Free Doomsday Warrior 01 by Ryder Stacy

around the corner. When it came there was nothing any man on Earth could do to stop it. Death was the one certainty in a constantly changing world.
    Rock kept the lead, making enough noise so that any hungry cat or wild boar would know they were coming. His experience had taught him that most animals would rather run than tangle with man. They attacked when cornered or suddenly frightened. Most. So he let those in the dark woods know that guests were present but would just be moving through. He didn’t like to kill animals unnecessarily. Russians, that was another story. But then they were animals of a different order.
    Behind him the men marched at a brisk pace, the machine gun and mortarmen at the back, keeping their equipment balanced on the backs of the occasionally ornery hybrids. The Freefighters began singing, first one voice softly, then another and another, until all fourteen remaining men of Century City Strike Force #1 team were belting out chorus after chorus of:
“Ninety-nine Blackshirt skulls on the wall,
    Ninety-nine Blackshirt skulls
    If one of those skulls should happen to fall
    Ninety-eight Blackshirt skulls on the wall
    Ninety-eight Blackshirt skulls on the wall,
    Ninety-eight . . .”
    It was a dumb, stupid song, but the men sang louder and laughed at the start of each new verse. Rockson grinned to himself at the front, pushing forward through increasingly dense growth and thorns, hacking at it when it became entangled around his khaki pants with his twelve-inch bowie knife. But it should be the other way around, he thought. The numbers should go up not down, because we’re killing more of them every year now.
    When he was a youth, the resistance forces were still unorganized. An occasional Russian truck would be sniped at, a stray Red soldier knifed in the gut. But that was all changing now. The Free Cities were becoming more and more organized and working toward establishing a unified military council that would coordinate all attacks throughout America so as to cause the most damage. The casualties of the occupying forces were more than doubling every year. The price that the Russians would have to pay to continue their enslavement of the United States would rise—until it was too high. Then the Slavic murderers would pack up their things and head for the steppes of Mother Russia, tails between their legs. How Rockson longed for that day. When America would be free again. All other thoughts paled in comparison to this burning dream.
    The moon rose full, shining like a ghostly eye in the dark sky, lighting up the harsh land below. The woods were thinning out now and Rock knew they couldn’t be too far from the other end. A clearing ahead! Rockson surveyed it swiftly with his eyes and ears. He stepped forward, holding up his right hand and then pointing to the ground—meaning stop. Crouching low, the Ultimate American moved forward through the trees, edging along the shadows, so as not to reveal himself in the bathing rays of the now-purple moon, covered with a thin haze of radioactivity that circled the Earth high in the Van Allen Belt.
    Something was out there! He could feel it in his tingling flesh. But what? Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. He edged closer, taking out his .12 gauge, rapid-firing shotgun pistol that held six shells and two in the chamber, the blast of which could take out two or three Russians at twenty feet. Rockson moved on his toes, his weight perfectly balanced, his ears perked to the most silent of sounds. He peered around a thorny bush, his pistol held high in his hand. Something, something.
    A black shadow flew up at him, growling, teeth slashing at his face. Then another! Rockson flew backwards with the attack. He smashed forward with the butt of his .12 into the face of the furry creature, dark, with dripping jaws. There were more. Many more—all around him, he heard their rustlings and snarls from the darkness. He spun to the side as the second attacker pounced, its