Bentley Little: The Association

Calhoun obviously sensed it as well, because he turned around in a slow circle, stunned, looking up at the crowd, his fellow members of the association. "Wait!" he ordered.

But the residents of Bonita Vista were all standing, pointing down into the ring, pointing at him.

"Article Eight!" the men yelled.

"Article Fifteen!" the women countered.

Calhoun seemed to wither visibly under this verbal onslaught, as though the words took a physical toll on his body.

At the north end of the arena, the other board members were trying to leave, attempting to get out of their seats and make their way up the aisle to escape the growing wrath of the mob, but gowned women and tuxedoed men were streaming into that section of the stands, pushing them down, blocking their way.

People began dropping over the wall into the sawdust. Barry backed against the concrete, glancing around warily, unsure of where this was going, unnerved by the chaos around him. From above, a shoe came sailing down, hitting Calhoun in the face. A thrown wine glass shattered against his arm.

The president laughed, a deep, booming chuckle that sounded far too loud. Makeup had smeared away from the section of cheek struck by the shoe, and again Barry saw that transparent skin, those pulsating black tendrils. If this had been a movie or a novel, Calhoun would have been revealed as an alien. Or some type of creature from another dimension.

But Barry somehow knew that neither of these were the case. The old man was not a distinct and separate being. He had been born human.

He had become this way.

From being on the association's board of directors.

Calhoun turned easily in one fluid movement. He was still chuckling, and he spread out one now definitely taloned hand and pressed it against Barry's bare chest, pushing hard.

Barry felt ribs cracking, found it suddenly hard to breathe. His own hands reached out frantically, trying to find purchase and keep himself from toppling backward. His fingers touched the soft silky material of the old man's robes. He latched on, desperately clutching the fabric even as he tumbled. The material did not rip, and the slight tethering of the robes helped break his fall, allowed him to land sitting on his butt rather than flat on his back.

Calhoun whirled to face him.

And then they were upon him.

There must have been a dozen men on the floor of the arena now, fists clenched, faces filled with anger. More were dropping from the wall.

Some were carrying weapons--pocket knives, keys, champagne bottles--and they attacked the president. "No robes!" Curtis the gate guard screamed, swinging the butt of his revolver at that strange head.

An elderly man stabbed Calhoun's back with a pen. "Article Eight!" he yelled. He pulled the pen out, stabbed again. "Article Fifteen!"

A handful of men were grabbing at Calhoun's robe, and though Barry could not hear the sound over the thunder and the screaming crowd, he saw the material rip, saw the black cloth tear lengthwise, rending the garment. Calhoun let out an ear-splitting howl. From beneath the ripped material, what looked like diseased and blackened organs came tumbling out, still leashed to the body and to each other by clumps of bile-covered ligaments. They sizzled where the leaking rain water hit them, small jets of steam shooting up from hundreds of pinpoint fissures that erupted on the strange, dark viscera.

Calhoun seemed to have no skin or muscle on his body. Barry didn't see how that was possible with the robes so loose and flowing, but it was as though the president were some type of mummy and the garments had protected him, acted like a bandage and kept in the disparate elements that made up that loathsome form.

Twitching spastically, crying out in rage and pain and hate, Calhoun dropped to his knees, then fell flat onto his face. He managed to turn himself over, all trace of makeup gone now, his head a throbbing sac of black wormlike growths, and then he was still, the hole that had once been his mouth wide open and collecting rain.

He lay there for only a moment.

Then they tore him apart.

Barry grimaced and finally had to look away. The killing itself was bad enough, but this crazed animal savagery sickened and frightened him. He could not believe that his mild-mannered neighbors were capable of such barbarism, and he struggled painfully to his feet, then crept along the edge of the curved wall.

At the opposite end of the arena, the nude, lifeless body of one of the other board members was tossed into the ring to the sound of cheers.

There was no sign of the other old men of the board, but somewhere in the middle of the crowd a shred of black robe flew into the air.

Barry reached the doorway through which he'd entered the ring. Ralph, still standing in front of the other volunteers, knelt down before him.

Barry frowned.

"Hail to the president!" Paul Henri announced from somewhere up above.

The crowd was suddenly still, silent. Holding his chest, trying not to jostle his hurt ribs, Barry looked up. Paul Henri blew on his trumpet, and this time the notes were clear and audible: some sort of fanfare.

From above, a group of women solemnly lowered a ladder. His head felt numb, his ribs hurt like a son of a bitch, but the pain was not crippling and he was able to climb.

At the top, he was met by Frank, Audrey, and several other men and women whose faces looked vaguely familiar but whom he did not recognize. He looked around for Liz but did not see her. There were open doors at the top of the stands where couples, families, and individuals were exiting, hurrying out into the rain, lightning throwing their scurrying forms into silhouette.

"Congratulations." Frank bowed to him.

"What do you want?"

"You have earned your place on the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association board of directors." He held out a new black robe.

Barry knocked it away, though the action made his ribs ache with agony.

"Go to hell." He pushed through the line of his neighbors, starting up the steps toward the exit. Glancing to his left, he saw the crumpled body of the nude board member on the bloody sawdust, the shredded bits and pieces of Jasper Calhoun.

This was something he would not tell Maureen, could not tell Maureen.

"You're free!" he called out to Ralph and the volunteers, still down in the ring. "Go home!"

But they looked at him blankly, made no move to leave, showed no expression on their faces.

Barry turned toward Frank. "Tell them it's over. Calhoun's dead, the board's gone, there are no more volunteers."

Frank met his eyes, and Barry understood. It wasn't over. The association was not simply a group of people, it could not be eliminated by killing its members. It was a sys- tern, a series of rules and regulations that existed apart from and above the individuals who made up its membership. It J.! could only be stopped if those rules were rejected, if people refused to join or participate. He looked down at Ralph and the volunteers. Even they were not victims.

They were part of the problem.

He elbowed his way past Frank and the others, walked up the steps, and out the door. The arena exits came out on the east side of Calhoun's house. Logically, there was no way such a huge structure could physically be located within a residence even as large as Calhoun's, but Barry did not want to think about that. On the wide stretch of lawn, scores of people were running about, many of them heading for the road.

There was no rain, but the storm was still raging, thunder sounding and lightning flashing, wind whipping the surrounding trees into a frenzy.

Separating themselves from a nearby group of people talking animatedly among themselves, Mike and Tina came hurrying up to him, trailed by another older couple. "The top of the hill's on fire!" Tina said.