The Institute

by Stephen King

  “I don’t know!”

  “Winona? Again. Medium power.”

  “Ma’am, are you s—”

  “A little higher this time, if you please. Just below the solar plexus.”

  Avery’s arms were greased with sweat and he wriggled out of Tony’s grip, almost making a rotten situation even worse—he’d have gone flying around her office like a bird trapped in a garage, knocking things over and bouncing off the walls—but Winona tripped him and pulled him to his feet by his arms. So it was Tony who used the Taser. Avery screamed and went limp.

  “Is he out?” Mrs. Sigsby asked. “If he is, get Dr. Evans in here to give him a shot. We need answers fast.”

  Tony grabbed one of Avery’s cheeks (plump when he’d come here; much thinner now) and twisted it. Avery’s eyes flew open. “He’s not out.”

  Mrs. Sigsby said, “Mr. Dixon, this pain is stupid and unnecessary. Tell me what I want to know and it will stop. Where did he go? What was the plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Avery whispered. “I really really really don’t kn—”

  “Winona? Please remove Mr. Avery’s pants and apply your Taser to his testes. Full power.”

  Although Winona was as apt to slap a sassbox resident as look at him, she was clearly unhappy with this command. Nevertheless, she reached for the waistband of his pants. That was when Avery broke.

  “Okay! Okay! I’ll tell! Just don’t hurt me anymore!”

  “That is a relief for both of us.”

  “Maureen told him to go through the woods. She said he might find a track for golf carts but to keep going straight even if he didn’t. She said he’d see lights, especially a bright yellow one. She said when he got to the houses, he should follow the fence until he saw a scarf tied to a bush or a tree, I don’t remember which. She said there was a path behind it . . . or a road . . . I don’t remember that, either. But she said it would take him to the river. She said there was a boat.”

  He stopped. Mrs. Sigsby gave him a nod and a benign smile, but inside, her heart was beating triple-time. This was both good news and bad. Stackhouse’s search party could stop floundering around in the woods, but a boat? Ellis had gotten to the river? And he was hours ahead of them.

  “Then what, Mr. Dixon? Where did she tell him to get off the river? The Bend, am I right? Dennison River Bend?”

  Avery shook his head and made himself look directly at her, all wide eyes and terrified honesty. “No, she said that was too close, she said to keep on the river as far as Presque Isle.”

  “Very good, Mr. Dixon, you can go back to your room. But if I should find out that you’ve lied . . .”

  “I’ll be in trouble,” Avery said, wiping at the tears on his cheeks with trembling hands.

  At that, Mrs. Sigsby actually laughed. “You read my mind,” she said.

  15

  Five o’clock in the afternoon.

  Ellis gone at least eighteen hours, maybe longer. The playground cams didn’t record, so it was impossible to tell for sure. Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse were in Mrs. Sigsby’s office, monitoring developments and listening for reports from their stringers. They had these all over the country. For the most part, the Institute’s stringers did no more than groundwork: keeping an eye on children with high BDNF scores and compiling information on their friends, family, neighborhoods, school situations. And their homes, of course. Everything about their homes, especially alarm systems. All that background was useful to the extraction teams when the time came. They also kept an eye out for special children not already on the Institute’s radar. These did show up from time to time. BDNF testing, along with the heel-stick PKU and the Apgar score, was routine for infants born in American hospitals, but of course not all babies were born in hospitals, and plenty of parents, such as the ever more vocal anti-vaxxer contingent, forewent the tests.

  These stringers had no idea to whom they were reporting, or to what purpose; many assumed (incorrectly) that it was some kind of US government Big Brother thing. Most simply banked the extra income of five hundred dollars a month, made their reports when reports had to be made, and asked no questions. Of course every now and then one would ask questions, and that one would discover that as well as killing cats, curiosity killed their monthly dividend.

  The thickest concentration of stringers, almost fifty, was in the area surrounding the Institute, and tracking talented children was not their major concern. The chief job of these stringers was to listen for people asking the wrong questions. They were tripwires, an early warning system.

