by Stephen King
Joe gave him four.
“What are these tests for?” Luke asked.
“Plenty of things,” Hadad said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Which was, Luke thought, perhaps the stupidest piece of advice he’d ever been given. “Am I ever getting out of here?”
“Absolutely,” Joe said. “You won’t remember a thing about it, though.”
He was lying. Again, it wasn’t mind-reading, at least as Luke had always imagined it—hearing words in his mind (or seeing them, like on the crawl at the bottom of a cable news broadcast); it was just knowing, as undeniable as gravity or the irrationality of the square root of two.
“How many more tests will there be?”
“Oh, we’ll keep you busy,” Joe said.
“Just don’t puke on a floor Tony Fizzale has to walk on,” Hadad said, and laughed heartily.
22
A new housekeeper was vacuuming the floor of his room when Luke arrived. This woman—JOLENE, according to her nametag—was plump and in her twenties.
“Where’s Maureen?” Luke asked, although he knew perfectly well. This was Maureen’s off week, and when she came back, it might not be to his part of the Institute, at least not for awhile. He hoped she was in Vermont, getting her runaway husband’s crap sorted out, but he would miss her . . . although he supposed he might see her in Back Half when it was his turn to go there.
“Mo-Mo’s off making a movie with Johnny Depp,” Jolene said. “One of those pirate things all the kids like. She’s playing the Jolly Roger.” She laughed, then said, “Why don’t you get out of here while I finish up?”
“Because I want to lie down. I don’t feel good.”
“Oh, wah-wah-wah,” Jolene said. “You kids are spoiled rotten. Have someone to clean your room, cook your meals, you got your own TV . . . you think I had a TV in my room when I was a kid? Or my own bathroom? I had three sisters and two brothers and we all fought over it.”
“We also get to swallow barium and then puke it up. You think you’d like to try some?”
I sound more like Nicky every day, Luke thought, and hey, what’s wrong with that? It’s good to have positive role models.
Jolene turned to him and brandished the vacuum cleaner attachment. “You want to see how getting hit upside the head with this feels?”
Luke left. He walked slowly along the connecting residence corridors, pausing twice to lean against the wall when the cramps hit. At least they were lessening in frequency and intensity. Just before he got to the deserted lounge with its view of the administration building, he went into one of the empty rooms, laid down on the mattress, and went to sleep. He woke up for the first time not expecting to see Rolf Destin’s house outside his bedroom window.
In Luke’s opinion, that was a step in exactly the wrong direction.
23
The next morning he was given a shot, then hooked up to heart and blood pressure monitors, and made to run on a treadmill, monitored by Carlos and Dave. They sped the treadmill up until he was gasping for breath and in danger of tumbling off the end. The readings were mirrored on the little dashboard, and just before Carlos slowed him down, Luke saw the BPM readout was 170.
While he was sipping at a glass of orange juice and getting his breath back, a big bald guy came in and leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He was wearing a brown suit that looked expensive and a white shirt with no tie. His dark eyes surveyed Luke, all the way down from his red and sweaty face to his new sneakers. He said, “I’m told you show signs of slow adjustment, young man. Perhaps Nick Wilholm has something to do with that. He’s not someone you should emulate. You know the meaning of that word, don’t you? Emulate?”
“Yes.”
“He is insolent and unpleasant to men and women who are only trying to do their jobs.”
Luke said nothing. Always safest.
“Don’t let his attitude rub off on you, that would be my advice. My strong advice. And keep your interactions with the service staff to a minimum.”
Luke felt a stab of alarm at that, then realized the bald guy wasn’t talking about Maureen. It was Fred the janitor he was talking about. Luke knew that perfectly well, although he had only talked to Fred once and had talked to Maureen several times.
“Also, stay out of the West Lounge and the empty rooms. If you want to sleep, do it in your own room. Make your stay as pleasant as possible.”
“There’s nothing pleasant about this place,” Luke said.
“You’re welcome to your opinion,” the bald man said. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, they’re like assholes, everybody’s got one. But I think you’re smart enough to know there’s a big difference between nothing pleasant and something unpleasant. Keep it in mind.”
He left.
“Who was that?” Luke asked.
“Stackhouse,” Carlos said. “The Institute’s security officer. You want to stay off his bad side.”
Dave came at him with a needle. “Need to take a little more blood. Won’t take a minute. Be a good sport about it, okay?”
24
After the treadmill and the latest blood draw, there were a couple of days of no tests, at least for Luke. He got a couple of shots—one of which made his whole arm itch fiercely for an hour—but that was all. The Wilcox twins began to adjust, especially after Harry Cross befriended them. He was a TK, and boasted that he could move lots of stuff, but Avery said that was a crock of shit. “He’s got even less than you do, Luke.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Don’t be too diplomatic, Avery, you’ll strain yourself.”
“What’s diplomatic mean?”
“Spend a token and look it up on your computer.”
“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t do that,” Avery said in a surprisingly good imitation of HAL 9000’s softly sinister voice, and began to giggle.
Harry was good to Greta and Gerda, that was undeniable. Every time he saw them, a big goofy grin spread over his face. He would squat down, spread his arms wide, and they would run to him.
