Richard Brown - Titanic With ZOMBIES

The left eye, however, was still intact and usable. And it was staring right at O’Loughlin.

Inch by inch, the wooden bench slid further out. The creature that was Dr. Simpson was almost free.

O’Loughlin unfroze and lunged forward, jabbing the pointy end of the saw into the assistant surgeon’s face. Then he pulled the saw out and did it again.

And again.

Like he was hammering a nail into a wall.

Each time Dr. Simpson withdrew his head a little bit. On the final time, as O’Loughlin pulled the saw back out, the dangling right eye caught the teeth of the saw severing the optic nerve that held it in place. The eyeball bounced off O’Loughlin’s coat and landed on the tray between the bread and water.

The head was now out of the way but the broken arm remained. O’Loughlin hurried to push the bench back to its original position, accidently spilling some of the water from the pitcher in the process, and then got to work on the arm.

Sawing.

Forward and back. Forward and back.

Oily, dark blood seeped out of the arm and ran down the doorjamb.

Dr. Simpson still showed no sign he felt any pain and increased the pressure against the door.

The bench slid back out an inch.

O’Loughlin struggled to push back against the door as he put most of his weight into sawing through the arm. He was halfway through the bone, the most strenuous part, when the battle came to an abrupt end.

He slipped and fell backward, his head nearly striking the exam table, and landed on his back a few feet from the first patient room. The amputation saw flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor, far out of reach.

He looked down at his shoes.

A small puddle was in front of the bench. The pitcher of water had defeated him.

A moment later, his friends plowed through the door and lumbered over him, hungry.

This is it, O’Loughlin thought.

William Dunford looked slightly better in appearance than Dr. Simpson, despite missing his right arm. It lay behind him on the floor, the hand still heavily bandaged. His face was a pale grey color, though still recognizable.

The smell that poured out from the room made O’Loughlin start to cough, a smell that no living thing could possibly produce.

But the two men standing in front of him weren’t living things, O’Loughlin now knew, not anymore. These two were something entirely new. Not alive, and not dead. Existing somewhere in between.

The undead.

It was time to panic.

O’Loughlin rolled on to his chest and crawled toward the main door. His two undead associates hurried after him, tumbling over the wooden bench, knocking the two loaves of bread and the remaining water to the floor.

O’Loughlin carefully stood up, unlocked and threw open the door, but something from below prevented him from crossing the threshold.

He looked down.

The something was William Dunford—he was holding on to O’Loughlin’s ankle with his left, and only, arm. Behind him, Dr. Simpson was unsuccessfully attempting to stand up in the puddle of water. O’Loughlin worked to shake his leg free, but Dunford had a powerful grip, and he used it to pull himself closer—his mouth open, ready to feed. He kicked Dunford repeatedly in the face with his free leg, yanked and twisted and squirmed, and still couldn’t detach the steward from his ankle.

Then he heard the scream.

O’Loughlin looked out into the stairwell at a young woman no more than twenty-five standing at the base of the stairs. She stared at him with a look of horrified shock. O’Loughlin stared back blankly, gasping for each breath, as all the world around him seemed to fade into a dreamlike silence.

He didn’t ask her to help him. He knew he didn’t deserve the help, and she didn’t deserve to be put in that kind of danger. She was too scared to move anyway, too scared to speak or even scream again. Her look expressed all of his worst fears coming true. And his, all the guilt.

“Go find help!” he yelled.

But she didn’t move. She had her eyes fixed on him, slowly widening, while the thing that was once William Dunford wrapped its solo arm around his right leg from behind and slithered up toward his waist.

She finally conceded and ran up the staircase after a second creature, one with only half a face, clutched the good doctor’s shoulders from behind and took a mouthful of flesh from the side of his neck.

SMITH

For the second night in a row, Captain Smith found himself being woken suddenly by one of his officers. This time it was First Officer William Murdoch, who was more distraught than Smith had ever seen him. Murdoch spit out the entire story as fast as he could.

A young woman from steerage had practically jumped into his arms, he recounted, begged for him to do something. Through her sobs, she tried to explain. She spoke of horribly disfigured monsters on D-deck, creatures Mary Shelley couldn’t even imagine.

Murdoch didn’t believe her.

She was delusional.

Then he went down to see for himself.

She had stayed up on the boat deck under the watch of Sixth Officer James Moody, defiant in her unwillingness to follow Murdoch back down there.

Upon reaching the landing on D-deck, the first officer understood why.

“As I came down the stairs I could see the hospital door was open,” Murdoch told Smith. “And when I got closer I saw blood all around the door, and all over the floor. Some even on the walls. So I carefully stepped inside the hospital...and I swear to God, sir...” He paused to gather himself. Smith now noticed Murdoch was trembling. “It was like a damn butcher shop in there.”

Having heard enough, Smith immediately ordered Murdoch to wake the others and then meet him on the bridge. Less than ten minutes later, all the officers gathered in the wheelhouse waiting further orders. Of them, only Murdoch and Lightoller had any clue why they were there. The captain first spoke with his second in command, Chief Officer Henry T. Wilde, in private, and then after Wilde left the bridge, turned and addressed the rest of the group.

“I’ll try to be as brief as possible, gentlemen, because we don’t have a lot of time. I promise to give you a more thorough explanation later.”

Smith took a deep breath.

“Mr. Murdoch has brought to my attention a very serious situation on D-deck. There were three patients staying in the hospital down there who were carrying a deadly virus, and despite our best efforts to keep it contained, keep them contained, it seems they’ve somehow escaped. I can’t stress enough how dangerous these individuals may be. The virus causes them to become extremely violent and noncompliant, as both Lightoller and Murdoch can attest.”

“How will we know who they are?” asked Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall.

“You’ll know,” Lightoller replied. “Trust me.”

“The biggest problem is we don’t know where they are,” Smith continued. “Most likely they are still down on D-deck. So for now we’re going to order all passengers not already sleeping to their staterooms, hopefully to limit any further contamination. Chief Officer Wilde has already begun gathering as many crewmembers as possible to assist in the lockdown. I’m going to remain on the bridge with Quartermaster Hichens so you can find me here if you need me. Pittman, Boxhall, Lowe, and Moody. I want you guys to spread out and take different sections of the ship. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious, and more importantly, make sure everyone gets to their rooms. We don’t need passengers panicking, or worse, curious. Be as respectful as you can, but don’t be afraid to exercise force if you must. As I said, we mustn’t allow any further contamination of the ship. Please go now and be careful.”