Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom)

by Robert W. Walker

  “The egg-sacs ought to be enough to convince Captain Smith,” added Ransom. “And we need to get to him before the carrier gets at him.”

  “If he hasn’t already done so; if Dr. O’Laughlin was it the entire time we met with them… who knows?”

  “Or it’s our friend Murdoch out there!” The horrible pounding on the other side of the impenetrable door had become incessant.

  “The door opens outward,” said Farley.

  Ransom was the only other one among them who understood how important this fact was. “He’ll soon be removing the hinges, and once removed, he’ll be coming in—likely with guns pointed.”

  “We must work fast then!” shouted Thomas. “Get these bodies onto the table and the sink. Help me out.”

  Ransom, Thomas, and Declan did not hesitate, going for the bodies to lift them and place them onto the surfaces so as to work on them. Both Farley and Lightoller held back, aghast at the sight of the awful result of the disease that had made mummies of these men. The dog, too, held back, a low growl reminding Ransom that Varmint held no love for him.

  “Lightoller, lend a hand!”

  “I-I-I…”

  “They’re not contagious!” shouted Ransom. “At least not in this state.”

  “If they were,” added Declan, “the three of us wouldn’t be here!”

  Declan and Thomas carried Davenport to the sink and placed his dehydrated corpse there. Ransom took hold of Burnes’ by the underarms while Lightoller grabbed the ankles and they moved the stoker’s body to the chopping block. Just as they made the block, one of Burnes’ feet came off in Lightoller’s hand, causing him to leap back, gasping as the foot skittered into a corner where Varmint grabbed it up in his mouth. Farley shouted for the dog to give it up, and he obeyed, dropping it into Declan’s gloved hand.

  Here they were presented with room enough for the young doctors to work on O’Lauglin’s remains as well as Davenport and Burnes. Declan and Thomas next conveyed Dr. O’laughlin’s corpse to lie beside the two stokers.

  “Death alone makes all men equal,” said Ransom to no one in particular. “Stoker, porter, doctor, Indian chief.”

  “You got that right,” agreed Farley, still shaken. “Now Varmint and me, we want outta here, now!”

  “No opening that door, Mr. Farley, until we deem it time.” Ransom stood in his way as Declan and Thomas began cutting open the corpses. Declan began with Davenport at the sink, running the water in an attempt to soften the tissue before making the Y incision. “At least,” he muttered, “we don’t have to concern ourselves with blood.”

  Thomas didn’t wait; he opened up Burnes’ chest.

  “Ohhh, God! God!” shouted Lightoller on seeing what Declan revealed to him at the sink; Declan had found a cooking utensil that clasped onto the thick skin flap and using it, he’d pulled back the flesh to expose the pulsating brown egg sacs in brackish fluid soup created from the human host. The eggs—or rather the creatures inside them— appeared healthy and anxious to come to fruition.

  “Alien life… alien to all we know,” muttered Thomas.

  “We suspect it a form of life that existed eons ago,” added Ransom, pacing, hearing people stomping by outside.

  “It’d gone dormant in an animal unearthed in a mineshaft in Belfast—” said Declan as he continued to cut and fill Lightoller in—“where it got hold of some men and literally ‘walked’ onto Titanic.”

  “So I’ve read. We have to contain these—these things.” Lightoller had gone as white as his uniform.

  “Judging from the condition of the body and the egg sacs inside him, Dr. O’Laughlin’s body hasn’t been here long,” commented Declan. “We have to freeze the bloody eggs.

  “That makes sense,” agreed Ransom, “but whatever we do here now, nothing of this creature can reach New York.”

  The stoker’s body, too, was riddled with alien life—frozen when they’d begun, but the egg-sacs literally drew in heat from the men and the dog here, drew energy from the living, and it had begun pulsating as if anxious to split their membranous outer shell. The egg-sacs were translucent, and the fat, half worm, half-tadpole things inside could be seen in silhouette as oily black when the light hit them just so.

  “I want to cut one of these damnable little demons open,” declared Declan.

