Asylum Read online

  Asylum

  By Mark Allan Gunnells

  A Zombie Novella

  From TZF Books

  Visit us at http://thezombiefeed.biz

  Published by Smashwords

  This novella is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

  portrayed in this book are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  Asylum

  Copyright © 2010 by Mark Allan Gunnells

  Cover Design by Justin Stewart

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book,

  or portions thereof, in any form.

  The Zombie Feed Books is an imprint of

  Apex Publications, LLC

  PO Box 24323

  Lexington, KY 40524

  www.apexbookcompany.com

  thezombiefeed.biz

  First Edition, December, 2010

  To Melissa Hatchell, who has been there from the beginning.

  When the dead arose, Jimmy was going down on the balding accountant.

  Curtis was standing several yards away from the accountant’s car, by the corner of the club, the neon sign above him shedding a harsh blue light over his body. Asylum was the name of the place, but the ‘s’ and ‘u’ were burned out and no one had bothered to replace them, so the sign currently read ‘A yl m’. Curtis shivered, pulled his light jacket tighter around himself, and checked his watch. Half past four in the morning. He wanted to go back to the dorms, but Jimmy was his ride. Curtis also had to urinate something awful, but there was no way he was going to the restroom in the club. He’d made the mistake of trying that earlier in the night and walked in on some kind of orgy.

  So much that had happened tonight had been a shock for Curtis. This was his first trip to a gay club, and seeing so many homosexuals gathered in one place was a revelation. Growing up in a small southern town, Curtis had always felt alienated, alone, a freak among the multitudes. But at Asylum, the freaks were the multitude. Men dancing together and kissing right out in the open, no fear or shame evident. Curtis had initially resisted when Jimmy had offered to take him to the club, but Curtis was glad he’d finally agreed.

  Of course, there was enough small-town in Curtis for him to be appalled by the easy sexuality on display at Asylum. The bathroom orgy, Jimmy’s random hookup with the accountant, the stripper with the dreadlocks and the sculpted chest—these things had the power to make Curtis uncomfortable. Still a virgin at age twenty, Curtis had yet to even kiss a man. He certainly couldn’t imagine hopping into some stranger’s car and giving him a blowjob.

  Curtis sometimes wondered why he and Jimmy were friends, they were so different. Where Curtis was shy and awkward in social situations, Jimmy was a blaze of self-confidence and gregarious charm. On the surface they had nothing in common other than being gay, but in some ways Curtis thought it was their differences that drew them to one another. Curtis admired Jimmy’s openness about his sexuality, his refusal to be anyone other than who he was. Conversely, Curtis suspected that Jimmy saw him as a project, a naïve, inexperience little gay boy that he could mold and teach in the ways of gaydom.

  And lesson number one had been fashion. Curtis had always dressed conservatively, favoring khaki slacks and button-up shirts, but Jimmy—whose own fashion sense included things like bright orange felt pants and women’s blouses—had been trying to change that. Curtis resisted the most wild articles Jimmy tried to push on him, but he had started moving toward a more casual look.

  Lesson number two had been hair. Not one for product, Curtis had never used gel or mousse in his hair, but Jimmy had taught him to style it in a spiky way that Curtis actually thought was rather flattering. Jimmy had tried talking Curtis into bleaching his brown locks, but all Curtis would agree to were a few blonde highlights.

  Lesson number three had been Asylum. Feeling uncharacteristically daring, Curtis had allowed Jimmy to dress him in a pair of tight leather pants that were uncomfortable in the crotch region and a hot-pink T-shirt with the logo “I LUV BOIS” emblazoned across the chest. Jimmy had balked when Curtis had insisted on wearing a jacket over the shirt, arguing that it ruined the effect, but the late-autumn night was chilly. Jimmy himself had worn a pair of red vinyl pants that looked painted on and an actual fur coat—rabbit fur, he said—under which he wore no shirt, his bare chest and pierced nipples on display. The odd thing about Jimmy—and one of the things Curtis admired about him—was that he seemed perfectly at home in such an outrageous outfit. In contrast, Curtis—his own outfit much tamer by comparison—felt like he was wearing a Halloween costume.

