Richard Brown - Titanic With ZOMBIES

Just past the forward first-class staircase was John Jacob Astor’s suite of rooms, C-62/63/64.

John’s young bride Madeline answered the door in a cream-colored nightgown. It was hardly noticeable that she was pregnant.

“Where is John?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Brown.”

“Get yourself together. We should go find him.”

Madeline looked concerned. “Why?”

“Remember the infection everyone was talking about over dinner? Well, it’s on the loose. And to make matters worse, I think we’ve hit an iceberg.”

“An iceberg? So that was the—”

“The tremor you felt? It was.”

“Give me a moment.”

Margaret waited outside in the hall, watching as people frantically ran by as though they were being pursued by some dreadful monster. The injuries many among them displayed were as diverse as they were numerous.

This will be a night to remember, Margaret thought. Or one to forget.

LIGHTOLLER

“Watch out! Behind you!” Lightoller shouted.

Sixth Officer Moody turned and took two shots at an infected woman limping toward him, her face a cascading tower of rotting skin. Both shots put holes only in the wall behind her.

Lightoller pushed Moody out of the way and put a bullet in the center of her forehead.

“I can’t keep bailing you out,” Lightoller said. “That’s the second time now, aye. Keep it together. Otherwise you may as well go sit in a dark corner and let me do this myself.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Moody.

“Don’t be sorry. Be confident.”

“I guess I’m having a hard time with the idea of killing someone.”

“If you don’t kill them then they’ll kill you, or someone else. It’s that simple. Try not to think about how many people you kill, but how many you can save.”

Given the sheer number of injured passengers they passed, Lightoller wondered if he was simply spitting out empty rhetoric just to keep Moody calm. He was close to calling this mission a lost cause, and didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when the rest of these people turned.

Split off from Murdoch and Lowe a deck above, Lightoller and Moody had worked their way down E-deck toward the front of the ship, along the way encountering a few infected, some already dead, and dozens of newly infected. By Lightoller’s count, better than half of the escapees from the general room had perished, not including any Murdoch and Lowe might have disposed of. Still, he feared they were too late, and the damage had already been done.

Then came the unexpected jarring sound that had caused all the walls around them to shiver. Lightoller had no idea what caused the troubling vibration, possibly an explosion in the forward hull.

Pushing on, they came to the last set of elevators. Dozens of passengers bullied past them in a riotous panic. Those that couldn’t squeeze into one of the elevators, or grew tired of waiting for one to return, elected to take the stairs. Lightoller observed a good number of people with visible bite marks and scratches on various areas of their bodies.

“It’s no use.”

“Sir?”

Lightoller looked down at a small pool of blood on the floor across from the elevators. “I want you to go back to the bridge and tell the captain this isn’t working, not in the least. That it’s spread too far, and we may need to consider calling for assistance.”

“And what of you, sir?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to keep on down here. Try to find the source of that explosion.”

“I would rather stay an assist you, sir.”

“I don’t need assistance. No need for bravery, Moody. Just do as I say.”

Moody nodded and went around the corner toward the stairs, Lightoller the opposite direction.

Continuing forward.

Into the quiet beyond the crowd.

SMITH

“No sign of damage in the passenger areas, sir,” said Fourth Officer Boxhall, stepping into the wheelhouse. After the collision, the captain had sent him below to inspect for any sign of damage. “However, Carpenter Hutchinson insists the ship is making water. That the mail hold is filling rapidly.”

“Go down and confirm it,” said Smith. “Report back immediately.”

“Right away, sir.”

The next to stop in was Chief Officer Wilde with Third Officer Pittman. Captain Smith could tell immediately by the tousled look of their clothing that something had happened.

“We were attacked, sir. By those awful things,” said Pittman. “But we managed to escape without nary a scratch.”

“It’s out of control,” Wilde added. “And I regret to say there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

“We may have bigger problems, Henry.”

“Indeed, I know we’ve struck ice,” said Wilde. “Air is escaping from the forepeak tank, and water has begun flooding in. Hemming confirmed this.”

Smith sighed. “Would you say the damage is serious?”

“I’m afraid it’s more than serious, Captain.”

Smith checked the compass to see if the ship had begun listing. He had checked it shortly after Boxhall first went down to inspect for damage, and found no significant change in level. This time he wasn’t so fortunate.

“Dear God,” he muttered. “Already five degrees to starboard. Two degrees down by the head. Pittman, summon Andrews.”

Smith and Wilde entered the navigating room connected to the wheelhouse.

“What’s wrong?” said Smith.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t want to say anything with Pittman here. But I see the way you’re holding your hand.”

Wilde leaned into a corner and hung his head.

“Be honest with me, Henry,” said Smith. “What happened down there?”

“It’s absolute chaos,” Wilde finally said, looking up to meet eyes with the captain. “Worse than you can imagine. So many injured in so little time I—I can’t explain it. I wish I could.”

“And...?”

Wilde pulled up his left coat sleeve. “I was bitten...by one of them.”

Seeing the faint red of blood on the CO’s hand caused Smith’s heart to sink.

“I kept it quiet from Pittman, at first hoping it didn’t puncture the skin. When I found a moment to myself, I confirmed that indeed it had. What does this mean? Am I infected?”

Before Smith could answer, Thomas Andrews came into the navigating room with an armful of charts and blueprints, Pittman behind him.

“He was already on his way, sir,” said Pittman.

“Good, thank you. If you could take watch of the bridge for now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thomas Andrews laid out a large side view blueprint of the Titanic’s deck plans on the chart table, and then began discussing different possible scenarios in which the ship could stay afloat. In a matter of minutes, all such hopeful thought would be struck down by the stark reality of truth.

April 15, 1912

SMITH

Fourth Officer Boxhall returned from below with a litany of bad news.

As the carpenter had said, the mail room was full of water and had risen to within a foot or two of the top of the stairs. The forward cargo holds were also flooded, and boiler room number six had already filled to a depth of over fourteen feet.

“As of right now, water has begun to spill over into the fifth boiler room,” said Boxhall. “Crewmen are working to pump it out.”

“It will do little good,” said Andrews.

“Is there anything we can do?” asked Smith.

“She was only designed to stay afloat with the first four compartments flooded, but not five,” Andrews said, indicating the forepeak and three cargo holds on the blueprint. “As the bow sinks, the water will spill over each bulkhead one after another until—”