by catt dahman
“Oh, Sir, the ship is unsinkable. Surely, it will not come up this far? We have only to wait….”Alicia acted confused.
“The ship is sinking. We have confirmed it just now,” Maggie Brown said, as she got right to the point. “Get everyone topside.”
“I shall when we have the orders. We’re a’waiting the First Class to board,” Alicia snapped, thinking that these people were a prime example of why they could not go up yet.
“Send the rest to their rooms. They will not make it. We haven’t the room for all the passengers. There are not enough boats. Lock it down, and go up, yourselves,” Daniels told Alicia, making a decision.
“Not enough boats?” Karl all but yelled, “How can that be?”
As they argued, there came a queer sound from the other hallway, a sliding, thumping noise that was loathsome to hear. What could make sure a curious sound? It sounded huge, and from what they had just seen, the group of first class passengers was afraid to know.
Karl peeked around the corner, looked far down the hall, and saw light sucked into a wavering brownish-yellow mist from which several, huge, slimy masses emerged. Firemen, maids, cooks, and passengers ran from the hallway, screaming. What Karl saw was impossible, but it was real. Some of the men fought the creatures.
“Run upstairs,” John shouted.
Instead, the fleeing third class and crewmen ran to the other rooms, urging the rest to follow so they could lock the doors. Alicia motioned as many as possible to take the stairs instead, but it was chaos, and the noises grew louder as did the screams.
“What is it?” Alicia demanded.
Jets of blood misted and sprayed the floors, walls, and ceilings.
“Vermis.” Howard stood, unable to move as he saw the new terror approaching. It was horrible, and yet, he was fascinated, despite his fear. Three worms appeared from the brown-yellow mist, undulating and sliding on the shining, white slime they excreted from their bodies. The one in the lead humped and hunched along, its large mass thumping on the floor.
There was no mistaking which end was the front although it was eyeless. One raised its vile head and opened its mouth, gnawing at the air. The maw was a black hole filled with ichors and rows of tiny, sharp teeth that were already blood- stained. It did not make a sound with this oral cavity or lungs, but everyone could hear the infernal bellow as thoughts, ora cacophony in the mind.
Howard covered his ears, but it did not help; his ears did not hear the noise. He would have done better to claw the brain from his skull. How could he hear the clamor in his head?
A woman ran by, and the huge worm snatched her off her feet, bit her in half, and swallowed her in two gulps. As the worm swallowed, the large lumps of her body slid towards the other end beneath its grayish-pink, wet skin. A stream of white slime oozed outwards as the worm wriggled with satisfaction.
Helen Monypenny screamed as she ran after Maggie Brown, almost tripping up the stairs. They did not look back.
The big worm contracted his body and let loose a most foul stench of gas and then contracted harder and out popped a sludge of slimy feces so he could have room to digest the women he had just eaten. The fetid pile of bowel slime smelt reptilian, musky, and vile.
“No, oh this cannot be,” Charles Whitmore moaned. He, as the rest, had seen the frogs and spider-things, as well as the horrible fish outside the ship, but these creatures were so massive that they could not have entered with the water and thus, could not be sliding along the hallways. He thought maybe his mind had snapped; in fact, he hoped that it had so this would not be real.
“What folly is this?” Alicia asked Daniels as if he and his group had brought the creatures.
“Monsters,” someone said.
“So I see. Monsters indeed.”
“And there is a giant fish outside, frog things that have tongues that will take one’s skin, a small fish with a lizard’s tail that is like deadly piranhas, and the vermis here,” Howard said, “and these are the least frightening of all the creatures.”
“Worse? I’d rather not see. I shall stay with my charges,” Alicia said. The stewardess, her lips trembling, ran after the passengers, stopped to help a woman with a child, and closed herself into the lounge with the rest. The doors slammed closed.
William Stead motioned the rest to follow.
Jenny Cavendar ran, but one of the behemoths slipped onto her path, blocking her way. She froze; only her quick thinking saved her. If it swung to its left, it would swallow her. She moved only her eyes, looking to the rest for help.
