The Institute

By Oscar Wager II

My name is Davey. I was a typical 12 year old boy, who happened to get into a few fights, hack into a bank computer and my school's computer, break into my school, and smoke pot. Everything changed in one day.

I came home from school and my mom was gone and I lost twelve hours of time. The next thing I remember I am having a nervous breakdown and I'm being taken to the Arizona State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Now, along with trying to recover my memories of the "incident", the staff is trying to teach me that my actions have consequences. Something they say my parents tried to teach me before this all occurred.

Now I've been in the hospital for 6 years. I'm 18 and I want to get out and live a normal life. I'm also afraid to leave for fear that the same thing may happen again.

My only connection to the outside world is my father during his weekly visits. But being in here, I never know what day it is. I'm losing time, reliving days, and even waking up in strange places.

I don't know if they are trying to rehabilitate me, or if I'm living in someone's twisted nightmare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oscar Wager II
• Release date: Oct 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005883843

Oscar Wager II

Oscar was born in Michigan and, after several moves, ended up in Arizona. He has been writing stories for family and friends for years and decided, with the encouragement of his wife, his talent needed to be shared with the world. The world of the paranormal has fascinated him since he was a boy and that fascination comes out in his writing. Oscar weaves lore from several cultures into his tales. Along with being an author, Oscar is a poet and lyricist.In his off time, Oscar enjoys spending time with his wife and cats. He also enjoys horror movies, ghost shows, reading, podcasts, and audible books.

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The Institute

Oscar Wager II

© 2021 by Oscar Wager II

All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author.

Dedication

To my wonderful parents, Joyce and Oscar Wager, who allowed me to be myself, no matter how weird. To my wife, Beth, you are my rock. You keep me strong and anchored to the ground. And finally, to all of my friends in the writing community who have helped me through the entire indie writing process.

Acknowledgements

My eagle-eye beta reader: Teresa Garcia

Shadow play by chispita_666 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Arizona State Institute for the Mentally Unstable (The Institute)

Present Day

My name is David Townson. You can call me Davey. I was twelve years old when the incident occurred; six long years ago. I have been a guest of the state all this time. The Arizona State Institute for the Mentally Unstable is not a happy place. I have not been able to explain what happened that day that facilitated my stay here. It’s not that I can’t articulate the words. It’s just that anyone who hears my story does not understand, or they just don’t believe it. I don’t blame them; if I heard my story from anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it myself.

When I first came here, I had blocked out that day. The therapists helped me remember it and I wish they hadn’t. But they did and I can never forget it. I still don’t know who, or what, abducted me and I hope I never do.

Davey’s Family Home

Six Years Ago

(The Incident)

It is an ordinary day, around two o’clock in the afternoon. I make the short walk home from school. As I get close to home, I smell the cookies Mom baked for me. When I walk inside I say, Mom, I’m home. No answer. I call out again, Mom, I’m home. Where are you?

I smile. We play this game sometimes. She waits for me to look for her, and she jumps out to surprise me. I decide to make her wait. I go into the kitchen and grab a cookie from the pile on a plate. She always leaves a glass of milk for me to drink with my cookies. I eat two more cookies and walk around the house to look for her, drinking my milk. I walk down the hallway into my room. Not here, I think. I check the closet. Not here either. I don’t expect to find her there. If she had been in the closet she would have jumped out when I entered my bedroom. I look in my dad’s office. She’s not here. I go to Mom and Dad’s bedroom. Not here. Now I’m starting to worry. She knows I don’t like the basement. She wouldn’t be there but I look anyway.

I open the door slightly. Mom, I try to yell. It comes out just a little over a whisper, with a little shrill to it. I call out again. Still no answer.

I panic. I run to the kitchen and pick up the phone to call Dad. No dial tone. I pick up Mom’s cell phone and try to call. No service. One more weird thing to add to today. We always have excellent service.

As Dad walks in the door, I run to him. Until the therapists help me recover my memories, I won’t remember anything after that, until I wake up twelve hours later.

Davey’s School

Two Years Before Incident

It’s the last class of the day. I’m excited to get out. I’m going to meet Sammy, my best friend since third grade. He stole some pot from his older sister, and he says he knows how to smoke it. I look at the clock. Five minutes and we are free. The teacher drones on about multiplying and dividing fractions, or something. After what seems like forty-five minutes, the bell finally rings.