  Stackhouse was careful to alert half a dozen in Dennison River Bend, just in case the Dixon boy was mistaken or lying (“He wasn’t lying, I would have known,” Mrs. Sigsby insisted), but most he sent to the Presque Isle area. One of these was tasked with contacting the PI police and telling them that he was quite sure he’d seen a boy who had been in a news story on CNN. This boy, according to the news, was wanted for questioning in the murders of his parents. His name was Luke Ellis. The stringer told the police he wasn’t positive it was that kid, but it sure did look like him, and he’d asked for money in a threatening, disjointed way. Both Mrs. Sigsby and Stackhouse knew that having the police pick up their wandering boy wasn’t the ideal solution to their problems, but police could be handled. Besides, anything Ellis told them would be dismissed as the ravings of an unbalanced child.

  Cell phones didn’t work in the Institute or in the village—indeed, not for a two-mile radius—so the searchers used walkies. And there were landlines. Now the one on Mrs. Sigsby’s desk rang. Stackhouse grabbed it. “What? Who am I talking to?”

  It was Dr. Felicia Richardson, who had spelled Zeke in the comm room. She had been eager to do it. Her ass was also on the line, a fact she fully grasped. “I’ve got one of our stringers on hold. Guy named Jean Levesque. He says he found the boat Ellis used. Want me to transfer him to you?”

  “Immediately!”

  Mrs. Sigsby was standing in front of Stackhouse now, hands raised, lips forming the word What?

  Stackhouse ignored her. There was a click, and Levesque came on the line. He had a St. John Valley accent thick enough to cut pulpwood. Stackhouse had never seen him, but pictured a tanned old guy under a hat with a bunch of fishing lures stuck in the brim.

  “Found dat boat, me.”

  “So I’m told. Where?”

  “She come aground on a bank about five miles upriver from Presque Isle. Ship quite a bit of water she did, but the handle of the oar—just one oar—was prop on the seat. Left it right where it was. Didn’t call nobody. Dere’s blood on the oar. Tell you what, dere’s a l’il bit of a rapids a little further up. If dat boy you lookin for wasn’t used to boats, specially a l’il one like that—”

  “It might have spilled him out,” Stackhouse finished. “Stay where you are, I’m going to send a couple of guys. And thank you.”

  “What you pay me for,” Levesque said. “Don’t suppose you can tell me what he do.”

  Stackhouse killed the call, which answered that particular foolish question, and filled in Mrs. Sigsby. “With any luck, the little bastard drowned and someone will find his body tonight or tomorrow, but we can’t count on being that lucky. I want to get Rafe and John—all I’ve got for security, and that’s going to change when this is over—to downtown Presque Isle, ASAP. If Ellis is on foot, that’s where he’ll go first. If he hitches a ride, either the State Police or some townie cop will pick him up and hold him. He’s the crazy kid who killed his parents, after all, then ran all the way to Maine.”

  “Are you as hopeful as you sound?” She was honestly curious.

  “No.”

  16

  The residents were allowed out of their rooms for dinner. It was, by and large, an outwardly silent meal. There were several caretakers and techs present, circling like sharks. They were clearly on edge, more than ready to strike or zap anyone who gave them lip. Yet in that quiet, running secretly behind it, was a nervous elation so strong that it made
Frieda Brown feel slightly drunk. There had been an escape. All of the kids were glad and none of them wanted to show it. Was she glad? Frieda wasn’t so sure. Part of her was, but . . .

  Avery was sitting beside her, burying his two hotdogs in baked beans, then digging them up. Interring them and exhuming them. Frieda wasn’t as bright as Luke Ellis, but she was plenty smart, and knew what interring and exhuming meant. What she didn’t know was what would happen if Luke tattled about what was going on here to someone who believed him. Specifically, what would happen to them. Would they be freed? Sent home to their parents? She was sure it was what these kids wanted to believe—hence that secret current—but Frieda had her doubts. She was only fourteen, but she was already a hardened cynic. Her cartoon people smiled; she rarely did. Also, she knew something the rest of them didn’t. Avery had been taken to Mrs. Sigsby’s office, and there he had undoubtedly spilled his guts.

