by Ryder Stacy
“You’re up, man. Look around—you’re safe,” Rock yelled. Archer prepared to strike again, his animal responses too honed from years of living in the murderous wilds, the mountains and prairies of the West, to stop. But suddenly he looked around, his large, bearded face sweeping across the gray skies, the dark clouds like boulders dragging themselves across the silver sword of the horizon. His face went from primitive fury to a sweet joy in the space of a second. Rockson let out a laugh as he watched the transformation.
“Arrrrcher freeeee,” the big man growled. Then he looked over at Rockson, realizing his hand was still suspended midway between them. He sheepishly let the fist open and dropped it to the parachute raft. “Roooccckkssonnn saaaaaaave,” he moaned, looking down at the black nylon float with deep embarrassment in his eyes.
“Forget it, pal,” the Doomsday Warrior said. “I probably would have done the same. You’re too much of a warrior to ever stop fighting. Anyway, we ain’t got time to make apologies,” Rock said, pointing toward the shore. “We’ll freeze to death if we’re out here very long. And I don’t know how long this parachute boat is going to hold up.” As he spoke they could both see air bubbles slowly rising from the water at the far side of the chute from a small tear in the fabric.
The two freefighters pulled themselves halfway up onto the air-filled chute, and began kicking furiously, aiming the wobbly craft toward the near shore. It was a good two miles off but the combined force of their churning leg power, sending out a furrow of white foam behind them, and the tide which was headed in that direction made them move at a good clip. Still, they could feel their feet and thighs growing numb from the intense cold. Only the constant motion of their flesh and muscles, pumping blood through their systems, kept their bodies from freezing up solid like the small icebergs that floated around them.
The sky was growing increasingly dark with the far clouds growing ever closer. Storm clouds ready to release their storehouse of moisture as snow or ice. Rock had seen clouds like this before—filled with death, the Black Snow. Sometimes the coal-black flakes burned the skin, other times they just fell harmlessly, blackening the sky as if the sun had been extinguished but composed of normal water vapor. There was no way of telling until the flakes fell onto the flesh. And by then . . . They kicked their way nearly half the distance to the shore, tiring somewhat, the numbness creeping throughout their bodies. But the sheer willpower of the two freefighters kept them going, struggling to survive. Even when the body said enough, the mind said go on. Rockson could see by the increasingly blueish tinge of Archer’s face that the big man wasn’t going to last a hell of a lot longer. His own mutant body seemed able to withstand the rigors of the freezing temperatures more readily. But then his kind—the star-patterned mutants—had been bred by evolution to survive the new world, the world of 2089 A.D.
They were but half a mile from safety, the jagged shoreline peppered with bent-over black-barked pines within sight, giving both men a renewed burst of energy when Rockson noticed an object in the water some hundred yards ahead. It came straight toward them—against the tide. Suddenly a huge reptilian head broke the icy surface, lifting nearly thirty feet out above the lake.
“Jesus Christ,” Rockson sputtered as they both let their legs stop dead in the water, the bubbling trail they had created stretching out behind them nearly a quarter mile. The lake reptile eyed them with burning red eyes as large as basketballs. Its razor-toothed jaws opened wide enough to swallow a buffalo, thick saliva pouring down into the rushing water. It was dark green, scaled from the neck on down, with foot-thick yellow bands circling its body every five feet. Much of the creature still lay submerged, but from the size of the head and the car-sized flippers that it splashed on each side to keep afloat, Rock guessed the thing was a good hundred feet long. And it didn’t look on the friendly side. Archer reached behind him for his crossbow and swung it around, pulling out one of his two remaining arrows from his aluminum quiver. He quickly fitted one into the firing slot.
The monstrous lizard kept watching them as if savoring the meal it was about to partake of before actually taking the first bite. Archer let fly with the arrow which buried itself just above the creature’s right flipper. The thing let out a roar of pain, throwing its head high in the air so that the neck stretched almost straight up like a thick green tree. Then it slammed down into the lake, disappearing within seconds beneath the surface, sending out waves in all directions from the explosive blast of its descent.
“Arrrcheeer killlllllll,” the freefighter said with a grin, putting the metal crossbow back around his shoulder.
