Ship of the Damned

by James F. David

  “Jerry Rust is out there,” the sailor said, clearly terrified. “We have to go now!”

  The glow spread into the room, and Jett looked down, trying to keep his pupils from constricting. Finally, the light was so bright that he feared being blinded and closed his eyes. Jett used his ears now, listening for the attack.

  The light grew even brighter until his eyelids glowed, so he covered them with his left hand. His skin grew warm while they waited, and he wondered if this was the attack. Then he heard a step; when he opened his eyes someone was in the doorway. As Jett raised his gun he was hit by an invisible wall.

  He was knocked back, Ralph catching him, holding him up. Compton was driven back too, slamming her head on the pipe under the sink. She bounced off, lying flat. Jett was off balance, being held up by Ralph, but he fired over Compton’s head, knowing she had the sense to stay down. He was still functionally blind, unable to aim with any accuracy. Thompson fired too, and then Compton. The figures in the doorway were nothing but blurs, but Jett could see that they held some sort of weapons and were taking aim. Suddenly, the attackers were knocked back through the doorway—Evans had used his power. A bullet fragment bounced off the wall next to Jett. The room was filling with their own riccochets.

  “Hold your fire!” Jett shouted.

  “Yeah,” Ralph said. “One of those BBs hit me in the leg and it hurts.”

  “Cover me,” Peters said.

  Peters dragged the frightened sailor to the far end of the head, opening the far hatch, peeking through a crack first, then opening it wider.

  “You go first,” Peters said to the sailor. “If you run I’ll kill you.”

  The sailor nodded, then let Peters push him through the door into the corridor to the other side. Near panic, the sailor checked the corridor in both directions. Peters went next and then signalled the others. Jett motioned Compton to the back hatch as the attack resumed. This time Jett’s team was ready, backs against the wall, tensed for the psychic blow. It felt like a punch in the face. Jett’s nose stung, blood trickling from his left nostril. His team opened fire, aiming carefully now, the bullets angling into the corridor. When the room began to glow again, Jett ordered retreat.

  Evans went through first and then Compton, who fired a burst through the open door as she retreated backward. Jett pushed Ralph toward the door, noticing that his leg was bleeding.

  “It hurts, Nate,” Ralph said. “Those BB guns hurt people. I’m never gonna play with one.”

  Jett reached the door and then crouched to cover Thompson, who backed toward him. The glow in the doorway was painfully bright. Now the room was getting hot. Jett’s skin was warm to the touch when Thompson passed him, stepping into the corridor. Jett stepped through, pulling the hatch closed behind him, dogging it.

  Jett checked Ralph. His wound was minor, little more than a gash.

  “We better move, Jett!” Compton said. “This hatch is getting hot.”

  Jett touched the hatch, feeling the heat. Then he had a thought.

  “Ralph, come here, touch this door.”

  “Okee-dokee, Nate,” Ralph said.

  Ralph put his hand on the door, his face expressionless.

  “What do you feel, Ralph?”

  “It’s smooth, Nate.”

  “Is that all you feel, Ralph?”

  “I suppose,” Ralph said, looking puzzled.

  “So he is immune,” Compton said. “He wasn’t knocked over with the rest of us and he doesn’t feel the heat. I wonder if the light affected him?”

  Jett and Compton exchanged puzzled looks.

  “But I felt the heat and that light was as bright as looking at the sun,” Compton said.

  “Induced hallucinations?” Jett suggested.

  “We’ve got to get away,” their captive said, backing down the corridor.

  “The heat isn’t real,” Jett said.

  Then Jett remembered the blood coming from his nose. He touched his upper lip, his finger coming away sticky with blood.

  “Nate, can I take my hand off now?” Ralph asked. “It’s getting awfully hot.”

  Compton and Jett exchanged quick looks.

  “Run!” Jett yelled.

  They made only a few steps before the hatch blew, heat and smoke boiling down the corridor. Jett had Ralph by the arm, dragging him along when they were knocked to the ground, the heat and smoke washing over them. Jett held his breath and rolled over, firing toward the head. The smoke dissipated, and he could see the hatch again—there was no one. Then they were hit from behind.