  “Alive? Too dangerous,” replied Thomas. “Here.” He stabbed into and through the membranous sac before him, killing the hatchling, but it sent up a hellacious screech. Ignoring the death screams, Thomas efficiently ripped the gelatinous, black creature the size of a man’s palm from its sac and splayed it open on the chopping block typically used to cut meat portions. His gloved hands turned oily black.

  With Declan looking on, Thomas said, “Damn, look at this abomination.”

  “There’s no… I mean nothing; makes no sense.”

  “Since when has any of this made any damn sense?” shouted Thomas.

  Alastair looked in over their shoulders, gasping. “Where’s its eyes?”

  “Hasn’t any.”

  “Where’s its mouth?”

  “Got none.”

  Declan added, “No digestive system either; feeds through some sort of weird osmosis, taking in nutrients through its epidermal layer of skin.”

  “It can somehow suck blood from bone, too, remember?” asked Thomas.

  Farley had snatched a sight of the things and so had Varmint who sent up an angry volley of barking. Both dog and owner now hugged the door, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and these awful smelling corpses and the strange life in the sacs as they could. Farley suddenly tore away Ransom’s wolf’s head cane and spun the door lock. Ransom pushed the man away, and he tumbled and fell atop Ransom’s cane.

  Ransom tried to hold the spinning lock, struggling with Murdoch and the men with him the other side of the door to get inside; Lightoller rushed to Ransom’s side to help stem the tide, but it was too late as the door was thrust open and Murdoch, Wilde, and two pursers held guns on them all.

  Declan had already cracked Dr. O’Laughlin’s chest, causing the others to hold back. The sight of the once so proud Dr. O’Laughlin, not merely dead, but his body like some sort of ugly planter of fertile ground for the alien life forms inside him made Murdoch lose his lunch. Officer Wilde’s reaction was much the same, and the others held back. Murdoch and Wilde shouted for the burly stokers to leave at once and say nothing to anyone.

  All guns were lowered.

  “Where is your captain?” asked Ransom. “He needs to see what is aboard his ship, and he needs to see it now.”

  No one readily answered. Lightoller found a call box and rang for the bridge, and in a moment was pleading for Captain Smith to come down to the central freezer units here below the bow decks. “I tell you, sir, it is absolutely urgent, yes! Murdoch and Wilde are here with me, and yes, we’ve apprehended the escaped prisoners, but sir—you must come and have a look. There’s been an awful… terrible turn of events, sir. Come! Come post haste!”

  “If this doesn’t convince your captain that Titanic is a plague ship, nothing will,” remarked Ransom, who realized only now that Farley and Varmint had slipped out and were gone.

  “Suppose Murdoch is now infected,” Declan whispered in Ransom’s ear as Murdoch regained his feet. Lightoller helped Murdoch up, telling him about what he’d read in Declan’s journal, holding it before Murdoch. “Everything they tried to tell us, Will; it’s all true. We should never have left Queenstown. We’re in the middle of the Atlantic on a ship teeming with this… this parasitic, monstrous plague.”

  Captain Smith pushed his way into the area, asking, “Lightoller, Murdoch, Wilde? What’s going on here?” He said this before seeing the dead Dr. O’Laughlin, Burnes, and Davenport along with the pulsating egg-sacs inside each victim.

  “Captain,” said Lightoller, holding up Declan’s journal. “I read Mr. Irvin’s journal, and now seeing these monstrous life forms—”

  One of the egg-sa
cs lifted, the creature inside stretching, fighting to get out when

  it popped, sending up a bile-like brown fluid, part human blood, part alien gravy of some

  sort… its food supply for now. The thing raised its blind, eyeless head out into the world

  and was met with a bullet from Murdoch’s hefty, fat six-shooter. The powerful shot sent

  the creature flying in twelve or thirteen pieces across the room to slam into a wall where

  the splat made a sickening noise and everyone watched the dead parts slide down the wall

  to the floor. At the same time, the explosion in the enclosed space made everyone go

  deaf.

  “Damn big gun!” Ransom shouted to Murdoch as he could not hear his own

  voice. “A British made Webley MK-IV, right?”

