The Association

by Bentley Little

  "Go right ahead." She smiled. "Anything for the cause."

  "Jeremy," Barry said. "Why don't you put together an outline of what we need? I'll tell you what I can, and we'll fill in the blanks later."

  The three men headed down to Maureen's office, while she waited upstairs for Lupe to get out of the bathroom. "It was a lot of iced tea," she said.

  Barry's directions were easy enough to follow, and Dylan soon found himself heading down a narrow footpath between tall trees and high bushes.

  What was this? A hollow? A gulch? He wasn't up on his nature lingo, but the trail wound down between two close and heavily wooded hills, and whatever it was, it was pretty damn cool. Ahead, an obnoxious bird cawed in one of the trees and at his approach flew noisily into the air. A blue jay.

  He had no idea where this path went or how far into the woods it extended, but it seemed to be heading away from Barry's hill and the roads where the houses were, into uncharted territory.

  Where was the freak?

  He should have asked Barry how far in he needed to go. He'd been walking--what?--five or six minutes. Was he supposed to go ten?

  Twenty? Thirty? The trail dipped again, passed over what looked like a dry creek bed, then followed the bottom edge of a dark rock bluff. In a section of forest where the pine trees grew between huge standing boulders, the path forked.

  Dylan stopped. He was getting tired. And bored.

  "Stumpy!" he yelled.

  A bird called out, but otherwise the woods were silent.

  "Anybody out here?"

  Nothing.

  "I got a big dick!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  He studied the diverging paths. The one to the right seemed to head up a hillside and into the hot sunlight. The one to the left sloped down into another hollow or gulch or whatever. He considered turning back, but he wanted to see the freak and he figured he should give it another ten minutes. Besides, he didn't exactly feel like spending the entire afternoon listening to Barry and Jeremy try to pick apart obscure rules and regulations.

  He started down the left trail and was rewarded with an immediate drop in temperature as the trees and bushes closed in around him, blocking out nearly all of the afternoon sun and throwing the area ahead of him into shadow. He began jogging over the hard-packed dirt, hoping to cover more territory, yelling "Hello!" every few seconds in order to flush out Stumpy or Kenny or whatever his name was.

  Ahead, he thought he saw a building through the trees, and Dylan slowed down. He was out of breath already--not used to this high altitude--and he stopped for a moment, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

  It was a building, he could see now, a long low structure made of wood and rock that corresponded to that of the forest and effectively camouflaged the place from anyone who wasn't almost on top of it.

  Something about that didn't sit well with him. He thought of everything Barry had told them, and it suddenly seemed mighty suspicious that there was a secret hideout here in the middle of the woods where Stumpy was supposed to be.

  Maybe it was where he lived.

  Maybe it was where he was made.

  His first gut reaction had been to turn tail and run, but as Dylan peered through the dark foliage at the equally dark building, his adrenaline started pumping. This was why he'd come out here, this was what he'd come to see.

  He approached slowly, keeping a watchful eye out for any signs of life. He had stopped shouting, having determined that the best course of action would be not to announce his presence but to sneak in and out with no one I wiser. Leaving the trail, he crept through the bushes toward the building, trying not to step on twigs or leaves, trying no to make any noise. The wall ahead of him appeared to windowless, so he swung around, making a wide arc, was gratified to see that on the side of the building was , open doorway.

  He pushed his way through a series of interlocke bushes, managing not to cry out when a stray broken brand dug into his ankle, and then he was standing in the clear space next to the building. This close, the similarity between the structure and the surrounding forest seemed even!

  creepier. There was something organic about it, and Dylan! was suddenly aware of the fact that there was no noise here.1 The distant sound of bird cry and the underbrush scuttling | of lizards that had accompanied his trek down the path had | disappeared, replaced by silence.

  He stepped forward carefully, intensely aware of the too loud sound his shoes made on the gravelly ground.

