The Institute

by Stephen King

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Sigsby said. “Doctor Evans, it’s possible that we can take the boy alive. Denny, you have a map of DuPray on your pad?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then this operation is now yours.”

  “Very good. Gather round, people. You too, Doc, don’t be shy.”

  They gathered around Denny Williams in the simmering late-day heat. Mrs. Sigsby checked her watch. Quarter past six. An hour from their destination, maybe a bit more. Slightly behind schedule, but acceptable, given the speed with which this had been put together.

  “Here’s downtown DuPray, what there is of it,” Denny Williams said. “Just one main street. Halfway down it is the County Sheriff’s Department, right between the Town Office and the DuPray Mercantile Store.”

  “What’s a mercantile store?” This was Josh Gottfried, of Opal.

  “Like a department store,” Robin Lecks said.

  “More like an old-time five-and-dime.” That was Tony Fizzale. “I spent about ten years in Alabama, most of it on MP duty, and I can tell you that these small southern towns, it’s like you went back fifty years in a time machine. Except for the Walmart. Most of em have one of those.”

  “Stow the chatter,” Mrs. Sigsby said, and nodded for Denny to go on.

  “Not much to it,” Denny said. “We park here, behind the town movieshow, which is closed down. We get confirmation from Mrs. Sigsby’s source that the target is still in the police station. Michelle and I will play a married couple, on a vacation taking us through little-visited towns in the American south—”

  “Crazy, in other words,” Tony said, which produced more of that brittle laughter.

  “We will idle our way up the street, checking the surroundings—”

  “Holding hands like the lovebirds we are,” Michelle Robertson said, taking Denny’s and giving him a coy but worshipful smile.

  “What about having your local man check things out?” Louis Grant asked. “Wouldn’t that be safer?”

  “Don’t know him, therefore don’t trust his intel,” Denny said. “Also, he’s a civilian.”

  He looked to Mrs. Sigsby, who nodded for him to go on.

  “Maybe we’ll go into the station and ask directions. Maybe not. We’ll play that part by ear. What we want is an idea of how many officers are present, and where they are. Then . . .” He shrugged. “We hit em. If there’s a firefight, which I don’t expect, we terminate the boy there. If not, we extract him. Less mess to clean up if it looks like an abduction.”

  Mrs. Sigsby left Denny to fill them in on where the Challenger would be waiting, and called Stackhouse for an update.

  “Just hung up with our pal Hollister,” he said. “The sheriff pulled up in front of the station five or so minutes ago. By now he’ll be getting introduced to our wayward boy. Time to get a move on.”

  “Yes.” She felt a not entirely unpleasurable tightening in her stomach and groin. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”

  “Do the deed, Julia. Bail us out of this fucking mess.”

  She ended the call.

  17

  Sheriff John Ashworth got back to DuPray around six-twenty. Fourteen hundred miles north, dazed children were dumping cigarettes and matches into baskets and filing into a screening room where the star of that evening’s film would be a megachurch minister from Indiana with many powerful political friends.

  The sheriff stopped just inside the door and surveyed the big main room of the station with his hands on his well-padded hips, noting that his entire staff was there with the exception of Ronnie Gibson, who was vacationing at her mother’s time-share in St. Petersburg. Tim Jamieson was there as well.

  “Wellnow, howdy-do,” he said. “This can’t be a surprise party, because it’s not my birthday. And who might that be?” He pointed to the boy on the small waiting room couch. Luke was curled into as much of a fetal position as it would allow. Ashworth turned to Tag Faraday, the deputy in charge. “Also, just by the way, who beat him up?”

  Instead of answering, Tag turned to Tim and swept out a hand in an after you gesture.

  “His name is Luke Ellis, and nobody here beat him up,” Tim said. “He jumped off a freight and ran into a signal-post. That’s where the bruises came from. As for the bandage, he says he was kidnapped and the kidnappers put a tracking device in his ear. He claims he cut off his earlobe to get rid of it.”

  “With a paring knife,” Wendy added.

  “His parents are dead,” Tag said. “Murdered. That much of his story is true. I checked it out. Way to hell and gone in Minnesota.”

