Welcome to the Zombie Mill: The Silvercrest Experiment, #2

By Albert Aykler

A small town. A forest fire. And 1500 ravenous infected fiends. Welcome to the Zombie Mill.

Sid Singleton wakes up in the Milltown Busy Beaver Convenience store parking lot smelling zombies. Lots of zombies. And they smell him. He smells like brunch. Will Sid leave Milltown to fend for itself or will he fight the largest, hungriest zombie horde ever assembled? How far and fast can he run? How much zombie death and destruction he handle?

As zombies swarm the town, Sid and his allies end up smack in the middle of the mayhem. They are the only ones who might be able to save the last of the living in Milltown, but can they save themselves at the same time?

Dark humor fans of John Dies at the End and Zombieland this is just your cup of infected gore! This is twisted zombie punk rock! This story picks up where the events of Book One in The Silvercrest Experiment series left Sid.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Love & Wander Books
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781954497047

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

1 INCONVENIENCE STORE

Welcome to the Zombie Mill.

I could swear the zombie in the dark green golf shirt yelled those exact words at me through the driver’s side window of the beat-up Subaru wagon I had stolen to flee last night’s zombie massacre.

Splat. His head exploded in two. Someone played through him and they did not use a nine iron.

Blood. Brains. Skull shards. A hefty fire ax split Golf Shirt Zombie’s skull, but he did not fall. Jaw, ear, cheek, skull bloomed into a Y, but the reptilian base of the skull remained intact. His hands scratched and screeched against the roof of the car.

Pieces of his infected brain stuck to the ax on its way out of the skull, slipping off and flipping against the car. A thick gray lump of cerebral snot failed to drip off my side mirror. Around it, I saw a dozen or more of these fast-moving fiends coming at the car.

In front of me, a chain-link fence struggled to keep the dense undergrowth of the neighboring pine forest from encroaching on the convenience store parking lot.

Zombies. Zombies crowded the back and sides of my car, thonking against it. The large pinecone, which had fallen and thonked against the hood of the car and drawn the infected to me, rocked and shook as the fiends swarmed.

Only one way to go. Away. In reverse. With great intention and speed. I adjusted my seat back to vertical. I had slept in the lot, too exhausted to know or worry over the zombie situation in what I thought was a peaceful old mill town. The loud noise of the falling pinecone had nearly roused me a few minutes before, but the zombies jumpstarted my heart and triggered a powerful adrenaline rush. I fumbled for the keys in the cup holder in the console. Seeing the large, unsheathed hunting knife there provided a slim shining fragment of reassurance. I could defend myself. But it was no ax.

Another splatter and crunch to my left. The ax blade hit the Golf Shirt Zombie straight down the Y in its skull, falling a few inches lower this time. The hit severed the spinal cord at the base of the skull. As the gruesome old duffer fell, each branch of his Y-split head fell onto his slack shoulders.

I jammed the key in the ignition and fired up the Subaru. Joe Strummer and The Clash screamed Should I Stay or Should I Go from the radio. The zombie horde jumped and danced against the car, excited by the engine and stereo sounds. It is Zombie Slam Dance Mania here at The Busy Beaver Mart parking lot, folks. Come for the noise, stay for the flesh.

Before I shifted into reverse, something knocked against my window. An intentional, human communication type of knock. Different from the shambling zombie-thonking-zombie everywhere else on the car. I looked over and saw the lumberjack zombie exterminator. Zombiejack?

No face. A shiny orange, plastic, heavy duty hazardous materials suit. A dark, tinted window where eyes belonged. Two ventilators and a speaker for a mouth. Whoever it was must have screamed like hell for me to have heard that welcome greeting a moment earlier. I refused to accept that the golf shirt sporting zombie had uttered anything other than arrrggghhh.

The Orange Hazmat waved a pale green gloved hand at me, then raised a forefinger to say One second, be right with you. But first, back to swinging the ax. Another smash hit for Orange Hazmat. Brains, skin, and bone splattered the side of the car. An infected older lady in a blood-stained foam green housecoat went down with one swing.

Moving with surprising grace for someone in one of those ungainly suits, the hazmat lumberjack side-stepped away from an oncoming zombie sprinter wearing a button-down uniform shirt from a prominent national parcel delivery service but no pants or shoes. The ax hit the back of the pantsless delivery zombie’s head. Nice placement. It went ass over dangling, mostly severed, teakettle into the chain-link fence.

Most of the zombies wanted to get in on the noisy car with the smelly fleshy guy inside. This gave hazmat a chance to shout instructions and motion what they wanted me to do.

Back up that way. Then come back and get me.

I shouted Gotcha, in reply with a theatrical nod.

I looked around at my adoring zombie fans. I felt reasonably safe in the car as long as this orange wahoo with the ax didn’t bash in any of the windows. I couldn’t see out of the rear window. How many were back there? The thonks got louder. And some of them sounded more like bashes. Runners coming from across the lot to join the zombie mosh pit with the Subaru at its center. Bash. Thonk. Thonk. Bash.

