Inspection

by Josh Malerman

  “Milwaukee,” he said, shaking, rooted to the floor as if his soles had been glued.

  D.A.D. stopped. He stared at L’s lips as if L had allowed Rotts to pour forth. L could tell D.A.D. had heard the word before. But that didn’t change the dumb slack-jawed look of the man. As if hearing the word from L’s mouth had hurt him deeply, had done something terrible to his mind….

  * * *

  —

  …“BAR,” N SAID. “Neighborhood bar. Horny. Alley. Milwaukee.”…

  * * *

  —

  …“CAB,” P SAID. “Cabdriver. Milwaukee. Bar. Whiskey.”

  “What else?” D.A.D. asked. But he hadn’t really asked it. It was more like a snake made of letters had slid over his teeth.

  “America,” P said. “And the U.S. of A.”…

  * * *

  —

  …“I HAVEN’T READ it at all,” B said. “Not one word. I’m sorry. I was studying. I was—”

  “Not one word?”

  D.A.D. was standing against the glass door that kept the dogs in.

  “I’m sorry, D.A.D. I just hadn’t had time yet.”

  D.A.D. studied the boy in complete silence for two excruciating minutes. Long enough for Collins and Jeffrey to steal a sideways glance before quickly looking ahead again, fearful lest Richard threaten them with the Corner next….

  * * *

  —

  …“I DIDN’T LIKE it,” E said. “It scared me.”

  “What did. What part.”

  No question marks at the end of D.A.D.’s questions. Just flat remarks spoken in a voice E did not recognize at all.

  “I only made it a page deep. I just didn’t like the voice.”

  “What voice.”

  D.A.D. looked terrible. Pale. Sweating. Tired. He sat in a chair not two feet from the boy, his bare arms crossed over the chair back.

  “You know,” E said. “The author’s voice.”

  Something distant sparkled in D.A.D.’s eyes. “You mean…you didn’t appreciate the artistry?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  For a flash-beat it appeared that D.A.D. was himself again: strong, intelligent, in control. Then the old him was gone, replaced once again by someone whose eyes betrayed the possibility that the mind behind them had cracked….

  * * *

  —

  …“I DIDN’T ENTER the bar, no,” Q struggled to say. “I just didn’t make it that far.”

  D.A.D. was kneeling above the boy. Q was on his back. Blood dripped from his split lip.

  D.A.D. had punched him. It was all Q could think, on repeat.

  D.A.D. punched me….

  * * *

  —

  …“ENTER THE BAR?” S asked. “Do you mean to ask if Robert entered the bar?”

  D.A.D. was upon him so fast that S almost laughed, thinking the madman rushing toward him must be kidding. Must be coming to show kindness, jocularity, affection.

  But that’s not what happened. Before S could raise his arms to protect himself, before he could duck, D.A.D. had him by the back of the neck and was pressing his head against the rubber-soled mats.

  “Did you enter the bar?”

  S couldn’t speak, his lips mashed against the rubber.

  “Rich—” Collins began, but D.A.D. looked up at him so quick that his glare seemed to cut the word in half.

  “Tell me, S,” D.A.D. said. “Tell us.”

  “No,” S finally got out. “I didn’t enter the bar.”

  “Why not?”

  S was crying. All the Alphabet Boys had cried today. Every one so far.

  “I was too scared to see the person up close.”

  “What person?”

  “The person Robert entered the bar to talk to.”

  “Why were you scared?”

  S cried. Tears pooled on the mat where the soles of his naked feet should be.

  “I didn’t want to know what Robert wanted to confess.”

  D.A.D. let him go. S rolled onto his side.

  “Is that okay?” S asked. “Am I going to…the Corner?”

  Part of S, the majority, expected D.A.D. to smile, to plant a hand on his shoulder, to laugh and to say, Don’t worry, S, of course not the Corner, why would you be sent to the Corner, this is all a misunderstanding and you’ll see, very soon, how sensible it truly is, how much sense it really makes.

  But D.A.D. didn’t do that. Instead, he stared back at S questioningly…as if he were saying, I don’t know…are you?…

  * * *

  —

  …“HOW FAR DID you get into the book, J?”

  J, who had spent the morning quarantined from the other boys, who had been sent for, who had been marched down the first-floor hall past the other twenty-three Alphabet Boys, hadn’t heard the shouts from within the Check-Up room. But he saw the faces of his brothers. Saw the fear and heard the silence. Saw the blood on more than one of them. Felt a horror swirling in his gut greater than what he’d felt last night upon being found by Collins in the Yard. And he knew that no matter what D.A.D. asked him beyond the metal door, he was not to tell him about Warren Bratt’s book. Not because of the note on page 1 that D.A.D. himself had signed, but because what he’d read in the book resonated more with J than anything D.A.D. had ever taught him.

  “Page one,” J said. “Your note. No further.”

  D.A.D. stared at him, studied him in a way J had only seen in the faces of the dogs. Like if he smelled something he shouldn’t smell, the man might suddenly bite him.

  “Page one,” D.A.D. echoed. “And why did you climb the ladder down to the Yard, J?”

  J did not look to Inspector Collins. He knew very well that nobody was going to help him here but himself.