“Don’t suppose he’s fiddling with them, do you?” Nicky asked one morning on the playground, watching as Harry monitored the Gs on the trampoline.
“Eww, gross,” Helen said. “You’ve been watching too many Lifetime movies.”
“Nope,” Avery said. He was eating a Choco Pop and had grown a brown mustache. “He doesn’t want to . . .” He put his small hands on his backside and bumped his hips. Watching this, Luke thought it was a good example of how telepathy was all wrong. You knew way too much, and way too soon.
“Eww,” Helen said again, and covered her eyes. “Don’t make me wish I was blind, Avester.”
“He had cocker spaniels,” Avery said. “Back home. Those girls are like his, you know, there’s a word.”
“Substitute,” Luke said.
“Right, that.”
“I don’t know how Harry was with his dogs,” Nicky said to Luke at lunch later that day, “but those little girls pretty much run him. It’s like someone gave them a new doll. One with red hair and a big gut. Look at that.”
The twins were sitting on either side of Harry and feeding him bites of meatloaf from their plates.
“I think it’s sort of cute,” Kalisha said.
Nicky smiled at her—the one that lit up his whole face (which today included a black eye some staff member had gifted him with). “You would, Sha.”
She smiled back, and Luke felt a twinge of jealousy. Pretty stupid, under the circumstances . . . yet there it was.
25
The following day, Priscilla and Hadad escorted Luke down to the previously unvisited E-Level. There he was hooked up to an IV that Priscilla said would relax him a little. What it did was knock him cold. When he awoke, shivering and naked, his abdomen, right leg, and right side had been bandaged. Another doctor—RICHARDSON, according to the nametag on her white coat—was leaning over him. “How do you feel, Luke?”
“What did you do to me?” He tried to scream this but could o
nly manage a choked growl. They had put something down his throat, as well. Probably some kind of breathing tube. Belatedly, he cupped his hands over his crotch.
“Just took a few samples.” Dr. Richardson whipped off her paisley surgical cap, releasing a flood of dark hair. “We didn’t take out one of your kidneys to sell on the black market, if that’s what you’re worried about. You’ll have a little pain, especially between your ribs, but it will pass. In the meantime, take these.” She handed him an unmarked brown bottle with a few pills inside.
She left. Zeke came in with his clothes. “Dress when you feel like you can do it without falling down.” Zeke, always considerate, dropped the clothes on the floor.
Eventually Luke was able to pick them up and dress. Priscilla—this time with Gladys—escorted him back to the residence level. It had been daylight when they took him down, but it was dark now. Maybe late at night, he couldn’t tell, his time sense was totally fucked.
“Can you walk down to your room by yourself?” Gladys asked. No big smile; maybe it didn’t work the night shift.
“Yeah.”
“Then go on. Take one of those pills. They’re Oxycontin. They work for the pain, and they also make you feel good. A bonus. You’ll be fine in the morning.”
He walked down the hall, reached for the doorknob of his room, then stopped. Someone was crying. The sound came from the vicinity of that stupid JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE poster, which meant it was probably coming from Kalisha’s room. He debated for a moment, not wanting to know what the crying was about, definitely not feeling up to comforting anyone. Still, it was her, so he went down and knocked softly on the door. There was no answer, so he turned the knob and poked his head in. “Kalisha?”
She was lying on her back with one hand over her eyes. “Go away, Luke. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
He almost did as she asked, but it wasn’t what she wanted. Instead of leaving, he went in and sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”
But he knew that, too. Just not the details.
26
The kids had been outside in the playground—all of them except Luke, who was down on E-Level, lying unconscious while Dr. Richardson cored out her samples. Two men emerged from the lounge. They were in red scrubs rather than the pink and blue ones the Front Half caretakers and techs wore, and there were no nametags on their shirts. The three old-timers—Kalisha, Nicky, and George—knew what that meant.
“I was sure they were coming for me,” Kalisha told Luke. “I’ve been here the longest, and I haven’t had any tests for at least ten days, even though I’m over the chicken pox. I haven’t even had bloodwork, and you know how those fucking vampires like to take blood. But it was Nicky they came for. Nicky!”
The break in her voice as she said this made Luke sad, because he was pretty crazy about Kalisha, but it didn’t surprise him. Helen turned to him like a compass needle pointing to magnetic north whenever he came in sight; Iris had done the same; even the little Gs looked at him with open mouths and shining eyes when he passed. But Kalisha had been with him the longest, they were Institute vets, and roughly the same age. As a couple they were at least possible.
“He fought them,” Kalisha said. “He fought them hard.” She sat up so suddenly she almost knocked Luke off the bed. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth and her fists were clenched on her chest above her slight bosom.
“I should have fought them! We all should have!”
“But it happened too fast, didn’t it?”
“He punched one of them high up—in the throat—and the other one zapped him in the hip. It must have numbed his leg, but he held onto one of the ropes on the ropes course to keep from falling down, and he kicked at that one with his good leg before the bastard could use his zap-stick again.”