I shove my math book in my bag and sling the bag over my shoulder. I run out the door. As I do, a rather large sixth grader moves in front of me to block my path.

What’s the hurry, he asks.

None of your business, I reply, as I try to move around his large frame.

Two of his friends move in on either side to block my exit. A fourth blocks me from behind. As frightened as I am, I fly into a rage, and ram my body into the knee of the ass standing in front of me. As he goes down, I elbow the one to my right in the groin.

The other two grab me from behind and I take a very severe beating from all four of the bullies. The resulting injuries include a broken nose, two cracked teeth, a broken rib, a ruptured spleen, and a broken forearm.

As I am loaded into the ambulance, I see the four of them sitting in the back of two police cars. Using the hand at the end of my good arm, I lift my middle finger, smile, and yell, Fuck you!

The cars start rocking back and forth as they react to my rather harsh sign language.

Twenty Months Before Incident

It’s the last day of fifth grade. I’ve developed a taste for pot after the beating I took several months ago. I started smoking to dull the pain. My parents wouldn’t let me take the Percocet the doctor prescribed after the surgeries, so I turned to pot. Now, I smoke to feel good.

Once I went back to school, I would smoke with Sammy after classes let out. Now, it’s a way to get through the rigors of the day, without all of the pain. Plus, it feels so damn good and it lightens the boredom of the class routine. I always seemed to be finished with my in-class work before the rest of the class. Even if I've been smoking weed.

Neighborhood Park

Eighteen Months Before Incident

I am appreciating my summer break. It’s one month before sixth grade starts. I am enjoying a walk to the neighborhood park to meet Sammy, when I run into a friend, Joe, from school. He wants to talk to me about some shit or other. I try to tell him I’m in a hurry, but he won’t listen. I hit him hard, square in the jaw. He goes down hard. His mouth is bleeding. I think he hit his head because the back of it seems to be bleeding, as well.

I run to the park to meet Sammy.

Let’s go, I yell.

Sammy follows me into some bushes by the park.

What’s going on? he asks.

I hit Joe on the way over here and I think he is really hurt. I’m hiding, in case the cops come looking for the person who did it.

Why did you do it?

I wanted to get over here to you and he wouldn’t take the hint that I didn’t want him around at the time, I answer.

So you jacked him up? he asks.

Listen, I’m not proud of it. I just can’t get into trouble, okay?

We hide there, watching and getting high as the paramedics work on Joe, the police start asking witnesses questions, and Joe is taken away in an ambulance.

Soon, a detective’s attention is drawn over to the bushes by our hiding spot. As he nears the shrubs, I lose my footing and fall, revealing myself to the detective.

It turns out, my parents know the detective.

I giggle and say, Detective Jackson, what brings you here?

He responds, Davey, we got a call about a fight. Somebody hit Joe Tisdale pretty hard. Do you know anything about that? Did either one of you see anything while you were hiding over here?

No sir, we didn’t see anything over here, Detective, Sammy answers, as he walks out of the bushes.

Finally, Detective Jackson addresses the elephant in the room. I know you two have been smoking pot. I can smell it all over you. Davey, I can see you have a scrape on your knuckles. It looks you may have been in a fight. I need to get the crime techs over here to process you. Then I need to take you downtown, and call your parents. I need to take your friend also.

I am sitting at the police station. Detective Jackson called my parents and is questioning me about the fight.

So, walk me through this. From the top, he says.

Okay, I say. But, this is the last time. I don’t have all night. Besides, if you’ve got such a bad memory maybe you should read the notes you’ve taken the first three times I’ve told you the story.

Just tell me the story again

Like I said, I was going to meet Sammy at the handball courts. I was in a hurry to meet him. Joe meets me on the sidewalk and when I try to tell him I have to go he won’t take the hint. When I try to walk away, he just follows me. So, I turn around and hit him. He must have a glass jaw because he went down and I mean he went down hard. I thought he hit his head on the sidewalk so I ran. He didn’t look good and I got scared. I ran over to meet Sammy and we ran and hid. When we were in the bushes I told him what happened. He got scared, too. So, we hung out there to watch and see what happened and make sure Joe was going to be okay. I didn’t want to hurt him bad. I just got mad at him and wanted to make sure he left me alone.

