Doom Helix by James Axler Read Free Book Online

tossed the separated haunch onto the pile he’d made in the shade of a rock slab. Under his sleeveless black T-shirt, beads of sweat dripped from the sides of his chest and along the middle of his spine. They trickled around his eyepatch and rolled down hischeek. To his left, Mildred and Krysty were dragging yet another 150-pound, limp coyote corpse over to J.B. and Jak for skinning. They were selecting animals for butchering that hadn’t been gutshot. Exploded bowel contents tainted the flesh even worse than butt-gland musk.
    Ryan watched J.B. and Jak set to work on the fresh carcass. They had the skinning down to a science. After making incisions above the rear feet, they cut the pelt away from the lower legs. Then Jak held the back paws pinned while J.B. used brute strength to peel the animal’s entire skin forward on the torso, turning it inside out as he went, covering the mutie orange head with inverted hide. J.B. stopped peeling back the skin at the middle of the rib cage. There was no reason for them to skin the whole carcass as most of the meat was in the hindquarters. For the same reason, there was no point in gutting the coyotes, either.
    Doc kept an eye on the crater’s rim through the Steyr’s scope, watching for signs of unwanted company, animal or human. The newcomer sat in a spot of shade beside him, fanning away the flies with his prosthetic hand.
    “When we get on up to Meridianville,” Big Mike said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “we’re gonna be treated like nukin’ barons. It’s the biggest settlement left on that stretch of the Snake. Busted dams on nukeday washed away old Boise, and Twin Falls took a full-on groundburst—there’s nothing left of it but a glow-in-the-dark skeleton. Haven’t been to Meridianville for a long time, but I know a lot of folks there, and they all owe me.”
    When no one responded to the boast, the big manpressed on. “Me and the whoremaster go way back,” he said. “I used to be his gaudy’s number-one scout. Grew up in the business, you could say. I traveled the hellscape sniffing out fresh talent for his stable. You know, the daughters of dirt farmers who wanted something more out of life than working their fingers to the bone and turning old before their time. I’d stop by their plot for a cup of water or to ask directions and take the lay of the land, see if they had any female younguns running loose. I could tell by the look in their eyes which girls were ripe for what I was offering, when they wanted some fun and frolic while they still had all their teeth. As soon as their mamas and papas suspicioned I was up to no good they run me off, but by then I’d already talked the talent into meeting me later on in the woods.
    “Sometimes I had the whole dirt-farm brood out there, naked as jaybirds, lined up on their backs in the grass, waiting their turn. I’d give ’em all a full, ten-round tryout, and if they had the knack and were eager to learn new tricks, I’d sneak ’em away from their farm after everyone else went to bed. Take ’em on over to Meridianville to get broke in good and proper by the gaudy master and his sec crew. Got top jack per tail as my bounty. Those were the days.”
    Big Mike reached over and gave Doc a nudge with his prosthesis. “How about you, old-timer? You look like you seen the world and then some. Ever done gaudy scouting? I tell you it’s the best damn job in the hellscape.”
    “So I have heard,” Doc said without enthusiasm. “Despite the obvious compensations, it does seem to require rather a lot of repetitive effort.”
    Big Mike paid no attention to Doc’s reply. Ryanreckoned he’d asked the question just so he could catch his breath.
    “Trouble was,” Big Mike went on, “I was so good at stealing away younguns that pretty soon I wore out my welcome. Sod monkeys would see me coming down the path and they’d go straight for their blasters. No warning shouts, no warning shots. They just opened