  “Yes, a break top revolver. It uses .455 Webley caliber.”

  “Big chunk-a-lead-throwing six shooter. Saw a lot of ’em in Chicago,

  unfortunately in the wrong hands. You think I could get one of those now?”

  “That’d have to be cleared through the captain, Ransom.”

  “I want one of those!” probably have had some Lee Enfield MKIII Short Rifles on board for close confines of a ship. It was in .303 British caliber a pretty potent round up to 300 yards. You can probably google those weapons if you need more particulars.

  “If I thought it would do any good other than getting more men killed than these disgusting creatures,” Murdoch replied, “I’d break into the Vickers machine guns on board.”

  “Hold on, you have a stash of Vickers?” Ransom’s mouth fell open.

  “Well until a moment ago, it was secret cargo.”

  “Really? Going to the US Military, are they?”

  “Your Major Butt’s cargo.”

  “Major Archibald Butt is aboard Titanic?” Butt had made a reputation the world over.

  “Traveling with a journalist named Stead, yes.”

  “Not William Stead, author of the book If Christ Came to Chicago? I know him from his time in Chicago. Wonderful man! Excellent journalist.”

  “One and the same. Seems Stead is acting as biographer for Butts; meanwhile, the major’s cover is his acting as envoy for Taft… some sort of an exchange of letters between your President and the Pope.”

  Ransom nodded appreciably. “A story leaked to the public, no doubt.”

  “Meanwhile…”

  “His true mission is to deliver those water-cooled machine guns to the U.S. Army. The picture comes clear.”

  The Vickers was a British made, belt fed machine gun that entered service in 1912. Firearm technology made huge leaps from single shot style rifles and revolvers to semi and fully automatic in just a few short years, and Ransom had kept up with developments. Within the span of five to ten years this huge technological leap just happened seemingly overnight. The Vickers would be a hell of a new, if somewhat horrifying item in any army’s arsenal—quite the invention for its time.

  Ransom had no illusions about the Brits selling thousands to the U.S. military in the event of war.

  “Will you two shut up about guns and help us get the bodies into the freezers! Now!” Declan shouted, grabbing hold of O’Laughlin’s body first as the sacs in him were quivering more strongly than in the other two. Thomas grabbed the other end of the former Chief Surgeon of Titanic, and they laid the body below the hanging geese, ducks, chickens shanks of ham, and sides of beef.

  After Lightoller shoved Declan’s journal into the captain’s hands, he helped Ransom to heft Burnes’ body into the freezer, placing him on the floor.

  None of the others dared touch Davenport’s body, holding back, still in shock. Declan and Thomas removed Davenport and his egg-sacs to the same freezer.

  They closed the freezer door on the bodies, and looked across at the newly initiated. “Perhaps now you will listen to reason,” said Ransom, going to Smith. “You cannot let this ship dock in New York harbor, sir.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “We find the carrier, destroy him—or it—at the source, and we search the ship high and low for any additional bodies like these here—and we put them all on ice, freeze the bastard things, and then send them all over the side.”

  “Sounds like a start,” added Declan, “but suppose we can’t determine who the carrier is at this point?”

  “You have no idea who he is?” asked Smith, eyes wide, in rapt attention now.

  “Afraid not. It infiltrates a human, uses him up. For a time, apparently, it goes for the weakest links first, Burnes, Davenport, then your surgeon. In fact, I suspect O’Laughlin was being controlled by it the entire time we were trying to convince you of the reality of this parasite, Captain Smith.”

  “He was acting rather oddly of late,” muttered Smith. “He was a fine surgeon and a good man… hard to believe or that this thing inhabiting him might now be residing in someone else. And who might that be?” Smith looked suddenly tired, a cloud of depression deepening his eyes. “We must act fast. We must locate any and all victims like these three you put away, gentlemen and destroy these confounded eggs, and their mother! Short of that… well, what will we do? What can we do?”

  “I can mobilize the crew, sir.” Murdoch held the firearm at his side, feet set apart. “We can search the entire ship top to bottom, stem to stern. Get that much underway.”

