The Clocktower

By Leo Elliott

At ten o’clock the bell rings loud, and the people in the town all prepare to go to sleep. The

doors shut, and the children tucked in, and the hats hung on hooks in mudrooms, and over thes in every room a soft lullaby plays.

 One by one and then all at once, the windows of houses lose their lights, and the last bird singing in the town square by the Clocktower falls silent for the night.

 At eleven o’clock the bell chimes again, and the violins over the speakers fade, and the mothers and fathers in every house get up off the couches where they’ve been watching the news and stretch and say they’d better call it a day.

 At eleven thirty the bell chimes more quietly, and twelve men in black suits and felt hats exit the Clocktower and begin to whisper through the dark to one another.

 “Rick, you take Seven. I’ll go to Nine.”

 “I thought it was Carl’s night for Nine?”

 “Carl’s mother lives in Nine.”

 “Right.”

 The Clocktower, three times as tall as any other building in the horizon, stands at the center of the town square, and three streets branch off from each side of the square. An ancient oak tree stands at each corner, the roots of these trees pushing up the cobblestone that paves the town’s streets and square.

 The men each approach a street, flashlights in hand. “Channel six, boys,” calls a man named Terry into the open night. Twelve handheld radios buzz to life, just barely crackling in the near silence.

 Rick, on his way to Street Number Seven, trips on a pushed-up cobblestone and lands on his knees, yelling in surprise. His coworker walking toward Street Number Six hisses at him to shut up, and a little red light attached to his radio, which has fallen an arm’s length away, blinks on. “Strike Ten,” says a mechanical voice from the small machine.

 Rick winces and stands and glances behind him and then scoops his radio up. He dusts off his knees and straightens his hat and walks to the gate of Street Number Seven. With the press of a button on his radio, the gate swings open, loudly creaking, and Rick pauses to listen for a little mechanical voice saying “Strike Eleven,” but he hears only the footsteps of his fellow Clockmen fading away down their respective streets. He steps through the gate and leaves it open, and he takes a deep breath of cold air and clicks off his flashlight.

 Each Clockman holds his radio up to his ear and tunes in to channel six. The voice of the man who rings the bells on the hour comes on. “As you all know, the most recent numbers are in.” A pause, a shuffle of papers. “In September, we had one-hundred percent adherence to Schedule.”

 Rick can hear the applause of the Clockmen on Streets Six and Eight.

 “As of March Sixth, we are only at ninety-one percent adherence to Schedule. That’s a nine percent drop in only six months. Nine percent! A 1.5 percent decrease per month! And not at the fault of the tower. The bells have been exactly on time every hour of every day.”

 No applause fills the silence after that statement.

 “In a hundred years, we’ve never seen a 1.5% decrease per month. I don’t know how we’ve let this go on so long. In another six months, we may as well not have a Schedule. No Schedule, no economy, no town, no civilization. Do you understand?”

 Rick can hear cheers from coworkers in surrounding streets. Rick does not join them.

 “The corrective tasks you’ve been given may seem extreme, but drastic steps must be taken to preserve trust in the Schedule.”

 The clock rings out. It’s midnight. The Bellringer’s voice comes back on the radios. “Six individuals are still out of bed. This is unheard of. Go forth and fix this. Be in bed by the Second.”

 The radios return to static.

 In each Clockman’s pocket is a slip of paper, folded up a couple of times, and each reaches into his pocket and takes his paper out, unfolding it and shining a light to the words scribbled on it.

Carl, now on Street Number Three, reads his paper aloud to himself: “One Less.” He smiles and slips it back into his pocket, and he walks quickly to a house at the end of the street. He knows the door will be unlocked.

 Terry, already halfway down Street Number One, holds a now-crumpled paper that reads “Flames” in one hand and a box of matches in the other, and he digs a hole in the ground with a fence post he’s broken outside the yard of House Seventeen.

 Thomas, on Street Number Nine, throws stones from a driveway at Carl’s mother’s house, and smiles with each windowpane he breaks, his card reading “Shards” safe in his pocket.

 Rick’s paper alone has a longer phrase. He whispers it over and over, trying to make it sound better to himself. “Seven must be half past three.” He sits on the road with his back against a fence, his paper in hand, and tilts his head up to look at the sky, twinkling with a million bright, distant clocks that he can never hope to read.

 Rick wakes from a nap he’s sure he didn’t take and breathes in the smell of smoke, and a moment later he registers the screams that must’ve woken him up. The family in House Seventeen on Street One is already dead from the fire from Terry’s matches and dug-up gas line, they just don’t know it yet.

 Rick tries to tune out the smoke and the quieting screams and he hears the last window on Street Number Nine

shattering faintly. A few moments later, he hears a gate creak, and he knows Thomas is back at the Clocktower, preparing to go to his dorm and sleep.

