Doomsday Warrior 18 - American Dream Machine Read Online Free PDF Page A

again, as best he could figure the direction. Before he did so, however, he gathered up some of the smaller barrel-babies scattered in the sands. He needed a way to carry them, but that was no problem. He tied some pine twigs together to form a sort of rough basket, and put the water-cacti inside it.
    He whistled as he set off. What more could a twenty-first century man ask? He had a blue sky to walk under, some water in his gut, and a happy song to whistle.
    Soon he stopped whistling. And he walked. And walked. In a few hours, he realized the temperature was defying his earlier guestimate. It was hotter than hell. Maybe 110 degrees! Rockson had quickly used up all the little cacti he’d carried along, and so he threw away the basket. He walked on. Crazy weather. Crazy world . . .
    Six more hours of walking and it was near sunset. His once-cheery thoughts were now drifting to melancholy subjects. He was hungry. And maybe lost. Everything looked pretty much the same out here. And most of all he was stupid: he should have saved the basket for making a fire! How many miles back had he left it? Too far. There was nothing but barren waste all around.
    He sat down on a flat rock, sighed, and took out the map again. He looked all around him at the fields of boulders, the rolling dry terrain. He was in a blank part of the map now. Best he could figure, he should be near the location from which Archer had sent his distress signal. At least he hoped so. But without landmarks, without a compass or a sextant . . . Hell, Archer’s mysterious Bawl Corner could be right over the rise to the left—or to the right. Or straight ahead. Or behind him. He could have overshot it, off course by a mere mile or so.
    Rockson, his mind cloudy with exhaustion, and with a foul mood descending on him, nevertheless did the bright thing. He decided to walk up the steepest incline and survey the area from there. No sense just walking at random. Gain some altitude, take a look-see before it was dark again.
    When he started up the dusty rise to the left he found something he didn’t much like: tracks. The tracks of several pawed creatures. Big-pawed mothers.
    Oh shit, what was this now? Some huge wolves to contend with? Some Narga-beasts? He put his hand on the reassuring butt of his shotpistol. Comforted by its presence, he continued to the top of the hill.
    The tracks converged with other, similar tracks at the top, then headed off to the west. He realized that they had been made when the ground was muddy. They must be days, weeks old, he told himself. Hell, the creatures that made those tracks could have been prehistoric! Well, at least a week prehistoric. Shielding his eyes from the setting sun, he didn’t see anything like a settlement in any direction. But he wasn’t up very high. All around Rockson were massive boulders, each higher than a man. Rockson figured out a way to clamber from one to the other, to get on top of the highest one. He began to do so. But as he jumped up on the first boulder, he felt a sudden strange apprehension.
    Something was near.
    Had he heard it, or smelled it? Or had he just sensed it with his mutant instincts? No matter. If there was something—or someone—nearby . . . Get the shotpistol out.
    As he reached for the weapon, he froze, crouching. Rock’s muscles tensed, his dry lips opened to breath in extra gulps of the hot air. He was ready. He stood there in a crouch, slowly turning, surveying every concealment area, his shotpistol cocked in his hand, his finger on the trigger.
    He did a full circle. Nothing. Maybe he was going nuts.
    He waited for a time, and then climbed to the highest boulder, well aware that he was now a perfect target for a sniper. But the feeling of danger had passed. Perhaps something or someone had passed near him, passed by without seeing him. He shuddered, imagining all sorts of toothy monsters.
    He had a good view here. On all the horizons north, south, east, and west were nothing but more