Richard Brown - Titanic With ZOMBIES

He turned around at the sound of his name. Even from a distance, Margaret could see the dark bags under his eyes and the sweat gleaming from every pore on his face. He was beginning to look a lot like—

One of them, Margaret thought. But that can’t be, could it?

Andrews looked directly at Margaret and then hurried off.

“What in the heck,” Margaret said, and stood up. The lifeboat swayed as the balance momentarily shifted. “Hey, Mr. Andrews. Where are you—”

“Madam, sit back down now,” yelled George Hogg, a lookout and one of three crewmen in charge of lifeboat number seven.

“I’ll do you one better.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Madeline. She had stopped crying in a flash.

“You stay here,” Margaret said. Then she grabbed hold of the railing even with the lifeboat and pulled herself through an open window on to the promenade deck.

Now Madeline stood up.

“You sit down and stay there,” Margaret barked.

“Yeah, sit down,” Hogg echoed.

Madeline reluctantly obeyed, while Margaret ran off to catch a fleeing Thomas Andrews.

SMITH

The Titanic sat dead in the water, its bow beginning to shift slightly downward. The bridge and wheelhouse were empty. All hands were on deck, the boat deck, working with a shared objective to save as many souls as possible.

An overwhelming task, for sure.

Crewmen were stationed at every entrance to the boat deck for the purpose of crowd control. But they were unarmed and could do very little to contain the disorder, as evidenced by the dead bodies lying all around. Blood ran all along the once magnificent wooden deck, seeping into the cracks between the boards, soon to be washed away.

The depravity exhibited by the infected was unimaginable. They resembled human beings only in form. In every other way, they were a thing of evil, minions of the devil himself, incapable of being reasoned with, of thinking, of emotion. They were slaves to their desires, acting purely on instinct.

So far, they made up only a small percentage of the passengers, but with each minute that passed, the scale tipped further in their direction.

If there was any good to come from the ship foundering, it was that the infection would not make it to the shore, sparring countless persons such a grim and unpleasant fate. The cold dark sea would provide the final quarantine.

Captain Smith peered over the edge of the ship. Lifeboat seven had been launched with a full load and gradually slipped off into the distance. A moment later, the crew in charge stopped rowing as a battle had broken out.

“Are you making certain no infected get into the lifeboats?” Smith asked of First Officer Murdoch, who was helping load lifeboat five.

“Trying my best, sir. Checking them as thoroughly as possible.”

“Try harder, Mr. Murdoch,” said Smith, still looking out at the infected uprising occurring on lifeboat seven. “It seems that a few may have slipped through the cracks.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Smith walked up and down the deck in a daze, mumbling to himself, wondering what in God’s name they did to deserve this. Two crewmen on the port side had taken it upon themselves to do a little deck cleaning, carrying the dead bodies one by one to the edge, and then tossing them overboard.

Also on the port side, standing in a circle near the entrance to the first-class staircase, was the orchestra. Led by violinist, Wallace Hartley, the small ensemble would normally be inside providing entertainment to the first-class passengers via the dining saloon or lounge, but Smith had asked them to brave the cold in hopes that the music would help calm the passengers. It didn’t appear to be working in that regard, but the current cheery ragtime number did present a clear contrast to the sound of screaming chaos.

Coming up to the bow, Smith thought his eyes were deceiving him.

“Is that a steamer approaching,” he asked Fourth Officer Boxhall, pointing in the direction of the flickering lights far off in the distance.

“I hadn’t noticed, sir.”

“Try to signal it with the Morse lamp, would you? And have Rowe fetch the rockets. Tell him to fire one every five minutes.”

“Right away.”

The Carpathia was supposed to be the closest ship to their position, roughly fifty-eight miles to the southeast. It would arrive in no better than four hours. This ship visible on the horizon, however, could be no more than ten miles away.

LIGHTOLLER

Of all the places to die, Lightoller thought, striking his final match. He had already smoked the last of his tobacco, so he used the short flame to check the time on his pocket watch.

1:05 a.m.

He fanned the match out and then leaned back and listened to the moans of the infected outside the door. By now, he had expected to be free of the dark linen closet. He had devised the most brilliant of plans very early on.

Wait them out.

Eventually the tortured souls standing guard would go find easier prey, or some unlucky mate would run by and draw their attention away. And then...?

Why then he’d sneak out like a housecat.

He just needed to be patient. Wait them out.

So brilliant.

Forty-five minutes later, they were still there, still driving him crazy. Once the cold water snuck under the door like a snake and bit into his feet, he knew the window of escape was about to close. The water was only ankle high, but was rising fast. He’d have to make a stand soon or drown.

He checked his pockets again for the hundredth time, digging into every corner. Not one bullet.

He searched the shelves one final time. Towels. Bed sheets. Pillows. All still useless.

The best weapon he had was trying to kill him in the coldest of manners.

The water.

No more sneaking out like a cat.

He’d swim out like a fish.

BROWN

Margaret felt like she’d wandered into a time loop. Once more, she was looking for Thomas Andrews, and again he managed to elude her.

After leaving lifeboat seven, she had quickly lost sight of him behind a swarm of passengers. A fight had broken out, preventing her from being able to safely follow him further down the promenade deck.

The infected class refused to go down quietly, their numbers having doubled in the last half hour, and higher numbers meant more violence. Around every turn was another battle, another sickening display of malevolence. The blood of hundreds of passengers stained new patterns into the carpeting, splattered against the richly adorned walls, dripped from the polished brass light fixtures.

The most magnificent ship ever built, with luxury and class like no other, had now become littered with corpses—some slumped over on the floor with their insides hanging out, others defying death and walking around searching for their next victim. In a short time, the Titanic had become the setting for a war between the living and the undead.

And the undead were winning.

Margaret avoided going into battle herself, circling and weaving around the infected as best she could. But such good fortune wouldn’t last long.

The door was unlocked, but Andrews wasn’t in his stateroom. Likewise, he wasn’t in the dining saloon, the reading and writing room, the lounge, or either of the cafes. Margaret went as far down as C-deck before giving up; the number of infected were simply too strong in the lower decks. If he was down there, he was probably either dead or one of them.

The thought of her new friend becoming one of those things made her feel ill. He was such a kind and gentle man. If he had to die, he deserved to die with his dignity, and all of his limbs, still intact.

Margaret hurried back up the aft first-class staircase, hoping there were still lifeboats left. She was almost up to the boat deck when she realized there was one room she hadn’t checked.