could inject itself and its poison into their flesh.
“That kitty left his dinner, Rock,” Mt. Ed snorted, pointing down at a partially consumed young male elk. Rock came over and looked. Only the skull had been cracked open, snapped to pieces inside the powerful jaws of the killer cat. Brain still oozed from one side of the head, cracked like a coconut.
“They go for the brain first,” Mt. Ed said, his wiry black beard falling below the thick sun-puffed lips. “Then the heart, kidneys. This one hasn’t even touched its skull stew.”
“Strange,” Rock said, stepping back from the corpse and looking in the direction the cat had come. “They usually don’t back down from a challenge. But that one seemed scared. Of what?” If there was something that could scare that, Rockson wanted to know what it was and quick.
They both turned suddenly, reaching for their guns as they heard a scrambling in some dense brush just yards away. Three gray wart hogs, their long tusks standing straight as an officer’s sword, came rushing toward them. Rock ripped out his pistol, but the usually fierce warted pigs swerved to the right and tore right past the Doomsday Warrior without so much as a glance.
“What the hell’s going on?” Charles Langford, the newly elected president of the Re-United States of America grumbled.
“Beats me,” Rock said. “But I think maybe we should join them and start heading in that direction.” He started down what seemed like some sort of path the animals were following, a slightly trampled-down stretch of bushland about ten feet wide. But it was turning into a superhighway Rockson thought, as a whole new group of animals came flying through the thickets and past them, out onto more open terrain. Not one paid the slightest attention to Rockson or the others, their heads down, their legs pumping like locomotives as they shot by.
Rock kneeled down and put his ear to the earth. He heard something, something he didn’t like at all. He had heard the sound once before and he had nearly died.
“Okay folks, I don’t want to alarm you,” Rock said, looking grimly at Kim. “But we’ve got to drop everything and run. There’s some sort of flood, tidal wave heading this way.” They started a medium jog in the direction the animals were heading. Rockson could have run twice as fast but held back with Kim and President Langford who were still recovering from the radiation burns they had received just a month before. The Glower’s incredible telepathic healing powers along with Rockson’s own PSI abilities had cured the two of them, pulling poisoning radiation from their bodies. But still human beings are made of flesh and blood—they had been in deep shock, and Rock wondered how much they could take.
The Doomsday Warrior pulled out a pair of dirty field glasses, a beat-up pair that Mt. Ed had given him, after saving Rock from the same N-bomb blast that had nearly killed Kim and the president.
Now he could see it: a wall of sheerest black, like the side of a mountain, coming straight toward them. And it didn’t look like water; Rock could see that from twelve miles away. It was thick and oily and seemed to almost reach forward with pseudopods of its foul grease, grabbing and digesting the poor creatures that hadn’t been quick enough. Rock spun the glasses around in the other direction, searching for a rise, a mountain, anything that would get them out of the oncoming deluge.
The sound of the thing came to them: a dull roar, far off, with the power of ten million tons of water, crashing forward, growing with every minute as the black foulness continued to pour from the bowel’s of the earth miles away.
There! To the east, perhaps two miles away. Some kind of small hill, Rock could see through the dusty glasses. “This way,” he screamed out to the others as more animals continued to rush past them, an old mangy wolf actually brushing against Mt. Ed’s leg for a second, too scared to
“That kitty left his dinner, Rock,” Mt. Ed snorted, pointing down at a partially consumed young male elk. Rock came over and looked. Only the skull had been cracked open, snapped to pieces inside the powerful jaws of the killer cat. Brain still oozed from one side of the head, cracked like a coconut.
“They go for the brain first,” Mt. Ed said, his wiry black beard falling below the thick sun-puffed lips. “Then the heart, kidneys. This one hasn’t even touched its skull stew.”
“Strange,” Rock said, stepping back from the corpse and looking in the direction the cat had come. “They usually don’t back down from a challenge. But that one seemed scared. Of what?” If there was something that could scare that, Rockson wanted to know what it was and quick.
They both turned suddenly, reaching for their guns as they heard a scrambling in some dense brush just yards away. Three gray wart hogs, their long tusks standing straight as an officer’s sword, came rushing toward them. Rock ripped out his pistol, but the usually fierce warted pigs swerved to the right and tore right past the Doomsday Warrior without so much as a glance.
“What the hell’s going on?” Charles Langford, the newly elected president of the Re-United States of America grumbled.
“Beats me,” Rock said. “But I think maybe we should join them and start heading in that direction.” He started down what seemed like some sort of path the animals were following, a slightly trampled-down stretch of bushland about ten feet wide. But it was turning into a superhighway Rockson thought, as a whole new group of animals came flying through the thickets and past them, out onto more open terrain. Not one paid the slightest attention to Rockson or the others, their heads down, their legs pumping like locomotives as they shot by.
Rock kneeled down and put his ear to the earth. He heard something, something he didn’t like at all. He had heard the sound once before and he had nearly died.
“Okay folks, I don’t want to alarm you,” Rock said, looking grimly at Kim. “But we’ve got to drop everything and run. There’s some sort of flood, tidal wave heading this way.” They started a medium jog in the direction the animals were heading. Rockson could have run twice as fast but held back with Kim and President Langford who were still recovering from the radiation burns they had received just a month before. The Glower’s incredible telepathic healing powers along with Rockson’s own PSI abilities had cured the two of them, pulling poisoning radiation from their bodies. But still human beings are made of flesh and blood—they had been in deep shock, and Rock wondered how much they could take.
The Doomsday Warrior pulled out a pair of dirty field glasses, a beat-up pair that Mt. Ed had given him, after saving Rock from the same N-bomb blast that had nearly killed Kim and the president.
Now he could see it: a wall of sheerest black, like the side of a mountain, coming straight toward them. And it didn’t look like water; Rock could see that from twelve miles away. It was thick and oily and seemed to almost reach forward with pseudopods of its foul grease, grabbing and digesting the poor creatures that hadn’t been quick enough. Rock spun the glasses around in the other direction, searching for a rise, a mountain, anything that would get them out of the oncoming deluge.
The sound of the thing came to them: a dull roar, far off, with the power of ten million tons of water, crashing forward, growing with every minute as the black foulness continued to pour from the bowel’s of the earth miles away.
There! To the east, perhaps two miles away. Some kind of small hill, Rock could see through the dusty glasses. “This way,” he screamed out to the others as more animals continued to rush past them, an old mangy wolf actually brushing against Mt. Ed’s leg for a second, too scared to
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