by Ryder Stacy
No one could doubt that the very survival of the ship was doubtful. Life or watery death was now up to fate. Murf grabbed Rockson and screamed in his ear over the howling wind. “Someone has to watch the helm—the computer is set to always head directly at the winds. It’s sealed from the weather; but if it gets wet, it will short out, and the ship could turn sidewise to the waves. Then we’d capsize.”
“I’m your man,” Rock volunteered. Together, they locked arms, took some heavy rope and attached themselves to the mainmast. If the men were pulled from the depressed cockpit that held the helm, they could work themselves back to their place. This was a precaution that paid off three times in the ensuing hours.
The computer did short out when a titanic wave washed across the deck, submerging the entire vessel for some thirty seconds.
Murf was slammed so hard against the mast—though he wasn’t lost overboard thanks to the rope—that he was unable to manage the wheel. Rockson had been aiding Murf in his turning the helm, and now he had to direct the ship all by himself. The effort was too much for any one man—except the Doomsday Warrior. For hours he struggled until the barometer began rising and the sky was grey, not black, once more. Then Rockson, pummeled by wind and rain, utterly exhausted from twisting the wheel against its doom-desire, passed out.
Rock’s eyes opened slowly. He saw nothing but deep blue. Was he dead? If so, what was this rocking? He realized the blue was sky—clear sky—and that he was flat on his back. He tried to sit up, but his numb arms were lashed to a fallen mast. Next to him Detroit lay, facedown. The black Freefighter was also obviously alive. Rock could hear his intermittent coughing. What happened?
Rock remembered now. He had collapsed at the helm as the storm was abating. Then why was he tied?
A shadow blotted out the blue sky while a smell of damp bearskin and muscled sweat filled the air. A big candy-eating grin surrounded by a tangle of red-and-black-streaked beard stood over Rock. “Archer!” Rockson exclaimed. “Did you—”
“MEE MAKE KNOTS GOOOOD!” the gentle giant boasted. He untied the Doomsday Warrior, then helped Detroit up.
Over cups of hot coffee, Chen related how, one by one, the crew, realizing Rockson was unconscious at the helm, had gone topside and attempted to reach the helm to assist. Archer had been the only one to reach Rockson against the wind. He had lashed him down and also tied all the fallen men he could to whatever was handy, so they couldn’t wash overboard. “I’m sorry to report that three men—George, Sammy and Alf—died. Washed overboard.”
Rock nodded, then looked around. The boat was listing; its masts had been snapped—but she was afloat.
“No sign of the Surf City,” Detroit said glumly, surveying the horizon in a 360-degree search.
Rockson continued to check the damage: no drinking water, and old Salty had a broken arm, which Chen had set already in a splint. The explosives, plus the ammo the Surfcombers had supplied, were lost.
Murf, once recovered, had gone below. Now he came upstairs. “We’ve stopped taking on water. We’ll stay afloat. The gyro-compass still works, Rock, and the helm responds, if a bit sluggishly. If we can rig one mast, we can use wind power.”
“Where are we?” Rock asked.
“Miles off course,” probably,” Murf said. “We should find out.”
Soon Rock was taking a compass reading and checking the charts. He was not pleased with his results.
“We’re five hundred miles off course—and the nearest island with fresh water is a hundred more miles off course, due east.”
“But we’ve got line and tackle,” Murf said. “We’ll get fish oil to drink, and we’ll eat.”
They held a small service for their three lost seamen. Then they silently prayed for the crew of the Surf City. Rock wanted to believe they, too, were alive.
“We won’t find out until we reach—if we reach our destination,” Knudson said.
Rock nodded. The odds were against the Surf City. The Muscle Beach had barely made it through the storm.
“Archer, remind me to sponsor you for Century City’s first maritime heroism medal,” Rock said, after the service.
Archer’s chest swelled.
“Nothing,” he said, clearly and softly, “Me friend.”
Five
Using only the patched sail of the restored foremast, they made slow but steady time, heading for an island marked on the old chart only as “F-2: uninhabited, contains fresh water.”
They had rationed their supplies carefully in case they were becalmed, but the westerly winds held, and they were closing on F-2 by the afternoon of the second day post-mega-storm.
