The Association

by Bentley Little

  The Association

  Bentley Little

  Barry and Maureen have just been approved as tenants by the Association. Pity they never read the fine print on the lease. It could be the death of them...

  From Publishers Weekly

  With this haunting tale, Little (The Town) proves that he hasn't lost his terrifying touch. Barry and Maureen Welch are thrilled to exchange their chaotic California lifestyle for the idyllic confines of Bonita Vista, a ritzy gated community in the unincorporated fictional town of Corban, Utah. But as Bonita Vista residents, they're required to become members of the neighborhood's Homeowners' Association, a meddling group that uses its authority to spy on neighbors, eradicate pets and dismember anyone who fails to pay association dues and fines. Maureen, an accountant, and Barry, a horror writer who is banned by the association from writing at home, soon find themselves trapped in the kind of deranged world that Barry once believed existed only within the safety of his imagination. The novel's graphic and fantastic finale demonstrates the shortsightedness of the Association and will stick with readers for a long time. Little's deftly drawn characters inhabit a suspicious world laced with just enough sex, violence and Big Brother rhetoric to make this an incredibly credible tale.

  Review

  "You must read this book." —Stephen King

  "Fast-paced, rock-'em, jolt-'em, shock-'em...terror fiction. Unusually clever." —Dean Koontz

  The Association

  by Bentley Little

  "It's perfect!" Maureen announced.

  Barry agreed, but he was glad the real estate agent wasn't there to hear it. She already had them pegged as a couple of suckers, and if she heard Maureen's unequivocal enthusiasm, she'd know that all she had to do was reel them in. They'd have no room at all to negotiate.

  Bat the agent--or "Doris," as she'd insisted they call her--had gone back to her car to gather die paperwork on this property (and, Barry suspected, give them time to talk), and the two of them were left alone to discuss matters between themselves.

  He and Maureen walked around the house's upper deck. The view was spectacular. They'd looked at other houses, newer houses, bigger houses, but none that had a location to match this one. It was on the side of a hill overlooking the town, and breathtaking scenery stretched all the way to the mountains on the horizon, taking in miles of forest and canyon in between. Even in this, the hottest part of the day, a slight breeze was blowing, rustling the pine needles in the tree on the deck's west side, ruffling the hair that he had combed so carefully in order to give himself a more respectable appearance.

  "We could expand the deck," Maureen said. "Wrap it around the front of the house, maybe put in one of those misters to cool it off during the day. I see, like, a little patio set--some chairs and a table--where we could have lunches or romantic dinners. And, of course, I'll put a lot of plants up here." "The deck's way down on the priority list," he told her.

  "That's true," Maureen admitted.

  Barry shielded the sides of his face with his hands and peered through the screen door into the house. The interior was hideous. The previous owners had had no taste whatsoever, and every room was carpeted in bright orange, with walls and ceiling covered in the darkest paneling. It was like being in a cave, and the tacky 1970s furniture did little to dispel the air of tired sadness that hung about the rooms.

  No doubt that was why the house had not yet sold, why it had been on the market for so long with no takers, and it was why Barry felt confident that, if they did not tip their hand, they might be able to get the seller to drop the price.

  He looked away. "Tear off the paneling," he told Maureen, "repaint the walls, install new carpet, junk the furniture, no one would even recognize this place."

  "I like the windows," she said. "Whoever built this house planned it smartly."

  That was true. The tri level house seemed to have been constructed in order to take full advantage of the breathtaking scenery. There were three bedrooms: a huge master bedroom with an adjoining deck directly below them that offered a view only slightly less spectacular than the one they were enjoying now, another smaller bedroom on the same floor, and, directly above that, on the top floor, the third bedroom, which had French doors opening on to a small balcony overlooking the driveway. The living room, through which a person entered the house, was the sole space on the middle floor, and the ceiling here was two stories high, with extra-tall windows facing the empty and heavily wooded lot on the up side of the hill. Twin carpeted stairways led either down to the bottom level or up to an open dining room kitchen area on the top.

  "I want to make an offer," Maureen said. "This is the house."

  "Just don't appear too eager. We need some wiggle room here."

  Maureen nodded. "I know." "They're asking a hundred and ten thousand."

  "We can probably get them to knock off ten or fifteen."

  From down in the driveway, they heard Doris' car door slam, and Barry motioned for Maureen to be quiet as they waited for the real estate agent to return.

  "Found them!" she announced cheerfully, entering the house and climbing the steps to the upper level.

  Barry opened the sliding screen and walked back into the house, and Maureen followed. The real estate agent spread a packet of papers across the top of the ugly dining room table. "As I told you before, they're asking one-ten. There's a new septic system, installed just last year, that incorporates the latest technology, meets all federal standards, and has a service agreement that remains in effect until you pay off the mortgage. You have a quarter of an acre, and of course the ridge behind the neighborhood as well as all of the land on the west side, out to the highway, is national forest land. So no one can build. Your views will remain unobstructed. The house itself has a ten-year termite warranty, with free yearly inspection and, if necessary, fumigation. There's also a ten-year warranty for all plumbing and electrical wiring, which, believe me, is a godsend." She looked up. "You want me to go on?"