  It looked like a bunkhouse, he thought, seeing it this;] close. He half-expected Stumpy--or Kenny—to come lurching out of the darkened doorway, shrieking at him, but the place seemed to be abandoned, and he appeared to be the only one here. He was grateful for that, and his reaction made him wonder what he was doing here in the first place, why he didn't just turn around and head back up the path to Barry's. He didn't know. But he did know that he needed to look inside that building, that even if he didn't see the freak, he still had to find out what was inside there.

  He walked up to the doorway. The building obviously had no windows, but at the far end of what appeared to be a single large room that took up the entire interior of the structure, he saw the dim yellowish glow of an old kerosene lantern.

  He squinted into the darkness but was unable to make out any specific features, so he stepped inside, stopping just past the entrance to let his eyes adjust.

  It was a bunkhouse, and he could see that the small cots lining both sides of the long room were occupied. He whirled around, intending to flee, but strong hands grabbed his right arm. He swiveled to see a tall elderly gentleman staring blankly at him, The man had no ears.

  Other hands grabbed his left arm, clamped around his neck, and then the people in the cots were rising, standing, walking toward him.

  Or some of them were walking. Others were limping, and while they were not Stumpy, Dylan could see in the far off light from the lantern and the dim illumination from outside that they all appeared to be handicapped, missing arms or hands or legs or feet.

  He tried to free himself from the grip of those who held him, but his captors held him tight.

  Captors?

  He struggled mightily, lashed out with his feet, tried a backward head butt, attempted to jerk his right arm free and throw a roundhouse punch at the tall man before him. No one had yet spoken, the only sounds in the bunkhouse were his own grunts and exhalations and the shuffling clopping of feet on wooden floor, and he was starting to get seriously scared.

  The grip on his left arm weakened for a moment as the man holding onto it was bumped by a fingerless figure approaching from the side, and Dylan took advantage of the opportunity, yanking his arm away and using it to claw the face of the tall man. For a brief second, he was almost free, then the hands on his neck tightened, and he slipped, almost fell. "Fuck!" he managed to get out.

  And then they were beating him.

  When Dylan came to, he was gagged and restrained, strapped down with chains and bands of leather to what felt like a metal table. He was no longer in the bunkhouse, he knew that, but exactly where he'd been taken was not yet clear. He was able to move his head, and he turned it first to the left and then to the right, seeing only dark blurriness from between his puffy eyelids. Gradually, his brain adjusted to this altered vision, deciphering the scrambled signals and reformulating them into a more coherent picture. He saw a grimy stone wall, although his brain must have been having trouble judging distances because it looked as though it were several yards from where he lay. Next to him, on the table, was an old and obviously well-used machete, a hammer and a pack of nails, and a portable band saw with a rusted blade. Above, high and far away, was a black ceiling.

  A woman walked up, dressed in dirty jeans and a torn, bloody T-shirt, a pair of yellowed plastic goggles hanging around her neck.

  "One of the guests?" she asked.

  An old man appeared next to her, a strange-looking individual with dry, crinkly skin and a face that owed more to the makeup w
izardry of horror films than the biology of real life. "Yes," he said, his voice deep and filled with the offhanded authoritarianism of someone in power.

  "What's the plan?" the woman asked.

  The old man looked at Dylan dismissively. "Do the hands and feet first," he told the woman. "We'll figure out where to go after that."

  "Rogerwilco ." The woman lowered her goggles.

  Behind his gag, Dylan screamed as the band saw started to buzz.

  When an hour had passed and Dylan wasn't back, Barry felt a slight twinge of unease.

  When two hours had passed and Dylan still hadn't returned, he was filled with fear and a horribly familiar sense of panic. He gathered together Jeremy and Chuck, and the three of them headed out to the bridle trail to search for their friend.

  They walked up and down the trail, following each fork, encountering only a pair of yuppie joggers and an old woman.

  No Dylan.