The lookout, Scheranksy, called out from the bowsprit. “Ship ahoy, Captain.”
“What?” Knudson was incredulous. “Is it the Surf City?”
“Nyet. It’s—well, come look!”
The captain and the Doomsday Warrior walked up the leaning deck. Rock took the telescope from the Russian’s outstretched hand. Once he had the object in question in the lens, he whistled. The unexpected ship was a three-master. “An ancient sailing vessel,” Rockson exclaimed, “in very bad repair. The sails are torn; it’s listing badly to port and covered with some sort of green vines.”
“I didn’t believe my own eyes,” Scheranksy said, McCaughlin cursed loudly. He had been taking depth readings, dropping the plumb line and calling out the fathoms. Now, suddenly, he had trouble pulling up the sinker. Rockson turned and saw the man yanking with all his might and pulling up to deck a swarm of tangled seaweed. It was like coil springs, thick and pungent. Flopping out of the tangle were small fish and crabs.
“FOOOODDDDD,” Archer said proudly, picking up a crab by a claw and dangling it in Rockson’s face.
“Never mind that, we’ll get trapped in this seaweed like that old ship!” He turned and yelled to Murf, “Astern at full speed.”
The Muscle Beach slowed to a standstill, then started veering about; yet perhaps it was too late. “If the rudder gets caught in that stuff,” Rock uttered, “we’re finished.”
Murf tied the helm, then came over, leaning over the side alongside Rock. They beheld a green carpet, undulating like a living thing. The Muscle Beach suddenly jerked to a halt. A buzzer sounded, and the Surfcomber said grimly, “That means the propellor is fouled. Looks like we’re in it pretty bad.”
Rock agreed, “This stuff is like a floating flytrap for ships.” They both stared at the tangle of vinelike seaweed.
Scheranksy had been sweeping his telescope around from the bowsprit and shouted, “Rock, there are other ships out there, too. An old aluminum-hulled cabin cruiser, a battered steamship—and they’re all slowly rotating clockwise in this tangle.”
“It’s like the Sargasso sea,” Murf gasped. “If we don’t get out now, the ship will be drawn into the vortex!”
“Sargasso sea?” Rock asked. “What’s that?”
“A cemetery, a trap for ships. I though it was just a tall tale, a legend.”
The crew worked like mad to free the Muscle Beach for the next forty minutes, but to no avail. Helplessly they drifted into the spiralling seaweed trap.
“The ships don’t seem to be moving anymore,” Scheranksy stated after climbing down from his perch.
“Don’t feel too cheery about that,” Murf said, “because it means we’re rotating in the vortex with them. It will take a lot more than sail power to pull out of it now! Even if we can cut free of the weeds.”
Detroit said glumly, “Don’t count on that. The seaweed stuff is coming up like vines toward the deck—like Rocky Mountain creepers! We’re being sealed in.”
“What’s that over there?” McCaughlin was pointing to the south. “Looks like an island.”
Rock took the scope from Scheranksy and focused in. “No, it’s another ship. But it has a flat top—and some rusty stuff on deck . . . Good God, there are planes on the deck! It’s an old aircraft carrier.”
“A carrier?” Scheranksy blurted. “Is it—Soviet?�
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“No, relax, it’s a derelict. Vintage Third World War, I suspect. I can’t quite make out the name on the stern. U.S.S. Nim—something . . .”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Rock?” Chen asked.
“If you mean there might be supplies—some more explosives, even canned food and water on the carrier—the answer is yes.”
“Fine idea,” Detroit chided, “but how do we get there?”
The Russian provided the answer. While the others were talking, he had climbed down the side and had gingerly taken a first step onto the hard-packed bed of floating seaweed. “Rock,” he shouted now, “the seaweed’s so thick, you can walk on it!”
“Careful, Scheranksy,” Detroit cautioned, “we’d never find your Russian ass if you fell through that stuff.”
“Get back up here, on the double!” Rock commanded.
The Russian clambered back aboard, sheepishly saying, “Sorry Rock, I just thought . . .”
