Deck Z - The Titanic (17 page)

DECK F. SQUASH COURT OBSERVATION AREA
.

SUNDAY, APRIL
14, 1912. 11:58
P.M
.

“Oh my,” said Andrews.

The squash court was deserted. Smith and Andrews stood alone on the observation level where they could peer down into the mail room below on Deck G. Water was flooding in, perhaps a foot deep already. Letters and assorted small packages were floating on the floor as men tried to scoop them up.

“Aye, it’s worse than I feared. We need to get a better look. Let’s head for the fireman’s tunnel below.” Captain Smith broke for the stairwell, but Andrews didn’t immediately follow. The ramifications of what he was seeing weakened his legs, which would not move.

Titanic
was the crowning achievement of Andrews’s life. He drove himself for years to make it the finest ship in the world. He had often envisioned her steaming majestically into the safe harbor of New York, and he’d gone so far as to select a painting for the first-class smoking room depicting such a scene.

Though it felt a lifetime ago, it had been only a handful of hours since he had stood on nearly the same spot and noticed the loose joint on a corner piece of window trim. He’d recorded it in his notebook. Looking down at the rising water covering the squash court, Andrews felt the pad of paper in his pocket. He wondered if his attention to
detail had been reduced to irrelevancy. Then he ran after Captain Smith to find out.

The seawater was so cold the firemen’s hands were blue. Undaunted, crewmen rushed back and forth, valiantly trying to string together enough hose to pump out the areas taking on water. One of them, a young fellow with a full head of copper-red hair, saw the captain and ran over to give him the report.

“How bad is it, lad?” Smith asked.

“We’re in a tight pickle, sir. Numerous compartments are flooding.” The young man wiped a stream of dark blood from his nose and onto his pants. Smith and Andrews exchanged a dark glance.

“How many?” asked Andrews.

“Six is the last number I heard.”

Smith looked to Andrews, but hope had drained from the designer’s face. He gave the smallest, most imperceptible shake of his head. The captain nodded his understanding. He gave the seaman a reassuring smile and said loudly, “You men are doing your captain proud.”

“Thank you, sir. To top it all, there’s this bad flu going around.” The sailor launched into a string of uncomfortable hard coughs, doubling over.

“How many are ill?” asked Smith once the man recovered.

“Pretty much all of us, sir. Some worse than others, but to a man everybody’s puny with it. To be honest, some more than puny.”

Smith lifted his chin. “Carry on. Mr. Andrews and I need to finish our inspection.”

When the sailor was out of earshot, Andrews confessed, “She’ll float with four compartments flooded but no more than that.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “This ship will sink, sir.”

“How long do we have?” the captain asked.

“An hour, perhaps an hour and a half, no more.”

“Even with the pumps?”

“Those will only buy minutes. They’re rated to handle two thousand tons of water an hour. From what I’ve seen, that amount is flooding in every five minutes. And not to put too fine a point on it, sir, but
the men.
Everyone down here is doomed.” The tears finally broke through.

For a moment, Captain Smith felt angry. What had Ismay been thinking, running
Titanic
full bore? At that speed,
Titanic
had no chance to evade an iceberg. Smith’s anger waned as he watched his crew, working valiantly but in vain to contain the flooding. In their condition,
Titanic
would have been doomed, no matter her speed. At least drowning would spare them from the infection’s horror.

Smith put his hand on Andrews’s shoulder. “It’s a tragedy, Thomas,” the captain said. “We have to save who we can. Agreed?”

Andrews wiped the tears from his eyes and collected himself. “That, sir, is why you are captain of
Titanic.
All that matters is to save as many as possible. I’ll follow you to the bottom of the Atlantic.”

“Then let’s go. We must get the healthy passengers off this ship—while ensuring that the infected stay aboard. If
Titanic
is going down, we’ll make sure this scourge sinks with it.”

The captain led the way to the stairwell, but once again, Thomas Andrews hesitated. Surveying the havoc a final time, he pulled the small notepad from his pocket and pitched it into the knee-deep water, leaving the details for the devil.

DECK Z CORRIDOR
.

MONDAY, APRIL
15, 1912. 12:13
A.M
.

The Agent sprang with his pliers, bearing down at the base of Weiss’s throat.

