“Terrific. Now help me.”

The boys got down on their knees and began to fill in the depression under the fence, scooping with their hands and raising a cloud of dust. It was hot work, and they were both soon sweating. Stevie’s face was bright red.

“What are you boys doing?”

They looked around. It was Gladys, her usual big smile nowhere in sight.

“Nothing,” Avery said.

“Nothing,” Stevie agreed. “Just playin in the dirt. You know, the dirty ole dirt.”

“Let me see. Move.” And when neither of them did, she kicked Avery in the side.

“Ow!” he cried, and curled up. “Ow, that hurt!”

Stevie said, “What are you, on the rag or some—” Then he got his own kick, high up on the shoulder.

Gladys looked at the trench, only partially filled in, then at Frieda, still absorbed in her artistic endeavors. “Did you do this?”

Frieda shook her head without looking up.

Gladys pulled her walkie from the pocket of her white pants and keyed it. “Mr. Stackhouse? This is Gladys for Mr. Stackhouse.”

There was a pause, then: “This is Stackhouse, go.”

“I think you need to come out to the playground as soon as possible. There’s something you need to see. Maybe it’s nothing, but I don’t like it.”

11

After notifying the security chief, Gladys called Winona to take the two boys back to their rooms. They were to stay there until further notice.

“I don’t know nothing about that hole,” Stevie said sulkily. “I thought a woodchuck done it.”

Winona told him to shut up and herded the boys back inside.

Stackhouse arrived with Mrs. Sigsby. She bent and he squatted, first looking at the dip under the chainlink, then at the fence itself.

“Nobody could crawl under there,” Mrs. Sigsby said. “Well, maybe Dixon, he’s not much bigger than those Wilcox twins were, but no one else.”

Stackhouse scooped away the loose mix of rocks and dirt the two boys had put back in, deepening the dip to a trench. “Are you sure of that?”

Mrs. Sigsby realized she was biting at her lip, and made herself stop. The idea is ridiculous, she thought. We have cameras, we have microphones, we have the caretakers and the janitors and the housekeepers, we have security. All to take care of a bunch of kids so terrified they wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

Of course there was Wilholm, who definitely would say boo to a goose, and there had been a few others like him over the years. But still . . .

“Julia.” Very low.

“What?”

“Get down here with me.”

She started to do it, then saw the Brown girl staring at them. “Get inside,” she snapped. “This second.”

Frieda went in a hurry, dusting off her chalky hands, leaving her smiling cartoon people behind. As the girl entered the lounge, Mrs. Sigsby saw a small cluster of children gawking out. Where were the caretakers when you needed them? In the break room, swapping stories with one of the extraction teams? Telling dirty jo— “Julia!”

She dropped to one knee, wincing when a sharp piece of gravel bit into her.

“There’s blood on this fence. See it?”

She didn’t want to, but she did. Yes, that was blood. Dried to maroon, but definitely blood.

“Now look over there.”

He poked a finger through one of the chainlink diamonds, pointing at a partially uprooted bush. There was blood on that, too. As Mrs. Sigsby looked at those few spots, spots that were outside, her stomach dropped and for one alarming moment she thought she was going to wet her pants, as she had on that long-ago trike. She thought of the Zero Phone and saw her life as head of the Institute—because that was what it was, not her job but her life—disappearing into it. What would the lisping man on the other end say if she had to call and tell him that, in what was supposed to be the most secret and secure facility in the country—not to mention the most vital facility in the country—a child had escaped by going under a fence?

They would say she was done, of course. Done and dusted.

“The residents are all here,” she said in a hoarse whisper. She grasped Stackhouse’s wrist, her fingernails biting into his skin. He didn’t seem to notice. He was still staring at the partially uprooted bush as if hypnotized. This was as bad for him as for her. Not worse, there was no worse, but just as bad. “Trevor, they are all here. I checked.”

“I think you better check again. Don’t you?”

She had her walkie this time (thoughts of locking the barn door after the livestock was stolen flashed through her mind), and she keyed it. “Zeke. This is Mrs. Sigsby for Zeke.” You better be there, Ionidis. You just better.

