The Doomsayer
The Survivalist #4
by Jerry Ahern
Copyright © 1981
by Jerry Ahern
All rights reserved.
The Doomsayer
A Peanut Press Book
Chapter 1
Rourke closed the Lowe Alpine Loco Pack and checked that it was secure on the back of the jet-black Harley Davidson Low Rider. He scanned the ground in the early sunlight and checked that the fire was out and all his gear accounted for. He would need gasoline by the end of the day and was aiming toward one of the strategic fuel reserve sites the new President of United States II, Samuel Chambers, had pinpointed for him. He had been out of the Retreat for nearly seven days, having re-equipped, then waited a day more while Paul Rubenstein had prepared. He left the same day Paul had set out for Florida in quest of his parents to see if somehow they had survived the holocaust of the Night of the War—
World War III. 'World War Last?' he wondered, noting the haze around the sunrise, the redness of the atmosphere. The Geiger counter strapped to the Harley still indicated normal radiation levels, but John Thomas Rourke was worried.
In the seven days he had been out there had been no sign of Sarah, his wife, nor of his children, Michael and Ann.
He was heading east, assuming that Sarah and the children had for some reason turned toward the Georgia coast, perhaps to avoid Brigand bands or the Russians. On this gamble Rourke currently hung his slim hopes. He had missed them before by mere hours.
He snatched up the CAR-15, popped out the thirty-round magazine, worked the bolt, and removed the chambered round there. Then he loaded the .223 solid into the magazine and snapped off the trigger, putting the magazine back up the well. He bent his head as he slung the collapsible-stock semiautomatic rifle across his back, muzzle down, scope covers in place.
He kicked away the stand on the Harley and started it, the humming of the engine somehow reassuring to him. He had chosen the Harley before the War because he had felt it was the best— and it hadn't let him down. Like the Rolex Submariner on his wrist, the Colt rifle on his back, the Detonics pistols in the double shoulder rig under his brown leather jacket, the six-inch Colt Python on his right hip— with these weapons he had survived until now.
He stared past the bike into the gorge below, and his eyes followed the road climbing the side of the gorge from near the river bottom.
Was Rubenstein alive? Had he yet located his parents? They were somewhere in the Armageddon that was Florida — like the rest of the United States , but only worse because there the Communist Cubans reportedly ruled at the discretion of the Soviets, titular winners of the War. Sarah, his son Michael, his daughter Ann.... Soon, Rourke thought, they would be turning— Michael was nearly seven, Ann almost five.
Rourke revved the machine under him and started forward out of the small clearing where he had camped the night, following the mountains as long as he could before dropping to the Piedmont . He looked for some sign of a camp, hoofprints from the horses Sarah and the children had ridden as they had left Tennessee in search of him. Rourke pushed the sunglasses up against the bridge of his nose as he turned the bike from the clearing onto the winding animal trail that lead out of the woods.
Rourke slowed the bike again at the edge of the tree line, cutting it in a narrow arc and stopping, surveying the gorge more clearly visible now below him, snapping up the leather jacket's collar against the cold— it was summer by the calendar. The oddity of the seasons worried him, too.
He could hear the rushing of water, but it was not that noise which caused him to cut the Harley's motor and listen, hardly daring to breathe. A smile crossed his lips. Rourke lit one of the small, dark tobacco cigars in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo and listened more intently, inhaling the gray smoke then exhaling it hard through his nostrils.
Gunfire, engine noises. The Brigands, Rourke thought, below him along the road paralleling the gorge. He dismounted the bike, letting out the kick stand, and walked toward the lip of ground looking down into the river bottom canyon. He snatched the Bushnell Armored 8x30s from the case under his jacket and focused them along the road below.
A single motorcycle, the rider low over the handlebars; and a hundred yards or less behind the rider were two dozen or so motorcycles. Behind them, at a short distance, were a half-dozen pickup trucks—
filled with Brigands. He focused in on the rider of the lead motorcycle. A woman with reddish-brown hair that hung straight in the slipstream behind her.
He watched. The woman rounded a curve, the bike skidding from under her, out of control.
She pulled herself to her feet, the Brigands closing in. They would want her for rape, for robbery, and then for murder, Rourke thought. The girl had the bike up and was getting it started again. The Brigand pursuers were less than thirty yards behind her now, and there was gunfire again. As she straightened the bike on the road below Rourke, he could see her twitch as a pistol shot echoed among the rocks, see her back arch, the bike weave, then see her lean over the handlebars, lower than before. He focused in more tightly on her— her left hand was streaming blood from some wound elsewhere on her body.
Rourke swept the binoculars back down the road. The Brigand gang closed in on her, their guns firing, some of them armed with submachineguns. Men and women stood in the pickup truck beds speeding behind the bikers, firing rifles at the girl cyclist.
Rourke carefully but quickly replaced the binoculars in their case, slipping the Colt CAR-15 from his back, the sling now on his right shoulder. He grasped the ears on the bolt and chambered the first round from the thirty-round magazine, then worked the safety to on.
