trick. Calhoun stopped as if a switch had suddenly turned off inside his brain. He stood there, clawed hands opening and closing, leaking rainwater dripping onto his head.

"You broke the rules!" Barry said. He looked up at his neighbors in the stands. "He broke the rules! He violated the C, C, and Rs !" He heard distressed murmuring from around the arena, was gratified to see the other board members frantically conferring with one another.

"What's the punishment for violating Article Eight?" he asked Calhoun.

"Remain seated!" the president announced, and though his voice was as deep and resonant as ever, it contained a welcome note of unease.

"He's outside in his robes all the time! He's never without his robes! And it's against the rules!"

"Article Eight!" someone yelled.

The cry was taken up by a man across the ring. "Article Eight!"

Barry's heart was pounding. "Article Eight!" he shouted. He started chanting, trying to prod the crowd, desperate, knowing this was his one and only chance. "Article Eight! Article Eight! Article Eight!"

Calhoun's expression was one of rage and hate. He advanced on Barry.

"The battle will continue!" he declared. "Article Ninety."

Barry ran away, cutting a wide swath around the pole and Dylan's dark hanging head. "Article Eight!" he continued to shout. He raised his hands, trying to get the crowd to chant along with him. "Article Eight!"

There was still that disgruntled murmuring, but only a few individuals were chanting along with him.

The old man ran after him, then leaped, wet robes whipping back, reminding Barry once again of some huge bird of prey. It looked for a second as though Calhoun was going to be able to fly, to glide through the air and swoop down on him. But the president landed a few feet away, then took two long, quick strides toward him.

They were at the south end of the ring, where Barry had come in, Ralph and the volunteers still blocking the exit. There was nowhere for him to go, and Barry ducked left as Calhoun swung at him. He reached out to defend himself, and his hand connected with the top of the president's head.

Calhoun's hair slipped off. It was a wig, and underneath, the old man was not bald but... something else. Barry saw pulsing black tendrils beneath nearly transparent skin, saw the hint of another form under the mask of makeup, and though he'd imagined such scenarios numerous times as a writer, to experience it firsthand caused his heart to accelerate with terror.

But he was still levelheaded enough to remember one of the revised C, C, and Rs he had read in passing at the annual meeting. "No baldness in public!" he shouted.

Calhoun stopped, shrank back.

"Article Fifteen!" Liz yelled.

Barry looked up, saw her standing proud and tall in the center of the crowd above him. She caught his eye, nodded, smiled.

For Ray, he thought.

"Article Fifteen!" he echoed. He sensed a shift in the mood of the crowd, a shift in his direction, but there was an ugliness to it, an unpleasant undercurrent he did not like. The people had been unsure before, unwilling to commit one way or the other, afraid to take a stand for fear of future retaliation, but they were with f I him now.