Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

Ransom looked beyond Charles Lightoller to see Murdoch leading a group of strong-armed men of the black gang variety coming straight for them. “Get inside here!” He pulled Lightoller into the freezer entry room and slammed the door closed. Then he sent the wheel lock spiraling and when he heard the tumbler snap, he rammed his cane into the wheel to hold it locked against the outside.

Murdoch’s shouting and banging was muffled, but the rage and anger was unmistakably palpable, despite the impenetrable metal door.

Lightoller held the journal up to Declan and Thomas. “This is… this is so unfortunate.” Lightoller was hardly older than the interns, and he was obviously shaken at having come to the conclusion that these strangers to him had indeed a case, a horrible one at that. “I will do all I can to help you convince the captain of just how dire our circumstances are.”

Just then Farley shouted, “Eureka!” and he threw the padlock across the room, the sound of it rattling off the metal floor. Elated, the old man tore open the locker, gasped and fell backward, his dog barking and going to him.

Ransom and the others approached the huge footlocker to see not only Davenport but two other bodies stacked below him. Three corpses! One undoubtedly Burnsey, another Davenport, but to whom did the third corpse belong?

“My god,” said Lightoller. “It’s Davenport, Burnsey, and-and Dr. O’Laughlin!”

“Guess he believes us now,” muttered Thomas with a little shake of the head.

“Whoever the bloody carrier is now,” began Ransom, “it’s certainly worked its way up the social ladder, now hasn’t it?”

“What are ye talking about?” asked Farley.

Lightoller parroted the question.

Ransom pointed to the dead. “It starts with a lowly member of your black gang, a stoker… works its way up to an officer—an influential ship’s surgeon, no less.”

“Yeah, not just any officer—your medical officer,” said Declan. “Second only to your captain.”

“What’re you saying?” Lightoller shrugged.

Ransom threw up his hands. “No doubt this thing has learned about hierarchy in human society, so now it’s become interested in rising to the level of your captain—the man in charge!”

“We can’t let that happen!”

“We must open these bodies up,” Declan said, going to a stash of hanging utensils and huge carving knives. “Thomas, we’ll have to make do with what is at hand. They took my scalpel when they arrested us, and I’ve not seen it since. It would be useless for bone at any rate. We’ll have to do more than simply crack open the chests of each victim.”

“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.”