“I’m afraid it won’t be as easy as—” But Rockson’s words were cut off as the lake monster came up like a rocket from beneath them. Its green head slammed into the raft throwing it into the air, Rock and Archer flying off in opposite directions. They came to the surface spitting water, staring at one another from about ten yards apart. The parachute raft slowly sank some thirty feet away, ripped in half as big bubbles burped their way to the surface.
The reptile disappeared again beneath the rough surface of the lake but Rock knew it was only a matter of seconds before it made another entrance. It was playing cat and mouse with them, eager for some sport before the actual entree. Suddenly it reappeared some fifty yards out and came tearing at them, moving at lightning speed. It bore down on Archer, its steam-shovel jaws opened wide. The big man stared at the vision from hell, his body paralyzed. The freefighter glanced over at Rockson for a split second as if to say goodbye, then forward again to see his scaly fate bearing down on him. But the reptile had not finished having its fun. It veered to the side at the last second, slapping Archer with one of its fifteen-foot flippers, the force of the two-ton appendage knocked the near-mute twenty feet into the air, over three hundred pounds of struggling wild man. He landed just yards away from Rockson, dazed, and began to go under. Rock reached over and wrapped his arm around Archer’s chest, keeping them both afloat.
The hell monster of Lake Superior surfaced again about one hundred yards away and again lifted its long, graceful neck. The red eyes in its head burned with hunger. It came at them, Rockson sensed this was going to be the last time. He searched frantically, looking for any kind of weapon. His pistol was empty but he suddenly noticed the small Emergency Pilot Pack strapped to the side of his stolen Russian uniform. He flipped the canvas pack open and, treading water furiously to keep them both afloat, glanced inside. There—at the bottom, beneath antibiotic syringes and a small stack of gold coins, was a gun of some kind. He pulled it out—a flare pistol with but one shell. He knew the charge wouldn’t even make a dent in the creature’s thick armor. He’d have to wait until the last possible second and then . . .
The thing bore down on them, opening its dripping jaws, seaweed hanging in slimy bunches from the foot-and-a-half-long triple rows of dagger teeth. It was going to swallow them both with a single bite—a mere snack. It built up speed, the head lowering down to the water line to swoop them into waiting jaws. The flaming red eyes made contact with Rock’s blue and violet eyes and he could see the murderous primitive hunger in them. The curved teeth glistened from the thin rays of the diffused sun trying to burn through the thick cloud cover. The Doomsday Warrior waited and waited until the thing was just yards away, until he was able to see straight down the dark throat of the reptilian killer. Holding the flare gun straight out in front of him he fired into the monster’s jaws. The flare tore into the moist innards of the thing and exploded with a roar, sending out a storm of sparks and burning white light. The creature threw its head back and let out a blood-curdling scream. It tried to bring its immense mouth down again but something was wrong. It seemed confused, its brain no longer functioning as the explosion had severed its spinal cord. The great neck swung back and forth wildly and then slammed down into the lake with a tumultuous splash. The immense body jerked violently, the fins and tail going into death spasms. It moved for about a minute and then was still, bizarrely moti
onless in the rough water. It glided slowly past them only feet away.
Archer suddenly came out of his stupor from the slap of the reptile’s fin. He shook his head in confusion as if trying to shake brain cells into place. He looked up at Rockson, panic in his silver-dollar-sized brown eyes, and then saw the thing which floated dead in the water alongside them.
“Roooocksoon—thiiing killl,” he growled, ready to dive back below the surface to escape.
“No, it’s dead,” Rock said softly. “The hunter got captured by the game.” Archer looked skeptical as he began treading water. He could hardly believe that something so gargantuan, so fierce could have been killed. He kicked his feet out against the reptile’s side to see if it was true. But it was dead, dead as cold stone, already stiffening in the freezing air as the pale slivers of the setting sun lit up the immense rounded side with a garish, merciless light.