Desperately, Weiss grabbed the Agent’s wrist with both hands, stopping the weapon. Without hesitation, the Agent violently slammed his forehead into Weiss’s nose with a sickening
crack.
As if observing the scene from above, Weiss thought, “
seeing stars” isn’t just a figure of speech.

“Why?” Weiss managed to grunt. “Why were you helping us below?”

“Quite the contrary,” said the Agent, his breath cool and stale against Weiss’s skin. “You helped me. After confirming you lied about the cyanide, and finding you gone from the linen closet, I thought simply to hide till we reached America. But the infection was more powerful than I imagined. I was surrounded by the sick and running for my life when we met. Joining your band was my best chance.”

The Agent pressed harder with his tool, relentlessly, and Weiss gasped as the cold steel met his throat. Weiss grunted, “Don’t leave this ship with the vial. Mothers have been transformed into monsters, for God’s sake. No one deserves such a fate.”

The Agent’s eyes twitched madly as the ship’s bow began to dip into the Atlantic. “Some people most certainly do, Herr Weiss. Some people do. And it will be even more horrific than I dared dream, thanks to you. Imagine the havoc, the power in just a single drop. That’s all it will take to—”

“You took everything from me!” screamed Lou, as she dropped from the hatch at the end of the hallway. The Agent wheeled around, and as he did, a bright white flash burst from Lou’s outstretched hands. The flare gun’s recoil sent the girl reeling backward into the wall as the burning projectile struck the Agent hard in the middle of his chest. The shell bounced to the ground and exploded, blinding Weiss as he rolled away.

The Agent slapped wildly at his burning hair and jacket. He careened into the wall and stumbled recklessly down the hallway. Lou braced herself, reloaded, and fired again. The flare hit the Agent square in the back, knocking him down. He rolled on the floor to douse the flames, then got up and disappeared into the stairwell.

Weiss was trying to blink the sight back to his eyes. “Louise!” he called out. She ran up to him, and he smiled as his hands found her shoulders.

“It’s Lou,” she said.

“Lou,” said Weiss. He could see her smiling at him. “Are you hurt?”

Lou shook her head. Weiss asked anxiously, “Where did Mr. Hargraves run off to?”

“I didn’t see. Too much smoke. But he’s gone now.”

Weiss scooped the girl off her feet, exhilarated despite himself. “Where did
you
run off to?”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Lou responded. “I heard what Mr. Hargraves said and …” She dropped her eyes, a guilty look coming over her face, then threw her arms around him tight. “Now I know what’s what.”

Weiss suddenly understood and returned the embrace. The flare was originally meant for him. “Lou. I’d give my own life if I could bring your mother back. I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But we have to stop Mr. Hargraves.”

“You must get off this boat,” said Weiss. “Leave Hargraves to me.”

“You can’t do it alone,” said the girl. “I’m helping you, and I’d like to see you try and stop me.” She balled her fists.

Weiss laughed despite himself, bending over to pick up flare balls that were rolling very slowly toward the bow of the ship. “Let’s get going, Lou. I don’t know how much longer
Titanic
has.”

Weiss and Lou took off at a run and up the narrow stairwell the Agent had taken. They stopped short at a jog in the stairs. Ahead, a makeshift gate had been forcibly moved aside and a young officer lay motionless on the steps, his head twisted at an awkward angle.

“Crikey, the monsters must have fought their way up,” said Lou.

“I don’t think so,” said Weiss. He approached the dead man warily. The officer’s eyes remained open with a terrified expression. But except for his ruptured neck and the pool of blood draining from it, he was otherwise uninjured: nothing had feasted on him, nor did he show any signs of infection. The dead man hadn’t been ravaged by a zombie. Weiss knew a different kind of monster had caused the wound.

FORWARD STAIRWELL
.

MONDAY, APRIL
15, 1912. 12:22
A.M
.

Kabul clanked against the captain’s side as he and Andrews raced up step after step, past Deck G, past Deck F, on their way to the bridge. The sound of a woman screaming echoed in the stairwell. The captain cursed loudly and picked up his pace. Andrews followed as closely as he could. Even at sixty-one years of age, Captain Smith wasn’t easy to keep up with.

