by Stephen King
“This is the beginning, chum,” said a voice from behind them. “Unfortunately, it’s also probably the end.”
2
Luke guessed the newcomer’s age as sixteen, but later found out he was two years high. Nicky Wilholm was tall and blue-eyed, with a head of unkempt hair that was blacker than black and cried out for a double dose of shampoo. He was wearing a wrinkled button-up shirt over a pair of wrinkled shorts, his white athletic socks were at half-mast, and his sneakers were dirty. Luke remembered Maureen saying he was like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strips.
The others were looking at him with wary respect, and Luke instantly got that. Kalisha, Iris, and George were no more happy to be here than Luke was himself, but they were trying to keep it positive; except for the moment when Iris had wavered, they gave off a slightly goofy making-the-best-of-it vibe. That wasn’t the case with this guy. Nicky didn’t look angry now, but it was clear he had been in the not-too-distant past. There was a healing cut on his swollen lower lip, the fading remains of a black eye, and a fresh bruise on one cheek.
A brawler, then. Luke had seen a few in his time, there were even a couple at the Broderick School. He and Rolf steered clear of them, but if this place was the prison Luke was beginning to suspect it was, there would be no way to steer clear of Nicky Wilholm. But the other three didn’t seem to be afraid of him, and that was a good sign. Nicky might be pissed off at whatever purpose lay behind that bland Institute name, but with his mates he just seemed intense. Focused. Still, those marks on his face suggested unpleasant possibilities, especially if he wasn’t a brawler by nature. Suppose they had been put there by an adult? A schoolteacher doing something like that, not just at the Brod but almost anywhere, would get canned, probably sued, and maybe arrested.
He thought of Kalisha saying Not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
“I’m Luke Ellis.” He held out his hand, not sure what to expect.
Nicky ignored it and opened the green equipment cabinet. “You play chess, Ellis? These other three suck at it. Donna Gibson could give me at least a half-assed game, but she went to Back Half three days ago.”
“And we will see her no more,” George said dolefully.
“I play,” Luke said, “but I don’t feel like it now. I want to know where I am and what goes on here.”
Nick brought out a chess board and a box with the armies inside. He set the pieces up rapidly, peering through the hair that had fallen across his eyes rather than brushing it back. “You’re in the Institute. Somewhere in the wilds of Maine. Not even a town, just map coordinates. TR-110. Sha picked that up from a bunch of people. So did Donna, and so did Pete Littlejohn. He’s another TP that’s gone to Back Half.”
“Seems like Petey’s been gone forever, but it was only last week,” Kalisha said wistfully. “Remember all those zits? And how his glasses kept sliding down?”
Nicky paid no attention. “The zookeepers don’t try to hide it or deny it. Why would they, when they work on TP kids day in and day out? And they don’t worry about the stuff they do want to keep secret, because not even Sha can go deep, and she’s pretty good.”
“I can score ninety per cent on the Rhine cards most days,” Kalisha said. Not boasting, just matter-of-fact. “And I could tell you your grandmother’s name if you put it in the front of your mind, but the front is as far as I can go.”
My grandmother’s name is Rebecca, Luke thought.
“Rebecca,” Kalisha said, and when she saw Luke’s expression of surprise, she burst into a fit of the giggles that made her look like the child she had been not so long ago.
“You’ve got the white guys,” Nicky said. “I always play black.”
“Nick’s our honorary outlaw,” George said.
“With the marks to prove it,” Kalisha said. “Does him no good, but he can’t seem to help it. His room is a mess, another act of childish rebellion that just makes more work for Maureen.”
Nicky turned to the black girl, unsmiling. “If Maureen was really the saint you think she is, she’d get us out of here. Or blow the whistle to the nearest police.”
Kalisha shook her head. “Get real. If you work here, you’re a part of it. Good or bad.”
“Nasty or nice,” George added. He looked solemn.
“Besides, the nearest police force is probably a bunch of Deputy Dogs and Hiram Hoehandles miles from here,” Iris said. “Since you seem to’ve nominated yourself Head Explainer, Nick, why don’t you really fill the kid in? Jeepers, don’t you remember how weird it is to wake up here in what looks like your own room?”