  “But he says the place he escaped from was in Maine,” Bill Wicklow said.

  Ashworth was silent for a moment, hands still on his hips, looking from his deputies and his night knocker to the boy asleep on the couch. The conversation showed no sign of bringing Luke around; he was dead to the world. At last Sheriff John looked back at his assembled law enforcement crew. “I’m starting to wish I’d stayed to have dinner with my ma.”

  “Aw, was she poorly?” Bill asked.

  Sheriff John ignored this. “Assuming y’all haven’t been smoking dope, could I get a coherent story here?”

  “Sit down,” Tim said. “I’ll bring you up to speed, and then I think we might want to watch this.” He put the flash drive down on the dispatch desk. “After that, you can decide what comes next.”

  “Also might want to call the police in Minneapolis, or the State Police in Charleston,” Deputy Burkett said. “Maybe both.” He tilted his head toward Luke. “Let them figure out what to do with him.”

  Ashworth sat. “On second thought, I’m glad I came back early. This is kind of interesting, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Very,” Wendy said.

  “Well, that’s all right. Not much interesting around here as a general rule, we can use the change. Do the Minneapolis cops think he killed his folks?”

  “That’s the way the newspaper stories sound,” Tag said. “Although they’re careful, him being a minor and all.”

  “He’s awesomely bright,” Wendy said, “but otherwise he seems like a nice enough kid.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh, how nice or nasty he is will end up being someone else’s concern, but for now my curiosity’s up. Bill, stop fiddling with that time clock before you bust it, and bring me a Co’-Cola from my office.”

  18

  While Tim was telling Sheriff Ashworth the story Luke had told him and Wendy, and while Gold team was approaching the I-95 Hardeeville exit, where they would double back to the little town of DuPray, Nick Wilholm was herding the kids who had remained in the screening room into the little Back Half lounge.

  Sometimes kids lasted a surprisingly long time; George Iles was a case in point. Sometimes, however, they seemed to unravel all at once. That appeared to be happening to Iris Stanhope. What Back Half kids called the bounce—a brief post-movie respite from the headaches—hadn’t happened for her this time. Her eyes were blank, and her mouth hung open. She stood against the wall of the lounge with her head down and her hair in her eyes. Helen went to her and put an arm around her, but Iris didn’t seem to notice.

  “What are we doing here?” Donna asked. “I want to go back to my room. I want to go to sleep. I hate movie nights.” She sounded querulous and on the verge of tears, but at least she was still present and accounted for. The same seemed true of Jimmy and Hal. They looked dazed, but not exactly hammered, the way Iris did.

  Not going to be any more movies, Avery said. Not ever.

  His voice was louder in Kalisha’s head than it had ever been, and for her that just about proved it—they really were stronger together.

  “A bold prediction,” Nicky said. “Especially coming from a little shit like you, Avester.”

  Hal and Jimmy smiled at that, and Katie even giggled. Only Iris still seemed completely lost, now scratching unselfconsciously at her crotch. Len had been distracted by the television, although nothing was on. Kalisha thought maybe he was stud
ying his own reflection.

  We don’t have much time, Avery said. One of them will come soon to take us back to our rooms.

  “Probably Corinne,” Kalisha said.

  “Yeah,” Helen said. “The Wicked Bitch of the East.”

  “What do we do?” George asked.

  For a moment Avery seemed at a loss, and Kalisha was afraid. Then the little boy who had thought earlier in the day that his life was going to end in the immersion tank held out his hands. “Grab on,” he said. Make a circle.

  All of them except Iris shuffled forward. Helen Simms took Iris’s shoulders and steered her into the rough circle the others had formed. Len looked longingly back over his shoulder at the TV, then sighed and put out his hands. “Fuck it. Whatever.”

  “That’s right, fuck it,” Kalisha said. “Nothing to lose.” She took Len’s right hand in her left, and Nicky’s left hand in her right. Iris was the last one to join up, and the instant she was linked to Jimmy Cullum on one side and Helen on the other, her head came up.

  “Where am I? What are we doing? Is the movie over?”

