Call Me Ismay

by Sean McDevitt

  He placed his hand on the doorknob and turned it, opened the door, and found the berth completely empty.

  “Twelve apostles in a stockade!” he snapped. “Where has that cursed wench gone to now?”

  1:36 A.M.

  Lifeboat No.11 had just been lowered from the aft end of the starboard side, and Edward Lyons looked on in smirking amusement as the situation on the Boat Deck was becoming more desperate. A scramble had broken out amongst passengers seeking a spot on the lifeboats, and Officer Murdoch was now the second member of the ship's crew to fire warning shots from a revolver into the night sky in an attempt to restore order. The crowd was silenced momentarily by the gunfire, but after only a few minutes, the shouting and the swarming continued.

  It's an unceasing level of chaos, Lyons thought to himself. Those left on the ship were so focused on the lifeboats, that the crackling sound of water continuing to take over the bow just twenty yards away gained scant attention.

  In an unusually sympathetic move, he quickly decided that his feeding was done for the night. He knew that in all likelihood the unclean killings in steerage had paralyzed Lillith with a shrieking pain in her ears, and knew she would be limp in the aftermath of such a slaughter. The people in the crowd before him, however, were just too tempting a target; they were so perfectly vulnerable, and he knew he must somehow exploit them. As he stood on deck rubbing his forehead in frustration, trying to ignore the blood cravings set off by the swift attack below, he was granted inspiration by an improbable source.

  One of Titanic's many immigrants, a middle-aged Italian man, had realized he would not be allowed on any remaining lifeboat, and that his best bet for survival might be to swim for one of the half-empty lifeboats already in the water. He proceeded to straddle the ship's railing and, without a lifebelt, dove into the freezing sea twenty feet below. Lyons shot towards the rail in wonder, just in time to see the last of the splash created by the jumping passenger. It seemed to take the man several seconds to resurface, and when he did, Lyons could tell from his labored attempts at swimming that he was probably not long for this world.

  The perfect crime, Lyons thought; no marks, no mess, not a lot of light on the decks, just cold and certain death. And a good way to stave off any bloodlust.

  Virtually everyone before him had their backs to him. After waiting for the small mass of humanity to stop writhing about like a snake, he struck. With astonishing speed and strength, he grabbed one man by the back of his neck. He carried him a few feet up to the railing, and then pitched him overboard into the black abyss. He looked from side to side, certain that absolutely no one had seen him take the man's life, and then grabbed another. And another. And another. It became such a gleeful, dashing sport for him, he started to vary his approach from victim to victim. He gave some a violent bash in the head, or a vicious blow to the gut, before pitching their helpless bodies into the darkness.

  1:40 A.M.

  What Lyons had failed to notice was that he was being watched from above. Kerry Langston stood on the roof of the officer's quarters, as other men struggled with the collapsible lifeboats. He'd had to pull his glasses off more than once, rubbing them on the sleeves of his jacket because the lenses were constantly fogging over due to the cold. Despite his poor vision and the less-than-optimal lighting, he was fairly certain that a man who appeared to be Edward Lyons was striking down passengers one at a time.

  He hurried over to the port side of the roof and looked down, where a distraught Lillith had taken a half-fetal position on the bench below. To Langston, she looked like a carelessly discarded porcelain doll.

  “Lillith? Lillith! Can you hear me?” he called out, over the din that continued unabated on both decks. Lillith had by now closed her eyes. While she was not thrashing about as she had been before, she still appeared to be in substantial pain.

  She opened her eyes, blinking them in the half-light, trying to focus on him. “Wh- what is it?”

  “It's Lyons!” he shouted. “I'm almost certain he's on the other side, and he appears to be attacking others at random!”

  Lillith rubbed her ear. “He's- He's not biting them?”

  “No, no I don't believe so,” Langston said, turning to look over his shoulder to see if Lyons was still in action. He just barely caught a glimpse of Lyons struggling with a tall man who was putting up quite a fight. Ultimately, the man failed and Langston watched in horror as Lyons successfully turned his victim upside down, then rolled him over the railing.

  “Lillith, he's pushing them off the ship!” he cried out, in desperation. “And he's moving with lightning speed- what do I do?”

  “The tools,” Lillith moaned, aching with sadness and fear. She wished she could force herself to sit up from the bench, and take Langston into her arms. “The-the-the tools, y- you must use them.” She realized that, to Langston, she must have sounded like a stroke victim.

  Langston looked down at the box he was carrying- the box that had caused him so much torment, so much pain, so much uncertainty. For an instant he marveled at how small and insignificant it felt in his hands, on this icy cold night in the North Atlantic, surrounded by screams, fear, and a massive, unforgiving sea. He gently opened it and looked at the .45 caliber pistol.

  “I've never even fired a bloody gun!” he protested in despair.

  1:44 A.M.

  Lyons was giving himself a bit of a breather. The pool of potential victims was thinning, and he was becoming concerned that he might have to explain his actions to a meddlesome observer. Still, he was pleased with the results. At least eight or nine men the world would never miss were now adrift in an ocean that would consume them at any moment.