Although she had thought clearly and rationally, her large eyes darted all about; in seconds she would panic and run, and would be eaten alive.
“How does it sense? Can it smell or see?” asked Karl. “We have to know that, Hurry. Think.”
“I do not think it can see.” Howard waved his arms trying to get the creature to turn away from Jenny. When he stomped his feet, it violently lifted its body and slammed itself towards him. “Vibration.”
“Step lightly and unevenly, Jenny,” Peter called to his daughter. Holding her breath, she tiptoed away from the creature.
Peter Cavendar dodged one of the monsters in his way, hugged a wall, and grasped Jenny’s arm to pull her along as they both made it to the stairway.
Howard was glad he was correct in thinking vibrations were the key, and he did feel heroic, but Howard was very afraid.
Little red-haired Bernice panicked when one of the big worms brushed against her, leaving thick, viscous slime upon her body. Had she stayed still, she might have been fine, but the feel of the slime and the musty, dead-mouse smell of the worm terrified her, so she tried to push it away and dart back towards the water.
Her hands sank into the thick goo.
She shuddered with revulsion.
“Not that way,” Daniels yelled.
“Come on, Bernice. Stay against the wall and slide back this way. You will be fine,” Stead called to her from the stairs. Exasperated, he wanted to run and help the girl but was petrified to leave the bottom stair. It was all he could do to keep from running up with the women.
“Oh, Bernice….” Jenny watched from the stairs, horrified.
The worm shuddered with a disgusting show of excitement and pleasure when Bernice pressed on its skin. It turned and opened its mouth, inhaling her scent as an aperitif. Saliva dripped as the rows of teeth beckoned.
The other two worms, sharing the excitement, bawled, the noise echoing in everyone’s head.
James and Edward Perry, acting in unison as only brothers can, lunged for Bernice, pulling at her, but it became a tug of war when the behemoth bit down on her arm, right above the elbow. The worm pulled at the morsel.
Bernice’s screams went high-pitched and desperate with pain. It was if knives had pierced her skin; then, blades ground against her arm’s bone. Over and over, she shrieked. As she began to faint, she fell to her knees. The worm took her arm with him, and the girl went sliding head first into the slime as James and Edward pulled at her other arm.
All three slipped several yards down the hallway before Karl Behr and Charles Whitmore were able to get them to their feet and up the stairs. Whitmore carried Bernice in his arms as the ruined remains of the arm hung, dripping blood. He passed her to Stead.
The last of their group ascended, but Charles Whitmore returned to stand next to Howard and stare at the worms. Neither moved.
Whitmore was splashed with the wounded girl’s blood.
Some of the men from Third Class and the shipmen used makeshift weapons to beat on the three creatures, but many were swallowed, and when an injury was inflicted, the slippery flesh wiggled and shifted to mend the wound. Some ran away to lock themselves in the nearby rooms when that did not work.
“It can’t be real and yet it is,” Whitmore whispered.
“Our worst nightmares have come to life,” Howard agreed, “I think they are beings from another place and have always been alongside us. They do not seem very sur
prised to see us. But we’ve been separated by something…a gate maybe…and it’s been breached.” It was mad to stand and philosophize, but they did just that.
“It has to be closed. If we knew what opened it, we could close it. What if…I mean…the entire world could be infected,” Whitmore went on, “and what we have seen will follow us. We will never be free of them. Everywhere…monsters….”
“But maybe we won’t know or see them if the gateway is closed,” Howard tried to think, but one of the worms moved closer.
Whitmore laughed madly, “And we can live, knowing they are here, whether we see them or not? Can you go on and live your life normally whilst knowing those things are there and separated from us by a gossamer gate? The thinnest of mists?”
“How I wish we might have had this conversation somewhere else and at another time,” Howard said.
“I would rather not know. How can I cleanse this from my head?”
“Shhh.”
“They can see us, the other monsters I mean, and at any second could breach that space and be with us again. That is, if we even survive.”
“Be quiet, Whitmore.”
“You fool. They have arrived, and hell is on earth. This is damnation.”