I shifted into reverse and gave it some gas. The car did not move. More gas. I began to roll back. I hesitated. Go back hard and fast or slow and steady?

My orange friend continued to take out the brainless infected who couldn’t seem to get the idea that the horde party was around the Subaru.

Screw it. Hard and fast. I cranked the wheel hard to my right and slammed my foot down on the gas pedal. The Clash had switched into the full gear punk machine gun chorus of Should I Stay or Should Go and my heart rate matched them beat for rattling beat.

All wheel drive to the rescue. I heard and felt the rear wheels crunch over a few of the fiends. My big move had knocked the bulk of the scrum away and off balance. I backed away far enough to get a view of the scene. At least thirty zombies remained upright, ravenous, and ready to attack. I saw half a dozen laid out on the pavement. Two I had rolled over with the car and four my hazmat friend had taken out with the ax.

The vermillion zombiejack stood there ax up and ready for the next one, but the group had focused on the car. Beyond that ugly battle scene, the tired 80s era convenience store looked almost tranquil. One car, abandoned rather than parked, in the lot near the gas pumps. One of the front double doors propped open in ill-advised welcome.

I shifted into drive. I would have to navigate around the center of the zombie party to pick up the orange zombiejack. The Subaru could knock down a few, but not the whole group. I gave it some gas. The car rolled forward. Something pulled against it. Against the right rear wheel. Probably caught one of the bigger ones in there. I knew I could grind the body out of there if I drove far and fast enough, but with the zombie crowd, the gas pump, and the abandoned car, I didn’t have the distance here in the lot. I owed that ax-wielding overgrown traffic cone a way out, but this would be tight.

I attempted a lame, slow station wagon donut before heading toward the horde. I avoided the bulk of them but clipped one, shattering its left leg into the left headlight. Three staggering blood-stained, monsters dressed in green and bright orange hunting gear moved as a unit toward the hazmatter. Something deep in the hunting party’s pre-zombie wiring had attracted them to that color I think, because all the other zombies remained focused on the car. Maybe the color of caution meant something different to them. It meant time to hunt. Killing time. Conditions looked grim for my new friend.

I punched it and drove at the trio. I hit them in profile. The first and biggest got the worst of it, and the Subaru got the worst of him. His right leg snapped as he flipped up on the hood and into the windshield, skull cracking the glass hard enough to leave his olive green cap behind as he bounced and rolled to my left. The other two collapsed into one another. I think the first one kicked the second as it flipped up onto the hood. However they got there, the other two were now under the car. The combined mass of their substantial torsos lifted the front wheels up off the ground a few inches as I came to a stop.

Orange Hazmat tried the door but couldn’t get in. The door. Unlock the door. Voice amplified and distorted by the speaker. That explained the eerie Welcome to the Zombie Mill earlier.

I reached across the seat, unlocked the door, and opened it. I heard the hunting party zombies grunting and chomping under the car.

My new friend climbed in, blood dripping from the ax across their orange plastic lap. The front end of the car dropped an inch under the added weight, but I could tell only one wheel made contact with the pavement. This might be tricky.

The dark eye shade looked at me. Holy shit, screeched from the speaker in between the ventilators, making The Clash sound like a quiet folk revival act.

Wow. That thing is loud.

Sorry. They fiddled with something under the ventilator to lower the volume of the speaker. But, holy shit.

Crazy, right? I figured Orange Hazmat meant the whole zombie horde situation.

Singleton.

What?

Sid Singleton.

Yeah?

It is you.

Yes, who are you?

What’s with your hair?

What?

Where is it?

I think—hey, how do you know my—

Let me guess. As though ready for my answer to a question never asked. You don’t remember? I could hear the sarcasm and disdain in spite of the tinny suit speaker’s distortion.

Yeah, but—

Oh no. Oh, shit, dark face protector aimed at the back of the car.

Are you with Silvercrest?

Hell no. Orange Hazmat doubled over as much as possible given the restrictions of the suit.

Who are you? What are you doing?

Never mind that.

Who the hell are you?

Drive, asshole. Green rubber-gloved hands waved me forward.

I gave it gas and heard the wheels struggling to grip the pavement. All at once, the car lurched forward, crunching through the two hunters under the engine block, front wheels landing hard back on the asphalt. Good. I thought the all-wheel drive had kicked in, but no…

Crash. Glass shards peppered the back of my head and pattered against the heavy duty hazmat suit. Not good.

I took my foot off the gas as I turned to look behind me. The zombie party had run at us en masse and smashed through the rear window. I hit the gas again. Coughs from under the hood. Then no more engine. Very not good.