  Standing with his back to the wheelhouse, he felt a tap on his shoulder. His closed his eyes in tired disgust.

  “Bartholomew Gidley, time and again I've advised You to never once touch this particular Vampire unless You are a woman and Your intent is of an erotic nature. What is Your objective?”

  “It's Your favorite split-tail, gone missing.”

  Lyons whirled about to look at him directly. “Come again?”

  “Lillith. She's gone. Wandered off like an alley cat, I suppose, her ovaries ringing out for Ismay.”

  “Impossible. I've got him stowed away in the gymnasium. Bart, You assured Me that Lillith, the infuriating woman, was going nowhere!”

  “But, indeed, she has! It's hardly surprising, now, is it, Mr. Lyons?”

  Lyons grabbed Gidley by the collar. “Listen to Me, Gidley. If the time has come for Us to shuffle off this mortal coil, it is better for Us to at least be in the general proximity of each Other. I had wanted Lillith, My property, beside Me. Nothing can stop it now if We are indeed meant to move on to the Next Life at this juncture. But the fact that at least We are all trapped together on this damned vessel is the only reason that I am going to allow You to move onto the Next Life this time.”

  Gidley's eyes flickered with hate. “You are right about not touching another Vampire, Edward. Get your hand off Me.”

  Lyons removed his hand by shoving Gidley away. “I'll have no more of this, Gidley! That simpering fool of a ship owner is more important to Me right now than some loathsome blood leech such as Yourself, who has suddenly decided to appoint Himself cock of the walk!”

  The two Vampires glowered at each other. For a moment both of them were poised for anything- perhaps even a vicious assault upon each other. A sudden surge of screams from the crowd nearby interrupted their rage, and forced them into a detente. Women were now being forcibly thrown into lifeboats by some of the officers, creating shrieks of outrage and terror from the women, and loud shouts of protest from the men.

  “Women and children, women and children, women and children, that has been the chant all night long,” Lyons whispered conspiratorially into Gidley's ear. “From this moment forward- no more women and children.”

  1:48 A.M.

  Langston, shaking from fear and the severe cold, had been fumbling in the sh
adowy light for several minutes, trying to get a single round into the .45 caliber muff pistol. He finally realized, to his great chagrin, that the weapon was already loaded. He then struggled to get the pistol's hammer cocked. The metal was stingingly cold to the touch, and his hands were almost totally unsure of what to do. He glanced back over to starboard, and saw the unmistakable form of Bartholomew Gidley at Lyons's side. It was clear even from a distance that they were engaged in dark conversation.

  Langston was shocked by what he saw next. Gidley, then Lyons, blithely stepped toward to the crowd of immigrants on their side of the deck and, with almost surgical precision, they plucked two small children- boys- from their unknowing parents' sides. In a matter of seconds, they lifted them up, bashed their little heads together as if proposing a gruesome toast, and then hurled them overboard.

  Langston fell to his knees. “Merciful heaven!” he cried, ducking down and crawling over the edge of the roof to talk to Lillith, who was still collapsed on the bench. “Lillith! Dear God, woman! They just killed two children and no one even saw it!”

  Lillith, still incapacitated and weak, struggled to speak. “Stop- stop Them, Kerry. S-s-stop Them.”

  “I'm trying!” he cried, still fighting to understand the workings of the gun. At last, the pistol's hammer fully cocked, he turned back to see that Lyons and Gidley had apparently swept themselves back into the shadows. A woman, the mother of one of the missing boys, emerged from the crowd, clearly in a state of panic over being separated from her son. Suddenly, she began to shriek, and Lyons stepped over to her. To Langston, Lyons's body language conveyed nauseating insincerity. The vampire took the woman's hand, appearing to sooth and assist her. He pulled her out of Langston's view. Langston glanced briefly toward the starboard wing bridge, and noticed that an officer was preparing to fire what would be the final distress rocket.

  When he looked back to where the woman and Lyons had been, only about twenty seconds had elapsed. He strained to see into the shadows. Then, to his horror, he saw the woman's body pitch forward, hit the railing at her stomach, fold up and over, then plunge into the sea.

  “Nooooo!” Langston screamed himself hoarse. “Nooooo!” His cry, while heartfelt and loud, was not to be heard over the sounds of rushing water, women's screams, and general chaos. He then saw Bartholomew Gidley step out toward the crowd, apparently about to excise another victim.

  Kerry Langston stood his ground. On the roof of a ship that was now listing about fifteen degrees down at the head, his balance also compromised by a severely injured ankle, he grasped the pistol like a professional. He aimed for Gidley's neck, about twenty yards away.

  But Bartholomew Gidley had the advantage. There was no crucifix in sight. As he reached for his next victim, he was stopped cold by a stinging vibration on the nape of his neck and his eyes widened. His Vampire blood had sensed that someone had drawn a bead on him. With inhuman speed, he threw aside his cane, clutched the nearest person- in this instance, a luckless Second Class Passenger- by the neck, and whirled both he and his human shield around as the final distress rocket was launched.

