The institute / King, Stephen

"In the middle of the night . . . in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis's parents and load him into a black SUV . . . Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents--telekinesis and telepathy--who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, 'like the roachmotel,' Kalisha says. 'You check in, but you don't check out.' In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don't, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute"--Provided by publisher.

"In the middle of the night . . . in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis's parents and load him into a black SUV . . . Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents--telekinesis and telepathy--who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, 'like the roachmotel,' Kalisha says. 'You check in, but you don't check out.' In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don't, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute"--Provided by publisher.

Intruders kill Luke Ellis's parents and kidnap him in under two minutes. He is taken to the Institute where kids with special powers are housed and experimented on deep in the woods. The staff are ruthless in extracting powers, and children who don't behave are moved from the Front Half to the feared Back Half from which no children return. As children continue to disappear to the Back Half, Luke grows more and more desperate to escape.