  “I wanted to see how far the trees go.”

  “That’s what you told us last night. What you told us this morning.”

  “Yes, well…”

  “I don’t like that, J.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you tell it the same way every time.”

  J still did not look to the Inspectors. Not to the salivating dogs behind the glass, either.

  “Let them out,” D.A.D. said.

  Jeffrey unlatched the door. The dogs came forth. They smelled J’s hands. His legs. His feet.

  In that moment J told himself it didn’t matter. None of this. Let the dogs say he was lying.

  A boy, he thought, has needs.

  But the dogs tired of him and trotted back to the Inspectors.

  Collins and Jeffrey remained ice-sculpture still and seemed to melt with sweat.

  D.A.D. only stared from across the Check-Up room. J thought his eyes might crack. Like eyes made of ice, too…

  * * *

  —

  …“I READ THE whole thing,” D said. “Every single word.”

  Collins audibly groaned. D.A.D. exhaled as though he’d found proof, at last, of the affair he’d so long suspected, the lie he hadn’t wanted to be true, but the lie he’d wanted so desperately to prove.

  “Every word,” D.A.D. echoed. Loss in his eyes. Pain. A door, too. One D had re-created in the Yard.

  The Corner.

  “Yes.”

  “And why? Why did you read an entire book in one sitting? Was it so…good?”

  D smiled. “Because it’s the best book I’ve ever read,” he said. “Because it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever heard.” He paused, eyeing the floor as though looking through it, as though seeing the Corner itself. “Because, D.A.D….” A tear fell from his eye, splashing upon the rubber mat, just like the rubber mats he’d stood upon barefoot and naked, every morning of his life. “Because finally…it sounded like a truth.”

  Panic

  The Body Hall. R
ichard in black at the pulpit. Black slacks, black coat, black gloves. Black hair, black beard, black eyes.

  Black voice.

  Black words.

  Almost the entire staff in attendance. Every cook. Both accountants. The men who ran the printing press. Almost all the Alphabet Boys, too.

  No Warren Bratt and the men hired to bring him back.

  No D.

  “Panic,” Richard said, his voice still hoarse from the Inspections but infused with the righteousness that follows a threatened vision.

  Prior to entering the Body Hall, as the horrified Alphabet Boys were shuttled into the pews by the staff, Richard had gone to the basement. Past the printing press, Richard eyed the red arrow and letters painted on the cobblestone wall: GLASGOW TUNNEL. RICHARD ONLY.

  The letters of his name looked paltry at first glance, as if he’d overlooked the design, as if he’d overlooked every single aspect and element of the Parenthood, as if he’d gotten lazy, as if he’d destroyed his dream, as if he’d—

  “FUCK!”

  He’d slammed a gloved hand against the stone and turned at the arrow, entering the pitch-black of his private tunnel.

  “Panic,” Richard repeated, gripping the podium now. No singing before this speech. No Voices. “I’ve always hated the word. For more reasons than we have time for, but allow me to scratch the surface.”

  His voice echoed off the high ceiling the same way his boots had echoed off the tunnel below moments before.

  The same way another pair of boots had echoed coming toward him down that same tunnel.

  “It implies, of course, that one has lost control. That one has let the world get the best of him. But do you have any idea how unhealthy serenity is? Do you have any idea how much damage it can do?” He paused, wild-eyed. “I don’t mind worry. Worry is very, very good. The problem, boys…” The word boys made him feel temporarily dizzy. Still his? Still his boys? “The problem is when worry becomes panic. For panic is a bad boy. Spoiled all the way through.”

  Ahead, in the dark tunnel, a light had come on. By its illumination, Richard could make out the Plexiglas wall at the tunnel’s center point. The shape of a figure standing very still on the other side. Richard knew the disappointed posture well.

  “Panic!” Richard yelled now, so loud that all twenty-three Alphabet Boys in black recoiled at the static breakup of the PA. “What do you see when you hear the word? Do you see bricks falling from the Turret like I do? Do you see the spires falling point first into the Yard?”

  In the tunnel, he did not speak till he reached the Plexiglas. And even then he did not speak first.

  How many are spoiled? the shadowed figure on the other side of the glass wall asked.

  One read the entire book.

  Then…silence. Not because even losing one was terrible, but because it was clear Richard did not yet know the answer to the question.

  “What year is it?” he asked now, his voice booming in the Body Hall. “How far have we traveled into the future, a future we once glimpsed? There are great builders, inventors, thinkers behind us. And did they not experience panic, too? And should we expect the same to destroy us? Why? Why should we be punished by the same thing that propelled so many before us? We have history to warn us, to show us how not to behave, what not to do, how to avoid panic. Yet…here we are. Trying so hard to gain control again. Trying to put bricks back into a falling wall.”

  Do you believe the others? the figure had asked. Through the Plexiglas wall, the voice sounded tinny, small, young. But Richard knew better. The explosive force inherent in those syllables was strong enough to topple the tower.

  I don’t know.

  Shouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you know your boys better than you know anything in the world?