  “Hush,” Kalisha said.

  “My head feels better!”

  “Good. Hush, now.”

  And the others joined in: Hush . . . hush . . . Iris, hush.

  Each hush was louder. Something was changing. Something was charging.

  Levers, Kalisha thought. There are levers, Avery.

  He nodded at her from the other side of their circle.

  It wasn’t power, at least not yet, and she knew it would be a fatal mistake to believe it was, but the potential for power was present. Kalisha thought, This is like breathing air just before the summer’s biggest thunderstorm lets rip.

  “Guys?” Len said in a timid voice. “My head’s clear. I can’t remember the last time it was clear like this.” He looked at Kalisha with something like panic. “Don’t let go of me, Sha!”

  You’re okay, she thought at him. You’re safe.

  But he wasn’t. None of them were.

  Kalisha knew what came next, what had to come next, and she dreaded it. Of course, she also wanted it. Only it was more than wanting. It was lusting. They were children with high explosives, and that might be wrong, but it felt so right.

  Avery spoke in a low, clear voice. “Think. Think with me, guys.”

  He began, the thought and the image that went with it strong and clear. Nicky joined him. Katie, George, and Helen chimed in. So did Kalisha. Then the rest of them. They chanted at the end of the movies, and they chanted now.

  Think of the sparkler. Think of the sparkler. Think of the sparkler.

  The dots came, brighter than they had ever been. The hum came, louder than it had ever been. The sparkler came, spitting brilliance.

  And suddenly they weren’t just eleven. Suddenly they were twenty-eight.

  Ignition, Kalisha thought. She was terrified; she was exultant; she was holy.

  OH MY GOD

  19

  When Tim finished telling Luke’s story, Sheriff Ashworth sat silent for several seconds in the dispatch chair, his fingers laced together on his considerable belly. Then he picked up the flash drive, studied it as if he had never seen such a thing before, and set it down. “He told you he doesn’t know what’s on it, is that right? Just got it from the housekeeper, along with a knife he used to do surgery on his earlobe.”

  “That’s what he said,” Tim agreed.

  “Went under a fence, went through the woods, took a boat downriver just like Huck and Jim, then rode a boxcar most of the way down the East Coast.”

  “According to him, yes,” Wendy said.

  “Well, that’s quite a tale. I especially like the part about the telepathy and mind over matter. Like the stories the old grannies tell at their quilting bees and canning parties about rains of blood and stumpwater cures. Wendy, wake the boy up. Do it easy, I can see he’s been through a lot no matter what his real story is, but when we look at this, I want him looking with us.”

  Wendy crossed the room and shook Luke’s shoulder. Gently at first, then a little harder. He muttered, moaned, and tried to pull away from her. She took his arm. “Come on, now, Luke, open your eyes and—”

  He surged up so suddenly that Wendy stumbled backward. His eyes were open but unseeing, his hair sticking up in front and all around his head like quills. “They’re doing something! I saw the sparkler!”

  “What’s he talking about?” George Burkett asked.

  “Luke!” Tim said. “You’re okay, you were having a dre—”

  “Kill them!” Luke shouted, and in the station’s small holding annex, the doors of all four cells clashed shut. “Obliterate those motherfuckers!”

  Papers flew up from the dispatch desk like a flock of startled birds. Tim felt a gust of wind buffet past him, real enough to ruffle his hair. Wendy gave a little cry, not quite a scream. Sheriff John was on his feet.

  Tim gave the boy a single hard shake. “Wake up, Luke, wake up!”

  The papers fluttering around the room fell to the floor. The assembled cops, Sheriff John included, were staring at Luke with their mouths open.

  Luke was pawing at the air. “Go away,” he muttered. “Go away.”

  “Okay,” Tim said, and let go of Luke’s shoulder.

  “Not you, the dots. The Stasi Li . . .” He blew out a breath and ran a hand through his dirty hair. “Okay. They’re gone.”

  “You did that?” Wendy asked. She gestured at the fallen paperwork. “You really did that?”

  “Something sure did it,” Bill Wicklow said. He was looking at the night knocker’s time clock. “The hands on this thing were going around . . . whizzing around . . . but now they’ve stopped.”

