The Institute

by Stephen King

  “So who won?” George asked Dr. Evans.

  He smiled indulgently. “It’s not that kind of test, George.”

  “Yeah, but who won?”

  “You were both quite fast, once you got used to the simulator, which is what we expect with TKs. No more tests today, boys, isn’t that nice? Hadad, Joe, please take these young men upstairs.”

  On the way to the elevator, George said, “I ran over I think six pedestrians before I got the knack. How many did you run over?”

  “Only three, but I hit a schoolbus. There might have been casualties there.”

  “You wank. I totally missed the bus.” The elevator came, and the four of them stepped on. “Actually, I hit seven pedestrians. The last one was on purpose. I was pretending it was Zeke.”

  Joe and Hadad looked at each other and laughed. Luke liked them a little for that. He didn’t want to, but he did.

  When the two caretakers got back into the elevator, presumably headed down to the break room, Luke said, “After the dots, they tried you on the cards. A telepathy test.”

  “Right, I told you that.”

  “Have they ever tested you for TK? Asked you to turn on a lamp or maybe knock over a line of dominoes?”

  George scratched his head. “Now that you mention it, no. But why would they, when they already know I can do stuff like that? On a good day, at least. What about you?”

  “Nope. And I hear what you’re saying, but it’s still funny that they don’t seem to care about testing the limits of what we’ve got.”

  “None of it makes any sense, Lukey-Loo. Starting with being here. Let’s get some chow.”

  Most of the kids were eating lunch in the caff, but Kalisha and Avery were in the playground. They were sitting on the gravel with their backs against the chainlink fence, looking at each other. Luke told George to go on to lunch and went outside. The pretty black girl and the little white boy weren’t talking . . . and yet they were. Luke knew that much, but not what the conversation was about.

  He flashed back to the SATs, and the girl who’d asked him about the math equation having to do with some guy named Aaron and how much he would have to pay for a hotel room. That seemed to be in another life, but Luke clearly remembered not being able to understand how a problem so simple for him could be so hard for her. He understood it now. Whatever was going on between Kalisha and Avery over there by the fence was far beyond him.

  Kalisha looked around and waved him away. “I’ll talk to you later, Luke. Go on and eat.”

  “Okay,” he said, but he didn’t talk to her at lunch, because she skipped it. Later, after a heavy nap (he finally broke down and took one of the pain pills), he walked down the hallway toward the lounge and the playground and stopped at her door, which was standing open. The pink bedspread and the pillows with the frou-frou flounces were gone. So was the framed photo of Martin Luther King. Luke stood there, hand over his mouth, eyes wide, letting it sink in.

  If she’d fought, as Nicky had, Luke thought the noise would have awakened him in spite of the pill. The other alternative, that she had gone with them willingly, was less palatable but—he had to admit this—more likely. Either way, the girl who had kissed him twice was gone.

  He went back to his room and put his face in his pillow.

  28

  That night, Luke flashed one of his tokens at the laptop’s camera to wake it up, then went to Mr. Griffin. That he still could go there was hopeful. Of course the shitheads running this place might know all about his back door, but what would be the point of that? This led to a conclusion that seemed sturdy enough, at least to him: the Minions of Sigsby might catch him peering into the outside world eventually, in fact that was likely, but so far they hadn’t. They weren’t mirroring his computer. They’re lax about some things, he thought. Maybe about a lot of things, and why wouldn’t they be? They’re not dealing with military prisoners, just a bunch of scared, disoriented kids.

  Staging from the Mr. Griffin site, he accessed the Star Tribune. Today’s headline had to do with the continuing fight over health care, which had been going on for years now. The familiar terror of what he might find beyond the front page set in, and he almost exited to the desktop screen. Then he could erase his recent history, shut down, go to bed. Maybe take another pill. What you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you, that was another saying, and hadn’t he been hurt enough for one day?

  Then he thought of Nick. Would Nicky Wilholm have backed out, had he known about a back door like Mr. Griffin? Probably not, almost certainly not, only he wasn’t brave like Nicky.

  He remembered Winona handing him that bunch of tokens and how, when he dropped one, she called him butterfingers and told him to pick it up. He had, without so much as a peep of protest. Nicky wouldn’t have done that, either. Luke could almost hear him saying Pick it up yourself, Winnie, and taking the hit that would follow. Maybe even hitting back.

