Lowe again shot out the knee of one of them, and then let Murdoch finish it off, while Lightoller stealthily slipped behind the second one and shot him in the back of the head. Nervous Moody seemed content with staying in the back.
“I think we should split up,” Lowe said. “This is going to take too long.”
“It’s safer this way,” Murdoch countered. More passengers rushed passed them, some dripping blood. The stairs were becoming crowded with people seeking safer ground. “We’ve already killed three.”
“Yes, and it took us...” Lightoller flipped open his pocket watch and checked the time. 11:31 p.m. “It took us better than ten minutes. What about the other fifteen? All it takes is for some unlucky person to open a door and any one of them could be halfway across the ship, just like what happened last night.”
“I’d feel better if we stayed in at least teams of two.”
“No need to fret, Mr. Murdoch,” said Lowe. “You can stay with me.”
Murdoch frowned at Lowe.
“Okay, we’ll split in two,” said Lightoller. “That way we can still cover one another. I suggest you and Lowe stay on D-deck while me and Moody go down to E.”
SMITH
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Captain Smith, troubled by the sound of the warning bell, hurried from the dimly lit chart room to the pitch black of the wheelhouse. The lights were kept off at night so it would be easier to see out of the front windows. Quartermaster Hichens was little more than a dark shape behind the wheel, Alfred Oliver also in shadow at his side.
“Was that the lookout?”
“I believe it was, sir,” said Oliver.
Smith looked over as Boxhall opened the door to the wheelhouse, bringing in a rush of cold air with him. Before Smith could say another word, the telephone rang, and Boxhall quickly answered.
“Yes. Understood,” Boxhall said, and hung up. Then he looked over at Smith. “Sir, there is an iceberg right ahead.”
Smith looked out the front window, barely able to make out the black multi-pointed silhouette of the berg against the starry sky. “Christ. Hard a’ starboard!” he ordered to Hichens, and then used the engine room telegraph to signal full speed astern, reversing the engines. Hichens began turning the wheel to the left.
Smith and Boxhall rushed out of the wheelhouse and leaned against the railing, just as they had not twenty minutes earlier, and gazed out at the mountain of ice directly ahead.
“Why is she not turning?” asked Boxhall.
“Is it hard a’ starboard?” Smith yelled back at the bridge.
“Hard a’ starboard, sir,” Quartermaster Hichens answered back.
Finally, the ship’s nose began to turn to the left.
“Come on now,” said Smith, seeing the iceberg move along the front bow, and praying that she would miss. “Spare us this once.”
Then came a thunderous scraping sound from below followed by a sudden jolt in the ship’s momentum. Smith and Boxhall braced themselves against the railing as the wooden deck beneath them shuddered. The massive iceberg moved gradually along the starboard side of the bow, chunks of it breaking off onto the well deck. It continued down ship, rubbing off smaller shreds of ice against the lower decks.
Smith hurried back to the wheelhouse. “Hard a’ port,” he said to Hichens, who began turning the wheel all the way back to the right. The captain moved the engine room telegraph from full speed astern to half ahead, and then upon further consideration, rang down to stop.
“Sound the alarms and close the watertight doors,” he said to Boxhall. He checked the clock mounted in the wheelhouse. 11:40 p.m. “Enter the time into the log.”
BROWN
In cabin number 23 on the starboard side of E-deck, Margaret Brown sat awake in bed reading, when the sudden vibration nearly dislodged the book from her hands.
She sat up and looked out the porthole next to the bed, her breath instantly taken away by the giant, silvery blue wall of ice emerging from the darkness.
“Oh, no,” she said aloud, continuing to stare in disbelief as the iceberg she was certain they had hit moved past her field of view and then disappeared.
She changed out of her nightgown and left her room. The halls were already bustling with people wondering what was going on, some even showing injuries, which Margaret found odd.
A man with disheveled clothing and hair was lying across from the elevators, slipping in and out of consciousness.
Margaret grabbed him by the collar and tried to stir him awake, fearing that he’d fallen down and hit his head during the collision.
“Help! This man needs help!”
As the words left her mouth, she began to realize this poor soul looked a lot like Miss Brennan prior to her death. Pale face. High fever. Only, she now noticed a small amount of blood trickle down from his wrist and into the palm of his hand. She gently pulled up his sleeve uncovering a large gash in his forearm.
This man was infected.
It was around lunchtime when she became aware of the gossip going around—over two hours after she had apologized to Mr. Andrews. She felt like she was losing her touch for not connecting the distressed look on his face to something more than just lack of rest. However, instead of rudely rushing to him for answers this time, she had decided to find out what she could on her own.
As the day drew on, it became clear that the third-class general room, guarded at all times by one of the ship’s officers, was being used to house more of the infected. What wasn’t clear to her was how all this came to be, how the three sick patients in the third-class hospital managed to infect more passengers.
Margaret stood up, wondering if the dying man at her feet had escaped from the general room. Then she heard the engines come to an abrupt stop.
