Animals writhed in pain everywhere, their coats of fur or scales, feathers or hides, all burned and smoking as if splashed with acid. Bald patches dotted them, beneath which the skin was red and oozing. Many of their eyes had been melted from the acid rains so that just an overcooked, egglike mass dripped out of the sockets. The radioactive rains were just taking their first dividends. Wherever they fell. Stone knew, there would be equal horror and pain. He prayed that his men would remember to get out of the damn rains when the clouds finally caught up with them to the southwest. Though he felt the urge, there was no way in hell Stone could go out there and put all the damn suffering creatures out of their misery. So he steeled his eyes and jaw and drove forward, having to move slower now as the foothills were turning to mini-mountains, and peaks loomed overhead like skyscrapers of solid grarite. But Excaliber let out little whines of sympathy as they drove past the squealing, bellowing, doomed animals, as if to let them know that someone, something, was witness to their final hour.
