Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

These same officers and crewmen, according to pages that he had skipped ahead to, opened large bilge tubes to speed up the process of taking on water after she struck the iceberg. In fact, men were knocked down while officers above managed to veer the ship off the spur of the iceberg, the lowest deck shaking earthquake fashion.

On the one hand, it was all too fantastic to swallow, yet on the other the detailed account rang such a convincing bell; it sounded so honest.

For now, Ingles had to slip out of here unnoticed and hope that Bowman hadn’t missed him—likely an impossibility. Kelly moaned in her sleep, and he imagined her having vivid dreams for certain if she believed everything in her ancestor’s journal. Wildly insane dreams really if she believed that someone aboard Scorpio today was the descendant of some alien creature supposedly escaped from a prehistoric beast buried in a mine shaft. Then the supposed thing hitched a ‘ride’ as any parasite in nature does via a carrier, in this case a human host, on board the Titanic ? Yeah sure, he thought. Only to survive the sinking of Titanic and leave some weird egg-sacs it’d laid—and now it was back? And finally, that it had the potential to destroy all of humanity?

If Kelly truly believed the ‘facts’ laid out in the 1912 journal, she might well endanger Scorpio ’s mission and everyone aboard. ‘Beware the man—or woman—of one book’ warned some forgotten philosopher in David’s head.

David hesitated at the door, wondering if he should not take the journal with him, wrap it in a girly magazine and read more during the day. He glanced outside; some people moving about down the corridor. He ducked back inside, decided to take the journal, and then considered the larger question now galloping through his fevered mind: Shall I continue to read this journal or turn it over to Swigart and Forbes? Let them deal with Dr. Irvin and her crazy agenda? Is she psychotic or suffering from delusions of grandeur? Either way, they’ll put her off Scorpio … and she’d no longer be my problem.

Then he recalled that she had worked with Forbes years before; how long had she lived with this plan to disrupt Dr. Juris Forbes’ expedition, a mission taking years to fund, organize, and get started? Her cover for being on board now appeared a sure infiltration, but how radical might she become—if she didn’t get her own way? Had her plans been ongoing for three years? Four years? For the better part of her life? Was she OCD on this subject or just insane? Maybe an insanity gene ran in her family. This seemed more logical than this next question: suppose the disease carrying parasitic monster did exist? Suppose she was the one infected? What if she were possessed of this so-called sentient, blood-sucking, parasite leech without a name? What if it had simply chosen her family to take root in through the generations? Why not?

One thing was for certain. She needed help, but not from David Ingles. She needed the best shrink money could buy. David’s mind raced as he thought sure, her ancestor creates this HP Lovecraft-styled nightmare, a fantastical tale about what happened aboard Titanic , offering this crazy story, and she buys it hook, line, and sinker? Fine but David Ingles’ mama raised no fools.

She rolled over onto her side, still deep in slumber. “Crazy beautiful creature,” he muttered, grabbed up the journal, and with a deep breath, he stepped out into the passageway. There he came face to face with Lena Gambio and Will Bowman who seemed in high spirits. Their conversation ceased suddenly and each stared from David to Kelly’s room and back again.

“Looks like you’re not the only one got lucky last night, Bowman,” Lena said, punched Will in the arm with a solid blow, and rushed ahead for the galley, saying, “I need that coffee, man.”

Bowman, a sure look of guilt on his black face, said, “Hey, man. Woke up, found you gone, took a stroll on deck, and Lena and me… we got to talking. Know how it is? It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, I understand.” Ingles kept the book at his side.

Bowman glanced at Kelly’s closed door, lifted his chin and smiled. “Guess you couldn’t sleep either, eh bro?”

“No… too excited about the dive to Titanic .”

“Listen, man, you got my back, I got yours. Deal?”

“Deal. Say that coffee smells good.”

“On my way, too.”

“Let me just stow this.” David snatched open their shared compartment door. “Catch up to you in a minute.”

“Reading the sailor’s bible, eh? Moby Dick?”

“Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner,” he lied, “freakin’ first edition Dr. Irvin has. We ahhh talked all night about it. Seems we share a taste for classic lit.”

“Yeah, right… talked books, got it… sure! Later then.” He gave Ingles a jumping thumbs up, obviously certain that David had done more than discuss poetry with Dr. Irvin. He finished with a fist-bump and a toothy grin before rushing off to catch up with Lena.

David had no problem translating the salacious grin on his dive partner’s face; it’d spoken volumes as Bowman had turned to make his way toward mid-ship and the galley. David heard his mutterings and laughter, his body language clearly accepting the fact that the bosses, not even Swigart, could keep human nature in line.

David saw Mendenhall who’d just then come out of his compartment. He’d been masked by Bowman until Will had passed the other diver. Jacob gave David that evil eye of his, a cold stare, studying him acutely and likely curious about both the book in David’s hand and why the look on David’s face. Had Jacob also seen him exiting Irvin’s cabin. No knowing smirk from Jacob and none expected, no laughter or thumbs up or any gesture whatsoever—just that examining eye.

David decided that if Jacob knew anything Lou Swigart would have him on the carpet by noon, and then people would really be talking. Was his secret rendezvous already out? If so, it would spread throughout the ship. “Damn,” he muttered to himself while watching Mendenhall’s back as the taller man followed in Bowman’s wake, heading to the galley, David assumed.

Moments later, David slipped into his room and tucked the journal deep below his bunk. He undressed and wrapped himself in a robe. Shortly, he exited and went to the showers, waving at other crewmen, a TV news cameraman and reporter Craig Powers. They had met the day before, but David now waved him off any thought of an interview, and instead ducked into the tight space of the shower room. He imagined himself at the center of a cellblock murder, feeling claustrophobic as there was only one way in and one way out. He replayed the shower scene in Psycho, Hitchcock’s black and white thriller—which he’d read in its original as Robert Bloch’s novel—only now in his paranoid imaginings, the victim in the shower was him!

As a result, he rushed through the shower.

Toweling off, about to exit the showers, he turned to find Kelly, her jaw set, standing in his way. She tossed his robe at him, and he quickly covered himself. “You have no right to have taken the journal without my knowledge, Dave. What’re you thinking? To turn me in? Have me booted off the boat?”

“It crossed my mind, yeah, but I’m reserving judgment until I can finish the… uh, narrative,” he only half lied as during his shower, he felt more and more compelled to read on.

“Where is it, David? Where the hell’d you put it? Damn you!”

“Hold on! Easy, Kelly, it’s in a safe place.”

“Where? There is no safe place for an object like that.”

“My room; I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea—snuck out early and I wanted to keep reading.”

Her angry features softened. “You should’ve wakened me.”