  Curtis had spent most of the night by the bar, nursing a succession of watery sodas, while Jimmy had danced with a succession of attractive men. If such displays could be called dancing. To Curtis’s eyes, it had looked more like dry-humping to music. A couple of times Curtis had lost track of Jimmy, and he suspected that the accountant wasn’t his friend’s first hookup of the night. A few men had approached Curtis, and he had made an honest effort to flirt, but he wasn’t very practiced in the art of courtship and it came out as spastic and clumsy. When one man had asked him to dance, Curtis had answered, “I have two right feet,” and only after the man gave him a puzzled look and wandered away did Curtis realized he’d meant to say he had two left feet.

  And now Curtis was shivering in the cold, his bladder becoming more and more insistent, while waiting for Jimmy to finish sucking off some guy whose name he probably didn’t even know. Curtis scanned the parking lot; the night was winding down, and the lot was empty except for eight cars. The windows of the accountant’s Mustang were steamed over, but Curtis could just make out the ghostly shapes of the accountant and Jimmy’s bobbing head. Other than the three of them, the parking lot was deserted. Curtis turned and headed for the corner of the building. With one final peek over his shoulder, he darted around the corner and unzipped, freeing his dick from the sweaty confines of the leather pants and relieving himself again the side of the club. He threw his head back and sighed, his breath puffing out like smoke.

  He was tucking himself back in when the screaming began.

  When the accountant gasped out a strained “Oh God,” Jimmy assumed he was nearing orgasm so he tightened his lips around the warm flesh and swallowed deep, but the dick went flaccid in his mouth even as the driver’s side window shattered. Glass rained down on Jimmy’s head, a shard nicking him in the back of the neck.

  “What the fuck?” Jimmy yelled even as he heard the accountant scream. Jimmy threw himself back into the passenger’s seat, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Arms reached into the car and were dragging the accountant out through the broken window. The man struggled and beat at the hands that had ensnared him, but his upper torso disappeared through the window. His pants and underwear were still around his knees, and Jimmy saw that the glass from the window was digging into his bare ass, drawing blood that seemed much too bright to be real.

  As the accountant was pulled the rest of the way out of the car, he kicked out and one foot struck Jimmy in the side of the head, dislodging the stunned fog that shrouded his brain. He reached for the accountant’s legs, but it was too late. He heard the heavy thud as the man landed in the gravel outside the car. It was dark, and there were no lights in this part of the lot, so Jimmy couldn’t make out who had grabbed the accountant, but he was sure he knew the type. Bigoted, redneck assholes who thought a little gay bashing made for a fun night on the town.

  Jimmy opened the passenger’s door and started around the car. He had never been one to back down from a fight, and he had personally taught his fair share of bullies that he was no stereotypical pussy who would cower before them. He knew how to use his fists, and he would show these fuckers—

  When Jimmy got a good look at the attackers, he
skidded to a halt by the rear bumper of the car. There were three of them, two men and a woman. One man was dressed in a dark black suit caked with dirt; one man was wearing nothing but pajama bottoms; the woman had on a simple purple dress and high heels, although the heel of the left shoe was broken. And yet it wasn’t the way the trio was dressed that froze Jimmy’s blood and made his testicles shrivel against his body.

  The man in the suit was missing an eye; the man in the pajamas had his throat torn out, ragged and bloody; the woman’s skin had rotted away in places, revealing the skeletal frame underneath. They did not seem to notice Jimmy, their attention focused solely on the screaming accountant who was trying to drag himself away from the three with his elbows.