A wiry blonde zombie in tight jeans and black T-shirt celebrating a northwestern bike rally scrambled through the open window. Behind her, a guy in his high school football gear. A purple helmet and jersey proclaimed the power of the mighty fighting Milltown Mooseheads. He remembered shoulder pads, but his left thigh dripped blood under a pair of Hawaiian shorts. His zombie protection plan had failed. He knocked his helmeted head against the interior as he scrambled in all his infected ravenous gridiron glory to gain the remaining two yards to the front seat. Let’s go ahead and call this situation bad. Very bad.

I turned to my orange companion. Was it chipmunks?

Chipmunk zombies sent me down from the nearby mountains and into this mill town the night before. More or less. They were the primary vector for a relatively modest outbreak of the Silvercrest Virus in a campground and subsequently, a Mexican restaurant in the nearby El Coyote Forest. ¹

I had done my best to wipe out the bloodthirsty little rodent hordes but they can be sneaky. I figured one or more may have beaten me down the hill or come down behind me somehow. Worst case scenario, one stowed away in the Subaru, though this seemed unlikely as I had not seen any in the restaurant or its parking lot. The heavily used station wagon had been the property of the chef de cuisine of the El Coyote Gordo Mexican restaurant. Now deceased. The man made a mean plate of tacos, which elevated him to sainthood in my taco-centric religion. My tombstone (if anyone bothers) will read, Sid Singleton, Zombie Killer, Acolyte, Church of The Sacred Taco.

The only reason I survived the incident at El Coyote was due to a freakish condition that left me immune to the Silvercrest Corporation’s Zombie virus. I suffered bites from one infected waitress and several chipmunks, but no zombiehood came for me. Hours later, not a single mark remained where the fiend’s teeth tore into my skin. The few people on earth who know about the virus, know about me.

And this orange friend knew the virus. And my name.

That little quip about me not remembering? That’s because after the initial zombie outbreak a few years back, I walked away without a scratch and without any memory of my life before it happened. Because of this, I spent the last four years in a Silvercrest lab under examination or at other infection sites doing cleanup.

Little did this breakfast drink colored zombiejack smartass know, my memory started seeping back in during the incident with the chimichangas and chipmunks up the hill. I had not fully recovered my whole history, but I retrieved a few essentials to build on. My old name was Leo. Leo worked for Silvercrest. Leo killed the zombified person he loved most in the world. In short, I knew why forgetting everything was a sound emotional defense mechanism. More on that later.

Back to the question at hand: How did the infection get to this once quiet mill town?

It would take only one of the spiffily adorned little fur balls to spread the virus. Someone would see it in their yard or maybe right there at the edge of the convenience store parking lot. Maybe they would even snap a picture or toss it a corn chip. But if that person had any meat, any open wound, or that certain smell only zombies know and love, the cute little sweetie would have attacked. A bite, maybe even a deep scratch, could pass the virus.

By the time the residents of the town realized the nature of the infection, too many people would be bitten to keep the thing under control without outside help. Given the numbers in the convenience store parking lot, I could not understand why the big guns from Silvercrest had not already arrived to address the outbreak.

When I pulled into the parking lot around three AM, I saw no signs of anything amiss in the town. The convenience store looked locked up tight, lights dim over the gas pumps, faded Busy Beaver logo in the sign barely visible in the moonlight. No one staggered around the parking lot. I didn’t do anything to dampen the noise of my car door opening and closing when I stepped out to pee against the chain-link fence. And if the pinecone falling against the hood of the car brought them, that surely would have.

It occurred to me that maybe I brought the chipmunk with me. A ten-ounce ball of freaked out fur. Sick but not yet contagious and fully zombified, tucked into the bumper or up in one of the tire wells. It rode along. Died on route. Revived and ran off while I slept.

None of that explained the identity of the orange-clad zombie killer in the seat next to me. If they had not come as part of a standard Silvercrest clean-up crew, then who the heck were they? Maybe they were the source?

Go. Go. Go. Orange Hazmat popped back up with the ax and turned to take care of our undead hitchhikers.

I tried starting the car. Almost. Then again. Crank it. Starve it. Crank it again. I smelled the blonde biker chick zombie coming up on me.

The ax hit the roof of the car. Shit. There’s no room in here. I can’t get a good swing.

Try this. I handed the big hunting knife to Orange Hazmat.

Another crank on the ignition. It fired. I revved the engine.

Knock. Something slammed against the back of my seat. Crunch and the sound of the wiry body collapsing behind me.

Damn. Orange Hazmat struggled to get the knife out of the back of Zombie Biker Chick’s skull.

I put the car in drive and gunned it hard enough to hear and feel Football Zombie fall clumsily back into the way back of the Subaru.

At the same time, Orange Hazmat fell into the back seat. Shit. My suit.

What?

It’s compromised.

I had a feeling I knew the voice coming from that suit. Or I used to know that voice. Maybe the old me knew that voice. The Leo me. I