Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow (3 page)

“Detroit,” the Doomsday Warrior shouted. “I fucked up, pal, I think I’m in trouble.” The black Freefighter screeched to a stop and whirled around. His ebony face turned a little green. He could see instantly that Rockson wasn’t going anywhere. But the nightmare
was.
It was coming in fast, just forty feet behind.

Rockson squirmed and pulled with everything he had, but the boots just sank deeper, the motions of his body corkscrewing him down another six inches. He tried to pull free of them but the mud that had seeped inside had formed a vacuum with his feet. They felt cemented inside. He fired madly with the shotpistol, one blasting shell after another, point blank at the thing as it came in.

But the blasts again did nothing. And he could see in the burning eyes a kind of deep satisfaction that it had trapped the prey. It slowed down a little as it came to the edge of the marsh. It was, after all, smarter than Rockson, he noted with disgust, as it gingerly tested the soil, putting one clawed foot out, then another. But its wide snowshoe-type clawed feet, wider than an elephant’s, were wide enough to support its weight on the giving soil. It started toward him.

Rockson threw the shotpistol to the side as he ran out of ammo. There was no time to reload, to say the least. His life flashed before his eyes in the apparition of the carnivore which was only yards away. He could smell it now, thick and meaty, like a bear that had been hibernating all winter. And as it closed in he could see that it was far uglier up close, with warts and bumps and knobs all over its body. Its dark reddish mouth opened and poured out a waterfall of steaming digestive fluid.

“Rock, Rock, airmail man,” he heard Detroit scream, and turned his head to see two grenades coming in one after another straight at him. For a split second of madness he wondered if the black Freefighter had gone completely mad. And then Rockson realized he was being sent some Christmas presents early. His hands snapped up and he managed to grab them both out of the air as they came spinning in. The nightmare didn’t even notice, it was too busy getting all hungry over the two-hundred-twenty pounds of human it was about to consume.

The thing stood up just two yards from him as if wanting to intimidate him a final time before chow. Then the claws reached out and the immense jaws opened even wider until they were a yard apart. The thing’s eyes closed instinctively to protect them and it started down for the first course. Rockson ripped the pins from the grenades and, feeling his heart beating as if it would explode, he heaved them straight into the gaping jaws.

The nightmare paused for just a second, its eyes opening again with a look of surprise on them. It made a burping sound as it gulped hard, and the two steel balls slid down into the top of its throat. Then it started forward again, deciding whatever it was it had swallowed wasn’t worth worrying about.

Rockson dove to the side, his boots still locked in place and slammed chest and face flat down into the marsh. He felt the hot air of the thing on the back of his neck and closed his eyes, readying himself for the first tearing bite.

Suddenly there was a loud roar and he could feel heat along his head and back. Then there was a flood of liquid and slime which fell all over him. Followed almost instantly by the six-hundred-pound body of the nightmare which crashed down onto his back. Rockson tensed as he waited for death to take him down, after all these years. He tried to relax, to be ready for the inevitable. And he waited. And waited. And after a good five seconds he realized that perhaps the end wasn’t as near as he thought.

He tried to move, and couldn’t as he was pinned beneath the dead weight of the nightmare and sucking in more muck than air. But he was able to shift his head and saw that the thing above him had no head of its own. The grenades had gone off just at throat level and severed the entire head and neck, which now lay several feet away smoking like fresh barbecue, oozing a thick green liquid.

“Rock, Rock, thank God,” the Doomsday Warrior heard Detroit shouting with joy—and amazement—in his voice. Then the Freefighter was pulling him by his legs out of the muck, then standing over him looking down at the man and beast almost melted together in the coating of slime and blood. He couldn’t resist letting out a laugh as he stood there for just a second. “With that ugly face blown off, it looks like it’s got your head on, pal. Plastic surgery, grenade style.”

“Detroit Green, if you don’t get this fucking thing off me in about two seconds,” Rock snarled, “I’m going to find this one’s mother and introduce her to you.”

“Easy, chiefie,” the barrel-chested Freefighter said as he reached down for the tail and began tugging hard. “And as they say in the dentist’s office, ‘don’t move, ’cause this is going to hurt you more than me’.”