  “Between my own foolish youth and the lives of people I’ve known, I’ve learned that panic steals. Panic scars. Once a man feels panic, he will never again face a challenge without some amount of fear. Once a man has known true hot fright, he will forget the fixed face of security. Because panic, real panic, is a state of mind that is larger than the thinker. It shrinks the thinker. It makes the thinker small! And once a man discovers something bigger than himself, he must be awed by it. And what is awe if not reverence? And what is reverence if not respect? And what is respect if not adherence to the laws of that which you respect? Oh, boys. I cannot say we must not panic, because we already have. And in doing so, we have seen the face of fear. But I wonder…does this face teach us something? Can we learn from it? Can we determine when a face like it might come again? Can we predict similar faces?”

  I know my boys.

  But you can’t tell who is lying?

  No. I cannot.

  The figure on the other side of the Plexiglas pondered this. Richard waited.

  Have you considered—static accompanied the words through the small speaker—that a fictional woman is not the same thing as a real one?

  Richard was surprised by the question.

  Of course I haven’t. Once a boy has knowledge of a woman in any way, any form, the experiment is void.

  Is it, though? Would a snake fail to achieve its potential if it was simply shown a drawing of a mongoose?

  “Whether we set out to break the rules intentionally or we do not, once a rule is broken it cannot be glued back together. You did not ask for this book. Yet each of you could sense that it wasn’t right…wasn’t something you should possess. I cannot fault those of you who moved slow through its pages, despite believing it to be diseased. I cannot blame you boys for turning pages the way you might turn corners in this very building, to see what is making the sound down the hall. But I can punish those who did not see the disgusting essence therein. And certainly those who celebrated it.

  “D has confessed he’s read the entire book. It remains to be determined if D is spoiled rotten.”

  But what of the words her and woman? Richard asked through the glass wall in the tunnel.

  Gibberish. To them. But take D away. Weigh what to do. D’s disappearance will reestablish your grip on the Turret. Do you understand?

  Of course.

  Can you do it?

  Of course.

  “D told me the truth, and I did the same in return. He described the book, and his thirst for more, in great detail. I asked him, if given the option, knowing what he knows now, knowing that the Parenthood had been deceived, would he read it again? D told me he would. I do not blame him for his curiosity. But I can punish him for his heartless mutiny. He described the book as better than any dinner, better than any shower, better than any sleep. I asked him why he would read the book again if given the option, and he told me, There are things we have to do, even if you told us not to.”

  Carry on, then, Richard. And through the Inspections you will discover who else may be hiding something. If there is more to hide. Let’s hope the book is all they’ve encountered.

  Is there any question?

  “Are any of you spoiled? Any boy in this room?” Richard paused. For effect and nothing besides. He eyed the boys in black. His boys. Yes. Still his boys. Scared to immobility. Their eyes as wide as the biggest cherries in the Orchard.

  “Have you told me the truth about this book? All of you? I leave you with a warning.” Richard leaned closer to the microphone, the whiskers of his black beard tickling the mesh head like spider legs. He scanned the young faces. Saw dried blood on Q’s lip. Saw horror in L’s face. Incredulity on J’s. “If something spoils in the Turret, the Parenthood will smell it. And nobody has a better sense of smell than your D.A.D.” Another pause. “If you’ve lied to me today, you will be punished. You will be sent to the Corner. Where you will join your dead brothers, A and Z.”

  A communal gasp from the Alphabet Boys. As if D.A.D. had released Placasores into the Body Hall.

  “We will know if
you’ve lied. No matter where you keep that truth in your mind, no matter how deep you bury it. The Parenthood will know if you’ve lied.”

  Don’t we have a more pressing matter? the figure on the other side of the Plexiglas said.

  What could be more pressing than the sanctity of the boys, my boys?

  Silence from the other half of the Glasgow Tunnel. Strong enough to hear.

  You must find Warren Bratt. Before he tells.

  I’m on it. Of course. I’ve sent—

  Before he tells the world.

  It Came from the Land of Snow

  J lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking of D.

  D was in quarantine. The day after he himself had been. And for what? For having read a book. J had read much more than he’d admitted. Did that make him potentially spoiled rotten, too? What would happen to D? Would D be sent to the Corner? J didn’t feel any different. Did it feel any different to be spoiled rotten? Did it matter?

  At all?

  The idea of D being sent to the Corner was unfathomable. Both A and Z were sent to the Corner at such a young age that the rest of the Alphabet Boys were hardly capable of processing what it meant. But now, at age twelve, they’d had years to imagine what the Corner was like, years to solidify their idea of the boogeyman, years to become permanently afraid.

  J sat up. D.A.D.’s spontaneous speech was horrifying. There was no better word to describe it. The man’s voice sounded different. He looked different. Like a stranger had taken D.A.D.’s place. A man who had been hiding in the Turret for a long time, waiting for his opportunity to emerge.

  He had emerged.

  Q had been hit. T and S assaulted.

  J got out of bed and took the carpeted hall to the living room. Q’s ladder had been taken down the night before, the Parenthood’s way of ensuring J didn’t take another midnight stroll. Why not? No book and now…no walk, either.

  He checked his reflection in the window overlooking the Yard. No sores. No scratches. No rash. No changes at all.