Detective Jackson asks, Why were you meeting Sammy? We didn’t find a handball or any equipment with either of you. In fact, the only thing we found on either of you was a lighter. What did you do, ditch whatever you were going to smoke before we found you?

I have no idea what you mean. I didn’t have a lighter on me, I smile.

Sammy had it, he says.

Maybe he had something to smoke.

Sammy says you may have had something to smoke. I already know you were smoking marijuana. Did you ditch the rest of it?

On the inside, I am relieved he got rid of the weed. On the outside, I show no reaction. I don’t know nothing about that, I say.

I see my mom and dad walk into the station. I start to cry.

Mom, Dad, I bawl. I’m so happy to see you.

They make their way to me and the detective. When they reach us I stand up. Mom reaches down to hug me.

Dad lightly grabs her arm. When she looks at him he gives her a stern shake of the head, as if they had discussed this on the way to the police station.

I look at the floor and sit back down.

Detective Jackson takes Mom and Dad to the side and talks to them for thirty minutes, as I sit squirming in a very uncomfortable chair. Now, I understand why criminals confess. Just to get out of these chairs. I guess they wouldn’t bring out the fluffy chairs for them.

After a silent ride home, and a short discussion, I am in my room. I am grounded for one month. No television, no telephone, and no friends. I must stay in my room except to eat or go to the restroom until school starts.

Davey’s Family Home

Two Days Later

Two days later, Sammy meets me at my window with a baggy of pot. After he leaves, I walk across the hall to the bathroom, light some incense, load my glass pipe, and light the dried leaves as I take a long drag on the mouthpiece. After holding the smoke in my lungs as long as I can, I blow the smoke out of the bathroom window. Once the weed in the pipe has burned out, I knock the ash out the window. I flush the toilet and wash my hands as to not draw attention to my stay in the bathroom.

Davey’s School

Seventeen Months Before Incident

It’s the first day of sixth grade. I’m free. I spent the last month smoking weed in the bathroom almost every night. I guess being grounded could have been worse.

I think my parents suspected something but they never said anything. I’m sure Mom had something to do with that. She acted as a buffer between me and Dad most of the time. Not that he acted as a hard ass, he just played bad cop all of the time.

I get to school just in time to pick up my schedule and make it to class. First period is English with Ms. Jensen. Talk about hot for teacher.

Sammy’s in this class, so we find desks in the back row. Jesus, we’re in the sixth grade. Do we really need desks with attached seats and lift up tops for storage?

Ms. Jensen begins by introducing herself. Then she has each of us introduce ourselves. When it is my turn, I stand and start to giggle. I manage to get through my introduction and sit down. I can’t stop giggling through the rest of the introductions. Maybe a little weed before class wasn’t such a good idea.

On the other hand, I enjoyed myself, I accidentally say aloud. I begin to laugh harder.

The bell rings. Ms. Jensen says, Mr. Townson, please see me before you leave.

I walk to the front of the classroom and to her desk.

She says, Davey, I do not appreciate your disruption of my class. If you want to get high, I can’t stop you. All I ask is that you not do it before my class. By the look on your face, I can see you are asking yourself how I knew you were high. Let’s just say I know the signs and leave it at that. I wish you wouldn’t do it and I hope it is only weed. I should tell your parents and the school authorities. I’m going to let it slide, this time. If you show up to my class stoned one more time you will know the true meaning of fear. Do you understand me, Davey?

I...I do, I stammer.

Good, she says. Now, remember, hell hath no wrath like a woman teacher scorned. Now get out of here, and keep your lips off the pipe, Davey.

As I walk out of the classroom Ms. Jensen calls out to me, Oh, Davey, not a word of this to anyone. If someone should find out I would be in serious trouble and so would you.

I am sitting in Mr. Hansen’s third period computer class and he is taking attendance. He reaches my name, the last name on his list, David Townson?

Present, I respond.

Not the same David Townson who was caught hacking into the school district’s computer system over the summer? he asks.

The same, I answer.

My next question would be why are you in a beginner computer class? he asks.

"Well, Mr. Hansen, in order to take more advanced classes, I have to start with this class. And high school classes won’t let me enroll in classes without the advanced classes. I hacked into