  “How do we quarantine a ship at sea, gentlemen?” Smith looked defeated and confused. “We’ll have to enlist the help of Dr. Simpson.”

  Dr. Johnny Simpson was O’Laughlin’s chief assistant, his right-hand man. Ransom suggested he be looked at ‘closely—extremely closely’.

  Smith and the others stared at Ransom as if he might be mad. Lightoller said, “Hell, Johnny’s one of the finest men I know.”

  “We are at war, Captain,” Ransom told them. “We must fight and our strategy must be to outwit this thing and destroy it or contain it one way or another—even if it means sacrificing good men to do it.”

  Smith gave Murdoch a nod, setting him on the course he proposed. Murdoch nodded at Lightoller and Wilde. “Come with me gentlemen, now!”

  “You need to put a guard on this compartment, sir,” suggested Ransom. “An armed guard with orders to shoot anyone trying to forcibly enter. I suspect this thing will come back for its progeny, sir, sir… do you hear me?”

  “Done… done, Constable and please… accept my apologies for being… for not being… that is for disbelieving you… for not listening when I might have saved O’Laughlin. He was a good officer and a fine doctor,” he repeated, befuddled and dazed, looking in shock.

  “And a friend. I could see that clearly.”

  “I was hoping my last voyage before retirement would be uneventful.”

  “For that, sir, I’m sorry; seems trouble and events have a way of finding men like you and I. I would hope that under different circumstances that we may well’ve been friends, Captain.”

  Declan shook the captain’s hand. “Sir, I’ve read about your career in detail. I am honored to be in your presence.”

  “No, young man… I am the one who should be honored by the three of you.”

  “Where do we start in search of finding the disease carrier?” asked Thomas.

  “Other than you men here, I have only one ally I trust,” replied Ransom.

  “And who might that be? Lightoller?”

  “Varmint.”

  “The dog?”

  “The dog, yes. His nose may be our last hope, gentlemen.” Ransom had reclaimed his cane, and with a little twirl of the silver wolf’s head, he recalled the gift of the cane; it’d come from his best friend in Chicago, Philo Keane, a professional photographer and sometime police photographer, always a willing listener. He thought of his other close friends and acquaintances back in America as well and simultaneously wished them here with him now and happy that they were not.

  “Varmint wherever he and Farley’ve gotten off to.”

  We need t
o get that dog back. He just might be able to point out the alien among us,” Declan was saying, but Ransom only half heard as his weary mind wandered.

  Declan repeated himself, and then Alastair whispered, “The dog may be our last hope.”

  With the blessings of Captain Smith, and with Lightoller and Mr. Farley and Varmint, along with a hundred crewmen working in pairs, the hunt for the monster began in earnest. This time other dogs from the kennels were pressed into service as well, and each team searched for the scent of the carrier. Everyone agreed their best hope lay with Varmint or one of the other dogs, but time was fast running out.

  The captain had located the ship’s architect, Andrews, who’d provided the latest blueprints. Captain Smith then set a hundred men scouring in pairs and threes to every nook and cranny. But so far nothing, no results.

  With hopes pinned on Varmint, Ransom and his young mates watched the dog for every nuance, any slight change in demeanor as he was led from deck to deck. At one point, he sniffed the air around the Black Gang and exhibited a pained expression but without the kind of results they’d seen in the freezer.

  Given that both Burnes and Davenport had been stokers, it made sense to have the dog sniff these men in order to rule them out.

  This plan failed; it ended in the various stokers reacting to the dog in every conceivable way, from indifference to kicking out at Varmint to falling to knees and giving the dog a big hug and a ruffle of its fur. But in no instance, not even with the stoker who’d kicked out at the dog and threatened the animal with a shovel did Varmint alert. In all, it seemed a dead end.

  All the same, Lightoller intensely disliked the man who’d threatened Varmint, and he whispered to a subordinate, “Keep an eye on this fellow Morrell.”

  The parade of searchers behind the dog had steadily grown as they next had Varmint sniff out the cooks, kitchen staff, pantries, pursers, maids, the two fellows who manned the Marconi wireless, officers and their quarters, again to no good end.