 Street Number three is missing some things: there’s one less mailbox lining the road, and one less picket on every white-painted fence, and one less log in every fireplace, and Carl drags something very still and human-shaped away from the house at the end of the street and into the woods that border the town.

 The clock strikes one thirty, just barely audible over the chaos, and a second little red light on Rick’s radio blinks on. “Strike Eleven,” says the mechanical voice, and Rick feels his heart sink into his stomach.

 He knows exactly what his paper is asking, but he flips a switch on his radio anyway and frantically speaks on channel three. His voice is so shaky that he can barely understand himself. “Hello? This is Street Number Seven. Request for help interpreting instruction. Over.”

 After a moment, the Bellringer speaks. “Channel six, Rick.” he sighs. “No matter. Seven must become half past three. Eliminate half. You’re late. Over.”

 Rick looks up and down Street Number Seven and down at the last unlit light on his radio, and he throws the radio at the ground. “No.”

 He picks it up again and rubs the dust off of it, sorry for the new scratch he’s put in the plastic.

 Twenty houses on Street Number Seven. Fifty people on each side. A hundred people sound asleep, ninety-one of them following the Schedule perfectly. Rick looks left and right and left and right again, trying to choose which side to destroy, and finally he crosses the street from his spot by the fence and draws a knife from a pocket inside his suit jacket. He rings the doorbell of House Number One and waits.

 Martha Clark opens the door, dressed in a nightgown and rubbing her eye. She looks at Rick, looks at the knife he holds, and smiles, unbothered. “Welcome! What can I do for you on this fine morning?” Her voice is sweet and her words are rehearsed.

 Then Martha Clark looks out past Rick and sees that it’s night. “Oh, dear,” she says quietly, her face contorting in confusion. “Oh dear, oh dear. I’ve never seen it like this.” She takes a step back into her house. “I must be off schedule. Oh dear.” She holds her head in her hands and looks up at Rick. “You’ve got to help me. This is terrible. When did the clock last ring? I shouldn’t be awake!”

 She turns, starts to run back into her house, but Rick grabs her arm and turns her to face him, and he brings his knife up to her throat.

 Martha Clark does not scream, does not seem to feel the blade on her skin. “Please, sir. I’m terribly off schedule. This is bad. Very, very bad.”

 Rick lowers his knife, unable to use it, unable to eliminate even just one of fifty, and he looks at the ground and misses his pocket the first time he reaches for his paper. He takes it out, still folded up, and moves to hand it to her, but on his radio, now in his other pocket, the third little light turns on, and all three lights flash on and off and on and off again. “Strike Twelve. Midnight,” says the mechanical voice, muffled against his fabric.

 Martha Clark blinks, and Rick has disappeared, in his place only an open front door and the terrifying night. She closes the door and she hurries upstairs, muttering “Schedule, schedule, schedule, oh dear,” as she takes the steps two at a time.

At two o’clock the bell rings out over a silent town, and eleven Clockmen are safe in their beds in the dorms of the Clocktower. Martha Clark is sound asleep.

 At six o’clock the bell marks the beginning of March Ninth, and one by one and then all at once the lights in the houses turn on.

 Over the speakers in every room in every house, the voice of the Bellringer speaks loud and clear. “Good morning, citizens.” There’s a pause, and in every house all the people answer their unheard “Good morning”s to the Bellringer.

 “Tragedy seems to have struck last night. Among less significant incidents, a fire broke out on Street Number One, and we’ve unfortunately lost a precious five. All of the windows on Street Number Nine have been shattered, and all of the basements on Street Number Two flooded. The body of a woman from Street Number Three was found by our Clockmen in the woods outside of town early this morning. We suspect vandals. Let us have a moment of silence.”

In every room in every house in the town, it’s quiet.

 “Remember: Following the Schedule brings order. When there is order, no one can hurt us. When there is not order, bad people can get in. Our Clockmen are hard at work looking for those responsible, and we do not believe there is any remaining threat so long as we are all diligent.” Inside the Clocktower, the Clockmen are still sound asleep.

 People around town breathe sighs of relief.

“I cannot stress enough that there is no current threat, but out of an abundance of caution, we must hire an additional Clockman. Those interested should arrive to the Tower at nine tonight. Have a productive day, citizens, and be on time.” With that, the broadcast ends.

 At six-thirty, the bell rings out, and in every house in the town, fathers put on their hats and coats and kiss their wives goodbye and leave for work. Mothers instruct the children to begin getting ready for school.

 At nine that night, when the bell rings out, a man called Charlie in a gray suit and hat, full of nerves, knocks on the door of the tower. He does not return home.

 When the bell rings out at ten at night on March twelfth, the Bellringer announces the newest numbers. “One-hundred percent adherence to Schedule!” he says to the Clockmen with pride.

 The people in the town all prepare to go to sleep. The doors are shut, and the children tucked in, and the hats hung on hooks in mudrooms, and over the speakers in every room a soft lullaby plays.