Howard snapped, “They are worms, man! Calm yourself.”
Whitmore stepped down to the floor, “They are so old, and we have seen leviathan and behemoth. It is the end, my boy. I won’t play their games.” He pulled a silver flask from his jacket and tore off his collar until he had a wick set into the top.
“What are you about? Stop this,” Howard said. The worm came closer, and in seconds, it would swallow both men.
“The Gods were sorely displeased when Prometheus gave men fire.” With a wicked grin, Charles Whitmore lit the wick, yelled for Howard to go, and leaped into the maw of the monster.
As Howard ran, he saw Whitmore consumed, but the creature was burning slowly, its flesh sizzling. There were monsters a’plenty, but that particular one might die.
The other man had gone mad with the sights and vapors of the creatures, but he had gone down fighting.
The war had begun.
Chapter Five: Midnight on the Titanic
Scotland Road was crowded as crewmen and passengers hurried up and down the walkway, some about normal business of keeping the ship going and others with nothing else to do to keep their minds occupied. Most had no idea what was amiss, and if they did know, they were not overly concerned.
On E Deck, the group found first aid, cleaned and bandaged Lewis’ leg, and tied a better tourniquet about Bernice’s elbow. After the cleaning, a bandage, and morphine, she was drowsy and barely able to walk but begged not to be left behind in between crying with the pain and terror of her ordeal.
The stewards on E thought the stories of the injuries and creatures were some type of jest but not comical. No one believed the recollections. When finally, after much cajoling, a few of the stewards went down the stairs to see for themselves, they understood.
When the stewards came back up, pale and shaking, they locked the gates that led to below decks. The gates, heavy and black, slid together and would never reopen.
“You saw the…the behemoths?” Howard asked.
“Swimming in rising water. E Deck is flooding,” a steward reported, “how can those…things be in the ship? Did they come from below decks?”
“We should be so fortunate. We do not know where they are from. The sea? Does it matter? They are here almost upon us,” Karl told all of them. He kept a steady arm about Helen.
“What about the people below? They have locked themselves down there in rooms because of those things,” Jenny said, “we’ve got to kill the things and get everyone up to the boats.”
Some nodded in agreement but many refused to meet her face.
“What? Why are they locked behind gates? Those worms will get them or they will drown. Am I the only one with sense here?” Jenny asked. “You have locked them down there.”
Peter took his daughter’s arm, “Jenny, those people have barricaded themselves for safety. They are waiting for everyone to get aboard the boats, and then, I am sure someone will come escort them to the boats as well.”
“Then why did Mr. Daniels say there aren’t enough boats?” Maggie Brown asked. She was suspicious, too.
When all eyes turned on Daniels, he shrugged, “I’m just a steward.”
“But?”
“Mrs. Brown, really….”
William Stead huffed, “He knows. We all know. The ship was said to be unsinkable. It is the mighty Titanic. We’ve not the lifeboats aboard for everyone. That is the end-all.”
“We will double up. No doubt, ships are racing to our rescue, so it will not take long. How many boats are we short? A few?”
“Mrs. Brown….”
“Daniels?” She could be very stubborn. Her eyebrows lowered with her frown.
“By half. We are short by half,” Daniels whispered.
Everyone now understood why the gates were locked and why no one would be coming back for the many trapped below. Helen set her face against Karl’s shoulder and wept.
“They will all….” Jenny stammered, “What will we do?” The concept had not yet hit her fully.
“Make our ways to the boat decks. We have no choice and no time to waste,” Daniels said.
Peter Cavendar took Jenny’s arm, and John Morton took her other arm as they hurried up the next staircase. Jenny kept looking back at the locked gate and then at the stewards who were making ready to lock the next gate. They had sad faces.
Daniels ushered his group up another deck to D: where many sat in the First Class Reception Room, the second class gathered in their dining salon, and the third class met in their dining salon. In the fact of disaster, the classes did not mix.
Below, the water was fifty feet deep in the bow, and the quarters on E Deck were flooded at the bow.