A steward came off one of the elevators.
“Hey you there, this man is infected. He needs to be helped immediately.”
“Okay, okay, calm down. There are lots of people who need help, ma’am. I assure you we are trying our best.”
“What do you mean lots of people?”
“Just take a look around, will you. I suggest finding a safe place and staying there.”
“We’ve hit an iceberg, haven’t we?”
“No, no. That’s foolish.”
“Is it? We’ve stopped moving.”
“Yes, and I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation. Now, like I said, if you want to help, go back to your room and wait for more information.”
“To hell with that,” Margaret said, pushing the steward aside and following a swarm of other passengers inside one of the elevators. She got off two decks up on C-deck.
Just past the forward first-class staircase was John Jacob Astor’s suite of rooms, C-62/63/64.
John’s young bride Madeline answered the door in a cream-colored nightgown. It was hardly noticeable that she was pregnant.
“Where is John?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Brown.”
“Get yourself together. We should go find him.”
Madeline looked concerned. “Why?”
“Remember the infection everyone was talking about over dinner? Well, it’s on the loose. And to make matters worse, I think we’ve hit an iceberg.”
“An iceberg? So that was the—”
“The tremor you felt? It was.”
“Give me a moment.”
Margaret waited outside in the hall, watching as people frantically ran by as though they were being pursued by some dreadful monster. The injuries many among them displayed were as diverse as they were numerous.
This will be a night to remember, Margaret thought. Or one to forget.
LIGHTOLLER
“Watch out! Behind you!” Lightoller shouted.
Sixth Officer Moody turned and took two shots at an infected woman limping toward him, her face a cascading tower of rotting skin. Both shots put holes only in the wall behind her.
Lightoller pushed Moody out of
the way and put a bullet in the center of her forehead.
“I can’t keep bailing you out,” Lightoller said. “That’s the second time now, aye. Keep it together. Otherwise you may as well go sit in a dark corner and let me do this myself.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Moody.
“Don’t be sorry. Be confident.”
“I guess I’m having a hard time with the idea of killing someone.”
“If you don’t kill them then they’ll kill you, or someone else. It’s that simple. Try not to think about how many people you kill, but how many you can save.”
Given the sheer number of injured passengers they passed, Lightoller wondered if he was simply spitting out empty rhetoric just to keep Moody calm. He was close to calling this mission a lost cause, and didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when the rest of these people turned.
Split off from Murdoch and Lowe a deck above, Lightoller and Moody had worked their way down E-deck toward the front of the ship, along the way encountering a few infected, some already dead, and dozens of newly infected. By Lightoller’s count, better than half of the escapees from the general room had perished, not including any Murdoch and Lowe might have disposed of. Still, he feared they were too late, and the damage had already been done.
Then came the unexpected jarring sound that had caused all the walls around them to shiver. Lightoller had no idea what caused the troubling vibration, possibly an explosion in the forward hull.
Pushing on, they came to the last set of elevators. Dozens of passengers bullied past them in a riotous panic. Those that couldn’t squeeze into one of the elevators, or grew tired of waiting for one to return, elected to take the stairs. Lightoller observed a good number of people with visible bite marks and scratches on various areas of their bodies.
“It’s no use.”
“Sir?”
Lightoller looked down at a small pool of blood on the floor across from the elevators. “I want you to go back to the bridge and tell the captain this isn’t working, not in the least. That it’s spread too far, and we may need to consider calling for assistance.”
“And what of you, sir?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to keep on down here. Try to find the source of that explosion.”
“I would rather stay an assist you, sir.”
“I don’t need assistance. No need for bravery, Moody. Just do as I say.”
Moody nodded and went around the corner toward the stairs, Lightoller the opposite direction.
Continuing forward.
Into the quiet beyond the crowd.
SMITH
“No sign of damage in the passenger areas, sir,” said Fourth Officer Boxhall, stepping into the wheelhouse. After the collision, the captain had sent him below to inspect for any sign of damage. “However, Carpenter Hutchinson insists the ship is making water. That the mail hold is filling rapidly.”
“Go down and confirm it,” said Smith. “Report back immediately.”
“Right away, sir.”
The next to stop in was Chief Officer Wilde with Third Officer Pittman. Captain Smith could tell immediately by the tousled look of their clothing that something had happened.
“We were attacked, sir. By those awful things,” said Pittman. “But we managed to escape without nary a scratch.”
“It’s out of control,” Wilde added. “And I regret to say there is nothing we can do to stop it.”
“We may have bigger problems, Henry.”
“Indeed, I know we’ve struck ice,” said Wilde. “Air is escaping from the forepeak tank, and water has begun flooding in. Hemming confirmed this.”
Smith sighed. “Would you say the damage is serious?”
“I’m afraid it’s more than serious, Captain.”
Smith checked the compass to see if the ship had begun listing. He had checked it shortly after Boxhall first went down to inspect for damage, and found no significant change in level. This time he wasn’t so fortunate.