  "We're interested," Barry told her.

  Doris' face lit up, her already animated features suddenly invested with a new and even greater enthusiasm. She continued running down the attributes of the house and lot, the specifics of all attendant deal sweeteners, before Maureen finally stopped her and said, "I think we're ready to make an offer."

  Barry nodded.

  The agent smiled widely. "Let's go back to the office, then, shall we?"

  They went downstairs and outside, Barry and Maureen walking around the edge of the driveway, looking around at the pine trees andmanzanita bushes on the property while Doris locked up the house.

  "Whoever buys this house is getting one heck of a good deal," the agent said as they got into her car, Maureen slipping into the passenger seat in front, Barry sitting in the back.

  "Well, not that good a deal," Barry said. "The house has been on the market for quite a while and no one's wanted it. If it was a real bargain, someone would've snatched it up."

  "The market's soft right now. But that's changing. Thisthing'll be worth two hundred next year." Doris guided the car down the sloping road, through the trees. She smiled. "Beautiful here, isn't it?

  Smell that air? Smell the pine? Nothing like it."

  They reached the wrought-iron gate blocking the foot of the street, slowing as they waited for hidden machinery to swing the gate open.

  Maureen looked out at the sandstone sign flanking the gateway, where the name of the development, "Bonita Vista," was spelled out in green copper letters.

  "That's the only thing I don't like," she said, turning back around.

  "It seems sort of... snobbish. I don't really like the idea of living in a 'gated community.""

  "The homeowners' association only recently put that
in," Doris admitted. "And there are quite a few people who don't like it. On the one hand, it offers you privacy and keeps up property values. But the fire chief opposed its installation because it blocks access.

  Although," she added quickly, "you should have no trouble escaping if there's a forest fire. The gates open outward, and you don't need to punch in a code to leave."

  Barry leaned forward. "There's a homeowners' association?"

  "Yes. I'm afraid you are required to pay homeowners' association dues.

  That's usually around a hundred or two hundred a year. I know a lot of people don't like associations, but in an area like Bonita "Vista, they're a necessity."

  "Why?" Maureen asked.

  "Because it's unincorporated. You're outside the town limits, and since the county maintains only dirt roads, the association is responsible for paving the streets and all improvements like ditches, abutments, what have you. It's the association that put in the street lights, that maintains all ditches and storm drains, that will put in any sidewalks or signs."

  "What if someone doesn't want to join?"

  "It's not an option. If you buy in Bonita Vista, you are required to belong to the association. But there are other benefits, too. There's a communal tennis court for members, and they're talking about putting in a clubhouse and swimming pool."

  The road wound between two low hills covered with old-growth ponderosas before hitting the highway. Doris waited for a roofing truck to pass before turning left and heading into town.

  Barry smiled. He liked the idea of having to go Into town, of it being a town instead of a city. Hell, he liked the whole damn thing. When they'd first started talking about moving out of southern California, when they'd looked at their options and discussed their preferences, this had been exactly the type of place he'd imagined, and he could hardly believe their good fortune at having discovered such a picture-perfect location.

  Truth to tell,Corban wasn't much of a town. The population was somewhere around three thousand, and while there were a few restaurants and gas stations, a rundown hotel, a couple of shops, and a market, there was no Store, no fast-food franchises, no tourist traps, none of the usual amenities that made rural America palatable to city dwellers like themselves.

  But he liked that.

  And he knew Maureen did, too. This wasn't Aspen or Jackson Hole or Park City, one of those co-opted communities that had turned into playgrounds for Hollywood's elite and the ultra-rich. This was a genuine small town in a non trendy part of Utah, where real people had real jobs, a place where the wave of service industries cresting over the rest of the nation had not yet reached.

  The real estate office was a doublewide trailer across the street from a converted house that served as the Corban library, and Doris swung into the microscopic parking lot, braking to a halt with the skid of fat tires on gravel.

  Barry got out of the car and looked up at the hill where their house was.

  Their house.

  He was already starting to think of it as theirs, though they had not even made an offer. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

  The three of them walked up the rickety outside steps into the office, where an overweight man and an underweight woman sat at desks in the larger of the trailer's two rooms, unhappily staring into space.

  "Good afternoon all!" Doris announced cheerfully, and falsely happy expressions appeared on the faces of her coworkers. The man immediately picked up his phone and started dialing, the woman began shuffling papers.

  "Let's go into the conference room." Doris led the way past the desks and into the trailer's other room, a smaller space dominated by what looked like a dining room table.

  The agent closed the door as they sat down. "All right," she said.

  "As you know, the asking price is one-ten."

  "The price is a little steep," Barry said.

  "Especially for a house that ugly," Maureen added.

  "It needs a lot of work."

  "A complete makeover."

  Doris laughed. "I understand. How about I offer a hundred?"

  "How about you offer ninety-five?"

  "I have to tell you: there's no guarantee the seller will come down at all, let alone fifteen thousand. But let me make a few calls and see what we can do." She motioned toward a coffeepot and a pile of Styrofoam cups placed on top of a low bookshelf at the opposite end of the room. "Have some coffee if you want. I'll be back."

