Catt Dahman - Titanic 1912 - A Lovecraft Mythos Novel

I saw a figure in the fog, his legs heavily plated with flesh-armour, the color of unwashed linens. There were spiraling horns and a little sucking, grasping, round mouth with rows upon rows of sharp teeth; he looked at us hungrily. His gelatinous, rheumy eyes followed our movements. Despite the armour, hunger, and his ferocity, I felt he was a weakling and a coward in a fight and would behave slug-like.

That repulsed me.

With a look of hatred, he (it was a male creature, for he had prodigious male genitalia) spit a wad of phlegm at us, and it sailed across (what I imagined were) dimensions and time to land right on the deck. The slime reeked of rot and vomit. Any predator would take one whiff and flee from the creature so repulsive was his spittle.

The huge fish swam ahead of us, and the yellow mist faded.

One of the crewmen approached the substance, a wad the fish spit on the deck. They were vacillating, unsure if they should approach or run away, and they still had to give a report to their seniors about the loss of a man. What a dreadful time this was for every one of us.

“Do not get near it; it is a dreadful thing,” I said, settling the issue. I felt a deep trepidation as they walked closer to the slime. Why did no one heed my warnings? If it smelt badly, it also looked nauseating, and looking upon it made my teeth throb with pain. I cannot begin to explain how terrible the jelly was.

The man looked at the stinking chaos of pudding, and of all things, he reached out with a finger to poke at it. I wanted to shriek at him to stop. Did he not realize how dangerous it was? Had he not realized that the fish had just eaten his crewmate?

Immediately, he began to howl with pain as the goo burned and eroded his finger to the bone like an acid. It spread up his hand, thinning out, until there was no flesh but just bare bones that glistened in the faint light.

He passed out from the pain, his eyes rolling back in his head so only the white portion showed. His crewmate grabbed a bucket of seawater that he used for mopping the deck. Throwing the water on his friend’s hand and arm, he saved the man from being scalded alive.

“I best get ‘im to the infirmary.” The husky crewman hefted the injured man over his shoulder and set off to get medical aid. “Sir, I can only beg ye not to speak of this.”

“You can be assured I shall not. I dare think no one would believe me if I did tell. Will you inform the Captain then?”

“Aye. Well, he’s asleepin’, but I’ll be finding Mr. Murdoch as soon as this man is seen to.”

“Good deal. Be about it, and hurry,” I said.

I was not sure what the man would do. He might throw the wounded man over the railing before having to tell this outlandish story. Whatever he did, it did not matter, for I would not approach Mr. Murdoch about the terrible matter.

I broke a chair and scooped the disgusting mess out into the sea. The mess let out a squeal that made my teeth ache as it hissed and shuddered in the black water. Soon, we were almost out of sight of it, but I saw the big fish swim over and raise its head to swallow the slime.

I had never seen such a thing as this fish. It was huge, ancient, and monstrous. His teeth were of nightmares.

A prehistoric creature, he had a thick snout; black, lifeless eyes that betrayed no pity or compassion, only hunger; and a dull, rough skin that I imagined would skin anyone who touched him. His mouth was cavernous, peeled back to reveal rows of sharp teeth, each longer than my hand from wrist to finger tips.

I knew at once that he must have escaped from that yellow-misted world where monsters abounded. His dead eyes and gigantic size made me sure he was not of our world but what world could he be from? And, moreover, how had we entered into a dimension rip? My head buzzed with all the horror and the questions I had.

I was sick and afraid. Where were we? Where had this ship taken us, and were we moving away or closer to the abominations?

I felt ill.

In fear, I went to my room and crawled into bed, fully clothed but for my jacket and shoes, pulled the covers up to my chin, and tried to force the images from my head.

As large as the Titanic was, I felt very small and vulnerable with the giant shark circling the ship and the mist so close as to almost be touched. In the morning, I would peruse the library to find out what the leviathan was.

As it was, I never had the chance.

At 10:40 in the Marconi Room, Jack Phillips received a message from the Californian , a ship that was fairly close. “ Say old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice. ” It was at least the sixth message about ice the operator had taken, and all the ships were relaying that they were among ice fields.

Jack was tired and had been busy sending passengers’ messages all evening. For a small fee, the passengers could message family and friends and enjoyed that extravagance. Because his system was down the day before, he was backlogged and trying to catch up with his typing.

“ Shut up! Shut up! I am busy ,” he sent back. Why a radio operator wanted to send messages and chat about the weather, relaying the same words over and over, he did not know nor care, but then he was not a man to enjoy idle chatter either.

Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, trained by the Marconi School, could type over twenty-five words a minute, and they sent message after message for those who paid, as well as messages for the officers when ordered.

While the two men received messages from several other ships that there were ice fields everywhere, they were so busy sending messages for the passengers that they never passed the messages to the officers, assuming that they were aware of the ice fields. After all, posts about ice fields had been coming in since early in the morning.

Captain Smith may not have been aware of the reports from the evening. He knew there was ice, but was not aware that there were ice fields that evening.

The Marconi operator for the Californian , the nearest ship to the Titanic , retired to bed as they were stuck in the ice.

William Murdoch relieved Charles Lightoller at 10:00. The Captain was asleep but he told the crew that if anything changed, to awaken him. He had redirected them to the south slightly, and they were staying steady at twenty-two knots, almost their top speed. The seas were calm and beautiful under a moonless, star-filled sky.

At 11:30, two men in the crow’s nest were watching the waters. They noticed a yellow haze and thought they saw movement as the ship sped along.

They thought they must be imagining things because there was no way they saw a landmass off to the side or rodent-like creatures skittering about the mammoth legs of a creature that towered so tall they could not see its head. In this area, there were no islands or anything else that was solid ground.

‘The giant was a behemoth,’ like the Bible said. And then, just as the Good Book described, ‘ there was a leviathan .’

A giant fin and tail swam between the ship and the mist.

Men of the sea could always claim they had seen amazing, unbelievable creatures, lights, and ghost ships, but these two men never witnessed anything such as this.

“I’m a’seeing things,” Fleet said, rubbing his eyes. They were not issued binoculars and sorely wished for them. What kind of lookout was kept without necessary equipment?

But there close to the mist’s edge, was something queer. At first, it was a small, jagged dark shape that blocked the stars on the horizon. As the ship sped along, the shape became large, arising mountainous from the water for almost seventy feet; it was clear, not white, and was the product of eons of melting and refreezing. As it had no color, it reflected the moonless sky like a mirror. It was a black-berg.