“Well, I guess you proved we could actually walk to the carrier—if we’re careful. And we can explore the other craft, too,” Rockson added hopefully. “We might find a more seaworthy vessel than the Muscle Beach out there.”
Detroit objected. “You really think we can follow Scheranksy’s dumb example and simply walk across the seaweed?”
“Yes—with some sort of safety platform along, just in case the slimy mass gives way. We’ll fashion some sort of raft, carry it with us. If we start to sink in, we’ll get on it, quick.”
“That is a good idea,” said Scheranksy. “I’m glad you thought of it. We did that on the Moscow River one fall, when the ice was not yet firm! I remember—”
“Later with the reminisces, Ivan,” said Murf, “let’s figure out how to build that raft.”
In an hour, four of the intrepid American explorers—Rockson, Archer, Murf and Detroit—had walked on the carpet of seaweed far from the Muscle Beach, five hundred yards at least. They carried a lightly constructed, six-by-six plank raft between them, one American at each corner. It had been built from the loose deck boards of the Muscle Beach. Rock didn’t like damaging her further, but it was necessary.
Rock turned to look back. Their pathetic, little ship’s stubby mast could hardly be seen above the green rolling seaweed carpet they were traversing. They moved onward across the surreal seascape. Though there were few holes in the sea carpet, once they were in the thick of it, Rock cautioned, “Don’t walk in step. We can start a wave motion, and the ground—if I can call it that—will start undulating.”
Their first target was not the carrier, but the closest wreck—the Sally Ann according to the weathered name on its stern. It was a twentieth century luxury yacht.
When the men set their safety platform down on the weed bed and started climbing her, a flock of sea birds nesting in the rotting superstructure took flight.
On the deck, they beheld crumbling skeletons. One had a captain’s hat on its skull—the hat’s cloth nearly gone, but its plastic brim intact as new. Some of the other skeletons had small seabirds’ nests in their round, chalk-white, eye sockets.
“There’s lots of good aluminum plating here to repair the Muscle Beach,” Murf exclaimed, pleased at this early result of the journey.
“Funny,” Detroit noted, “I don’t see why the hell the skeletons didn’t rot away. This vessel is about a hundred years old, judging by the design.”
“Maybe the air here is full of minerals,” Rock offered. “The bones are calcified.”
They pushed aside a crumbling door and lit a flash to check the engine room. The engine was a pile of rust—once a gleaming diesel engine, but now of no use. In a few minutes Detroit had noted all that was useful on the craft, and they were on to the next destination—the three-masted sailing ship.
As they approached the brooding hulk, Murf said, “It—seems evil. I don’t know why.” He was not the only uneasy one. Rock had an eerie forboding but kept it to himself.
An old hemp-rope ladder was dangling invitingly from her aft, and testing it and finding it sound, first Rockson and then the others went up to the ghostly ship’s deck.
“It’s in remarkably good shape—too good,” Murf commented as they headed for the bridge, across creaking deckslats.
Rockson halted as they approached a pair of picniclike crew tables on the aft deck.
“My God,” Rock exclaimed, “there’s porridge still smoking hot on the board tables! And hot steaming coffee in the mugs!”
“Ghosts?” asked Archer, dry-mouthed. Rock didn’t answer.
“Rock,” Murf said, wiping off a brass plate on a door, “this ship is called the Flying Dutchman! It’s the cursed ghost ship. Let’s leave—now!”
“Not so fast,” said Rock. “Someone lives here on this seaweed ship. They aren’t ghosts, either. Probably want us to think so. It’s got stores aplenty—I’ll bet. The name on that plate is probably just to scare boarders away.”
“And doing a good job of it,” Murf said, nervously looking around. “If it’s not a ghost ship, how come it’s almost like new after three or four hundred years?”
“This ship’s wood,” Rock said, bending down, thumping on a plank, “is hardwood and has simply calcified, hard as metal, like the stuff on the Sally Ann.”
“Great,” the beachboy said, “but nevertheless, let’s get the hell out of here before the ghosts or people that made the coffee come back!”
“Okay, okay! First we see if this ship has anything we need,” Rock whispered.