“Dear God,” he muttered. “Already five degrees to starboard. Two degrees down by the head. Pittman, summon Andrews.”
Smith and Wilde entered the navigating room connected to the wheelhouse.
“What’s wrong?” said Smith.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want to say anything with Pittman here. But I see the way you’re holding your hand.”
Wilde leaned into a corner and hung his head.
“Be honest with me, Henry,” said Smith. “What happened down there?”
“It’s absolute chaos,” Wilde finally said, looking up to meet eyes with the captain. “Worse than you can imagine. So many injured in so little time I—I can’t explain it. I wish I could.”
“And...?”
Wilde pulled up his left coat sleeve. “I was bitten...by one of them.”
Seeing the faint red of blood on the CO’s hand caused Smith’s heart to sink.
“I kept it quiet from Pittman, at first hoping it didn’t puncture the skin. When I found a moment to myself, I confirmed that indeed it had. What does this mean? Am I infected?”
Before Smith could answer, Thomas Andrews came into the navigating room with an armful of charts and blueprints, Pittman behind him.
“He was already on his way, sir,” said Pittman.
“Good, thank you. If you could take watch of the bridge for now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thomas Andrews laid out a large side view blueprint of the Titanic’s deck plans on the chart table, and then began discussing different possible scenarios in which the ship could stay afloat. In a matter of minutes, all such hopeful thought would be struck down by the stark reality of truth.
April 15, 1912
SMITH
Fourth Officer Boxhall returned from below with a litany of bad news.
As the carpenter had said, the mail room was full of water and had risen to within a foot or two of the top of the stairs. The forward cargo holds were also flooded, and boiler room number six had already filled to a depth of over fourteen feet.
“As of right now, water has begun to spill over into the fifth boiler room,” said Boxhall. “Crewmen are working to pump it out.”
“It will do little good,” said Andrews.
“Is there anything we can do?” asked Smith.
“She was only designed to stay afloat with the first four compartments flooded, but not five,” Andrews said, indicating the forepeak and three cargo holds on the blueprint. “As the bow sinks, the water will spill over each bulkhead one after another until—”
“Until what?” said Bruce Ismay. He came into the navigating room wearing a large coat over his pajamas. “What are you saying, Thomas? The Titanic cannot sink.”
“But she can,” said Andrews. “And, regrettably, I’m certain that she will.”
Ismay bit his lip and relaxed his posture.
“How long do we have?” asked Smith.
Andrews studied the blueprints, doing the mathematical calculations in his head, and then said, “Maybe an hour. Two, if we’re lucky.”
“It appears you’re going to get your headlines after all, Mr. Ismay,” said Smith. Then he ordered Boxhall to calculate the ship’s exact position so they could send out a distress call.
Ismay and Andrews sulked away in silence.
Alone again with Wilde, Smith picked back up on their prior conversation.
“How are you feeling?”
“I believe I have a fever,” Wilde replied.
Smith studied the chief officer. “I can’t say for certain. But if you were bitten, then you are most likely infected. How is your hand?”
Wilde pulled up the left sleeve again. His hand had turned purple and swollen considerably. “I suppose it doesn’t much matter now, does it? If we’re all going to die, that is.”
“Perhaps, though I intend to spare as many as possible. I’d appreciate it if you would go to your quarters and remain there. For the sake of others. I hope you understand.”<
br />
“Whatever I can do to help, in these, my final moments.”
“Thank you, Henry. It’s been a pleasure.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Moments after Wilde left, Murdoch and Lowe entered the wheelhouse. Smith explained the grim fate of the ship, while Murdoch caught him up on the spread of the infection.
“The best we can hope for is that someone is nearby and responds to our call,” said Smith. “For now, begin preparing the lifeboats for loading. And please protect yourselves. Where are Lightoller and Moody?”
“We split off. Have they not returned?”
“No, they have not.”
Murdoch shrugged. “Well, I’m sure they’ll come around soon, sir.”
Ten minutes later, Captain Smith entered the wireless room with the Titanic’s estimated position in hand. He handed the coordinates to Harold Bride.
“Send the distress call.”
Bride slipped the piece of paper in front of Jack Phillips, who was wearing the wireless set.
“What call should I send?” asked Phillips.
“The regulation international call for help. That’s all.”
Smith left the wireless room and walked along the boat deck, inspecting the officers as they readied the lifeboats. Murdoch was on the starboard side uncovering lifeboat number seven.
“Where is Wilde?”
“He had something to tend to,” Smith replied.
“Should we swing out the boats?”
“Yes, go ahead. Then begin loading, women and children first. I take it you’re still armed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. See to it that no infected make their way on to the lifeboats. I’ll tell the others the same.”
ANDREWS
From the moment he realized the ship would founder, Thomas Andrews, by his own calculations, had at best a couple of hours left on this earth. How he was going to die was still to be determined, but he had decided right away that he would not take a seat on one of the lifeboats, even if the chance were offered to him.
Titanic With ZOMBIES Page 10