Nick sat back and crossed his arms. Luke happened to see how Kalisha was looking at him, and thought that if she ever kissed Nicky, it wouldn’t be just to pass on a case of the chicken pox.
“Okay, Ellis, I’ll tell you what we know. Or what we think we know. It won’t take long. Ladies, feel free to chime in. George, keep your mouth shut if you feel a bullshit attack coming on.”
“Thanks a lot,” George said. “And after I let you drive my Porsche.”
“Kalisha’s been here the longest,” Nicky said. “Because of the chicken pox. How many kids have you seen during that time, Sha?”
She considered. “Probably twenty-five. Maybe a few more.”
Nicky nodded. “They—we—come from everywhere. Sha’s from Ohio, Iris is from Texas, George is from Glory Hole, Montana—”
“I’m from Billings,” George said. “A perfectly respectable town.”
“First off, they tag us like we were migrating birds or goddam buffalo.” Nicky brushed his hair back and folded his earlobe forward, showing a circlet of bright metal half the size of a dime. “They examine us, they test us, they give us shots for dots, then they examine us again and do more tests. Pinks get more shots and more tests.”
“I got the tank,” Iris said again.
“Whoopee for you,” Nick said. “If we’re pos, they make us do stupid pet tricks. I myself happen to be TK-pos, but George the motormouth there is quite a bit better at it than I am. And there was one kid here, can’t remember his name, who was even better than George.”
“Bobby Washington,” Kalisha said. “Little black kid, maybe nine. He could push your plate right off the table. Been gone . . . what, Nicky? Two weeks?”
“A little less,” Nicky said. “If it was two weeks, it would have been before I came.”
“He was there one night at dinner,” Kalisha said, “and gone to Back Half the next day. Poof. Now you see him, now you don’t. I’ll probably be next. I think they’re about done with all their tests.”
“Same here,” Nicky said sourly. “They’ll probably be glad to be rid of me.”
“Strike the probably on that one,” George said.
“They give us shots,” Iris said. “Some of them hurt, some of them don’t, some of them do stuff to you, some don’t. I spiked a fever after one of them, and had the most godawful headache. I was thinking maybe I caught Sha’s chicken pox, but it was gone after a day. They keep shooting you up until you see the dots and hear the hum.”
“You got off easy,” Kalisha told her. “A couple of kids . . . there was that one named Morty . . . can’t remember his last name . . .”
“The nose-picker,” Iris said. “The one who used to hang with Bobby Washington. I can’t remember Morty’s last name, either. He went to Back Half like two days after I got here.”
“Except maybe he didn’t,” Kalisha said. “He wasn’t here long at all, and he broke out in spots after one of those shots. He told me so in the canteen. He said his heart was still beating like crazy, too. I think maybe he got really sick.” She paused. “Maybe he even died.”
George was looking at her with big-eyed dismay. “Cynicism and teenage angst is fine, but tell me you don’t really believe that.”
“Well, I sure don’t want to,” Kalisha said.
“Shut up, all of you,” Nicky said. He leaned forward over the board, staring at Luke. “They kidnap us, yes. Because we have psychi
c powers, yes. How do they find us? Don’t know. But it’s got to be a big operation, because this place is big. It’s a fucking compound. They’ve got doctors, technicians, ones who call themselves caretakers . . . it’s like a small hospital stuck out here in the woods.”
“And security,” Kalisha said.
“Yeah. The guy in charge of that is a big bald fuck. Stackhouse is his name.”
“This is crazy,” Luke said. “In America?”
“This isn’t America, it’s the Kingdom of the Institute. When we go to the caff for lunch, Ellis, look out the windows. You’ll see a lot more trees, but if you look hard, you’ll also see another building. Green cinderblock, just like this one. Blends in with the trees, I guess. Anyway, that’s Back Half. Where the kids go when all the tests and shots are done.”
“What happens there?”
It was Kalisha who answered. “We don’t know.”