  Peters and the sailor were thrown back into the others, rolling over Jett and Ralph. Thompson and Compton came up firing, Compton yelling to the others to run. Evans stared down the hall using his special ability. The smoke swirled, but there were no thumps from falling bodies and no satisfying screams.

  Peters and the sailor were up and running, Evans following. Jett pulled Ralph to his feet and got him into a fast walk. Ralph’s sensorimotor system wasn’t wired for running; a fast, loping walk all he could manage. Reaching a junction, they took cover around the corner where Peters waited with the sailor and Evans. Thompson and Compton came next, retreating down the corridor, firing into the gloom. Before Compton and Thompson could reach the junction, they were sent flying, they landed flat and skidded along the deck.

  Jett straffed the smoke blindly, then reached out and dragged Compton around the corner to safety. Thompson crawled to the far side. It was a mistake. Now he had to cross the intersection to get to the others. Thompson signalled Jett that he would cross to their side on the count of three. He held up three fingers and then dropped them one by one. With the last finger Jett and Compton opened fire. Thompson waited only a second before making his move.

  Thompson’s football career had ended because he was a step too slow for the pros, and now his life ended for the same reason. A fireball came out of the gloom, catching Thompson midstride. Enveloped by the fireball, he was knocked to the deck. His body was partially protected by the fire-resistant silver coverall, but his head was exposed and the flames concentrated there, his hair bursting into flame. Screaming in agony, Thompson started to rise—running was always the first impulse. Then he dropped and rolled, beating the flames on his face and head to no avail. Peters’ gun sputtered, Teflon bullets piercing Thompson’s skull. Now he lay still, his body still burning, but the agony over. Jett turned on Peters.

  “He could have made it,” Jett said. “Evans did.”

  “I wish to God I hadn’t,” Evans whispered through rebuilt lips.

  Peters winked at Jett, then was off with the captive sailor.

  “They’ll be coming,” Compton said, grabbing Ralph and pulling him after Peters.

  Jett and Evans locked eyes, Jett wondering how much sanity was left beneath those scars. Evans broke the stare and followed the others. Gun in his hand, Jett thought of shooting Evans. It would be the safest move to make, but for the first time in his life he didn’t think of it as killing, he thought of it as murder.

  EXPERIMENT

  Shamita finished dissolving the integration while the others looked after the dreamers. Wes was at Elizabeth’s side, worry etched into his face. Monica stood between Margi and Anita, alternating her attention between the two. Len attended to Wanda, who was the first to wake.

  “Where’s my cigarettes?” Wanda said, reaching for the pocket in her sweater.

  In a flash, she had a Lucky Strike in her mouth and the Bic lighter in her hand. When she struck the lighter Len blew out the flame.

  “Smartass,” she said, then struck the lighter.

  Len blew out the flame again. Staring him straight in the eye, Wanda thumbed the little wheel that adjusted the flame size. Then, with another spark, a three-inch flame shot from the top of the lighter. Wanda held it still, daring Len to blow it out.

  “Ha! Smartass!”

  She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke in Len’s face.

  “You know this means war, don’t
you, Wanda?” Len said.

  “Don’t pick a fight you can’t win,” Wanda replied.

  “Never underestimate your enemy.”

  “I wouldn’t think it would be possible to underestimate you,” Wanda said, then finished with another “Ha!” and a laugh that ended in a wracking cough.

  Anita woke at the same time as Elizabeth, the two of them sitting up and reaching out for each other. Then Elizabeth remembered the dream.

  “I saw Ralph,” Elizabeth said. “He was on the ship.”

  Confused, Wes looked from Elizabeth to Shamita, who shrugged her shoulders.

  “You must have added him to the dream, Elizabeth,” Wes said.

  “Not with their cortex parameters,” Shamita said. “Elizabeth was receiving only, not transmitting.”

  “There was a monster,” Anita said.