He was. “This is Zeke, Mrs. Sigsby. I’ve been checking up on Alvorson, Mr. Stackhouse told me to since Jerry’s off and Andy’s not here, and I reached her next-door neigh—”

“Never mind that now. Look at the locater blips again for me.”

“Okay.” He sounded suddenly cautious. Must have heard the strain in my voice, she thought. “Hold on, everything’s running slow this morning . . . couple more seconds . . .”

She felt as if she would scream. Stackhouse was still peering through the fence, as if expecting a magic fucking hobbit to appear and explain the whole thing.

“Okay,” Zeke said. “Forty-one residents, still perfect attendance.”

Relief cooled her face like a breeze. “All right, that’s good. That’s very—”

Stackhouse took the walkie from her. “Where are they currently?”

“Uh . . . still twenty-eight in Back Half, now four in the East Wing lounge . . . three in the caff . . . two in their rooms . . . three in the hall . . .”

Those three would be Dixon, Whipple, and the artist-girl, Mrs. Sigsby thought.

“Plus one in the playground,” Zeke finished. “Forty-one. Like I said.”

“Wait one, Zeke.” Stackhouse looked at Mrs. Sigsby. “Do you see a kid in the playground?”

She didn’t answer him. She didn’t need to.

Stackhouse raised the walkie again. “Zeke?”

“Go, Mr. Stackhouse. Right here.”

“Can you pinpoint the exact location of the kid in the playground?”

“Uh . . . let me zoom . . . there’s a button for that . . .”

“Don’t bother,” Mrs. Sigsby said. She had spotted an object glittering in the early afternoon sun. She walked onto the basketball court, stooped at the foul line, and picked it up. She returned to her security chief and held out her hand. In her palm was most of an earlobe with the tracker button still embedded in it.

12

The Front Half residents were told to return to their rooms and stay there. If any were caught in the hall, they would be severely punished. The Institute’s security force totaled just four, counting Stackhouse himself. Two of these men were in the Institute village and came quickly, using the golf-cart track Maureen had expected Luke to find, and which he had missed by less than a hundred feet. The third member of Stackhouse’s team was in Dennison River Bend. Stackhouse had no intention of waiting for her to turn up. Denny Williams and Robin Lecks of the Ruby Red team were on-site, though, waiting for their next assignment, and perfectly willing to be drafted. They were joined by two widebodies—Joe Brinks and Chad Greenlee.

“The Minnesota boy,” Denny said, once this makeshift search party was assembled and the tale was told. “The one we brought in last month.”

“That’s right,” Stackhouse agreed, “the Minnesota boy.”

“And you say he ripped the tracker right out of his ear?” Robin asked.

“The cut’s a little smoother than that. Used a knife, I think.”

“Took balls, either way,” Denny said.

“I’ll have his balls when we catch up to him,” Joe said. “He doesn’t fight like Wilholm did, but he’s got a fuck-you look in his eyes.”

“He’ll be wandering around in the woods, so lost he’ll probably hug us when we find him,” Chad said. He paused. “If we find him. Lot of trees out there.”

“He was bleeding from his ear and probably all down his back from going under the fence,” Stackhouse said. “Must have got it on his hands, too. We’ll follow the blood as far as we can.”

“It’d be good if we had a dog,” Denny Williams said. “A bloodhound or a good old bluetick.”

“It would be good if he’d never gotten out in the first place,” Robin said. “Under the fence, huh?” She almost laughed, then saw Stackhouse’s drawn face and furious eyes and reconsidered.

Rafe Pullman and John Walsh, the two security guys from the village, arrived just then.

Stackhouse said, “We are not going to kill him, understand that, but we are going to zap the living shit out of the little son of a bitch when we find him.”

“If we find him,” Chad the caretaker repeated.

“We’ll find him,” Stackhouse said. Because if we don’t, he thought, I’m toast. This whole place might be toast.

“I’m going back to my office,” Mrs. Sigsby said.

Stackhouse caught her by the elbow. “And do what?”

“Think.”