  “They’re doing something,” Luke said. “My friends are doing something. I felt it, even way down here. How could that happen? Jesus, my head.”

  Ashworth approached Luke and held out a hand. Tim noticed he kept the other on the butt of his holstered gun. “I’m Sheriff Ashworth, son. Want to give me a shake?”

  Luke shook his hand.

  “Good. Good start. Now I want the truth. Did you do that just now?”

  “I don’t know if it was me or them,” Luke said. “I don’t know how it could be them, they’re so far away, but I don’t know how it could be me, either. I never did anything like that in my life.”

  “You specialize in pizza pans,” Wendy said. “Empty ones.”

  Luke smiled faintly. “Yeah. You didn’t see the lights? Any of you? A bunch of colored dots?”

  “I didn’t see anything but flying papers,” Sheriff John said. “And heard those cell doors slam shut. Frank, George, pick that stuff up, would you? Wendy, get this boy an aspirin. Then we’re going to see what’s on that little computer widget.”

  Luke said, “This afternoon all your mother could talk about was her barrettes. She said someone stole her barrettes.”

  Sheriff John’s mouth fell open. “How do you know that?”

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not even trying. Christ, I wish I knew what they were doing. And I wish I was with them.”

  Tag said, “I’m thinking there might be something to this kid’s story, after all.”

  “I want to look at that flash drive, and I want to look at it right now,” Sheriff Ashworth said.

  20

  What they saw first was an empty chair, an old-fashioned wingback placed in front of a wall with a framed Currier & Ives sailing ship on it. Then a woman’s face poked into the frame, staring at the lens.

  “That’s her,” Luke said. “That’s Maureen, the lady who helped me get out.”

  “Is this on?” Maureen said. “The little light’s on, so I guess it is. I hope so, because I don’t think I have the strength to do this twice.” Her face left the screen of the laptop computer the officers were watching. Tim found that something of a relief. The extreme closeup was like looking at a woman trapped inside a fishbowl.

  Her voice faded a bit
, but was still audible. “But if I have to, I will.” She sat down in the chair and adjusted the hem of her floral skirt over her knees. She wore a red blouse above it. Luke, who had never seen her out of her uniform, thought it was a pretty combination, but bright colors couldn’t conceal how thin her face was, or how haggard.

  “Max the audio,” Frank Potter said. “She should have been wearing a lav mike.”

  Meanwhile, she was talking. Tag reversed the video, turned up the sound, and hit play again. Maureen once more returned to the wingback chair and once more adjusted the hem of her skirt. Then she looked directly into the camera’s lens.

  “Luke?”

  He was so startled by his name out of her mouth that he almost answered, but she went on before he could, and what she said next put a dagger of ice into his heart. Although he had known, hadn’t he? Just as he hadn’t needed the Star Tribune to give him the news about his parents.

  “If you’re looking at this, then you’re out and I’m dead.”

  The deputy named Potter said something to the one named Faraday, but Luke paid no attention. He was completely focused on the woman who’d been his only grownup friend in the Institute.

  “I’m not going to tell you my life story,” the dead woman in the wingback chair said. “There’s no time for that, and I’m glad, because I’m ashamed of a lot of it. Not of my boy, though. I’m proud of the way he turned out. He’s going to college. He’ll never know I’m the one who gave him the money, but that’s all right. That’s good, the way it should be, because I gave him up. And Luke, without you to help me, I might have lost that money and that chance to do right by him. I only hope I did right by you.”

  She paused, seeming to gather herself.

  “I will tell one part of my story, because it’s important. I was in Iraq during the second Gulf war, and I was in Afghanistan, and I was involved in what was called enhanced interrogation.”

  To Luke, her calm fluency—no uhs, no you-knows, no kinda or sorta—was a revelation. It made him feel embarrassment as well as grief. She sounded so much more intelligent than she had during their whispered conversations near the ice machine. Because she had been playing dumb? Maybe, but maybe—probably—he had seen a woman in a brown housekeeper’s uniform and just assumed she didn’t have a lot going on upstairs.