Above, on the boat deck, Mr. Murdoch gritted his teeth. His orders were to load women and children first, but there were few waiting to board. “Come along.”
Margaret Hays felt her hat blown away by the steam, but Mr. Murdoch was right there to catch it and hand it back to her with a smile as she entered the boat, holding her Pomeranian dog wrapped in a little blanket.
Way down on the lower decks, the kennels were under water. No one had remembered the pets.
“Let the wounded aboard.” William Stead, Karl Bahr, and Howard, helped Lewis along and John carried Bernice.
“What happened?” Murdoch asked, “Should they go to the infirmary, yes?”
“It is…well, it will soon flood, Sir,” Karl told Murdoch.
Murdock looked at the bandage on Lewis’ leg; it was soaked in blood. He pulled back in horror as he saw Bernice’s arm was gone. Tight bed sheets wound about her upper arm, pinpricked with dots of blood. Her face was pale, and her head lolled. “She is…I mean…is she…what happened?”
“Below decks…accidents. Please.”
The two wounded passengers went into the boat with the rest. The boat was thirty feet long and nine feet wide and could hold sixty-five people, yet less than thirty were on board.
Mr. Tucker helped several of the ladies, bundling them with rugs to keep them warm; he sat down as well. A Frenchman and his three friends climbed in. Mr. Mereʼchal carried a deck of cards that he had picked up as the men left their card game, and a book about Sherlock Holmes. “If I grow weary I can play card or read about Mr. Holmes adventures, nʼest ce pas?”
They tucked Lewis into place with a blanket and lay Bernice upon the seat, covering her with layers of blankets to warm her. Murdoch did not put either of the injured into life belts.
“Anyone else? Anyone? We are to get into life jackets and life boats and abandon ship,” Murdoch reminded those on the boat deck, but no one else came forwards.
Everyone was afraid of the small boats and said it was much too cold to be out. “Please. We need to fill the boat so we can lower it. Will y
ou go aboard?”
Stead and his friends waved off the offer; they had too much to do. Others climbed aboard.
“You are all brave, Sirs,” Murdoch told Howard, John, and Karl, and Stead.
Murdock motioned two of the ship’s lookouts and an Able Seaman to join the group. An Able Seaman was trained in almost aspects of the upper deck and might be a lookout, help navigate, clean up a deck, or operate machinery. They were also excellent with lifeboats and more expert with them than any other crewmen.
Other men climbed aboard so they would have enough men to row the boat when Murphy asked them.
Slowly they were lowered to the sea. Fifth Officer Lowe called out instructions. The men had little practice in lowering the lifeboats, much less using them, and even in practice they had only rowed up and down the side of the ship a few minutes.
“Oh my, the plug isn’t in,” cried Margaret Hays. Quickly they stuffed whatever fabric they could find into the hole. An actress stripped off her undergarments without a blush and used it to hold back the water until the plug was placed. Ice-cold water sloshed at the bottom of the little boat as it floated away. It was 12:45 AM, an hour and five minutes after the Titanic had hit the iceberg. Crewman Hogg was put in command of the boat.
Joseph Boxhall, Fourth Officer, grabbed Murdoch’s sleeve, “Look, Sir, there’s a ship…there in the mist…see it?”
He had just found out that they were going to sink; the Captain failed to tell him as he stared into nothing and refused to give orders. Boxhall was relieved that Lightoller and Murdoch had taken over.
Murdoch turned to see the ship’s lights and the ship itself as it glowed. Murdoch knew there was no way he could see a ship in the black of the night, and yet, he could.
“We should have them row in that direction,” Boxhall said.
“No,” Howard told Boxhall, “For the love of all that is holy, don’t have the passengers row for that ship. Look at it.”
It was an old sailing vessel with her masts strangely draped in liquideous moss. Humanoid figures dotted the railing, but they changed shape often, melting into humans, and then into things with fish-like faces, and then into things with slender bodies and spindly arms that reached out to the ship. It was too far to see them clearly, and yet, Murdoch could make out that the things were male and female, all nude, as they stood there. Their eyes were very hungry.