  “It wasn’t a monster, Anita. It was a man who had scars on his face. I’m sure you’ve seen people like that before.”

  Anita shook her head.

  “Not like him. The dream’s worse, not better.”

  “I know it seems that way, Anita, but we learned something. We have a number for the ship.”

  “Will that help?” Anita asked.

  “It might,” Elizabeth told her.

  “Wes, you better take a look at Margi,” Monica interrupted.

  Margi was sitting up, but she was dazed, her eyes unfocused, her head lolling from side to side. Wes checked her pupillary response with a flashlight. It was sluggish. Len returned to his monitor and reported depressed vital signs, but nothing critical. Wes signalled Elizabeth to get Anita out of the room.

  “Let’s go see your mother,” Elizabeth suggested, lifting her off the cot.

  “Let me walk her out,” Wanda said, glaring at Wes. “I gotta find myself a place where I can smoke in peace anyway.”

  When they were gone, the team gathered around Margi. She was still groggy, but responsive. Suddenly her eyes teared.

  “I dreamed I was doing the dishes.”

  “On the ship?” Wes said.

  Margi was crying for joy.

  “No, at home with my mother. I was drying while she washed. It didn’t last long, but it felt so good.”

  “It’s possible,” Len said. “When we began to dissolve the integration there was a brief period of individual sleep. The others slipped into delta wave sleep, but Margi was showing alpha. She might have dreamed normally for a few minutes.”

  “Can you do it again?” Margi asked. “Make me dream of my mother?”

  Wes was about to explain that they didn’t know how it happened, when Elizabeth rescued him.

  “We won’t give up, Margi. We’ll all keep trying.”

  “Thank you. You don’t know how much that meant to me,” Margi said, her face and voice animated. “My mother and I did the dishes every night when I was little. I hated it then, because I wanted to go out and play with my friends. Now I know how special that time was. We talked like two grown-ups. I would tell her about school, and she would tell me about her day. Sometimes we would argue, sometimes we would laugh over silly things.”

  Margi’s smile suddenly faded, and her speech took on the raspy sound of exhaustion.

  “And I was there with her … in my dream.”

  Elizabeth helped Margi to her feet, then walked her to the door, making sure of her balance before letting her go.

  “She’s exhausted,” Wes said when she was gone. “We can’t use her again.”

  “That little bit of normal dreaming did more harm than good,” Shamita said. “She had forgotten what she was missing until we reminded her.”

  “What was that about Ralph?” Wes asked.

  “He was on the ship, and there were others,” Elizabeth told them. “We were in the head when four people came in. There were three men and a woman. She was a black woman and her clothes and hair were right out of the sixties.”

  The others looked at each other, wondering about the oddness of the black woman on a Navy ship.

  “They called me Roger, and asked me if I ‘had someone?’ Then the man whom Anita called a monster came in. He had terrible scars and wore silver coveralls. He had a gun but didn’t use it. He didn’t need to. He had psychokinetic power. There was another man dressed the same way, and then Ralph. I’m sure it was him. Then the scarred man knocked me down and everything went black.”

  “You must have contaminated the dream,” Wes said. “None of the other dreamers know who Ralph is, and the psychokinetic man—well, that comes from your past experience.”

  Shamita shook her head. “Unless we’re getting faulty readings, Elizabeth wasn’t sending.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that hardwarfe,” Len said defensively.

  “But then how do you explain it?” Wes asked.

  Elizabeth’s face was blank, her eyes seeing something far away.

  “I know one of the men. He’s the one in Dr. Birnbaum’s sketch. He’s the man that kidnapped Ralph. Wes, this isn’t a dream. It’s a place, and it’s a real place where they’ve taken Ralph.”

  “I don’t know, Elizabeth, it’s too coincidental. Ralph is kidnapped and a few days later he shows up in your dream with the man you saw a sketch of.”

  “What about the black woman?” Elizabeth asked. “I’d never seen her before.”

  “You said she was wearing clothes from the sixties?” Wes asked.

