The following is an excerpt fromInspection,the new novel byBird BoxauthorJosh Malerman.
Neither knows the other exists until now.Inspectionpublishes Tuesday and isavailable for pre-order.
Turn, Inspector Collins said.
Credit: Allison Laakko; Del Rey
He and Jeffrey observed from a distance, always the first step of the mornings Inspection.
The dogs breathed heavy behind the glass door beyond the men.
J turned to his left.
He heard the leather of D.A.D.s red jacket stretching.
Winter outside the Turret could be brutal.
Some years were worse than others.
J, nearing his thirteenth birthday along with his twenty-three brothers, had experienced twelve winters.
And with each one, Professor Gulch warned the boys about depression.
Hysteria, J thought.
He shook his head, trying to roll the idea out his ear.
It was a word he didnt like anywhere inside his head.
As if the four syllables had the same properties as Rotts and Moldus, Vees and Placasores.
The very diseases the Inspectors searched him for now.
His gruff voice part and parcel of the Check-Up room.
Like the sound of clacking dishes in the cafeteria.
Or the choral voices of his brothers in the Body Hall.
Cold, J said, turning his back to the Inspectors, facing now the locked door.
J imagined a slit somewhere, a crack in those walls, allowing pre-winter inside.
It was similar, J imagined, to the veterinarians office in Lawrence Luxleys bookDogs and Dog Days.
And still, despite the inhospitable environs, the dogs understood that the room was good for them.
That their lives depended on these regular visits.
Some of them were even able to suppress their basest instincts… the ones that told them to run.
J had memorized all of Lawrence Luxleys books.
Many of the Alphabet Boys had.
J did as he was told.
The routine of the Inspections were as ingrained in his being as chewing before eating.
And with this third turn, he faced D.A.D.
A thrill ran through him, as it always had, twelve years running; to see D.A.D.
for the first time in the day.
Always direct, always athletic.
J wasnt the only Alphabet Boy who equated the mans voice with strength.
I dreamt something terrible.
D.A.D.s hazel eyes shone above his black beard, his black hair, too.
J had black hair.
Just like his D.A.D.
Tell me all about it.
Turn, Collins said.
And J turned to face the Inspectors and the dogs all over again.
Hed been lost in a Yard four hundred times the size of the one he enjoyed every day.
He described the horror of not being able to find his way back to the Turret.
Yes, J told him, yes, hed felt lost in the dream.
Hed somehow strayed too far from the Turret, and the Parenthood within.
He couldnt remember how exactly, the actual pines framing the Yard in were not present in this dream.
But he was certainly very anxious to get back.
He couldnt make out the iron spires that framed the roofs ledge like a lonely bottom row of teeth.
Gone were the finite acres of the Yard, the expanse of green lawn between himself and the Turret.
So were the reflections in the many elongated windows of the many floors.
In their stead was endless green grass.
Well winter is upon us, D.A.D.
His voice was control.
Couldnt even see the fang, hmm?
No sign of the Parenthood at all.
J thought of the yellow door on the roof, visible all the way from the Yard below.
It began the second you walked through the door.
You must have been so scared, D.A.D.
His voice was fatherhood.
But, tell me, did you eventually find the Turret before waking?
J was quiet a moment.
He scratched at his right elbow with his left hand.
He yawned a second time.
Hysteria, he thought again.
He actually made fists, as if to knock the thought out of his head.
For J, it had all sounded like distant impossibilities.
Conditions to be studied for the purpose of study alone.
Certainly J wasnt afraid of one day experiencing theses states of mind himself.
To where the Living Trees grew?
The boy recalled his childhood as though through a glass with residue of milk upon it.
Unable to answer the simple question: where do I come from?
Another Lawrence Luxley line.
A real zinger, as Q would say.
But no, J thought, there in the Check-Up room.
He wasnt trying to answer that question at all.
And as far as J knew, they were fine with that.
No, J finally said.
I never found my way home.
Like all the Alphabet Boys, J felt honored whenever D.A.D.
noted what he said.
And when you woke?
He didnt need to finish his sentence.
It was clear what he was asking for.
I thought it was real.
I thought I was still out there.
Like Id woken in the Yard on my bed.
I looked up, must have seen the ceiling, but I mistook it for more of that fog.
It took me a minute to understand I was just in my bedroom.
stroking his black beard with a gloved hand.
This all happened moments ago, of course, as the call for Inspection woke me.
Do you have a theory on what prompted this dream?
And where had it come from?
Surely he knew this question was coming.
Had he not had time to prepare for it?
Or was it something Q would call deeper.
Of course J knew the right answer to D.A.D.s question.
But for the first time in his life, he didnt feel like telling the truth.
It was a figure, he believed.
At the time, J thought it was A or Z.
He couldnt say why.
And maybe that was good enough reason to lie, J told himself.
and the Inspectors would think he was crazy for suggesting such a thing!
A dead brother hiding behind a tree at night.