  But Luke Ellis wasn’t that guy. Luke Ellis was your basic good boy, doing what he was told, whether it was chores at home or going out for band at school. He hated his goddam trumpet, every third note was a sourball, but he stuck with it because Mr. Greer said he needed at least one extracurricular activity that wasn’t intramural sports. Luke Ellis was the guy who went out of his way to be social so people wouldn’t think he was a weirdo as well as a brainiac. He checked all the correct interaction boxes and then went back to his books. Because there was an abyss, and books contained magical incantations to raise what was hidden there: all the great mysteries. For Luke, those mysteries mattered. Someday, in the future, he might write books of his own.

  But here, the only future was Back Half. Here, the truth of existence was What good would it do?

  “Fuck that,” he whispered, and went to the Star Trib’s Local section with his heartbeat thudding in his ears and pulsing in the small wounds, already closing, beneath the bandages.

  There was no need to hunt; as soon as he saw his own school photograph from last year, he knew everything there was to know. The headline was unnecessary, but he read it anyway:

  SEARCH GOES ON FOR MISSING SON OF SLAIN FALCON HEIGHTS COUPLE

  The colored lights came back, swirling and pulsing. Luke squinted through them, turned off the laptop, got up on legs that didn’t feel like his legs, and went to his bed in two trembling strides. There he lay in the mild glow of the bedside lamp, staring up at the ceiling. At last those nasty pop-art dots began to fade.

  Slain Falcon Heights couple.

  He felt as if a previously unsuspected trapdoor had opened in the middle of his mind, and only one thought—clear, hard, and strong—kept him from falling through it: they might be watching. He didn’t believe they knew about the Mr. Griffin site, and his ability to use it to access the outside world. He didn’t believe they knew the lights had caused some fundamental change in his brain, either; they thought the experiment had been a failure. So far, at least. Those were the things he had, and they might be valuable.

  The Minions of Sigsby weren’t omnipotent. His continuing ability to access Mr. Griffin proved it. The only kind of rebellion they expected from the residents was the kind that was right out front. Once that was scared or beaten or zapped out of them, they could even be left alone for short periods, the way Joe and Hadad had left him and George alone in C-11 while they got their coffee.

  Slain.

  That word was the trapdoor, and it would be so easy to fall in. From the very start Luke had been almost sure he was being lied to, but the almost part kept the trapdoor closed. It allowed some small hope. That bald headline ended hope. And since they were dead—slain—who would the most likely suspect be? The MISSING SON, of course. The police investigating the crime would know by now that he was a special child, a genius, and weren’t geniuses supposed to be fragile? Apt to go off the rails?

  Kalisha had screamed her defiance, but Luke wouldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. In his heart he could scream all he wanted, but not out loud. He didn’t know if h
is secrets could do him any good, but he did know that there were cracks in the walls of what George Iles had so rightly called this hole of hell. If he could use his secrets—and his supposedly superior intelligence—as a crowbar, he might be able to widen one of those cracks. He didn’t know if escape was possible, but should he find a way to do it, escape would only be the first step to a greater goal.

  Bring it down on them, he thought. Like Samson after Delilah coaxed him into getting a haircut. Bring it down and crush them. Crush them all.

  At some point he dropped into a thin sleep. He dreamed that he was home, and his mother and father were alive. This was a good dream. His father told him not to forget to take out the trashcans. His mother made pancakes and Luke drenched his in blackberry syrup. His dad ate one with peanut butter while watching the morning news on CBS—Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell, who was foxy—and then went to work after kissing Luke on the cheek and Eileen on the mouth. A good dream. Rolf’s mother was taking the boys to school, and when she honked out front, Luke grabbed his backpack and ran to the door. “Hey, don’t forget your lunch money!” his mom called, and handed it to him, only it wasn’t money, it was tokens, and that was when he woke up and realized someone was in his room.

  29

  Luke couldn’t see who it was, because at some point he must have turned off the bedside lamp, although he couldn’t remember doing it. He could hear a soft shuffle of feet from near his desk, and his first thought was that one of the caretakers had come to take his laptop, because they had been monitoring him all along, and he’d been stupid to believe otherwise. Maximo retardo.