  It was nearly dark when they finally returned to the house, tired, angry, discouraged, and worried. The wives met them on the porch, and one look at their faces told Barry that Dylan had still not come back.

  They went into the house, closing and locking the door behind them.

  Maureen hurried upstairs to get drinks.

  "You think the association got to him?" Jeremy asked, voicing the thought that was on all of their minds.

  Danna turned toward Barry. "He was off to see that armless, legless guy, right?"

  But Barry was already shaking his head. "Stumpy-Kenny--couldn't've done this. He's scary, but when you get down to it, all he could do is gum someone to death. He certainly couldn't take down a big guy like Dylan."

  Jeremy nodded. "So it was someone else. Or several someone elses "Whatever it was, we're not going to find out by guessing about it in the living room." Barry looked at him. "You want to call Sheriff Hitman or do you want me to?"

  "I'll talk to that bastard." Jeremy picked up the phone from the table, dialed 911, and waited.

  And waited.

  He hung up, dialed again, and this time someone answered. He asked to speak with the sheriff, and when the person on the other end of the line began asking questions about the nature of the emergency, Jeremy turned on the legalese and in his most serious and officious voice began berating and intimidating the person into transferring the call to the sheriff.

  Barry had to smile. An angry and belligerent Jeremy was something to behold, and not for the first time he was glad the man was on his side.

  But Jeremy's verbal pyrotechnics did not work on Hitman . Even listening to only one side of the conversation, Barry could tell where it was going. He'd been there before himself: Hitman was not empowered to intervene in association business, this was clearly an association dispute, and if he had any problems, Jeremy should address them to the board.

  "God damn}" Jeremy said, clicking off the phone and slamming it down on the coffee table. "What do they have on this sheriff? Video of him in bed with a pig? Jesus Christ! How can a law enforcement officer totally ignore his responsibilities like that? He's not doing his fucking job! And he's not even embarrassed or sorry about it!"

  "That's what we've been wondering," Maureen said.

  "I'm definitely going to other agencies with this. Hitman's either completely corrupt or grossly incompetent, and if I have to sue his ass for malfeasance and dereliction of duty, then, goddamn it, that's what I'll do. There's no way he's getting away with this."

  Barry was silent, his faint hopes dimming. Jeremy was a resourceful opponent, but the association was a juggernaut, willing and able to flatten any obstacle in its path.

  "What next, then?" Chuck asked.

  Barry took a deep breath. "I guess we wait for morning."

  He stood by the window, looking out at the road as if expecting Dylan to return any second, while a BMW filled with teenagers sped by, the driver honking his horn and yelling, "Your mama sucks cocks in hell!"

  Barry awoke at six, before Maureen and, from what his ears told him, before anyone else. He'd slept through the night as usual, but there'd been dreams, bad dreams, and he was glad to wake up. He slipped out of bed slowly, carefully, one foot at a time so as not to disturb Maureen, and put on his robe and slippers before opening the bedroom door and padding upstairs.

  He was quiet. He intended to sneak silently up to the kitchen so as not to disturb Chuck and Danna, but he could see by the early morning light seeping through the mini blinds that the sofa bed had been folded up. The living room looked unused, the linens and pillows untouched.

  He turned on a lamp, frowning, and made a quick tour of the house. The door to the guest bedroom was closed and locked, Jeremy and Lupe obviously inside, but both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms were empty, doors open. No dishes had been used in the kitchen, not even a water glass, and through the windows there was no sign of anyone in the yard.

  Chuck and Danna had disappeared.

  They've probably gone for a walk, he told himself. They'd made the sofa bed, refolded the linen, and sneaked outside for an early morning constitutional. But there was a gnawing doubt in his gut, and part of him wanted to wake up everyone else in the house, rush outside, and start an immediate search.

  He pushed those thoughts aside, did not allow his mind to proceed in that direction. To acknowledge that something bad had befallen them would be to acknowledge that someone something --had broken into their house and that he could not do. The possibilities were just too far-reaching, the implications too terrifyingly intimidating. Especially after yesterday.