Rockson glanced over to see the parachute-float disappear beneath the increasingly rough waters of the lake, twisting waves six-feet high snapping wildly in the wind with teeth of bubbling white foam. The Doomsday Warrior’s body was starting to stiffen up from the bitter cold. They had been in the freezing waters for nearly forty-five minutes—there wasn’t much time left. As tough as the two freefighters were, they were made of flesh and blood—flesh which would soon turn steel hard, blood which would freeze and coagulate in their stiff veins.
“Come on, pal, we’re going to hitch a ride,” Rock said, swimming the few yards over to the monster’s corpse which slowly bobbed up and down in the dark lake. They grabbed hold of the slimy flippers and somehow pulled themselves up onto the outstretched green fins. Standing up on the green appendage, Rock grabbed hold of one of the reptile’s row of spike like protruberances which ran along its back. Within seconds he had hoisted himself up onto the long curving top of the creature. He reached down a thickly muscled arm and helped the slipping and sliding Archer get atop. The slowly dissipating heat of the dead lake predator gave them a little warmth, making them more alert.
“Plesiosaurus,” Rock muttered, remembering pictures he had seen of the thing back in the Century City archives. “Supposed to be extinct for a couple hundred million years. But I guess this one decided not to join its relatives—or else he was mutated from one of the native species in the lake.” He remembered Dr. Shecter’s theory that the heavy radiation of the war had caused many creatures that survived to undergo regressive evolution—the chromosomes reverting to a more simple configuration in attempts at survival.
From their position on the thing’s back they could see the shore just ahead, not more than a quarter mile away. The tide was still pushing in that direction and—if God were favoring Americans today—it wouldn’t change, at least for a while. Slowly, ever so slowly, drifting in slow curves, they rode the dead lake monster in toward the sands of the shore, the biggest horse that a man had ever ridden in the rodeo of eternal death.
Two
They stumbled ashore, wading through the freezing water which was sending up writhing sheets of steam as night came falling through the dense cover of storm clouds. The tide changed almost instantly and the huge lake reptile began drifting slowly back out toward the opposite bank, thirty miles off. Large, razor-beaked gulls came swooping in from all directions, landing on the thing’s back and tearing out little morsels of the green meat with their powerful snapping jaws. Rock could see from the sudden quick jerk of the reptile that fish, beneath the waters, were also taking their due. The earth took back what it put forth in cruel harmony.
The freefighters made their way across the nearly quarter mile of fine white-sanded shore, at last reaching a forest of high firs. The temperature was dropping by the minute and Rockson knew they wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving the night. Already their drenched clothes were forming a thin sheen of ice over them.
“If we’re not going to make a career out of being snowmen,” Rock said, “we’d better find some shelter soon.” Archer grunted in agreement, not quite understanding the concept of a snowman, but getting the drift of the words. They walked for about a mile through the dense forest, blazing eyes sending out waves of hunger in the darkness. Archer loaded his crossbow and auto-set it, carrying the lethal weapon in front of him, ready for whatever hellish creature might burst forth. At last they came to a small clearing in the center of a grove of thick, blue-barked trees with five-feet-long red leaves, arranged in bulb like formations along the gnarled twisting branches.
“This will at least protect us from the wind,” Rock said as the strong breeze continued sweeping down a painful flow of freezing air from the north. They sat down on the hard packed ground, a few desultory weeds growing here and there. It was the first time in hours the two men had stopped and they lay back on the earth to rest their weary bodies.
“Now if we only had a fire, things would be just wonderful,” Rock said with a lopsided grin. Archer stood up suddenly and took the arrow from its slot. He reached behind him into a small pouch at the bottom of the now arrowless quiver and pulled out a coal-sized piece of flint. “Well, I’ll be,” Rock said, rising up and pulling up some dried weeds from the ground. “You do come prepared, don’t you?” Archer beamed with pride.
“Aarccher fiiiiiiireee,” the huge freefighter said. They built a small mound of kindling and pieces of dead branch from around the clearing. Archer held the flint next to the bottom of the pile and slammed the steel tipped arrow against it. Within seconds a spark shot out and flew into the paper-dry weeds. A thin flame caught hold and quickly set the pile of wood ablaze. The two freefighters sat on opposite sides of the flames, warming their frigid hands and drying their clothes.