  They waited until Doris left, closing the door behind her.

  "How high are we willing to go?" Barry asked.

  Maureen met his gaze. "I like that house."

  "It's not a bad price even at full." He stood and started pacing around the room. "But it's a big decision. Should we be rushing into it like this? Maybe we should take a few days, think about it."

  "We have thought about it. And we've been looking for a while now.

  This is exactly the kind of place we wanted and, as you said, it's a fair price. And if we can get them to lower it even more..."

  Barry looked out the small window. "You're right." He walked over to pour himself some coffee and grimaced as he took a sip. "How much you think they'll counter with?"

  Maureen shrugged. "Who knows? I'm hoping, after all the wrangling's over, that we'll at least be able to knock four or five off."

  He sat back down at the table and they waited for Doris' return.

  A few minutes later, there was a knock, and Doris pushed the door open, walking in. "I called the seller," she said, "and offered ninety-five."

  "And?" Barry prodded.

  Doris smiled. "You've got yourselves a deal."

  The first thing Barry unpacked was the stereo.

  He wasn't used to the quiet, to die absence of cars and sirens and soccer game screams--the sounds of a city on a Saturday--and the silence of the country made him nervous. Besides, he thought, it would be nice to hear some tunes while they unpacked, and he set up the various components while the others continued bringing in boxes from the truck and van.

  He still had cartons of vinyl albums from his college days, and he put on something they could all agree upon—Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick--cranking up the volume and facing the speakers toward the door before walking back outside.

  "Whoa!" Dylan said, grinning. "Head music!"

  Maureen rolled her eyes. She elbowed Barry's side as she headed into the house carrying a pile of clothes. "Thanks a lot."

  She was not thrilled with the fact that Jeremy and Chuck had left their wives back in California, or that Dylan had come at all, but they'd elected to rent a giant U-Haul truck rather than hire movers, and mere was no way the two of them could have loaded and unloaded everything themselves.

  Jeremy pulled a dripping six-pack out of the ice chest in his now nearly empty van. "Unpacking fuel!" he announced. "Get it while it's cold!"

  The rest of them took a break while Barry made up for lost time and started unloading the U-Haul, carrying out lamps, chairs, and cartons of kitchen items. Maureen remained inside, trying to find the box containing the pots, pans, and cans of soup she'd intended to heat up for lunch.

  In the driveway, Dylan, Jeremy, and Chuck had finished their beers and were tossing cans back into the van.

  "That hit the spot," Chuck said.

  "Sure you don't want one?" Jeremy called out.

  Barry shook his head, and Jeremy closed the lid of the ice chest.

  "Cool!" Dylan said. "Look at this!" He pointed over at the house's mailbox, a rural rounded red-flagger situated on top of a short pole.

  Like Barry, Dylan had probably only seen such mailboxes in movies, and Barry watched as his Mend walked over, flipped the little red flag up and down, then leaned forward and pulled open the metal door.

  He leaped back. "Jesus!"

  "What is it?" Barry asked, hurrying over.

  Dylan didn't answer, but Barry immediately saw for himself. A dead cat had been shoved into the mailbox, and its twisted head and crooked paws were facin
g outward, the blood-matted fur crawling with ants. A line of the insects was marching into the empty hole that had been the animal's right eye. The smell was disgusting, and he instinctively stepped back, covering his nose.

  Jeremy and Chuck showed up behind them and peeked in.

  "Probably just kids," Chuck said.

  Jeremy whistled and shook his head. "Pretty sick kids."

  Barry looked around, saw that Maureen was still in the house, and quickly closed the mailbox door. "Don't say anything to Mo," he said.

  "She'll freak about this. I'll just clean it out later. I don't want to stress her out on our first day here."

  Chuck and Jeremy nodded as Dylan saluted smartly. "Yes, boss," he said.

  "Come on. Let's finish unpacking."

  With all three of them working, they were able to pull out the big furniture--the couches and dressers and bookcases and beds--swearing as they attempted to maneuver the bulkier objects through the house's front door. They stopped for lunch, eating soup and crackers on the upper deck, then went immediately back to work, but the dead cat remained at the forefront of Barry's mind. He had no idea how he was going to get the animal out. The mailbox was too small to handle a shovel--his preferred method for disposing of dead animals--and the only thing he could think of to do was put on a pair of rubber gloves and pull out the body. He had no idea if the dead cat had any diseases, if handling a rotting corpse like that would spread contamination, and he decided he would do it this afternoon, have one of his friends help him while the other two kept Maureen occupied.

  But Maureen was with them throughout the rest of the day, carrying the smaller boxes, jumping into the back of the truck to decide what would go into the house and what would go into storage, directing them where to put what.

  They made an effort to put the bigger items in their permanent places, but the rest of the stuff they simply piled against various walls, making sure there were still walk able pathways as the piles grew out into the centers of the rooms. The leftover furniture that had come with die house was shoved into the two small bedrooms. It would be sold at a garage sale eventually, and whatever didn't sell would be donated to Goodwill or Salvation Army or whatever thrift store they had in this town. Maureen told Dylan, Chuck, and Jeremy that if there was anything they wanted, they should feel free to take it.