Spewing Hot Zombies: The Silvercrest Experiment, #0

By Albert Aykler

Everyone has a day job, even amnesiac mad scientists. Sid Singleton kills zombies.

Today his job takes Sid to remote Katsu Island, home to one of the Silvercrest Corporation's secret laboratories. He might have enough time to retrieve the research and scientists before a nearby volcano spews lava and zombies all over everyone involved, but don't bet on it.Usually the combination of a couple of hunting knives, a rescue beacon, and his unexplained immunity to zombies is enough to ensure his survival in these situations. But this time there is an angry volcano, a mad scientist or three, and a new breed of zombies.

If you enjoy melon-twisting rides through a madhouses filled with zombies, then this collection is for you. Fans of John Dies at The End, Zombieland, and Locke & Key will find plenty here to please them!

This stand alone story takes place prior to the events of Book One of the Silvercrest Experiment series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Love & Wander Books
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954497009

Albert Aykler

Albert Aykler lives and writes as a nomad whose remaining connections with the country of his birth are largely digital in nature. Many of his works began as he dwelt in obscure seclusion in the American Northwest while recovering from a period of corporate servitude not unlike that of the characters attempting to survive the horrors and indignities of world of the Silvercrest Experiment Series.

Book preview

Spewing Hot Zombies

SPEWING HOT ZOMBIES

A SILVERCREST EXPERIMENT STORY

ALBERT AYKLER

LOVE & WANDER

Copyright © 2021 by Albert Aykler and Love and Wander, LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Epub ISBN 9781954497009

Cover © 2021 by Love and Wander, LLC

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CONTENTS

The Mission

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Also by Albert Aykler

About the Author

THE MISSION

Here’s another odd one for you.

Mission Eight of the Silvercrest Experimental Virus Eradication and Remediation Effort (SEVERE).

Crazy Eight.

This one is a solo effort as opposed to one of those grand umpteen-person tactical team projects that end up as rinse-and-repeat scenes of zombie slaughter.

I know it makes no sense jumping right into mission eight, but hey, I’m giving you these as I remember them. My memory is a mess. Someday, I’ll get you reports on missions one through seven, but this one hit me today. I think it must be because I watched that movie about the British school kids shipwrecked on an island last night. You know the one. King of the bees or something. Anyway, here’s mission eight.

This is supposed to be a low-key trip to a tiny dot of green in the middle of a vast blue ocean. Unmapped. Uncharted. Unknown.

As my helicopter ride zeroes in, the green dot becomes a dark-hearted island ringed in emerald green. In that dark heart, I see a glowing orange wound. Light-colored smudges rise from cracks in the steep-sided mountain. No one told me that this isolated chip of land in the South Pacific is home to a very active volcano.

As the pilot takes us down for a low approach over the water, I see a narrow black ring of lava rock separating the jungle from the sea. Waves crash against steep black cliffs too freshly made for the ocean to have worn them into beaches.

The helicopter pilot’s voice crackles through my headset, Welcome to Katsu Island. I see her sunglasses in the mirror on her dashboard. She is looking at me, waiting for something.

I give her a thumbs up. She doesn’t have to tell me where we are. There is nowhere else to be out here. But what else can she say?

We’re still over the ocean, but the smell of sulfur and ash makes me sneeze. I begin to suspect that this mountain might start spewing lava at any minute.

The pilot confirms my suspicions. Lava started flowing out the eastern tubes about two weeks ago. It slowed, but the current thinking is it will start again any day. A big flow. Right through the research station or a hundred yards wide of it. A lot depends on geology no one can see.

As she takes us around the island’s perimeter, I see places where the cliffs might be low enough for a boat to land. But the ocean comes in rough and hard, as though offended at the whole idea of this annoying geologic pimple in its otherwise unblemished domain of blue waves.

The mission brief had one thing right: Katsu Island has one way in, one way out.

I take the five-page brief from one of the cargo pockets in my pants, unfold it, and read it over again.

I still have that brief. Get a load of this.

— CONFIDENTIAL MISSION BRIEF —

SILVERCREST EXPERIMENTAL VIRUS ERADICATION and REMEDIATION EFFORT (SEVERE)

Mission: SEVERE 8.00

Code Name: Bulldog Sauce

Location: Silvercrest Facility RL121, Katsu Research Station, Katsu Island. Lat: [REDACTED] Lon: [REDACTED]

[Note: I don’t know who sits in the Office of Names and Lingo at the Silvercrest Corporation, but I think it’s someone with a little too much time on their hands. This code name has everything and nothing to do with the