The Association

by Bentley Little

  The knowledge filled Maureen with relief. "I believe you."

  "I should've done something, though. I should've ..." She trailed off, then took a deep breath. "I knew they'd send someone, and I

  waited outside your house and followed him in when he showed up."

  "Thank God you did." Maureen could not seem to take her eyes off the would-be abortionist's body. "But they'll be after both of us now."

  "Not me," Liz said. "I went to them."

  Maureen knew that was supposed to mean something to her, knew she was supposed to understand its implications, but she did not.

  Liz seemed to straighten, to find some untapped reserve of strength within her. "But they'll be doubly anxious to get to you now. You'd better get out of here. Where's Barry?"

  "At his sister's in Pennsylvania."

  "Then go to a hotel somewhere, in some other town." She held up a hand. "Don't tell me where."

  "But..." Maureen gestured toward the body. "... but you killed him.

  And he's one of theirs. They won't let you get away with that."

  "Don't worry about it."

  "I can't just leave you."

  "Get out of here," Liz ordered.

  "But--"

  "I'll take care of this. Just grab what you need and go. Now."

  The Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions Article VI, Membership Rights, Section 8, Paragraph G:

  A homeowner may justifiably use deadly force on any of the Properties whenever he or she deems it appropriate.

  Maureen called him from a hotel in Cedar City.

  Barry had just come back to his sister's house from the hospital and was bone tired, but he was wide awake as Maureen described the attack on her and Liz's last-minute rescue. At the old woman's behest, she'd packed what she thought she'd need into the Toyota and took off, ending up in Cedar City at dawn. She'd been trying to get a hold of him ever since, calling every five minutes for the last hour.

  "They were trying to stop us from having a baby," she whispered, and the words sent a shiver down his spine. "They were trying to abort it."

  There was nothing more he could do for Sheri--and Brian had his own sister, Margot, and her family there for support--so Barry caught the next plane west, an AA flight to St. Louis. He waited only an hour at the St. Louis terminal for a standby coach seat on a plane flying to Salt Lake City, and by late afternoon, Utah time, he and Maureen were hugging in her room at the Holiday Inn.

  She told him again what happened, this time in more detail. After she finished, he tried to call Liz, but twenty rings later there was no answer and he finally hung up. He made a quick call to Brian at the hospital in Philadelphia to see if Sheri's condition had improved--it was unchanged then turned toward Maureen, sitting next to him on the bed.

  "We'll both stay here tonight," he said. "But tomorrow I'm going back home. I want you to stay here for a few days while I... straighten things out."

  "No!" she said, clutching his arm. "Don't go back there! We're through with that place. Just sell it, sell the house, sell everything."

  "We can't, remember? There's a lien."

  "Fuck it. Write it off then. We'll survive. We'll find a little tract home. We'll rent an apartment if we have to."

  "Like you said, it would follow us around. We can't just walk away and pretend it didn't happen. There's a record. It'd be financial suicide--"

  "Don't give me that. Since when have you given a damn about finances?"

  He met her eyes. "You're right," he said. "I just... can't let them win. I can't do it. I can't walk away from this."

  She squinted suspiciously. "What did you mean, 'straighten things out'?"

  "I don't expect you to understand--"

  "Oh, it's a guy thing, huh?"

  "No, not that."

  "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do?"

  He grabbed her shoulders, held them tight. "Someone has to take a stand." She pulled away from him, stood. "What does that mean? What does any of this mean? You're talking like someone in a bad western movie. They tried to abort our baby!"

  "That's why I'm going back."

  "Goddamn it, Barry!"

  "I'm going back."

  "I won't let you!"

  "You have no choice." He looked at her. "/ have no choice."

  * * *

  By the time he reached Bonita Vista it was nearly noon. At the gate, the guard smirked at him, forced him to show his driver's license, and took an inordinately long time looking up his name on the list of residents. Finally, his admission approved, the gate swung open. Barry threw the melted ice from his Subway cup out the window and into the face of the guard as he drove past. "Asshole!" he said.

  He stepped on the gas and sped up the hill.

  Their home had been desecrated. The property had been re landscaped yet again, this time with a rolling green lawn that defied the natural aesthetics of the hillside and looked as though it had been transplanted from a golf course. One lone tree remained, but all shrubs and bushes were gone, the irregular ground smoothed over and planted with bright green grass.

  The house looked like something out of Dr. Seuss.

  Their shingled roof had been redecorated with black and white zigzag stripes. The side of the house facing the street was bright yellow, the upstairs window red, the two bottom windows blue. The door was not only pink but had been padded with some sort of fuzzy material.

  Inside, much of the furniture had been removed and the walls were blank, all of Maureen's artwork and groupings taken down. There was only one couch, the coffee table, and his stereo system in the living room; only the bed, dresser, and television set in the still-bloodstained bedroom. He had no idea where the rest of their stuff had gone, but he had the feeling that it was not safely packed away in storage.

  The mailbox was crammed with dozens of fines and notices from the homeowners' association.

