Doomsday Warrior 13 - American Paradise by Ryder Stacy Read Free Book Online

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