  The man in the suit stomped a foot down on the accountant’s stomach, instantly cutting off his screams. The woman knelt down between the accountant’s legs, licking her lips as she lowered herself toward his dick. Jimmy thought for a moment she was going to give him a blowjob, just as Jimmy had been doing when they were interrupted, but instead she bit down on the man’s scrotum. The accountant found his voice again, a high-pitch wail aimed at the heavens, as the woman snapped her head back, her teeth rending flesh.

  That was when Jimmy started to scream as well.

  Curtis hurried back around to the front of the club. He saw Jimmy standing at the rear of the accountant’s car, staring at something on the ground and screaming. Someone else screamed, creating a discordant, chilling symphony of fear. From where he stood, the car was blocking his view of whatever it was that was inspiring Jimmy’s terror. Curtis ran toward him.

  “Jimmy, what’s going on over—”

  Curtis’s words cut off abruptly when he rounded the car and saw the accountant lying on the ground, blood pooling around his waist. A woman in a purple dress, her nose eaten away that left a gaping hole in the center of her face, was next to him. She had her hands inside the man. It looked as if she’d clawed into his stomach, and she was pulling out his intestines like slimy ropes. Most horrifying was that the accountant was still conscious, screaming as he watched his own disembowelment. The air was thick with the stench of excrement and blood.

  The woman was not alone. Two men, both in various stages of decay, were crouched on the ground near the accountant, but their attention was focused on Jimmy. And now Curtis. They started crawling forward, tongues lolling out of their mouths like dead slugs, nightmare visions made flesh.

  Curtis didn’t have time to fully process what he was seeing, but he knew enough to realize that he and Jimmy needed to get out of there quickly. He grabbed Jimmy by the arm, but his friend shrieked and pulled away, flailing out at Curtis. Jimmy’s eyes were glassy and vacant.

  “Jimmy, it’s me,” Curtis said, continuing to tug on Jimmy’s arm. When Jimmy still did not move, Curtis resorted to what he’d always seen in the movies and slapped Jimmy across the face.

  For once, the movies had it right. Jimmy’s eyes focused on Curtis, and he placed a hand over his cheek, bright red with the print of Curtis’s hand. “What’s going on?” he said, his voice whisper-thin.

  “We’re leaving, that’s what’s going on.”

  The men on the ground were getting to their feet now, and the woman, a length of the accountant’s intestines wrapped around her neck like some grotesque scarf, had turned her attention to Curtis and Jimmy as well. Curtis jerked Jimmy toward him and turned in the direction they had parked Jimmy’s Honda earlier that night. Curtis’s cell phone was in the glove compartment. They could hit the road and call the police while putting some miles between themselves and Asylum.

  The only problem was that there was a group of people gathered around the Honda. People that should be dead. They moved with the stilted, awkward gait of infants just learning to walk, and their skin was the color of old paper. Curtis saw wounds—slit throats, missing limbs, skulls bashed open, heads twisted at impossible angles—wounds that looked mortal, and yet they walked, advancing toward the club, blocking Curtis and Jimmy’s way to the car, their escape.

  “This isn’t real,” Jimmy said, covering his eyes with his hands like a child frightened by a scary movie. He was shaking his head, as if in denial of the reality of the situation, all the time repeating the three words like a mantra until they started to blend together into a single word. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real…”

  Curtis didn’t have time to think. He simply reacted. He snagged Jimmy by the back of the fur coat and started dragging him toward the club. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the parking lot was becoming overrun with these—

  Zombies, say it! It’s crazy and impossible but it doesn’t change what you know. They’re zombies!

  —whatever the hell they were. Curtis could feel the same kind of hysteria that had gripped Jimmy threatening to sink its claws into him as well, but he didn’t have the luxury of indulging it. He pulled Jimmy back to Asylum’s entrance, a set of glass doors that opened onto a short hallway. They pushed through and Curtis turned to see if there was a way he could lock the door, but the lock required a key. He considered briefly finding something with which to barricade the door, yet a glance through the glass showed that two of the (zombies) were almost upon them.