  First things first. He walked back into the house, got a book of matches from the junk drawer in the kitchen, and strode down to the end of the driveway, where he very oh Obviously and dramatically dumped everything out of the mailbox onto the asphalt. He lit a match, touched it to the corner of one envelope, then to the corner of a pink form. In seconds, the entire pile of papers was burning.

  As he'd suspected, as he'd hoped, Neil Campbell appeared from up the street, walking briskly, clipboard in hand. The prissy little man looked positively apoplectic. "You can't do that!" he shouted, turning in at die driveway.

  "Can't do what?"

  "Those are official notices from the Bonita Vista Homeowners'

  Association, and you are required to respond to them! You cannot--" He pointed with his clipboard, his arm shaking in disbelief. "--burn them!"

  "Get off of my property," Barry said.

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "There is a clause allowing board members and committee --"

  "If you're not off my property in one minute, I'll throw you off myself." Barry pushed up his sleeve. "Do you understand?"

  Campbell backed up a step. "You're making a big mistake. I am here as a representative of the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association."

  "Thirty seconds."

  He started writing furiously. "I am reporting all of this."

  "That's it." Barry grabbed the toady's arm. "Get out of here. Now."

  "Don't you touch me!" Campbell jerked away.

  Barry punched him. Hard. His fist connected with the man's stomach, and by God it felt good. Campbell doubled over, let out a surprised gasp, then scrambled backward to get out of the driveway.

  "Don't you ever set foot on my property again!" Barry kicked the pile of burning papers, sending a half-blackened piece of envelope skittering out into the road.

  Campbell ran off.

  "And tell your friends, too," Barry shouted after him. He smiled as he watched the forms and notices burn themselves out.

  In the morning, an expensive embossed envelope waited
for him in the mailbox. There was nothing on the front, no return address, not even his name. It was blank.

  Inside was an invitation for dinner at Jasper Calhoun's house.

  His first instinct was to throw the invitation away and not go, but he realized that was only because he was afraid. He recalled the ominous dread he felt when he and Jeremy had walked up to the president's home.

  It would be simpler and safer to stay at home tonight, watch TV, listen to his stereo, read a book. But he had returned to Bonita Vista for a confrontation, and while he would prefer that confrontation to happen at his house, on his own turf, he was not about to run from it no matter where it occurred.

  There was no RSVP on the invitation, and he assumed that was intentional. Calhoun wanted him to worry about this, wanted him to fret over it until the very last minute.

  He did spend the afternoon worrying, but it was not over whether he should accept the invitation. It was over what he should bring with him. He had no gun, but he considered hiding a knife in his boot or sticking an array of screwdrivers in his belt buckle or even walking in wielding a nail-studded two-by-four. He was pretty sure this was a trap, and he would be a fool not to protect himself.

  In the end, however, he decided not to bring a weapon. There would doubtless be others present at the dinner-henchmen, board members, friends, supporters, followers-and it would be impossible for him to fight them all no matter what he was carrying. Besides, there'd probably be some sort of frisk or body search or metal detector. The best idea was to go in clean.

  He debated whether to tell Maureen, and eventually decided he would not. He did not want to worry her, but he did call, and they talked about trivial things, innocuous things. Without saying so specifically, he led her to believe that he was merely cleaning up the house and yard while poring through the revised C, C, and Rs looking for ways to attack the association by using its own rules and regulations.

  "When are you coming back?" she asked.

  "Soon, I hope."

  There was a pause.

  "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what's really going on there?"

  He should have known she was too smart to be fooled by his crude attempts at misdirection. "No," he admitted. "I'm not."

  "It's not just me anymore," she told him. "There are two of us who need you."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  "I'm sure Dylan, Chuck, and Danna thought the same thing. I don't know what you're doing, and maybe I don't want to know, but be careful. This isn't a game. Those people are dangerous. I don't want to send out a private investigator a year from now and find out that my new baby's father has been turned into a Stumpy."

  Barry didn't respond, but the idea was one that had already occurred to him, and he felt cold.

  "Come home to us," Maureen said. "Nothing is worth your life."

  "I know that. Don't worry. I won't do anything stupid."

  The dinner was scheduled for eight, and though he could have walked, Barry decided to drive. He might need to make a quick getaway. And if... something ... happened to him, at least the disposal of his Suburban would cause them trouble and inconvenience.

  He parked on the street rather than in the driveway so other people could see his vehicle. Walking up the path, he was filled with the same sense of trepidation he had experienced before, magnified by the fact that it was night. Calhoun had strong lights illuminating his grassy lawn, but they only served to make the surrounding woods seem darker.

  A servant met him at the door. No, not a servant. A volunteer. Barry recognized the man. Ralph Hieberg . He'd been introduced to him at one of Ray's parties.

  "Come in, Mr. Welch. You are expected."

  Barry stepped into the vestibule. "Ralph," he said. "What are you doing here?"

  The man's eyes darted furtively to the left and then the right. Barry thought he was actually going to answer, but he said, "Just come with me. Please. I only have a month to go. I don't want to get in trouble."

  Barry nodded, understanding, and allowed himself to be led through another doorway into what appeared to be the living room.