  The gun's explosion of smoke and orange sparks of fire was not in total syncopation with the sound of the shell's burst from overhead, but it was close. The bullet, capable of travelling several hundred feet per second, found its unfortunate target in the exposed portion of the anonymous man's neck. It created a small cloud of crimson mist as it pierced his flesh. Langston, slowly pulling the gun down in horror, saw a defiant Bartholomew Gidley make eye contact with him, shaking his fist in the air.

  “Welcome to the Brotherhood of Murder, you bastard!” Gidley hollered, as he triumphantly threw the man down face down onto the deck, another casualty gone unnoticed amidst all the panic.

  Langston's thought- his only thought- was that he'd just received an invisible blow to the stomach. He looked at the smoldering weapon, and felt a hundred accusing eyes staring at him in disgust. The sad truth, however, was no one else had really seen what occurred because they were all preoccupied with saving themselves.

  After a moment of horrified shock, Langston took the pistol and threw it overboard on the port side, into the dark sea. He sat on the edge of the roof, barely cognizant of the fact that the collapsible boat behind him was being rolled unceremoniously onto the starboard deck. He looked sorrowfully down at Lillith, who was still supine on the bench. The shattered look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

  1:51 A.M.

  Lyons's eyes blazed with anger, and Gidley's glittered with delight. They took a visual inventory of the crowd to determine who might be the next victim.

  Pulling his eyes from the crowd for a moment, Gidley shouted to Lyons, “Seems We've got a would-be hero onboard!” He knew Lyons would hear him, even over the noise of families protesting being unwillingly separated from one another, and the laments of some passengers (mostly immigrants) who were stubbornly refused rescue by some of the ship's officers. “Some dolt that I saw about the ship earlier just tried to take a shot at Me!”

  “Indeed!” Lyons hollered back, not taking his eyes off the teeming masses. “Where is he?”

  “He was on the roof there,” pointing up at the officer's quarters with his cane, unable to see that Langston hadn't actually left the roof but was in fact sitting on the edge facing port. “I think he may have disappeared into the wheelhouse.”

  “Well, go see to him if You must!” Lyons yelled urgently. “I shall create more casualties here before I unleash Ismay and attempt to find Lillith.”

  “You realize, Edward, that this may be the final time We see each other in this particular incarnation.”

  Lyons looked over at Gidley, temporarily somber. “Indeed. You've not been too much of a disappointment, in the form of Bartholomew Gidley, that poor old sap from Winkleigh. Perhaps it's the final encounter in these forms for both of Us, but sometimes even the inevitable fate will need a helping hand... inevitably. Until then.” He stood officiously before Gidley, who gave him a polite little bow.

  “Until then. I shall see to it that Your message is delivered. 'Brothers, once more, farewell, time bids Us part. Fond memory shall long dwell around each darkened heart.'” With that, Gidley turned and headed forward for the bridge.

  Lyons turned his attention back to the crowd. From the tenor of the general panic, to the ship's ever-more-pronounced listing, he knew it would not be long until he would be sending J. Bruce Ismay on his way.

  1:53 A.M.

  In the gymnasium, where the screams from outside were somewhat muted and the electric lights were starting to flicker, Ismay remained on his hands and knees, completely frozen in stupefaction. Just a few feet behind him, on the other side of the gymnasium's windows, were dozens of passengers lost and confused in the tattered remains of a maiden voyage. The chairman of the company that owned the ship was unable to take accountability for his actions, or to offer any help. Without his knowledge, as he remained paralyzed on the floor in a kneeling position, he was already becoming a cipher, a useless figurehead upon which generations would project their frustrations and their hate.

  1:55 A.M.

  “Kerry? Kerry. Kerry, can you hear me? Can you come down to me?”

  Lillith was calling out to Langston, who, disconsolate, remained seated on the roof, his hands in his lap, his eyes brimming with great tears.

  “Kerry!” she pleaded in a voice that was growing stronger. “These men can never own you, never own your soul, and They know that. This ship is the end of Them, and They're going to do horrible things because They are horrible men. Can you come down to me? Please, Kerry,” she said, finding the strength to rise up on the bench. “Come to me.”

  Kerry turned his head slowly and sadly glanced down at her. He reached out numbly for the kit that was resting beside him, and slowly stepped down. He prepared himself for the worst with his injured ankle, but actually found it much easier than he anticipated, due to the ship's ever-increasing tilt downward. Lillith took
him consolingly in her arms.

  “Actually, I'm the reason for the end of this ship,” she whispered in his ear. “This is all my fault.”

  Kerry pulled his head back from her, the shock wearing off a bit by hearing her blame herself. “How? How could this possibly be your fault?”

  Lillith shut her eyes tightly, choosing her next words carefully. She didn't want him to feel worse than he already did in what she knew were probably the last few minutes they would have together.

  “Some of my written words came back to haunt me. Kerry- there's- there's something you should know, that I want you to know. There's something you should know about Our kind.”

  “Your kind? What- what is it? Lillith, please tell me.”

  “While We are capable of great cruelty, We- We are also capable... of great love...” her eyes danced across his face. “Let me show you.”