He stepped out into an arena.
It threw him for a moment, and for several disorienting seconds he did not know where he was or what he was looking at. Then everything sort of clicked into place. He saw the dirt floor strewn with bloody sawdust, the high surrounding walls, the circle of filled amphitheater seats above. The arena was nearly the size of a football stadium. As big as it was, there was no way Calhoun's house could accommodate something this large, yet here it stood, and as Barry looked up into the stands, he saw that all of his neighbors were here, all of the residents of Bonita Vista, dressed in suits and gowns and formal attire.
The ceiling was some sort of skylight, and through its translucent safety-wired glass Barry could see occasional flashes of far-off lightning. The lightning was accompanied by low rolling thunder. The only illumination within the arena itself came from a series of lanterns and torches lining the curved wall behind the last ring of seats. In the center of the sawdust-covered floor, hanging by a hook from a tall bamboo post, was one additional light, a lantern in the shape of a--human head.
His breath catching in his throat, Barry squinted into the dimness. It not only looked like a head, he was pretty sure it was a head. He saw flickering flames behind partially parted lips, through the empty sockets of missing eyes. He moved forward, not wanting his suspicions confirmed but needing to know.
It was Dylan.
He could see, as he drew closer, the specific features of his friend's face thrown into silhouette by the orange fire burning inside the hollowed-out skull.
He wanted to scream, wanted to lash out and hurt someone, wanted to blow up this whole fucking building and everyone in it. He looked up into the stands, saw expressions of excitement and anticipation on the faces of women he'd seen jogging by the house, couples he'd seen playing tennis. From a ringside seat off to the side, Mike waved, shouted: 'We're all behind you, man.' Next to him, Tina nodded.
They were not behind him, he knew. They were not here to show their support.
They wanted to see blood.
The Stewarts had already turned away, were talking to Frank and Audrey and another woman Barry did not recognize. All of them laughed.
He looked again at the lantern made from Dylan's head, remembered all the good times they'd had together, remembered when they'd first met in a junk course on the history of science-fiction films, remembered the nights they'd spent hanging out in Minderbinder's before he'd gotten married, remembered the time they'd double-dated two sisters who'd gotten into a screaming hair-pulling fight with one another in the middle of a Suzanne Vega concert.
'Dylan,' he whispered.
There was movement in the darkness beyond, some sort of commotion at the opposite end of the arena. Frowning, Barry stepped past the lantern Dylan head --in order to see more clearly.
And beheld Jasper Calhoun, standing in front of the far wall.
Waiting.
As if on cue, the rumbling thunder intensified, the storm promised by the previously intermittent lightning now arrived.
Calhoun looked over at him, grinning. Sequential bursts of increasingly bright lightning exploded above the thick glass of the skylight ceiling, and during each flash the president's face seemed to ... change. Briefly. For an instant. Above Calhoun, in box seats lining the north edge of the arena, the other board members also appeared to be temporarily transformed, as though, during their brief seconds of existence, the lightning bolts were somehow able to reveal the true nature of those evil old men.
No, that's what would be happening in one of his novels. That's not what was happening here.
Calhoun's face shifted ... shifted back.
Barry had to fight the urge to run away. His desire must have been obvious because all of a sudden Mike and Frank and several other men in their section of the stands started chanting, 'Article Ninety! Article Ninety!' It was clear that they were urging the combatants to begin the battle, demanding an immediate start to the match, and the cry was taken up around the amphitheater: 'Article Ninety! Article Ninety!
Article Ninety!' The rounded concrete walls seemed to amplify random crowd conversations above, and beneath the chant he heard bets being made on the fight's outcome, heard hopeful expectations for gruesome bloodletting.
He continued to face the opposite end of the ring. Calhoun was wearing his ridiculous robes, and Barry was glad. The bulky garments would limit the old man's movements, he thought. The president would not be able to move freely either offensively or defensively.
Who was he kidding? Calhoun was a monster. There was no way in hell the two of them were evenly matched. This fight would not be happening if there was even the slightest possibility that Calhoun could lose. It was rigged, the outcome guaranteed. Barry knew that the deck was stacked against him, and if he were to come out of this in one piece, he needed to quickly figure a way out of here..
He turned around, saw volunteers standing in the doorway through which he'd come, blocking that exit. There didn't seem to be any doorway on Calhoun's side of the ring, and the wall surrounding them was too high to scale-assuming he could get through the well-dressed crowd if it wasn't.
For the first time, he wondered what would happen if he was killed, what they would do with his body. Would Maureen be informed? Would he appear to have been the victim of an accident, or would he just disappear, his whereabouts never to be known, leaving Maureen and his unborn son or daughter forever in the dark? Would a lantern made from his head decorate this hellish arena?
He should have told her about this, he thought. He should have at least written and mailed a letter so she would know the truth.
Suddenly Jasper Calhoun raised both of his hands, and the activity of the spectators halted, their chanting and myriad conversations stopping instantly. Even the thunder ceased, and though Barry knew that was a coincidence, it still made him feel uneasy. The president smiled at him from across the ring, then clapped his hands twice.
Paul Henri, dressed once again in livery, emerged from between the five board members and stepped to the edge of the wall. He blew on some sort of trumpet whose notes were lost to the air, but his voice, when he spoke, could be heard clearly. 'Let the games begin!'
With a roar, Calhoun came at him, robes flapping like the wings of some crazed black bird. Barry felt an instinctive rush of primal fear. His first impulse was to run, to duck left or right, get out of the way, but he held his ground and punched into the oncoming figure, experiencing a grim satisfaction as his fist connected with what felt like the president's stomach.
He hadn't anticipated such an abrupt attack. He'd half expected to have the ground rules spelled out, to be told beforehand what was and was not acceptable, maybe even to shake hands and count off ten paces before turning to fight, but apparently all was fair in war and an association dispute, and he knew now that he'd better use whatever dirty tricks or underhanded techniques he could--because Calhoun certainly would.
He'd hit the old man with everything he had, putting weight and momentum behind his punch, but the president barely seemed to feel it.
He lurched sideways, then turned, lashing out with hands that looked more like claws. Barry was only just able to avoid their reach, and then Calhoun head-butted him hard in the face.
He felt his nose explode. Blood flooded into his throat and shards of bone seemed to shoot under the skin of his cheeks like needles.
He fell backward onto the sawdust and heard rather than felt his head hit the hard-packed dirt below: a sharp whip crack that cut off with a dull solid thud.
He looked up and saw a double ring of faces looking over the edge, all of them yelling and cheering wildly. His gaze happened upon Curtis, the gate guard, and Frank. Both of them were smiling cruelly, happy to see him in pain.
The arena shook as an explosion louder and clearer than the background thunder, a noise that sounded like too-close cannon fire, rocked the building. Lightning had hit the skylight, cracking the thick safety glass, and through a fracture in the ceiling, rainwater began leaking down in a dripping curtain that bisected the ring, soaked the