  Rage filled him like poison. He did not get out of bed so much as spring from it, meaning to tackle whoever it was that had come into his room. Let the intruder slap, punch, or use his goddam zap-stick. Luke would get in at least a few good blows. They might not understand the real reason he was hitting, but that was all right; Luke would know.

  Only it wasn’t an adult. He collided with a small body and knocked it sprawling.

  “Ow, Lukey, don’t! Don’t hurt me!”

  Avery Dixon. The Avester.

  Luke groped, picked him up, and led him over to the bed, where he turned on the lamp. Avery looked terrified.

  “Jesus, what are you doing here?”

  “I woke up and was scared. I can’t go in with Sha, because they took her away. So I came here. Can I stay? Please?”

  All of that was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Luke understood this with a clarity that made the other “knowings” he’d had seem dim and tentative. Because Avery was a strong TP, much stronger than Kalisha, and right now Avery was . . . well . . . broadcasting.

  “You can stay.” But when Avery started to get into bed: “Nuh-uh, you need to go to the bathroom first. You’re not peeing in my bed.”

  Avery didn’t argue, and Luke soon heard urine splattering in the bowl. Quite a lot of it. When Avery came back, Luke turned off the light. Avery snuggled up. It was nice not to be alone. Wonderful, in fact.

  In his ear, Avery whispered, “I’m sorry about your mumma and your daddy, Luke.”

  For a few moments Luke couldn’t speak. When he could, he whispered back, “Were you and Kalisha talking about me yesterday on the playground?”

  “Yes. She told me to come. She said she would send you letters, and I would be the mailman. You can tell George and Helen, if you think it’s safe.”

  But he wouldn’t, because nothing here was safe. Not even thinking was safe. He replayed what he’d said when Kalisha was telling him about Nicky fighting the red caretakers from Back Half: Knocked it out of his hand. Meaning one of the zap-sticks. She hadn’t asked Luke how he knew that, because she almost certainly knew already. Had he thought he could keep his new TP ability a secret from her? Maybe from the others, but not from Kalisha. And not from Avery.

  “Look!” Avery whispered.

  Luke could look at nothing, with the lamp off and no window to admit ambient light from outside, the room was completely dark, but he looked anyway, and thought he saw Kalisha.

  “Is she all right?” Luke whispered.

  “Yes. For now.”

  “Is Nicky there? Is he all right?”

  “Yes,” Avery whispered. “Iris, too. Only she gets headaches. Other kids do, too. Sha thinks they get them from the movies. And the dots.”

  “What movies?”

  “I don’t know, Sha hasn’t seen any yet, but Nicky has. Iris, too. Kalisha says she thinks there are other kids—like maybe in the back half of Back Half—but only a few in the place where they are right now. Jimmy and Len. Also Donna.”

  I got Donna’s computer, Luke thought. Inherited it.

  “Bobby Washington was there at first, but now he’s gone. Iris told Kalisha she saw him.”

  “I don’t know those kids.”

  “Kalisha says Donna went to Back Half just a couple of days before you came. That’s why you got her computer.”

  “You’re eerie,” Luke said.

  Avery, who probably knew he was eerie, ignored this. “They get hurty shots. Shots and dots, dots and shots. Sha says she thinks bad things happen in Back Half. She says maybe you can do something. She says . . .”

  He didn’t finish, and didn’t have to. Luke had a brief but blindingly clear image, surely sent from Kalisha Benson by way of Avery Dixon: a canary in a cage. The door swung open and the canary flew out.

  “She says you’re the only one who’s smart enough.”

  “I will if I can,” Luke said. “What else did she tell you?”

  To this there was no answer. Avery had gone to sleep.

  ESCAPE

  1

  Three weeks passed.