  Which meant Luke wasn’t going to get away.

  “Are you going to eat that shizzle, or just play with it?”

  Avery pushed the plate away and stood up. Ever since coming back from Mrs. Sigsby’s office, he had looked like a boy who had seen a ghost.

  “There’s apple pie à la mode and chocolate pudding for dessert on the menu,” Frieda said. “And it’s not like home—mine, anyway—where you have to eat everything on your plate to get it.”

  “Not hungry,” Avery said, and left the cafeteria.

  But two hours later, after the kids had been sent back to their rooms (the lounge and canteen had both been declared off-limits this evening, and the door to the playground was locked), he padded down to Frieda’s room in his jammies, said he was hungry, and asked if she had any tokens.

  “Are you kidding?” Frieda asked. “I just barely got here.” She actually had three, but she wasn’t giving them to Avery. She liked him, but not that much.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Go to bed. You won’t be hungry while you’re asleep, and when you wake up it’ll be breakfast.”

  “Can I sleep with you, Frieda? Since Luke’s gone?”

  “You should be in your room. You could get us in trouble.”

  “I don’t want to sleep alone. They hurt me. They gave me lectric shocks. What if they come back and hurt me some more? They might, if they find out—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She considered. She considered many things, actually. An ace considerer was Frieda Brown of Springfield, Missouri. “Well . . . okay. Get into bed. I’m going to stay up awhile longer. There’s a show on TV about wild animals I want to see. Did you know some wild animals eat their babies?”

  “Do they?” Avery looked stricken. “That’s awful sad.”

  She patted his shoulder. “Mostly they don’t.”

  “Oh. Oh, good.”

  “Yes. Now get into bed, and don’t talk. I hate people talking when I’m trying to watch a show.”

  Avery got into bed. Frieda watched the wild animal show. An alligator fought with a lion. Or maybe it was a crocodile. Either way, it was interesting. And Avery was interesting. Because Avery had a secret. If she had been a TP as strong as he was, she would have known it already. As it was, she only knew it was there.

  When she was sure he was asleep (he snored—polite little-boy snores), she turned out the lights, got into bed with him, and shook him. “Avery.”

  He grunted and tried to turn away from her. She wouldn’t let him.

  “Avery, where did Luke go?”

  “Prekile,” he muttered.

  She had no idea what Prekile was, and didn’t care, because it wasn’t the truth.

  “Come on, where did he go? I won’t tell.”

  “Up the red steps,” Avery said. He was still mostly asleep. Probably thought he was dreaming this.

  “What red steps?” She whispered it in his ear.

  He didn’t answer, and when he tried to turn away from her this time, Frieda let him. Because she had what she needed. Unlike Avery (and Kalisha, at least on good days), she could not exactly read thoughts. What she had were intuitions that were probably based on thoughts, and sometimes, if a person were unusually open (like a little boy who was mostly asleep), she got brief, brilliant pictures.

  She lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling of her room, thinking.

  17

  Ten o’clock. The Institute was quiet.

  Sophie Turner, one of the night caretakers, was sitting at the picnic table in the playground, smoking an illicit cigarette and tapping her ashes into the cap of a Vitaminwater bottle. Dr. Evans was beside her, with a hand on her thigh. He leaned over and kissed her neck.

  “Don’t do that, Jimmy,” she said. “Not tonight, with the whole place on red alert. You don’t know who’s watching.”

  “You’re an Institute employee smoking a cigarette while the whole place is on red alert,” he said. “If you’re going to be a bad girl, why not be a bad girl?”

  He slid his hand higher, and she was debating whether or not to leave it there, when she looked around and saw a little girl—one of the new ones—standing at the lounge doors. Her palms were on the glass, and she was looking out at them.

  “Goddammit!” Sophie said. She removed Evans’s hand and squashed her cigarette out. She strode to the door and unlocked it and jerked it open and grabbed Peeping Thomasina by the neck. “What are you doing up? No walking around tonight, didn’t you get the message? The lounge and canteen are off-limits! So if you don’t want your ass slapped good and hard, get back to your—”

  “I want to talk to Mrs. Sigsby,” Frieda said. “Right away.”