It was on the tip of Luke’s tongue to ask if Maureen knew, then remembered what Kalisha had whispered in his ear: They listen.
“We know what they tell us,” Iris said. “They say—”
“They say everything is going to be alllll RIGHT!”
Nicky shouted this so loudly and so suddenly that Luke recoiled and almost fell off the picnic bench. The black-haired boy got to his feet and stood looking up into the dusty lens of one of the cameras. Luke remembered something else Kalisha had said: When you meet Nicky, don’t worry if he goes off on a rant. It’s how he blows off steam.
“They’re like missionaries selling Jesus to a bunch of Indians who are so . . . so . . .”
“Naïve?” Luke ventured.
“Right! That!” Nicky was still staring up at the camera. “A bunch of Indians who are so naïve they’ll believe anything, that if they give up their land for a handful of beads and fucking flea-ridden blankets, they’ll go to heaven and meet all their dead relatives and be happy forever! That’s us, a bunch of Indians naïve enough to believe anything that sounds good, that sounds like a happy . . . fucking . . . ENDING!”
He whirled back to them, hair flying, eyes burning, hands clenched into fists. Luke saw healing cuts on his knuckles. He doubted if Nicky had given as good as he’d gotten—he was only a kid, after all—but it seemed he had at least given somebody something.
“Do you think Bobby Washington had any doubts that his trials were over when they took him to Back Half? Or Pete Littlejohn? Jesus Christ, if brains were black powder, those two couldn’t have blown their noses.”
He turned to the dirty overhead camera again. That he had nothing else upon which to vent his rage rendered it a touch ludicrous, but Luke admired him just the same. He had not accepted the situation.
“Listen up, you guys! You can beat the shit out of me, and you can take me to Back Half, but I’ll fight you every step of the way! Nick Wilholm doesn’t trade for beads and blankets!”
He sat down, breathing hard. Then he smiled, displaying dimples and white teeth and good-humored eyes. The sullen, brooding persona was gone as if it had never been there. Luke had no attraction to guys, but when he saw that smile, he could understand why Kalisha and Iris were looking at Nicky as if he were the lead singer in a boy band.
“I should probably be on their team instead of cooped up here like a chicken in a pen. I could sell this place better than Sigsby and Hendricks and the other docs. I have conviction.”
“You certainly do,” Luke said, “but I’m not entirely sure what you were getting at.”
“Yeah, kinda went off on a sidetrack there, Nicky,” George said.
Nicky crossed his arms again. “Before I whup your ass at chess, new kid, let me review the situation. They bring us here. They test us. They shoot us full of God knows what, and test us some more. Some kids get the tank, all kids get the weird eye test that makes you feel like you’re going to pass out. We have rooms that look like our rooms at home, which is probably supposed to provide some kind of, I don’t know, soothing for our tender emotions.”
“Psychological acclimation,” Luke said. “I guess that makes sense.”
“There’s good food in the caff. We actually order off a menu, limited though it may be. Room doors aren’t locked, so if you can’t sleep, you can wander down there and pick up a midnight snack. They leave out cookies, nuts, apples, stuff like that. Or you can go to the canteen. The machines there take tokens, of which I have none, because only good little girls and boys get tokens, and I am not a good little boy. My idea of what to do with a Boy Scout is to drop him on his pointy little—”
“Come back,” Kalisha said sharply. “Stop the shit.”
“Gotcha.” Nick flashed her that killer smile, then returned his attention to Luke. “There’s plenty of incentive to be good and get tokens. There are snacks and sodas in the canteen, an extremely wide variety.”
“Cracker Jacks,” George said dreamily. “Ho Hos.”
“There are also cigarettes, wine coolers, and the hard stuff.”
Iris: “There’s a sign that says PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY. With kids as young as ten pushing the buttons for Boone’s Farm Blue Hawaiian and Mike’s Hard Lemonade, how hilarious is that?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Luke said, but Kalisha and George were nodding.
“You can get buzzed, but you can’t get falling-down drunk,” Nicky said. “Nobody has enough tokens for that.”
“True,” Kalisha said, “but we do have kids who stay buzzed as much as they can.”