  Luke ate. He slept, woke, ate again. He soon memorized the menu, and joined the other kids in sarcastic applause when something on it changed. Some days there were tests. Some days there were shots. Some days there were both. Some days there were neither. A few shots made him sick. Most didn’t. His throat never closed up again, for which he was grateful. He hung out in the playground. He watched TV, making friends with Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy. He watched YouTube videos of cats looking at themselves in mirrors and dogs that caught Frisbees. Sometimes he watched alone, sometimes with some of the other kids. When Harry came into his room, the twins came with him and demanded cartoons. When Luke went to Harry’s room, the twins were almost always there. Harry didn’t care for cartoons. Harry was partial to wrestling, cage fighting videos, and NASCAR pile-ups. His usual greeting to Luke was “Watch this one.” The twins were coloring fools, the caretakers supplying endless stacks of coloring books. Usually they stayed inside the lines, but there was one day when they didn’t, and laughed a lot, and Luke deduced they were either drunk or high. When he asked Harry, Harry said they wanted to try it. He had the good grace to look ashamed, and when they vomited (in tandem, as they did everything), he had the good grace to look more ashamed. And he cleaned up the mess. One day Helen did a triple roll on the trampoline, laughed, bowed, then burst into tears and would not be consoled. When Luke tried, she hit him with her small fists, whap-whap-whap-whap. For awhile Luke beat all comers at chess, and when that got boring he found ways to lose, which was surprisingly hard for him.

  He felt like he was sleeping even when he was awake. He felt his IQ declining, absolutely felt it, like water going down in a water cooler because someone had left the tap open. He marked off the time of this strange summer with the date strip on his computer. Other than YouTube vids, he only used his laptop—with one significant exception—to IM with George or Helen in their rooms. He never initiated those conversations, and kept them as brief as he could.

  What the shit is wrong with you? Helen texted once.

  Nothing, he texted back.

  Why are we still in Front Half, do you think? George texted. Not that I am complaining.

  Don’t know, Luke texted, and signed off.

  He discovered it wasn’t hard to hide his grief from the caretakers,
techs, and doctors; they were used to dealing with depressed children. Yet even in his deep unhappiness, he sometimes thought of the bright image Avery had projected: a canary flying from its cage.

  His waking sleep of grief was sometimes pierced with brilliant slices of memory that always came unexpectedly: his father spraying him with the garden hose; his father making a foul shot with his back turned to the hoop and Luke tackling him when it went in and both of them falling on the grass, laughing; his mother bringing a gigantic cupcake covered with flaming candles to the table on his twelfth birthday; his mother hugging him and saying You’re getting so big; his mother and father dancing like crazy in the kitchen while Rihanna sang “Pon de Replay.” These memories were beautiful, and they stung like nettles.

  When he wasn’t thinking of the slain Falcon Heights couple—dreaming of them—Luke thought of the cage he was in and the free bird he aspired to be. Those were the only times when his mind regained its former sharp focus. He noticed things that seemed to confirm his belief that the Institute was operating in an inertial glide, like a rocket that switches off its engines once escape velocity has been attained. The black-glass surveillance bulbs in the hallway ceilings, for instance. Most of them were dirty, as if they hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. This was especially true in the deserted West Wing of the residence floor. The cameras inside the bulbs probably still worked, but the view they gave would be blurry at best. Even so, it seemed that no orders had come down for Fred and his fellow janitors—Mort, Connie, Jawed—to clean them, and that meant whoever was supposed to monitor the hallways didn’t give much of a shit if the view had grown murky.

  Luke went about his days with his head down, doing what he was told without argument, but when he wasn’t zoned out in his room, he had become a little pitcher with big ears. Most of what he heard was useless, but he took it all in, anyway. Took it in and stored it away. Gossip, for instance. Like how Dr. Evans was always chasing after Dr. Richardson, trying to strike up conversations, too pussy-stunned (this phrase from caretaker Norma) to know Felicia Richardson wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Like how Joe and two other caretakers, Chad and Gary, sometimes used the tokens they didn’t give away to get wine nips and those little bottles of hard lemonade from the canteen vending machine in the East Lounge. Sometimes they talked about their families, or about drinking at a bar called Outlaw Country, where there were bands. “If you want to call that music,” Luke once overheard a caretaker named Sherry telling Fake Smile Gladys. This bar, known to the male techs and caretakers as The Cunt, was in a town called Dennison River Bend. Luke could get no clear fix on how far away this town was, but thought it must be within twenty-five miles, thirty at most, because they all seemed to go when they had time off.