  “Are you out of your mind? For the last time, get back—”

  Dr. Evans pushed past Sophie, and without apology. There would be no more touchie-feelie for him tonight, Sophie decided.

  “Frieda? You’re Frieda, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “I can only talk to her. Because she’s the boss.”

  “That’s right, and the boss has had a busy day. Why don’t you tell me, and I’ll decide if it’s important enough to tell her.”

  “Oh, please,” Sophie said. “Can’t you see when one of these brats is scamming you?”

  “I know where Luke went,” Frieda said. “I won’t tell you, but I’ll tell her.”

  “She’s lying,” Sophie said.

  Frieda never looked at her. She kept her eyes on Dr. Evans. “Not.”

  Evans’s interior debate was short. Luke Ellis would soon have been gone for a full twenty-four hours, he could be anywhere and telling anything to anyone—a cop, or please God no, a reporter. It wasn’t Evans’s job to pass judgement on the girl’s claim, farfetched as it was. That was Mrs. Sigsby’s job. His job was not to make a mistake that ended him up shit creek without a paddle.

  “You better be telling the truth, Frieda, or you’re going to be in a world of hurt. You know that, don’t you?”

  She only looked at him.

  18

  Ten-twenty.

  The Southway Express box, in which Luke slept behind the rototillers, lawn tractors, and boxed outboard motors, was now leaving New York State for Pennsylvania and entering an enhanced speed corridor along which it would travel for the next three hours. Its speed rose to 79 miles an hour, and woe to anyone stalled on a crossing or asleep on the tracks.

  In Mrs. Sigsby’s office, Frieda Brown was standing in front of the desk. She was wearing pink footie pajamas nicer than any she had at home. Her hair was in daytime pigtails and her hands were clasped behind her back.

  Stackhouse was in the small private quarters adjacent to the office, cat-napping on the couch. Mrs. Sigsby saw no reason to wake him. At least not yet. She examined the girl and saw nothing remarkable. She was as brown as her name: brown eyes, mouse-brown hair, skin tanned a summer café au lait. According to her file, her BDNF was likewise unremarkable, at least by Institute standards; useful but hardly amazing
. Yet there was something in those brown eyes, something. It could have been the look of a bridge or whist player who has a hand filled with high trumps.

  “Dr. Evans says you think you know where our missing child is,” Mrs. Sigsby said. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me where this brainwave came from.”

  “Avery,” Frieda said. “He came down to my room. He’s sleeping there.”

  Mrs. Sigsby smiled. “I’m afraid you’re a little late, dear. Mr. Dixon has already told us everything he knows.”

  “He lied to you.” Still with her hands clasped behind her back, and still maintaining a surface calm, but Mrs. Sigsby had dealt with many, many children, and knew this girl was scared to be here. She understood the risk. Yet the certainty in those brown eyes remained. It was fascinating.

  Stackhouse came into the room, tucking in his shirt. “Who’s this?”

  “Frieda Brown. A little girl who’s confabulating. I bet you don’t know what that means, dear.”

  “Yes I do,” Frieda said. “It means lying, and I’m not.”

  “Neither was Avery Dixon. I told Mr. Stackhouse, and now I tell you: I know when a child is lying.”

  “Oh, he probably told the truth about most of it. That’s why you believed him. But he didn’t tell the truth about Prekile.”

  A frown creased her brow. “What’s—”

  “Presque Isle?” Stackhouse came to her and took her by the arm. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “It’s what Avery said. But that was a lie.”

  “How did you—” Mrs. Sigsby began, but Stackhouse held up a hand to stop her.

  “If he lied about Presque Isle, what’s the truth?”

  She gave him a cunning smile. “What do I get if I tell?”

  “What you won’t get is electricity,” Mrs. Sigsby said. “Within an inch of your life.”

  “If you zap me, I’ll tell you something, but it might not be the truth. Like Avery didn’t tell you the truth when you zapped him.”