Three

I
t took Detroit a good ten minutes to first drag the huge carnivore off Rockson and another five to get him and his boots totally out of the swamp. At last the Doomsday Warrior’s feet came free out of the swamp ground with an obscene sound and he fell backward onto dry land. He just lay there for a few moments breathing hard, looking up at the pink sun and thanking whatever gods were up there that he had survived.

“You shouldn’t even be alive after that one, pal,” Detroit said, as he kneeled down and rested his hand on Rockson’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”

“My body’s okay, my heart and brain’s having a few problems,” Rock replied with a wry smile. He sat up feeling around himself to make sure he was all still in relatively one piece, and got to his feet. He looked Detroit squarely in the eyes. “Thanks, man, that was some fast thinking and some good pitching. Thank God you have those old major league baseball genes still floating around in your blood.”

“You kidding, Rock? You’ve saved this ol’ ass more times than I dare think about. That was just interest on the repayment.” They both stared down at the thing which lay a few yards away, now that they had a chance to take it in without fear. Even in death it made them feel something deep and dark in the pits of their stomachs.

“I think the nuke-mutations are getting a little uglier each year,” Rock said softly.

“I was going to say the same thing about you, mister,” Detroit deadpanned as he checked the remaining dozen grenades that were attached to his bandoliers, making sure none of them had been loosened in all the excitement.

“I wonder if that sucker’s tasty,” Rockson suddenly spoke up with a twinkle in his eyes. “I mean it’s only fair, he tried to eat us, maybe we should return the favor.” He took out his long custom synth Bowie knife, razor sharp, and reached down toward the still throbbing nightmare lying on the ground. It took several minutes of slicing to cut a nice thick piece out of the tail and then off one of the flanks.

“All that death-defying sure as hell works up an appetite,” the Doomsday Warrior said, standing up with his two slabs of thick greenish red meat. They headed the hundred yards back to the ’brids to make sure they were okay. Then they got a small fire going in the center of the rocky circle that had been their campsite for the last two days. They quickly cooked the meat. Detroit got out some black bread baked in Century City. He mixed up some insta-energy drink, shaking a blue powder inside his canteen. Within ten minutes they were chewing lustily on the afternoon’s catch.

“This son-of-a-bitch tastes like filet mignon,” Detroit laughed in wonder, after his second bite. “Tender as hell for a tough-hided Frankenstein like that.”

They ate for a good half hour, loading up on the juicy lizzie-mutant steaks. Then both men headed back to the cooling body of the nightmare. A few small dog-like creatures were already tugging at the flesh, but they quickly ran off as the humans approached and watched hungrily from the shelter of some bushes.

Rock and Detroit set to cutting up the thing. Rockson made the first deep incision down the stomach and a gush of blood and organs came spewing out onto the ground. Along with three snapping and snarling young of the dead thing. Rockson jumped back as small but razor-sharp teeth snapped open and closed at everything in sight.

“Shit—that mother was really a mother,” Rockson gasped, with a trace of sadness in his voice as he jumped back from the squirming babies. They were exact duplicates of the dead parent, only as big as cats. Detroit reached for his Liberator submachine gun that was slung around his back. He quickly got a bead on the three little demons as they squirmed around the ground making deep growling noises.

“No!” Rockson said, pushing the muzzle of the Liberator away just as Detroit’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Let ’em go, they’re not going to live very long without mama around to protect ’em. It’s not up to us to play God even with the ugliest of nature’s creatures. We’ve got enough food now.”

Detroit looked down at the three things as they slithered off side by side through the brown grass. “Guess you’re right on that one, Rock,” he said with a sigh and let the rifle slide back around his shoulder. “But they sure are ugly.”

“Hey, I’m a mutant too, pal,” the Doomsday Warrior laughed. “The whole planet is mutated. It’s a new world now, we’ve got to remember that. The old ways are dying out, new creatures, plants, every goddamned thing is coming down the pike.”

“Well, even if you change your mind, it’s too late now,” Detroit said as he watched the tail of the last of the wriggling baby-demons slip behind some bushes. They returned to the business of gutting the nightmare, skinning it, bleeding it, getting rid of the internal organs. It was too large by far to just throw atop a ’brid, so they had to butcher it here in the wild. It took a good two hours, but at last they had three hundred and fifty pounds of prime steaks. They loaded them into special nylon sacks designed by Dr. Shecter, the head scientist of Century City for such purposes. Leak-proof and nearly scent-proof, the meat-bags were the perfect storage chambers for hunting.

