Ship of the Damned by James F. David Read Free Book Online Page A

presentation at work or of showing up somewhere naked. Is it that kind of dream?”
    “No,” Monica said. “When people dream they are naked, they are in a variety of places—where they work, in a park, at a concert. It’s a common theme but the details vary. That’s not the case with this dream. The details are identical for each dreamer. People in this group dream they are on a ship in the middle of a desert and there’s no way off.”
    “I dreamed I was on the Love Boat once,” Len said. “Fifteen hundred passengers and I was the only one that didn’t get laid.”
    Shamita elbowed Len and Wes glared at him, Len faking embarrassment.
    “All of them dream it every night?” Wes said, drawn by the strangeness. “How long has this been going on?”
    “Years. For one of the dreamers, more than fifty years.”
    “What?” Wes was surprised.
    “It’s killing them, Wes,” Monica said. “That dream is killing the dreamers and I need your help to save them.”

MYSTERY
    E lizabeth and Wes met for dinner two or three nights a week, adding fuel to the campus gossip that they were lovers. In reality they were somewhere between friends and lovers, taking their relationship seriously, but letting it develop at its own pace. They were both married to their work, Wes to his research and Elizabeth to counselling her clients, so making room for each other came slowly. Meals together, and occasional intimate moments, sufficed for now, but like an addict getting hooked on a narcotic, the more time Wes spent with Elizabeth, the more he needed to be with her.
    The University of Oregon was surrounded by mature neighborhoods on three sides, many of the stately old houses now sororities and fraternities. A moderate climate and ample rain made the lawns and campus verdant spaces grow a deep Oregon green. The original business district bordered the other edge of the campus, and beyond that the strip malls that housed the retail chains. Restaurants were sprinkled around the campus, most serving fast food and catering to the eat-cheap needs of the students, but mixed in were gourmet restaurants favored by the faculty and Eugene residents. Elizabeth had picked one of these, an old house remodelled into an intimate restaurant which served primarily vegetarian dishes with a few chicken entrees for the unconverted.
    Elizabeth was seated when Wes arrived, having come directly from her seven o’clock counselling appointment. She had ordered an Oregon wine, bottled in the Chehalem valley, and poured him a glass as he sat down.
    “Have you thought about the dreamers?” Elizabeth said, before he could get his glass to his lips.
    “There’s nothing I can do, Elizabeth. I don’t know what you told Monica, but she seems to expect more than she should.”
    “I told her you have experience dealing with the paranormal.”
    “There’s no such thing,” Wes started to argue, the waitress interrupting as he did.
    Elizabeth was a regular customer who was systematically working through the menu, sampling every salad they offered. Tonight Elizabeth chose a dinner-sized salad combining avocados and broccoli. Wes asked for the chicken and mushroom dish he always ordered, knowing the mushrooms would outnumber the chicken pieces two to one. As a scientist, Wes was attentive to details, and was sure there had been a lower mushroom-to-chicken ratio the first time he and Elizabeth had visited the restaurant. Slightly paranoid, he suspected that his diet was being monitored in the kitchen, the vegetarian staff gradually reducing the chicken in his food, slowly weaning him from his meat addiction.
    “Elizabeth, there is no such thing as the paranormal,” Wes continued when the waitress was gone. “That’s just a term used by the ignorant for events not yet understood.”
    Wes didn’t deny the existence of phenomena that operated outside the normal laws of physics; he had experience with them, but he saw those phenomena as indications that the laws