Doomsday Warrior 17 - America’s Sword by Ryder Stacy Read Free Book Online Page B

they’re dinosaur bones,” Detroit exclaimed, coming up on the side of Rock. “I’ve read all about ’em. This whole section of country is filled with the ancient lizard bones. There’s nothing else that ever lived that had a thigh bone that big.”
    And indeed, they could easily see, that many of the bones sticking out were huge, far too big for anything alive on earth whether mutated or normal.
    The rest of the crew had pulled to a stop as well, as everyone stared down in utter amazement at the acres of bones.
    “How old do you think they are?” Chen asked.
    “At least sixty million years,” Detroit replied with a big grin. “Could be a lot older. Some of these real big boys go back 160, even 200 million years.
    “Damn, and cheese goes bad after a couple of days,” McCaughlin laughed, as he joined the action at the front of the force.
    “Make some soup stock out of that, hey, Cookie?” Detroit said from atop his ’brid, leaning over in the saddle and slapping the Scotsman on the shoulder.
    “In Russia—even bigger,” Sheransky said with a self-mocking grin. “Takes two or three of them for even one Russian dinosaur.” They all stared at the huge leg bones, collar bones and so on. A pickup truck could have driven through the eye of a gargantuan head half-poking through the sun-baked sand.
    “Mapman,” Rockson yelled out to Peters, a young fellow with concave face and skin still broken out all over with acne.
    “Sir!” the youth barked, as he pulled his ’brid up near them and saluted.
    “I want you to mark this spot on your map, mister. No big detail, just the basic location and approximate size of the bone field.”
    “Will do, sir,” Peters said, quickly pulling out his grid chart and sextant and drawing in some lines and measurements. Dr. Shecter would be interested in this. He and his boys were always eating up new data that Freefighting expeditions brought in. Trying to reconstruct a picture of the new America. What was of value—and what was of danger.
    While they were all staring as the mapper took his measurements, two of the pack-’brids had somehow come free from their reins at the end of the convoy. Without really being noticed by anyone, they made their way around the side of the force and before they could be stopped were walking through the center of the bone field.
    “Get those ’brids!” Rock shouted out, seeing the steeds loose. For even as the animals crashed through a mound of huge ivory bones, the things crumbled like they were made of chalk dust. In a flash the two animals were coated with the stuff. Probably would be hard to get the stuff off!
    “Who the hell didn’t keep an eye on those two?” Rock bellowed out in anger. It was exactly the kind of stupid mistake that would cost them in other, more treacherous situations. He was pissed off too at the destruction of something that had lasted for eons. But in a flash he saw that the hybrid horses were in far more trouble. Suddenly both of them stopped dead in their tracks. They both got looks of surprise on their furred faces and began trembling. At first it was mild, but within a few seconds they were vibrating and jumping up and down as if in an uncontrollable frenzy. Foam poured out from their opened mouths. And, within ten seconds, both had keeled over into the prairie.
    Blood poured from their mouths, eyes, ears, and every orifice of their bodies. The shaking grew wilder as they slid around the sand, staining it red. Within a minute they were dead.
    “Stay away from them!” Rockson screamed out, as some of the recruits started to dismount to see what had happened to the ’brids. “Don’t go another inch closer! Leave the supplies on them!”
    Rockson got them all the hell out of there fast, making a wide circle around the bone field. God only knew just what was inside the decomposing, prehistoric monsters. But he and his team weren’t going to be the ones to find out.
    He stopped them after going about half a