“Maintenance drinkers, you mean? Ten- and eleven-year-old maintenance drinkers?” Luke still couldn’t believe it. “You’re not serious.”
“I am. There are kids who do whatever they’re told just so they can use the booze dispenser every day. I haven’t been here long enough to, like, make a study of it, but you hear stories from kids who were here before you.”
“Also,” Iris said, “we have plenty of kids who are working on a good tobacco habit.”
It was ludicrous, but Luke supposed it also made a crazy kind of sense. He thought of the Roman satirist, Juvenal, who had said that if you gave the people bread and circuses, they’d be happy and not cause any trouble. He guessed the same might be true of booze and cigarettes, especially if you offered them to scared and unhappy kids who were locked up. “That stuff doesn’t interfere with their tests?”
“Since we don’t know what the tests are, it’s hard to say,” George told him. “All they seem to want is for you to see the dots and hear the hum.”
“What dots? What hum?”
“You’ll find out,” George said. “That part’s not so bad. It’s getting there that’s the bitch. I hate getting shots.”
Nicky said, “Three weeks, give or take. That’s how long most kids stay in Front Half. At least Sha thinks so, and she’s been here the longest. Then we go to Back Half. After that—this is the story—we get debriefed and our memories of this place are wiped somehow.” He unfolded his arms and raised his hands to the sky, fingers spread. “And after that, chilluns, we go to heaven! Washed clean, except maybe for a pack-a-day habit! Hallelujah!”
“Back home to our parents is what he means,” Iris said quietly.
“Where we’ll be welcomed with open arms,” Nicky said. “No questions asked, just welcome home and let’s all go out to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. Does that sound realistic to you, Ellis?”
It didn’t.
“But our parents are alive, right?” Luke didn’t know how it sounded to the others, but to him his voice sounded very small.
None of them answered, only looked at him. And really, that was answer enough.
3
There was a knock at Mrs. Sigsby’s office door. She invited the visitor in without taking her eyes from her computer monitor. The man who entered was almost as tall as Dr. Hendricks, but ten years younger and in far better shape—broad-shouldered and muscled out. His skull was smooth, shaved, and gleaming. He wore jeans and a blue workshirt, the sleeves rolled up to display his admirable biceps. The
re was a holster on one hip with a short metal rod sticking up.
“The Ruby Red group’s here, if you want to talk to them about the Ellis operation.”
“Anything urgent or out of the ordinary on that, Trevor?”
“No, ma’am, not really, and if I’m intruding, I can come back later.”
“You’re fine, just give me a minute. Our residents are giving the new boy a backgrounder. Come and watch. The mixture of myth and observation is rather amusing. Like something out of Lord of the Flies.”
Trevor Stackhouse came around the desk. He saw Wilholm—a troublesome little shit if ever there was one—on one side of a chessboard that was all set up and ready to go. The new intake was sitting on the other side. The girls were standing by, most of their attention fixed, as usual, on Wilholm—handsome, sullen, rebellious, a latter-day James Dean. He would be gone soon; Stackhouse couldn’t wait for Hendricks to sign off on him.
“How many people work here in all, do you think?” the new boy was asking.
Iris and Kalisha (also known as the Chicken Pox Chick) looked at each other. It was Iris who answered. “Fifty? I think at least that many. There’s the doctors . . . techs and caretakers . . . the cafeteria staff . . . um . . .”
“Two or three janitors,” Wilholm said, “and the housekeepers. Just Maureen right now, because there’s only the five of us, but when there’s more kids, they add another couple of housekeepers. They might come over from Back Half, not sure about that.”
“With that many people, how can they keep the place a secret?” Ellis asked. “For one thing, where do they even park their cars?”
“Interesting,” Stackhouse said. “I don’t think anyone ever asked that before.”
Mrs. Sigsby nodded. “This one’s very smart, and not just book-smart, it looks like. Now hush. I want to hear this.”
“. . . must stay,” Luke was saying. “You see the logic? Like a tour of duty. Which would mean this is actually a government installation. Like one of those black sites, where they take terrorists to interrogate them.”