“You bet,” Detroit said, lifting up his twin .44s. “Ghosts or men, I’ll blast away anyone that tries to stop us!”
To Rock’s disappointment, an hour’s search of the craft revealed no supplies of worth—and no phantom crew, either.
An hour’s farther walk and they were at the aircraft carrier. It was surrounded by a thinner carpet of seaweed that smelled real bad, and was colored brown, not green.
“Why are the weeds dead?” Detroit asked.
“I can guess,” said the Doomsday Warrior, “it was exposed to radiation. This carrier probably is a nuclear job. The engine might be leaking radiation. Let’s get aboard—but via the foredeck. The brown area is mostly at the stern.”
They had to have Archer fire a grapple arrow up, as there was no ladder. They climbed the sturdy line, one by one. The deck was a rustling mass with many holes. Rusted planes sat like mummified ducks farther down its flat surface.
“I bet,” said Detroit eagerly, “that well find some ammo here to replace the stuff lost in the storm.”
Rock had the men split up, cautioning, “Report back here in an hour.”
“If I see ghost—I yell,” said the mountain man.
Rockson was the first back. He had some good finds: a sextant and charts. One by one, each member of the exploring team returned with his own pile of goodies. Detroit had found some pistols—well oiled. “They were sunk in grease, we can just shine ’em up. They’ll be good as new.”
“I find ammo,” Archer said proudly as he came out of the gloom.
Archer set down two heavy, black metal satchels. Rockson pried one open and exclaimed, “Plastique!—Good man, Archer. We’ll blow the Muscle Beach free of the weeds.”
Murf returned looking shaken to his bones. “I found wet footprints! A dozen—or more. Bare feet! It must be the pirate ghosts from the Flying Dutchman!”
“No,” the Doomsday Warrior said. “Whoever the hell they are, they are flesh and blood humans and—” Rockson froze in mid-sentence, for out of the corner of his eye he had seen one of the sacks of pistols that Detroit had gathered slither away, pulled by an unseen hand. The sack rounded a corner and disappeared.
“There is somebody here,” Rock whispered. He rushed to the corner and caught a fleeting glimpse of something fast moving and grey darting down the deck toward the rusting planes.
“What did you see?” Murf asked, coming alongside Rock.
“Looked like a dwarf!” Rock took out his balisong k
nife and pursued, the others following. When they reached the rusting jets, they saw lots of small skeletons scattered about.
“Kids?” asked Detroit.
“Maybe . . .” Then Rockson saw them: stunted, twisted little men in tattered sailor’s outfits. One was limping away with the bags of pistols he had reclaimed, whimpering in fear.
A dozen other miniature beings skittered out from holes in the planes, snarling like trapped rats. One of the super-fast creatures caught its foot in a collapsed piece of rusting airplane and jerked to a halt. Now they got a chance to see what one looked like.
It was a pathetic creature, human but full of sores and spotted with tufts of grey hair. Its nose was big and sniffing, the nostrils flaring; its eyes were tiny cataract-filled things.
“It’s nearly blind,” Detroit said.
His voice caused a panic in the creature, which jerked on its leg and, snarling and yipping in fear and anger, tore free and ran for it.
“My God—mutant humans!” Murf said.
Detroit raised his guns to bring him down.
“No,” said Rock, “don’t shoot. I think these sad creatures are fellow Americans!”
“What?” Detroit gasped. “Those little ratlike things?”
“I found out the name of this carrier,” Rock said. “It is an American ship. This is the U.S.S. Nimitz; these sailors are Americans—forth or fifth generation living in this Sargasso-like sea—they just probably want to be left alone. They could have shot at us, you know. And they didn’t.”
Detroit put his weapons down, stunned. “The radiation did it, I suppose.”
Rockson wanted to get back to the Muscle Beach by dark. They had materials to patch her hull, and charts, explosives and other items they needed. Time to move on.
Six
At dawn, they made good use of the explosives Archer had found. Rock had them set the plastique at intervals all around the ship. When they were detonated and broke up the tangle of seaweed, the repaired sail was raised, and they tacked slowly out of the seaweed sea. It took several sets of explosions to completely free the ship.
