Black Mad Wheel. Josh Malerman
his jacket pocket. He places them firmly in his ears.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen. The sound is about to begin and I can’t stomach hearing it another time. Please forgive me in advance.”
“What?” Philip asks.
Mull adjusts his earplugs.
“Hang on a minute,” Duane says, holding out a black palm toward Mull. “How bad can it be?”
Philip looks to Ross as Ross falls to his knees by the playback speaker.
“Ross?”
He looks back to Mull, sees the military man has adopted a new expression, one of study.
Philip throws up.
He hardly felt it coming and he looks to his lap, sees the bronze sheen of booze. He grips the soft arms of the control room chair.
The sound, Philip understands, has begun.
But does he hear it?
He feels sick. Drunk sick. Worse. Stronger. Like his skin is now made of leather. He’s sweating. Colors, gray and black, snake in his belly. He’s bringing a hand to his forehead.
The others are covering their ears. Larry looks like he’s been hurt.
Philip opens his mouth to say something and saliva pours from his lips. Feels like he’s going to vomit again. Larry gets up to leave the control room but can’t bring his hands from his ears long enough to open the door. He wobbles, falls against the wall for support. Vertigo.
Duane is on his side on the ground.
Mull leans back in the engineer’s chair, patient, with folded hands. His eyes reveal that he knows exactly what the Danes are experiencing. He’s experienced it himself.
The inimitable sensation of fingertips in Philip’s ears. He turns fast. Nobody there.
Mull smiles without mirth. Nods.
What do you think it is? he seems to ask. What is it, Philip?
Philip is shaking his head no.
I don’t know. I don’t understand. It’s not a sound. It’s a feeling.
But it is a sound. Listen.
Philip strains for it … an ear to the speakers …
… there is a sound.
It’s more than one note, Philip thinks, staring Mull in the eye. A chord.
He’s trying to raise his fingers to play the chord on an unseen piano before him. But he can barely move, barely lift his arm.
The sound is more of a flood than a reverberation. More like something coming toward him than a song. As if the air it travels upon is scorched, rendered black, leaving a trail as wide as the studio, and maybe the entire city beyond the studio walls.
Larry falls to his knees by the front door. Ross rolls to his side on the carpeted floor of Wonderland.
Are they speaking? The other Danes? Are they telling Mull to turn it off?
From the ground, Ross reaches for the control panel.
Mull watches all of this. Silent. Patient.
Philip throws up again.
Duane rolls onto his belly. Ross’s fingers are contorted, arthritic bones testing the flesh of his hands …
Philip hears a chord, three successive half steps played at once, as if someone has flattened their hand upon a piano. He’s done it himself, drunk, playing for girls, trying to make them laugh; a flat hand was funnier than a melody; but it’s a mean sound, the three notes no superstitious musician will play at once.
Philip tries to say that, tries to open his mouth. Then—
The sound stops.
And for a beat there is only the silence of men trying to process what they’ve endured.
The vertigo has passed. The sickness is gone.
“Jesus Christ,” Larry says, getting again to his feet. “No way. I’m out.”
Mull nods. He’s expected this response.
Ross brings the wastebasket close like he’s going to puke. He gags instead.
Duane is standing unsteadily in the center of the room.
“What was that?” he asks, out of breath.
Mull looks to Philip.
“Private Tonka said it’s a chord. Did you all hear it that way?”
Philip is shaking his head no.
“I didn’t say that.”
Mull smiles coldly.
“Sure you did.”
“No, Secretary. I didn’t.” Philip is sitting up. “I didn’t say that at all. I thought it.”
Mull shakes his head no.
“You made a sound, Private Tonka. And I heard it. Am I wrong? Did you not think it was a chord?”
Philip looks from bandmate to bandmate, finally back to Mull.
“I did,” he says. “I heard a chord.”
As the other Danes debate what they heard, Philip stares Mull in the eye.
You made a sound, Private Tonka. And I heard it. Am I wrong?
Philip breathes deep and thinks of Africa. Thinks of two platoons, unable to find a sound that changes how a man feels, changes how he listens, changes how he speaks, too.
“Three hours,” Mull says, rising, handing each a small pile of documents. The military man’s number is written in pen on the papers. “Three hours to tell me whether or not you’re going to Africa.” He removes the reel from the machine and tucks it into the inside pocket of his suit coat. “I’ve already told Private Tonka that we plan to pay you for this mission. But perhaps I failed to say how much.”
The Danes, still recovering, wait.
“One hundred thousand apiece,” Mull says. “Four hundred thousand for the band.” He adjusts his suit coat. “I’m not one for theatrical exits, but the stakes here are rather high. If it is a weapon, maybe the four of you can stop it from being used.” He steps to the door. “Three hours, gentlemen. We expect a decision by then.”
Ellen watches Philip from behind the glass of the nurses’ station. She’s observed him every day for six months, and it’s still shocking to see him this way. Awake. Blinking. The subtle movement of his lips. The sweat at his black hairline. When the orderlies Carl and Jerry wheeled him into the Observation Room, Carl mentioned that Philip was in a rock ’n’ roll band. The Danes. Jerry said he never heard of them.
But maybe Ellen has. The name rings a bell, sparks something, but she can’t think of what it is. Maybe it’s just because Presley has a hound dog.
The Danes.
Ellen thought he was going to die. It’s how the nurses view most of the patients who’re brought to Macy Mercy. Comatose. Or near. And near death, too. So close you can feel it when you walk the halls, day or night; a black fog, formless fingers reaching for the doors of each unit, capable of opening them, prepared to pull the life from the still, barely, living. Why, just the day before Philip woke, the patient in Unit 9 died. His vital signs had looked promising; the chances of a recovery were being considered. The nurses agreed he was looking much better than Philip himself, and yet … those