Doomsday Warrior 11 - American Eden by Ryder Stacy Read Free Book Online Page B

another one jammed its jaws around his sleeve and tore off some material. Everyone had their hands full. The dogs thought it was great fun, for the creatures from the ground would bite at them, and then be slavered up by the big wolf-dogs, who didn’t even bother to chew the foot-long creatures.
    Chen tossed a series of knives, catching three of the hell-gophers in midair. The rest of the Freefighters fired wildly, but to some effect. The ravenous invaders had inch-long fangs. One got poor Danik on the right wrist and hung on trying to tear his arm off. Rock pushed the Eden citizen to the ground and stomped the brains out of the thing that wouldn’t let go.
    The humans weren’t doing too well, but the sled dogs had broken loose and were having a field day chasing down the creatures. They closed their triple rows of teeth around them and swallowed them whole. Then a snarling gopher lunged for Scheransky’s throat before he could fire, Class Act intervened. The intelligent female wolf-dog snapped the gopher out of midleap and digested it.
    Because of the dogs, and only because of them, it was over. The dogs were sated, and fell asleep in a pile over by the scrubby Joshua trees. The humans dressed their wounds—Danik was the worst, but he was patched up and Chen gave him one of his potions. He’d be all right, Rock believed, they’d been lucky. Rock only found out later that half the supplies had been consumed by the furry devils!
    “Do you think there are any more of them?” Danik asked, dry-mouthed. “Perhaps we’d better leave this cave . . .”
    “You crazy?” McCaughlin said, “Go out in that temperature and wind in the middle of the night?”
    “Well post a guard,” Rockson ordered. “I’ll take first watch. Keep the fire high, sleep close to it. They shied from the fire—the holes in the ground are no closer than eight feet to the fire . . .”
    “You’re right.” Rona exclaimed. “And besides, I think the dogs might have eaten ’em all—if not, they sure will eat any more that try that act again.”
    Scheransky went over and petted the furry head of Class Act. “I will never call you a mangy wolf again, I swear it by Lenin—I mean George Washington.”
    They had an uneasy night’s sleep but there were no more incidents. Rock, between dozes, listened to the wind whistling by. It was as if it were speaking to him, warning him, “Go . . . home . . . Go . . .”
    The next day the weather was better—overcast but not quite as cold, and they made good progress. Rockson said, “I believe what’s left of Colorado Springs is right over that hill.”
    They came over the ridge and looked down on a glassy-surfaced blackened plain. “That’s the area that took a nuke bomb hit back in the twentieth century,” said Rockson grimly. “The heat of the air-detonated blast melted the sand into that shiny surface. Not a thing grows there to this day. You notice that there is no snow on that mile-wide plain either. There is still some heat from radioactive elements in that surface—hence the clicking you hear on the Geiger attached to the front of my sled. Let’s give it some room.”
    “I remember this place,” Danik said, “the President’s Museum is about a mile away from here—just beyond those boulders shaped like a pile of kid’s blocks.”
    They quickly made for the boulderfield Danik had indicated. Rockson hoped that any roving scavengers attracted by the body of Run Dutil would not have eaten his notebook as well—some species of high-plains bobcat ate even metal cans!
    The building was a two-story affair nestled in the midst of a flat area covered with snow—a parking lot of old. The big rocks had shielded it from the blast effects—everything else in these parts was flattened. It was partly collapsed. Danik was besides himself with feelings, and his voice was choked up when he said, “Through that second door—that’s where my best friend and I stumbled frozen and hungry into the