  It was an ostrich attitude, with its irrationally rational appeal, but something seemed to have shut down inside him, some sense of justice or outrage or responsibility, and he found that he could believe nothing untoward had occurred. He could honestly say that he thought it likely his friends had simply awoken early and gone out for a stroll around the neighborhood.

  One by one, the others awoke, and Barry, who'd been sitting silently in the living room, stood, went upstairs, and busied himself in the kitchen making coffee. Maureen came up first, then Jeremy, then Lupe.

  All of them asked about Chuck and Danna, and Barry shrugged off the questions, saying that he didn't know where they were, they'd been gone when he awoke, but that they were probably just taking a morning walk to clear their heads after yesterday's drama.

  "Oh yeah," Maureen said sarcastically. "They're probably out looking for Dylan."

  He did not bother to respond.

  They ate breakfast in silence, the only noise in the house the false cheer of a morning news show on TV and the chomping of cereal.

  "Who are we fooling?" Jeremy said, setting down his spoon. "How long are we going to pretend that they're coming back?"

  "We don't know that they're not," Barry stressed. "We can't just go jumping to conclusions."

  "After Dylan, it's not such a big jump," Maureen told him.

  "They wouldn't just go without telling us," Jeremy insisted.

  "Something's happened to them."

  Lupe stood, looked over the railing into the living room. "Their luggage is gone," she pointed out.

  Barry moved next to her. She was right. Chuck's overnight bag was missing and Danna's two small suitcases were nowhere to be seen. How could he have missed something so obvious?

  "Then I guess they took off," Barry said without conviction, "headed home."

  "How could they leave without their car? And why would they? If they wanted to leave, they would've told us, and we all would've driven out together. They wouldn't... what? Hike back to California? Call a cab?"

  He looked over the railing at the untouched sofa bed.

  First Dylan.

  Now Chuck and Danna.

  They were picking off his friends one by one.

  "Maybe we should get out of here," Lupe suggested.

  Barry nodded in agreement, though he felt torn up inside. Three days.

  It had only taken three days for Bonita Vista to break down and decimate h
is best and strongest line of defense.

  Still, there remained a core of iron within him, a resolute unwillingness to concede defeat that, if anything, was growing stronger. He was reminded of the tag line for a movie: This time it's personal.

  But it had always been personal. He thought of their cat Barney, thought of the murder of the man who had harassed Maureen, thought of Ray. His opposition to the homeowners'

  association had never been anything but personal.

  Jeremy shook his head. "I'm not leaving until we find out what happened to them. If I have to stay here a fucking year, I will, but there's no way I'm going to abandon my friends."

  "Let's head out," Barry said, "take a look around Bonita Vista, see if we can find something."

  Jeremy nodded grimly. "We'll start with the president's house."

  "Do you want to go with them?" Maureen asked Lupe. The other woman looked over at her husband, then shook her head and started digging into her cereal. "I'll stay with her," Maureen told Barry.

  He nodded, came back to the table to quickly finish off his coffee, then went down to the bedroom and put on his shoes. Jeremy was ready to go by the time he came up to the living room, and Barry unlocked, unbolted, and opened the front door.

  And saw a pink sheet of paper affixed to the outside of the screen.

  Jeremy pushed open the screen door, reached around the metal frame, and grabbed the paper.

  "It's a form," he said, and his voice was flat. "Or your 'recipient's copy' of a form. A Regulation Compliance form, to be exact. And there's a "Violation' box checked. "Unauthorized Presence of Minority.""

  "Shit," Barry said. He thought of the sealed letter they'd found in the closet that first week.

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

  They'd been talking quietly, but the quiet must have carried its own weight because he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Maureen and Lupe standing on the edge of the stairs gazing down on them, both of their faces registering the same expression.