“Well, we’re loaded to the hilt, that’s for sure,” Rock said as he stood back and surveyed the packed down hybrid pack team. “These boys can’t carry another steak between them.” The ’brids, slightly smaller but wider than horses of old, were almost staggering under the weight of the nearly two tons of meat that was now parked on their backs.

“Do you want to move out now—or wait until dawn?” Detroit asked, a little worried as he glanced up at the fading sun. They had at most two hours until the darkness set in with a vengeance.

“Let’s get distance between us and the butcher shop over there,” Rockson said, nodding to the spot where the dead mutation’s bones and leftover parts lay strewn around. Already small animals had gathered, and some vultures as well, to partake of the four hundred pounds of gristle and flesh that remained. “I don’t want to tempt any of the bigger boys who will come around to investigate all the wonderful smells.”

They mounted up on their riding steeds—larger than the ’brids—and took off, with tethers attached in a line behind their saddles to the ’brid pack. Each man led six of the beasts behind him. The hybrids whinnied and made all kinds of commotion as they were wont to do. But once they got going they settled down and shifted into a medium-paced gait.

They rode up and down over low rolling hills, which were covered with some of the last of fall’s remaining vegetation before the real winter snows and freezing temps dropped in. It had been a warm fall and Rockson wondered if the earth itself was undergoing more climatic changes. Dr. Shecter believed it was. He said that the great nuke-war of a hundred years earlier had shifted the earth’s magnetic patterns, possibly even its orbit. Whatever the hell was going on, mankind, or what was left of it, would have to adjust and adapt to it all. They had no choice.

The two men rode for about an hour and a half before the inky sky grew a little too dark to see well by. Not wanting to risk any of the ’brids stumbling and breaking a leg, or losing hundreds of pounds of the precious food, Rock decided it was time to stop for the night. He saw a rise with a clearing all around it, giving them a good view if anything came looking for a midnight snack, and pulled to a stop at the top.

“This looks like as good a Holiday Inn as we’re going to find around here,” Rock smirked at Detroit, who reined in his mount a few yards away. They dismounted, untethered the ’brids and took off their loads. Unpacking was a tedious process, but they couldn’t let the animals stand there all night with the backbreaking loads on them. They’d be as weak as an overweight accountant with a hernia by morning.

At last everything was stacked safely in piles and the ’brids were eating contentedly on alfalfa and energy pellets in their feed bags. Detroit built a fire, while Rockson sighted up on some low mountains ahead against a map he took from a satchel in his saddle. He knew most of the land around C.C. for hundreds of miles. But this particular route was new to him and he wanted to make sure they weren’t off course.

“It’s looking good,” he said to Detroit, after double and triple checking their course for the next day. “We’re dead on. I reckon C.C.’s about fifty miles north as the crow flies, make that seventy as the ’brid stumbles.”

“Let’s not bust our butts to get home,” Detroit said as he slapped two more steaks down onto the fire and took out a can of baked beans, a luxury but one which he felt they were both entitled to tonight. “I’m in no great rush to get home. You know some kind of shit will have hit the fan. And they’ll be wanting us,
you
particularly, to put the pieces together again.”

“Hey, I’m in no race, partner,” Rockson replied with a smile as he walked over to the fire and sat down on a smooth stone a few feet away from it. “You sure your grandfather didn’t chef at Le Lutece? You’ve got a way with even the cheapest cuts of meat.”

“My mom was the best cook Georgia’s ever known,” Detroit said, crossing himself and gazing heavenward, “God rest her soul. She could cook tree bark and make you think you were in heaven. I guess a little of it rubbed off. Here, have some beans à la garlic avec mutant supreme,” the ebony-faced Freefighter said, handing Rockson an alumnisynth plate full of steaming chow. They shoveled it down for a good twenty minutes until they were both so full they could barely move, and lay back on opposite sides of the fire staring up at the purple-black skies. Meteors were in full view tonight, streaking back and forth across the ethers every second or so with bursts of golden and silver brilliance. A lightshow to digest by.