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.
"It's spreading down toward the houses on Spruce! What should we do?"
Barry shook his head, tried to push his way past them.
"Lightning hit the gate!" someone on the road yelled. "It's open and they're getting in! Where's the president?"
"He's over here!" Mike shouted.
"No!" Barry said.
People came running toward him.
"The townies! They're on a rampage!" "They're going to riot! Call out the volunteers!" He kept walking, ignoring them, striding purposefully toward his car. He could see from a strange glow at the top of the hill that the lightning fire was spreading quickly, fanned by the wildly blowing winds. It was as if the surrounding forest was filled with nothing but dry under, despite the recent monsoons. Behind him, he heard cries of panic, calls for someone to alert the fire department. A woman yelled that lightning had also struck over on Poplar Street and that a partially constructed house was burning, the fire racing through the greenbelt. Several people shouted into cell phones.
There were no fire hydrants here, he remembered. Even ifCorban's volunteer fire lighters wanted to put out the blaze and save the homes of Bonita Vista--a very big if-there was no water with which to do it.
The whole place was going to burn to the ground, and Barry felt like laughing. It served those bastards right. So smug and self satisfied, so convinced of their infallibility. Now they'd been brought down by their own shortsightedness, by not doing one of the few things that homeowners' associations were legitimately supposed to do--maintain the community's infrastructure.
No one chased after him, tried to stop him or even spoke to him, and he felt good, strong as he strode away from the house and through the disintegrating crowd. He could smell the smoke, and he was glad the wind was fanning the flames.
He hoped the fire consumed Calhoun's house. Especially that evil boardroom and its horrid wall of ever-changing words.
Article Ninety.
He had the feeling that if that could be destroyed, all would be well.
What about the Stumpies ?
They would probably be killed--unless one of the volunteers in the house rescued them--but Barry found that he could live with that. They had already given most of their lives for the homeowners' association, and he had no doubt they would willingly sacrifice the rest if it would put an end to the excesses of the organization once and for all.
The people who only moments before had been trying to congratulate him were fleeing, running back to their homes in order to gather valuables or fight off fires. A fight broke out near Calhoun's flagpole. It was a free-for-all. Barry heard a loud, inhuman screech behind him, and he turned to see a well-coifed woman go down, shoved by an angry man in a suit and tie.
"Mr. Welch! Mr. Welch!" That despicable little toady Neil Campbell was running after him, without his clipboard for once, and Barry stopped to face the association flunky.
"I can help you," Campbell said breathlessly.
"With what?"
"Anything! I'm at the board's service! I'll be your right hand man!
Any investigations you want conducted, any houses you want kept under surveillance, any--"
"Neil?" Barry said.
"What?"
"Eat shit and bark at the moon."
Barry turned away, unable to keep the smile from his face as he walked purposefully out to the road. A pickup barreled by and seconds later rammed into a Jeep. From somewhere down the hill, a car alarm sounded.
Flickering flames could be seen through the trees, and the smell of smoke was everywhere.
Burn, baby, burn, Barry thought.
Still smiling, happier than he'd been for a long long time, he jogged up the lawn toward the road. Where the Suburban waited that would take him to Cedar City. And Maureen.