Richard Brown - Titanic With ZOMBIES

The first-class smoke room.

It had slipped her mind, likely due to her having never been inside, as the room was always off limits to women. But that wouldn’t matter now.

Margaret carefully headed inside, amazed as she took in the room for the first time. The smoke room, with its mahogany paneled walls and colorful stained glass windows, somehow hadn’t been touched by the devastation that engulfed many of the other public rooms. There wasn’t one dead body, not even an overturned chair. Everything was as it should be. Immaculate.

It was also the perfect hiding place for Thomas Andrews. He was standing in front of the fireplace, looking up at a painting of Plymouth Harbour hanging above, his back turned to her.

“There you are,” said Margaret. “What do you think you’re doing in here? Aren’t you at least gonna try and save yourself?”

Andrews hung his head but didn’t respond. Outside, a rocket shot off and exploded in the air, cutting through the stiff silence.

“Mr. Andrews? Are you okay?” She began walking toward him. “I know this must be tough on you, but you got to get past it. You have a family to think about. Mr. Andrews?”

She stopped right behind him, suddenly startled by the horrible sound she heard. It was barely above a whisper, like slow, dry breathing, but it was unmistakable.

Thomas Andrews turned around and stared at Margaret with buggy white eyes and a grave face.

Margaret reared back and fell between two chairs. Andrews followed her down, grabbing at her feet as she slipped underneath the table and out the other side. Back standing, Margaret pushed the table over, trapping him.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that,” she said, looking down at him struggling underneath the table. “But I get why you ran now. You knew what you’d become. Maybe I knew then too but didn’t want to believe it. Maybe I just needed to say goodbye.”

Andrews reached out for Margaret like he wanted her hand to help him, but he didn’t try to push the table off. He lay there, full of helpless rage, writhing back and forth, unable to understand why he couldn’t move.

Margaret walked to where Andrews had originally been in front of the fireplace. In a sheath beside the fire was a brass poker with an intricate design engraved into the handle. She picked up the poker and walked back over to Andrews.

“Poor guy, I know you’re suffering, and I can’t stand to see people suffer. I really wish there was a better way of doing this, but I’m afraid this is the best I got. We both have somewhere to go, and not a lot of time. Me...I’ve got a lifeboat to catch. And you...”

She gripped the poker hand over hand and then brought it up slowly over her head.

“Well, hopefully this will help you get where you’re going a little faster.”

She brought the poker down on the side of Andrews’s head. It drove through his skull with remarkable ease and came to a sharp stop against the carpet. An appalling odor, and a splash of dark blood, broke free from the crushing hole.

“To heaven,” Margaret said, her hands still wound tightly around the brass poker, trembling. “Hopefully, to heaven.”

Andrews instantly went motionless as all remaining brain activity ceased and his soul was finally allowed to go free.

Margaret left her friend in the smoke room with the poker still embedded in his skull and hurried back up to the boat deck. From the looks of it, the officers were having an even harder time than before at getting the lifeboats lowered. Many passengers finally got the idea that the ship was going to sink and made for the top deck in droves, bringing with them waves of the sick and violent, and despite the crew’s best efforts, they couldn’t keep them off the top deck to save their lives.

Margaret got a seat on number six. Quartermaster Robert Hichens was in charge this time, and she hoped he would be less of a bastard than George Hogg from boat seven.

LIGHTOLLER

The water was up to his waist now, and so cold he felt like he was wearing a pair of ice undies. If he didn’t get moving soon, he might never be able to have any more children, or worse yet, see the ones he already had ever again.

Upon opening the door, a flood of water poured in and pushed him back against the closet shelving. He allowed the water to stabilize and level off before attempting to move.

Had he waited too long?

The water outside was almost shoulder high, but thankfully he didn’t see any infected. They had either moved on willingly before the brunt of the water arrived, or had been swept away with the current when it did. Most likely the latter. They could even be under the water still, drowned or drowning.

Or alive.

Like the one that attacked him on the staircase on G-deck—the one that would have killed him had Moody not decided to come back. He felt ashamed that he wasn’t able to return the favor when Moody needed him, but dying now would make Moody’s death all the more in vain.

I’ve made it this far, Lightoller thought. It’s just freezing cold water.

He took a deep breath and dove under.

It was a good thing he had committed the layout of the ship to memory because he could barely see anything, and the cold saltwater felt like it was burning away his eyes.

He swam straight out of the linen closet and then as deep down as he could. Not five yards beyond the closet, he encountered the first infected. The overhead lights from the stairs leading down to F-deck helped illuminate the water, allowing Lightoller to easily see it in time.

The infected woman was thrashing about under the water, her eyes as open as his, searching for the way out, which happened to be just a little farther down on the right. Not for him, however, as he could now see many sets of legs.

The stairs leading up to D-deck was crowded with infected.

Lightoller came up for a second to take a breath and then went back down. Once he passed the stairs, the water drastically reduced in volume, back to a little over waist high, allowing him to stand again. As he emerged from the water, the infected behind him on the stairs immediately took notice, moaning and floundering in the water to try and get over to him with no luck. Of all things they were—dedicated overeaters—swimmers they were not.

Lightoller turned his focus from those trapped against the stairs and looked down the long hallway up ahead.

More.

Four men and three women hobbled around with their heads crooked to the side like a bunch of dilapidated drunks trying to remember which room was theirs. Water played around at their knees.

“Shit,” Lightoller whispered, knowing he’d have to find another way. The hallway was too cramped to slip past them and he didn’t have bullets to mow them down. Meanwhile, the water had already risen another foot up to his chest.

He turned to his left and looked over at another set of stairs leading up on the starboard side past the master at arms station. It looked free of ghouls from where he stood.

He slogged through the water toward the starboard side and then slowed down as he came upon the staircase. He checked the door to the master at arms but it was locked. Then he gradually inched through the water until he could see on to the staircase.

One infected, standing about a third of the way up, hunched over like he was about to do a belly flop into the water.

Lightoller whistled to get his attention.

The infected man looked up and growled, but didn’t move an inch, as if he knew not to get into the water.

Was this one smarter than the rest? The others on the port side would have tried anything to take a piece out of him. If this one wouldn’t move off the stairs, then he would be difficult to pass without injury. It had the benefit of higher ground, and much less water to slow it down.