“Now, that’s better, isn’t it, my friend?” Rock asked.
“Liiiike fiiireee,” the grizzly-sized man said. “Feeeel gooooood.” They were both ravenous but the woods were too dark and dangerous to start hunting. The cloudy night cast a deathly blackness like a shroud over the terrain. The fire’s crackling flames sent out bizarre shadows over the thick trees that surrounded them. Hidden inside the woods Rockson could hear the low growls of hunting carnivores. He quickly gathered more broken branches from around the clearing and built a small pile alongside the fire.
“We’ve got to keep the damned thing going all night,” Rock said, throwing a few more pieces into the lapping flames. “Or else . . .” He eyed the dark woods.
“Archer no liiike beee eaten,” the big freefighter said, inching a little closer to the warmth and security of the blue and yellow tongues of flame.
“We’ll have to take shifts. I’ll stand guard for about three hours and wake you. OK—understand?”
“Nooo—Roocksonnn first. Archer noooo sleeep,” the giant said firmly.
“If you insist.” The Doomsday Warrior laughed, made a small cushion out of some moss and set his head down on it. His clothes were now dry from the warmth of the flames and he felt almost comfortable as he found himself quickly drifting into sleep.
Archer kept glancing nervously around as Rockson slipped off. He kept the crossbow on his legs, sitting cross-legged, leaning back against one of the immense blue-barked trees that filled the nearby forest. Like radar he turned his head from side to side, sweeping the darkness and the eyes—so many eyes, all glistening like orange and silver stars from the woods. All aimed at him. A sudden howl that went on for nearly five seconds, ending in a shrill scream of challenge, made him quickly throw more wood on the fire until it was sending up its protective flames nearly five feet into the sub-zero air. Sparks and streams of gray smoke lit up the sky, creating a fifty-foot funnel of light. There—let the damned eaters try something, he thought to himself and sat back down with a satisfied look.
But the warmth of the crackling wood and his lack of sleep for days made the big head slowly fall over to the side. Three times he jerked suddenly awake and rubbed his face, looking furtively around to see if anything had dared sneak up. But on the fourth demand of his tired body he fell into a deep sleep, topplin
g over onto the ground without waking.
Within minutes the trees around them began moving. Sensing that both of the flesh-creatures lying beside the fire were unconscious, the giant red-petaled flowers on the branches opened slowly, revealing rows of sharp spikes all aimed inward. Mutated Venus flytraps, they had grown to enormous size, trapping nearby creatures. The carniverous plants opened only in the dead of night, preferring to go into a defensive closed hibernation during the day. But now they would eat again. The branches of the tree just behind Archer, which he lay asleep at the base of, moved around. Flexible as rubber, the dim mind of the tree sent out the command to kill through its chlorophyl nervous system.
The five-foot-long red petals, eight of them, closed in on the top of the sleeping creature, circling down toward him until the thick, green-veined leaves were open just above him. They dropped down onto Archer and closed around his head and shoulders, snapping tightly shut. The freefighter screamed out bloody murder as he pushed his arms up against the consuming petals trying to push them off. Rockson bolted out of his dark sleep and stared over at the attack incredulously. Suddenly he sensed movement all around them. All the branches, the blooms as big as a man with their red grabbing leaves, were moving toward him, zeroing in. The branches seemed to extend out, stretching, giving each of the meat-eating blooms thirty to forty feet of attack space. Rockson rolled over just as the nearest one plopped down onto the cold ground where his body had just been. The petals snapped instinctively shut but took in a mouthful of dirt. Rock reached into the roaring fire and took out a burning three-foot piece of branch, grabbing it at the charred but cold end. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to Archer, who by the looks of the furious struggle he was putting up was clearly still alive. How long he had before the digestive juices of the thing went to work was not something Rock dared wonder. He thrust the flames at the base of the man-trap, jamming into the fleshy outer layer of the thing, sizzling the vegetable flesh. The plant-thing shook wildly and then jerked back away from the flames, opening its spiked jaws and spitting out Archer. He rolled several feet and jumped up. Hundreds of small pinpricks had drawn blood from his body which oozed down over his big frame. But he seemed none the worse for wear.