Finally, they found the source of the screams: Two small children and their mother cowered on a landing, chased into the corner by a hulking zombie. From half a flight down, Smith called out. “Hey, you big ugly lout! Over here!”

The creature grunted at the sound of the captain’s voice and turned. It was Joe Clench, or what was left of him, and he made the most imposing and horrifying zombie Smith and Andrews had seen yet.

Clench roared at the two men and took an awkward step toward them, away from the mother and her children. Not a brow raised in recognition on the behemoth’s face. With plodding steps it descended three stairs. Blackish ooze ran from the corner of the monster’s mouth. The repugnant effluence dribbled down to stain his uniform. The man was gone, but the rotted body lived.

“Run up those stairs as fast as you can,” shouted Smith to the mother. “Get up top and board a lifeboat. We’re abandoning ship.” Without a word, the family ran.

The captain felt a pang of guilt—by sending Clench and the other men off for welding torches, he’d sentenced them to a horrible fate. “I won’t let you suffer any further, Clench,” said Smith, “even if you were a pain in the arse.” The captain tried to draw Kabul, but it didn’t come out cleanly, stopping in the sheath. That was all the time the zombie needed to reach the small landing.

“Run, Captain,” hollered Andrews.

“Never!” growled Smith. Finally, the blade slipped free. A skillful feint to the zombie’s midsection drew its arms down, then Smith swung mightily at Clench’s defenseless neck and buried the blade several inches deep.

But Kabul was no longer up to the task. Weakened earlier by holding back the bakery fan, the blade snapped at the nicked point that caused it to stick in the sheath. Most of Kabul remained lodged in the beast’s vertebrae. Smith was left with little more than the hilt and a pitiful stub of metal in his hand.

The zombie didn’t even react to the sword stuck in its gashed neck. As in life, Joe Clench wasn’t one to let a flesh wound stop a fight. One arm swiped viciously, sending the captain sprawling to the ground. Kabul’s hilt spun away, and the zombie fell on top of Smith, enveloping him in its massive arms. Its clawing and gnashing about the captain’s head was shocking and relentless.

“Hey, Mr. Clench!” yelled Andrews, from two steps below.

The zombie turned at the sound of a living voice. As it did, Andrews leapt and punched with all his might, using the rounded portion of Kabul’s pommel, and struck the zombie dead in the mouth, knocking out its remaining teeth. Andrews kept pummeling its face until Mr. Clench fell away.

Andrews tried to help Smith to safety, but the captain would have none of it. He charged the zombie as it rose, despite the fact that it could no longer see. The force of Andrews’s blows had knocked out the ghoul’s eyes, which now dangled grotesquely from their sockets.

Smith wrenched what was left of Kabul from the zombie’s neck and rammed the broken blade into its ear, all the way up to the knuckles. Clench fell to the ground like a tree. Exhausted, the captain regarded yet another of his former crew members he’d been forced to kill. “Good-bye, Mr. Clench, I’m sorry.” Then he slumped to the floor himself.

As Andrews approached, Smith said firmly, “Don’t touch me.”

Then he looked up, and Andrews was stunned at the many deep gashes and black-colored cuts atop the captain’s head. The captain sagged against the landing wall, his head hung low.

“I am going down with the ship, Andrews,” Captain Smith said. “You are to report to the bridge and convey my order to launch all lifeboats.”

“The men need you, sir,” protested Andrews. “What if the chaos down here also reigns above? You can will yourself to remain in control.”

“My will,” scoffed Smith, “is to not endanger anyone aboard this ship. I can’t be trusted with command any longer.”

“You still possess all your faculties, Captain,” Andrews pleaded. “Perhaps you don’t have a lot of time, but neither does
Titanic.
This ship needs its leader.” He picked Smith’s cap off the ground. “There are innocent people to save. Be a beacon to them, sir.”

Andrews handed Smith his cap. “This will cover most of the wounds to your scalp. And as the hours pass, if your condition worsens …” Andrews sighed. “The sea awaits.”

Captain Edward Smith donned the cap, stood up, and nodded. “You’re quite right, Thomas. I will fulfill my duties, ‘til the end.”

Smith reached out to shake Andrews’s hand, then realizing that was no longer prudent, saluted him instead.