The Panchira Protocol

By Davi Mai

Peeping Tom has spent years locked up in a mental institution because of his perchant for lifting girl's skirts. So when a busload of Catholic schoolgirls arrives on the scene, he thinks all his Christmasses have come at once. But these aren't normal schoolgirls. They're here to chew gum and kick ass, and they're all out of gum.

 

Join Tom and his fellow psychiatric inmates as they fight to survive the zombie apocalypse, nuclear anilation, and the perils of a diet consisting only of rice and beans.

 

Will the pervert prevail? And if not, how many skirts can he lift before he gets his come-uppance?  Will Alice the teenage vampire indulge in her own version of the Holy Communion? And most importantly of all...Rebecca, will you stop pulling Jasmine's hair! This is your last warning!

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Davi Mai
• Release date: Apr 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224741595

Book preview

Chapter One: Induction

On the eve of the zombie apocalypse, Charlotte Robinson woke with a hangover and a nervous disposition. The hangover was courtesy of two bottles of chardonnay – enjoyed alone. The nerves, were because today was the first day of her new job. Her first ‘proper’ job. One that used her accounting degree in a financial role; not her tray-balancing skills in a café. Being hungover and nervous about your first day was bad enough, but as she sat on the edge of the bed and dug numb knuckles into red eyes, Charlotte remembered that last night she'd also broken up with Daniel. The two-timing bastard. So, the one bottle of celebratory wine was joined by a second, to truly drown her sorrows.

In the shower, she practised one of her calming visualisation exercises. She imagined Daniel to be a coating of thick grime slathered over her body from head-to-toe. He was even in her hair. Dirty grey clumps of muck that matted the blonde strands and took repeated applications of shampoo to dislodge. From her scalp to her feet, she cleansed herself of Daniel. Purged him from every inch of her skin and watched him swirl down the drain.

The tiny extractor fan lost its battle against the clouds of steam billowing from the shower cubicle. The vapour enveloped Charlotte in a warm, wet hug. She wrote to herself in the condensation on the glass door. Another tradition since her teens – her affirmations. In cursive script, small enough to fit what she wanted to say, each line bleeding water into the one below...

I don't need Daniel.

I don't want Daniel.

I don't love Daniel.

She smiled, remembering the old Meatloaf song; except for her the lyrics became ‘None out of three ain't bad’

Under those three lines, she wrote...

I'm going to be great at my new job.

and...

Today is a new start.

Closing her eyes and lifting her face into the full force of the shower, she repeated those five affirmations and sighed with relief.

She left the bathroom, purified in body and soul, and continued her positive reflections while dressing and making coffee. She had a new full-time job that used her qualifications. That wasn’t bad. She'd only had to suffer those two years of waitressing. She was free of that prick, Daniel. A lucky escape. And she rented her own apartment. Albeit small, and a little too far from the city, it was still hers. Her life was on track.

But within a matter of hours, Charlotte's life would derail in spectacular fashion.

—-

Traffic was heavy. Especially given that it was noon, and everyone should either have been at work or in school. Charlotte had allowed herself an hour to drive the thirty minutes to the other side of town. Partly because of her nerves and keenness to arrive early. Partly because she hated using the motorway bypass. The turbulence from passing trucks meant she had to fight the steering wheel to keep her little Corolla on course.

The Institute, as locals called it, sat an acceptable distance from the residential outskirts of the city. Acceptable being around ten miles. The reason for that distance lay in its full name ‘The Johann Reil Institute for Research and Treatment of Behavioural Disorders.’ Most locals would have preferred those ten miles to be a hundred.

When preparing for her interview last month, Charlotte had researched the place. Dr Johann Reill, long since dead, had been the original academic to coin the phrase ‘psychiatry’ Although the word in old Greek meant ‘medical treatment of the soul.’ So, she wasn't sure why this Reill person got the credit. Perhaps he was the first English-speaking doctor to put it into practice. As diligent as she was, she skipped reading the entire history of psychiatry. This facility no longer offered treatment, not since the scandals around electro-therapy. Nowadays, its purpose seemed limited to accommodating the afflicted.

The Institute received annual government funding of nine million dollars. A budget that she, as finance officer, would be responsible for. It sure beat helping Fred at the café balance his till receipts.

A siren drowned out the wailing of Oasis on the car's radio. An ambulance weaved through the stalled traffic, heading in the opposite direction to Charlotte. Another soon followed, and a police car.

Must be a big accident back in town, she thought.

The institute loomed large over her as she parked the car, checked her clothes and makeup, and then stalked up the sweeping stone stairs. With nobody at reception, she ventured further inside and knocked on a door labelled, ‘Warden’.  She heard a raspy, Come in.

Entering the office with an air of well-rehearsed confidence, Charlotte noticed the mahogany desk first. It gleamed with the same autumnal copper and deep carmine of the trees beyond the window. So shiny was the polished wood, that she fancied it would serve as a mirror. Had the desk been unoccupied, she'd have leaned closer to adjust her blouse in its reflection. Instead, she stood by the door, achieving that elusive balance between self-assuredness and humility, and waited for the desk's occupant to notice her.

The scratching of his pencil did little to relieve the awkward silence. He seemed to scribble the same sentence meticulously, again and again, into a little dog-eared notebook. He swept each full page over with a flourish and began once more from the top. The repeated rhythm of the writing threatened to dull Charlotte into a mid-afternoon trance. She admonished herself for losing concentration and cleared her throat in the most subtle, least aggressive tone she could muster.

The scribbler finally raised his head from the notebook. His greasy black hair slicked back from a gaunt face, reminded Charlotte of the Count from Sesame Street. He reclined and stretched with a crack of vertebrae, lacing the fingers of both hands behind his head. The executive leather chair creaked and threatened to adopt a new centre of gravity. Charlotte imagined it tipping him upside down, headfirst, backwards through the windowpane. His thin lips curved into a somewhat maniacal grin as if he'd shared her mischievous thought and relished it.

He rocked the chair forward and spoke with a weasel's voice that matched the face, the hair, the ratty notebook, and the old business suit – two sizes too big.

Charlotte Robinson, right? the weasel wheezed.

Yes, I'm here for my induction. She cringed. It was obvious why she was here. The man knew her name already. A simple, Yes, nice to meet you, would have sufficed.

Excellent. I'm the warden, he said this with a strange hint of glee and tapped his nameplate. It announced Gerald Collins – Warden, in shiny brass letters on wood. Charlotte felt some relief that she wasn't the only one stating the obvious. She noticed he'd chewed his fingernails down to the quick and supposed that managing a psychiatric facility would be a stressful job.

The search for a chair proved fruitless. Apart from Gerald's desk, the office held only a tall grey filing cabinet and a large inbuilt cupboard. Perhaps this was some kind of test, to see how