  At the far end of the hallway was a booth where a large drag queen had taken the cover charge, checked IDs, and stamped the hands of the underage partiers. At this hour, it was unmanned, no new patrons expected. There was a closed door here that led into the heart of the club,from where overly loud dance music thundered. Curtis grabbed the doorknob but it wouldn’t budge. Jimmy was huddled by the booth, still repeating his mantra, being no help. Curtis was beginning to get frantic, tugging at the knob as if he could wrench the door right off its hinges.

  He heard the glass doors at the other end of the hallway swing open and risked a quick glance over his shoulder to witness a sea of shambling bodies pouring in. The putrid odor of rot and decay followed them inside. Curtis faced the door, kicking at it, realizing that the few still inside the club would never hear him above the music. He continued to kick anyway, yelling for someone to open up, wishing the attendant were here to let him in—

  It hit Curtis like a cartoon anvil to the head. How could he have been so stupid? The door could be opened from inside the club like normal, but outside, it could only be opened if the attendant hit a switch inside the booth. That would unlock the door for five seconds, long enough for a paying customer to slip inside.

  Curtis turned to Jimmy, about to ask him to reach behind the counter and hit the switch, but he saw the emptiness in Jimmy’s eyes and knew his friend had temporarily checked out. The (zombies) were halfway down the hall; they were moving slowly but the hallway wasn’t very long. Curtis rushed to the booth and leaned over the counter, feeling along the wall underneath until he found a toggle switch. He flicked it and heard the door’s lock unlatch behind him. Grabbing Jimmy’s clammy hand, Curtis grabbed the knob and jerked the door open before it locked back. The music, muffled while the door had been closed, burst out at them like an atomic explosion of sound, assaulting them with teeth-rattling bass. Curtis shoved Jimmy inside and followed behind him, turning and pulling the door closed just as the first of the (zombies) reached the doorway. The lock clicked into place, sealing them out. While the music drowned all other noise, Curtis could feel them beating on the door from the other side. He hoped they wouldn’t be able to figure out how to work the switch.

  Curtis turned and scanned the club. It was dark, only a few blue bulbs and some strobe lights over the dance floor alleviating the gloom. Immediately to his right was an alcove that led to the restrooms and next to it a staircase that rose to an upstairs area with pool tables, couches, and a balcony that overlooked the dance floor. Just past the restrooms and staircase was the bar, which ran straight down then turned to the right to create an L shape. On Curtis’s left were a few tables and chairs and an air hockey game. Around the other
side of the bar was the small dance floor, with mirrors enclosing it on three sides.

  He saw only seven other people in the club. Behind the bar was the bartender, a gruff older man with long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and a tattoo of the Tasmanian Devil on his left bicep, and the drag queen in the sequined ball gown that had been working the booth earlier. Sitting together at the bar was a middle-aged gay man and an overweight woman. His “fag hag,” was what Jimmy had called the woman earlier. A few stools down from them was the young black stripper, still wearing only a small thong that was nothing more than a pouch in the front and a string up the crack of his ass. This Jimmy had referred to as a “banana hammock.” Even in this situation, Curtis found his eyes lingering over the muscular, smooth body before moving on. On the dance floor was a gay couple—one a tall, thin man with wispy blonde hair, the other short and stocky with reddish-brown hair and a devilish goatee—dancing energetically to some strange techno remix of “Stand By Your Man.” No one seemed to have noticed he and Jimmy’s arrival.

  Curtis hesitated to leave the door, harboring the irrational belief that it was his presence alone keeping those things (zombies) from bursting through. Jimmy had slid down the wall by the restrooms and was crying and mumbling to himself. Leaving him there for the moment, Curtis hurried to the bar, slapping his palms down on the scuffed surface. The drag queen sauntered over, cocked a hand on her hip and said, “What can I get ya?” She had to practically scream to be heard above the unreasonably loud music.

  “We need to call the police,” Curtis said, straining to be heard. “And is there a back way into this place?”