Read Doomsday Warrior 04 - Bloody America for Free Online

big brown and purple cumulus clouds were hanging up there like boulders about to fall, the Reds would have a hard time using their spy drones: those buzzing pilotless cylinders with nothing but stubby wings and video cameras mounted in the nose and stomach of the metal craft to spy down on the world below them. If the Russians caught them out here in the open . . .
    By the fifth day after the black flood, Rock knew they were getting near the location of the president’s now bombed-out ranch where the convention had been held. The land grew more rocky; small hills were beginning to turn into the very edge of a mountain range.
    “Do you want to go back to the convention site?” Rock asked President Langford as they headed up and down the sloping crabgrassed hills.
    “I have to, Rock. Whoever’s left there—there must be some who survived—you did—we did. I’ll reorganize. There’s no other choice. We can’t stop this journey of ours. Our trip toward liberation and freedom. There’s no turning back—only one way—forward.” Langford seemed to be regaining his strength, both physical and mental. His eyes burned once again with the fire of leadership.
    “Yes, I know,” Rockson answered softly. But he wasn’t thinking of Langford, he was thinking of Kim. Being separated from her again—not knowing where she would be or what was happening to her. In many ways he didn’t like being in love. It hurt. It created an Achilles’ heel in his otherwise almost impenetrable psychic shield. He never had to worry about anyone before. And he never worried for himself. His death was a matter for the gods to decide. He had seen enough to know that when death came knocking, no creature on earth could keep the door closed. The Doomsday Warrior kept his thoughts to himself but turned and looked at her with a feeling of infinite tenderness.
    They marched through the lower hills and then up onto the higher rocky slopes by the second day. Mountain goats sure-footedly jumped around them as eagles and hawks flew slow deliberate circles far above, searching with their razor-sharp eyes for the flash of a cottontail or the rush of a raccoon. The land was again rich and vibrant here and made them relax. They took in the perfumed scents of wood and sap and life itself. Out there on the wastelands it was as if they were on an alien planet with something out to get them. But here—this was their land. Tall trees and green everywhere, wildlife crashing through the thick forests, all in harmonious symbiosis.
    They were just coming over a rise above a narrow wooded valley as the sun sank into the cloud-covered pit of night, when Rock held his arm up for them both to be quiet.
    “I smell smoke—just ahead. Stay here,” he whispered, motioning for them to lie down in the thick, blue-tinged grass. He edged forward cautiously, his shotpistol in his right hand, and rolled quickly over the top of the rise and down a few feet behind a grove of thornbushes.
    Voices! He could hear mumbles and the crackling of a fire ahead. And food—the sizzling aroma of fresh-killed venison. It couldn’t be Reds. The Russians would never be camping out in the wilds. They preferred a protective circle of tanks and choppers flying overhead. But he had encountered enough bandits, even cannibals, to know that just being Americans didn’t guarantee safety from strangers. He slid down the hill at the north side of the two hundred-foot-deep valley, darting from shadow to shadow. It was English all right, he could hear as he drew closer, and laughter.
    No—it couldn’t be, he thought, disbelieving what his own perceptions were telling him. He moved down the slope and pushed aside the side of a brown, spiked bush. Four men sat around a fire on pieces of a fallen tree. One of them was cooking over low flames, humming softly to himself. It was— McCaughlin—and the Rock team. A sardonic smile passed over Rockson’s face as he rose and stepped forward, both hands