  He'd been expecting a building of dank dark corridors, a maze of passageways that led to some horrible inner sanctum, but instead the interior of the house was bright and airy. The room into which they walked was decorated in a Japanese motif, with bamboo-framed paper walls, low tables, and mats and cushions on the floor. There were no lights or lamps but illumination seeped through the translucent paper from all sides, ensuring that there were no shadows.

  Ralph walked around the tables to the opposite wall and pulled aside a section, which slid open to reveal another room beyond. He stood to the left and motioned for Barry to enter.

  There was writing on the walls, Barry noticed as he followed the volunteer. He looked carefully at the wall as he passed into the next room and shivered as he realized that the bamboo frames held not traditional blank rice paper but blown-up pages from Bonita Vista's Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions.

  They went from this room to another... and then another and another.

  Each looked exactly like the one before it. He saw no couches, no television, no bookcase, no kitchen, no bathroom, only an endless series of living rooms with low tables and mats and cushions and C, C, and R walls. Until finally they were in a room with no furniture, only an empty wooden floor and walls that did not glow with that sourceless illumination but were dim and dull. Ahead, the translucent paper was red and there was no writing on it. From behind the red wall he heard moaning and occasional sharp yelps. Barry found it hard to swallow; it felt as though his heart was in his throat.

  "This way, Mr. Welch." The volunteer pushed aside a section of the red wall and the two of them walked into the chamber beyond.

  This was what he had expected.

  The room was massive, bigger than the entire bottom floor of his own house, with a high black ceiling from which hung dirty irregularly spaced lightbulbs . The walls were stone, the floor worn, unpainted wood that was stained with drops and splotches of what could only be old blood. There was a large pit in the center of the chamber, its sides made of burnished steel, its bottom covered with straw. Rusted metal tables stuck out at odd angles around the edge of the pit, like broken wheel spokes.

  On the tables were blades and saws and what looked like medical instruments.

  In the pit were Stumpies .

  They were moaning and wailing, although whether in pain or some desperate effort to communicate, he had no idea. There were six men and one woman, and thankfully Barry didn't know any of them. He'd expected in that first second of comprehension to see Dylan and Chuck and Danna with their limbs cut off, but the poor pathetic wretches who flopped around in the sawdust were not people he had ever seen before.

  It was the armless, legless woman who was most disturbing, her bruised and battered nudity reminding him uncomfortably of Maureen. The others were squirming through the straw, jerking their bodies into and over each other. But she lay alone against the rounded steel wall, the wild matted hair of her private parts glistening with wet blood, her swollen mouth open silently, her eyes fixed on one of the dim bare bulbs overhead.

  "This way, Mr. Welch."

  Numbly, he walked around one of the rusted tables, this one containing a ball peen hammer covered with flecks of flesh and bone, an assortment of filthy screwdrivers, and a long serrated knife. As he followed Ralph past the pit, he could not help looking down. In the straw surrounding the Stumpies , he saw feces and what looked like rotted fish.

  The volunteer stopped before a narrow metal door recessed into the stone wall. He did not look at Barry, did not look at the door, but stared down at his feet and seemed to be gathering his strength as he took a deep breath. Quickly, he reached out, grabbed the oversized handle, and pulled the door open. He looked scared as he motioned Barry in.

  They stepped through the narrow entryway.

  "Mr. Welch!" Ralph announced.

  This room was even
darker. There were no electric lights here, only smoky, foul-smelling candles held in wrought iron stands placed in the four corners of the chamber. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they did he saw a dusty display case containing the stuffed bodies of cats and dogs, parrots, and hamsters--the pets outlawed by the association. Other damaged, discarded remnants of normal life that were not permitted in Bonita Vista were arranged haphazardly around the room: dead house plants in broken pots lying atop a cracked and listing knickknack shelf, split birdhouses hanging from a battered clothesline pole that leaned against a child's playhouse.

  At the opposite end of the chamber,las per Calhoun was seated at the center of a long oak table, flanked by the other five members of the board. Goblets of dark red liquid and plates of strange, unappetizing meat sat on the table in front of them. The tableaux reminded Barry of the Last Supper, with the transubstantiation made horribly literal.

  "Welcome to our boardroom," Calhoun said. To the sides of him, the others nodded. The strangeness of their oddly shaped, too-white faces did not seem out of place here, Barry thought. This was the environment in which they belonged, this was their home.

  Underneath the table, he could see naked women chained to the floor, servicing the six men.

  Calhoun saw the direction of his gaze and smiled. "Our female volunteers," he said. He nodded down at his lap. "That's Ralph's wife. Right, Ralph?"

  The volunteer nodded stoically.

  "You could have had Maureen work off your debts this way."

  Barry pretended to be thinking thoughtfully. "I read your sexual harassment pamphlet, and as I understand it, this would be classified as harassment under association rules. Am I correct?"

  Calhoun stood, his face flushing. Underneath the table, Ralph's wife scurried to the side. "I will not have the rules quoted to me in my own house!"

  "I take it that's a yes?"

  The president took a deep breath, and forced himself to smile. "Too bad about your friends," he said. "I wonder whatever happened to them." He looked down at the slab of strange meat on his plate and very deliberately peeled off a stringy section, eating it.