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.
He was bluffing. He had to be. This was all show, a performance put on for his benefit, but Barry had to admit that the technique was effective. He was way out of his depth, and fear had overtaken anger as the dominant emotion within him.
"What do you want?" Barry said shortly. "Why did you invite me here?"
Calhoun sat down again, steepled his fingers. "We seem to have reached a stalemate. As far as the bylaws are concerned, you are a squatter.
You no longer hold any rights to your house or property, yet you continue to reside there and seemingly have no intention of moving out."
"What's your point?"
"You said at the annual meeting that you wanted a real election. I
take that to mean that you would like to have yourself or someone handpicked by you elected to the board."
"Yeah?"
"I think it's time to invoke Article Ninety." The wall behind the table was suddenly illuminated by a spotlight hidden in the ceiling, and Barry saw that there was writing on the stone. Elaborate calligraphic script, with red letters nearly a foot high, covered the space from floor to ceiling. He could read the words "Article Ninety"--there was no title, no section number, no paragraph designation--but that was it. The rest appeared to be gibberish.
"It is the one article that you will not find in your printed version of the C, C, and Rs ," the president said.
"Why is that?" Barry asked.
Calhoun leaned forward over the table, and there was an intensity in his expression that caused Barry to back up a step. "Because it cannot be captured or caught or frozen in time. It cannot be diminished by being limited to a single meaning. It is forever changing, adaptable to any circumstance that arises, and it is at the very heart of our homeowners' association. It is what grants us our authority and power, what allows you and everyone else to enjoy the perfection that is life in Bonita Vista."
Barry stood there, not knowing what to say or how to respond. He could not recall hearing the door behind him close, and he casually turned his head to the side, pretending as though he was surveying the room but actually checking to see if the doorway was clear and he could haul ass out of here.
No such luck. The metal door was securely shut.
He faced forward again, filled with a growing dread and feeling of claustrophobia. The chamber smelled to him of sweat and blood and bodily fluids. He had to suppress the very real urge to vomit.
"It is the responsibility of the minister of information to address Article Ninety," Calhoun said. He nodded toward the old man seated directly to his right. "Fenton?"
The other man shooed away the woman working on his lap and stood. If possible, he looked even more peculiar than the president, his too-perfect and off-center nose appearing to have been placed on his face in order to imitate an element of normalcy that simply was not there.
"Article Ninety," he intoned. "We ask thee for thy words of wisdom."
"Thy wisdom is infinite," the other board members chanted.
"Provide us with the knowledge to deal with this as with all matters."
"Thy rules and regulations are as blessings to us all."
Fenton closed his eyes, turned and bowed to the wall. "Article Ninety, Barry Welch wishes to mount a challenge to appear on the ballot for the Bonita Vista Homeowners' Association board of directors. How is he to be accommodated and how are we to determine his eligibility?"
Abruptly, the gibberish disappeared. The words on the wall were still in that elaborate archaic calligraphy, but they were suddenly readable, understandable. The resulting declaration was not couched in the pseudo legalese that made up the rest of the C, C, and Rs but in a stilted quasi religious formality that sounded no less odd. Fenton straightened from his bow and read the words aloud: "Whosoever desires to place his name upon the ballot must first engage in battle with a current member of the board of directors. This must of necessity be a fight to the finish, the death of one ensuring the position of the other on the sacred ballot. Have mercy on the soul of this combatant for he knows not what he does."