  “Bell-bottoms, and she had her hair in an afro.”

  “Isn’t that just the kind of odd detail a dream would have? Think about it Elizabeth—why would someone kidnap Ralph and take him to a ship where there are sailors and a woman dressed like one of Charlie’s Angels?”

  “It is strange, but we need to follow up on what we have. The ship’s number is CA137. We can check naval records.”

  Wes was skeptical, but knew from experience that Elizabeth’s hunches were often right. He also knew that her hunches could get a person killed.

  LEADS

  Elizabeth was on the ship again, walking quickly, feeling as though she were being rushed, pushed along by an irresistible force. The ship’s compartments connected endlessly—big compartments with giant boilers that powered the steam turbines, smaller compartments with diesel motors attached to sixty-kilowatt generators serving as backup power for the ship’s guns and water pumps. She had never been on such a ship, but she knew what the machinery was for. That knowledge was part of her dream. The largest open space was in the stern where the hangar was located. There were no airplanes stowed there now, but two were mounted on their catapults, ready for action. In the hangar she felt more fear than anywhere else on the ship.

  She had memories too, flashbacks of fires on a ship—not this one—caused by enemy shelling, and of sailors with hoses, fighting the fires. She was one of those men, she knew, holding a nozzle, feeling the heat from fires that refused to go out. Then the ship suddenly rocked from another hit—a fourteen-inch round, she knew somehow. Then the memory was gone and she was trudging through the ship again.

  The compartments went on and on, all painted navy gray, all connected in an incomprehensible, endless loop. A few compartments were empty, some had hammocks slung from the walls, most were filled with machinery. The monotony should have bored Elizabeth, put her to sleep, but there was no sleep in this dream and no rest either. She walked the ship all night, helplessly dreaming someone else’s dream.

  Elizabeth woke as tired as when she lay down. She checked her clock radio to make sure it was morning. She vaguely remembered hitting the snooze bar, and noticing the clock showed six-thirty. She had risen at this hour six days a week for the last four years, but today she felt hung over. Her head felt pressurized, as if the pressure inside was now slightly greater than outside. She felt generally uncomfortable and fuzzy.

  Elizabeth thought of Margi and Anita, and the way they were suffering—sleeping, but never resting. Now she understood their longing to sleep, and especially to dream normally again. She had a powerful
need to dream herself, and this was only her first day with the dream.

  The phone rang and she reached out, taking two tries before she grasped the receiver. Her lips were thick and her voice sluggish when she spoke.

  “Did I wake you?” Monica asked.

  “No, I was up,” Elizabeth said.

  “I had an idea last night about how we might find out what ship the CA137 is.”

  There was a few seconds’ lag as Elizabeth’s mind cut through the fog and remembered that they had seen the number when she was in the dream.

  “Yes, the CA137. I remember. How … where … what is your idea?”

  “Why not call Doctor Birnbaum? He knows all kinds of odd things.”

  “I suppose I could,” Elizabeth said, not sure how she felt about calling him. “He will want to know about Ralph anyway.”

  “It’s just an idea,” Monica said.

  “It’s a good one. Thanks for calling.”

  Elizabeth hung up and lay back on her pillow. It would be nine-thirty in Columbus, so she could call anytime. It took her fifteen minutes to shake off her lethargy and pick up the phone again. Dr. Birnbaum answered on the second ring.

  “It’s Elizabeth, Dr. Birnbaum.”

  “Do you have news about Ralph?” he asked, clearly concerned.

  “Not exactly,” Elizabeth said, then explained about the mind integration and what she had seen during the dream.

  “Ralph was there with the man who kidnapped him?” Birnbaum said.

  “Yes. I’m sure it was them.”

  “That’s odd,” he said.

  “There’s something else. We have a number for the ship. It’s the CA137, but according to the records we checked, the ship was planned but never built. You don’t happen to know the ship, do you?”

  “It does sound familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  “Wes is going to call the Navy today.”

  “Let me work on it. I’ll call you back in a couple of hours.”