“Knocked it out of his hand,” Luke said. He could see it, but saying so was a mistake, it suggested something he didn’t want her to know, but Kalisha didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s right. But then the other one, the one he punched in the throat, he zapped Nicky in the side, and the goddam thing must have been turned all the way up, because I could hear the crackle, even though I was all the way over by the shuffleboard court. Nicky fell down, and they bent over him and zapped him some more, and he jumped, even though he was lying there unconscious he jumped, and Helen ran over, she was shouting ‘You’re killing him, you’re killing him,’ and one of them kicked her high up in the leg, and went hai, like some half-assed karate guy, and he laughed, and she fell down crying, and they picked Nicky up, and they carried him away. But before they got him through the lounge doors . . .”
She stopped. Luke waited. He knew what came next, it was one of his new hunches that was more than a hunch, but he had to let her say it. Because she couldn’t know what he was now, none of them could know.
“He came around a little,” she said. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Enough to see us. He smiled, and he waved. He waved. That’s how brave he was.”
“Yeah,” Luke said, hearing was and not is. Thinking: And we’ll see him no more.
She grabbed his neck and brought his face down to hers so unexpectedly and so hard that their foreheads bonked together. “Don’t you say that!”
“I’m sorry,” Luke said, wondering what else she might have seen in his mind. He hoped it wasn’t much. He hoped she was too upset over the red-shirt guys taking Nicky away to Back Half. What she said next eased his mind on that score considerably.
“Did they take samples? They did, didn’t they? You’ve got bandages.”
“Yes.”
“That black-haired bitch, right? Richardson. How many?”
“Three. One from my leg, one from my stomach, one between my ribs. That’s the one that hurts the most.”
She nodded. “They took one from my boob, like a biopsy. That really hurt. Only what if they’re not taking out? What if they’re putting in? They say they’re taking samples, but they lie about everything!”
“You mean more trackers? Why would they, when they’ve got these?” He fingered the chip in his earlobe. It no longer hurt; now it was just a part of him.
“I don’t know,” she said miserably.
Luke reached into his pocket and brought out the bottle of pills. “They gave me these. Maybe you should take one. I think it would mellow you out. Help you to sleep.”
“Oxys?”
He nodded.
She reached for the bottle, then drew her hand back. “Problem is, I don’t want one, I don’t even want two. I want all of them. But I think I should feel what I’m feeling. I think that’s the right thing, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Luke said, which was the truth. These were deep waters, and no matter how smart he was, he was only twelve.
“Go away, Luke. I need to be sad on my own now.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be better tomorrow. And if they take me next . . .”
“They won’t.” Knowing that was a stupid thing to say, maximo retardo. She was due. Overdue, really.
“If they do, be a friend to Avery. He needs a friend.” She looked at him fixedly. “And so do you.”
“Okay.”
She tried on a smile. “You’re a peach. C’mere.” He leaned over, and she kissed him first on the cheek, then on the corner of his mouth. Her lips were salty. Luke didn’t mind.
As he opened the door, she said, “It should have been me. Or George. Not Nicky. He was the one who never gave in to their bullshit. The one who never gave up.” She raised her voice. “Are you there? Are you listening? I hope you are, because I hate you and I want you to know it! I HATE YOU!”
She fell back on her bed and began to sob. Luke thought about going back to her, but didn’t. He had given all the comfort he could, and he was hurting himself, not just about Nicky but in the places where Dr. Richardson had stuck him. It didn’t matter if the woman with the dark hair had taken tissue samples, or put something into his body (tracker
s made no sense, but he supposed it could have been some sort of experimental enzyme or vaccine), because none of their tests and injections seemed to make sense. He thought again of the concentration camps, and the horrible, nonsensical experiments that had been conducted there. Freezing people, burning people, giving them diseases.
He went back to his room, considered taking one or even two of the Oxy pills, didn’t.
Thought about using Mr. Griffin to go to the Star Tribune, and didn’t do that, either.
He thought about Nicky, the heartthrob of all the girls. Nicky, who had first put Harry Cross in his place and then made friends with him, which was far bolder than beating him up. Nicky, who had fought their tests, and fought the men from Back Half when they came to get him, the one who never gave up.
27
The next day Joe and Hadad took Luke and George Iles down to C-11, where they were left alone for awhile. When the two caretakers came back, now equipped with cups of coffee, Zeke was with them. He looked red-eyed and hungover. He fitted the two boys with rubber electrode caps, cinching the straps tight under their chins. After Zeke checked the readouts, the two boys took turns in a driving simulator. Dr. Evans came in and stood by with his trusty clipboard, making notes as Zeke called out various numbers that might (or might not) have had to do with reaction time. Luke drove through several traffic signals and caused a fair amount of carnage before he got the hang of it, but after that, the test was actually sort of fun—an Institute first.
When it was over, Dr. Richardson joined Dr. Evans. Today she was dressed in a three-piece skirt suit and heels. She looked ready for a high-powered business meeting. “On a scale of one to ten, how is your pain this morning, Luke?”
“A two,” he said. “On a scale of one to ten, my desire to get the hell out of here is an eleven.”
She chuckled as if he had made a mild joke, said goodbye to Dr. Evans (calling him Jim), and then left.