Deck Z - The Titanic (18 page)

MARCONI ROOM
.

MONDAY, APRIL
15, 1912. 12:29
A.M
.

Radio operator Harold Bride returned from a trip to the wheelhouse, where he had breathlessly reported the news to First Officer Murdoch that a ship,
Carpathia,
was coming as fast as she could. “Less than four hours away and putting all her steam into it!” The news seemed to brighten the dark mood on the bridge. Bride was determined to find more help.

“Always seems to be a dozen ships around until you really need one,” groused Jack Phillips, tapping away on his wireless with tobacco-stained fingertips. The senior Marconi man knew the ship was compromised, but his faith in the indomitable
Titanic
was steadfast. After all, other ruptured ships had stayed afloat for days. Still, the peculiar guttural rasp from below made listening for incoming messages more difficult than usual. “I’ve been sending
CQD! CQD!
for an hour. Maybe we’d have better response if I said we were overcome by pirates.”

CQD
was one of the first codes Bride had learned, a distress signal developed for the world’s new wireless system.
CQ,
Bride knew, basically meant “stop sending all those damn messages and pay attention!” while the
D,
of course, was for “distress.”

Bride had an idea. “Try the new one, why don’t you? ‘Save Our Souls’ might scare up something.”

“Anything for a change of pace,” agreed Phillips. He started tapping and employed the latest international distress signal for the first time:

S-O-S. S-O-S. S-O-S.

BOAT DECK
.

MONDAY, APRIL
15, 1912. 12:57
A.M
.

Many concerned faces confronted Captain Smith and Andrews as they emerged on the boat deck. Yet to their great relief, they saw that the zombie menace had not yet arrived topside.

Crew members were trying to organize the rattled passengers, many still in their nightclothes, and announcing that the imminent evacuation was strictly for precautionary measures. Meanwhile, desperate signal flares screamed across the night sky, casting otherworldly light over the crowds on the boat deck. Anxiety had not yet become panic, but anyone with a head for arithmetic could see there would not be enough lifeboats for all.

“Andrews,” Captain Smith said, “we need to find Weiss straight away.”

Andrews ran to a nearby cargo crane and climbed up the ladder into darkness, giving him a better vantage point. He surveyed the deck, his head swiveling from right to left until he spotted his target. “I have them,” Andrews shouted down. He pointed to where Lou and Weiss were standing on a bench and scanning the crowd themselves. The captain hurried over to them.

“We’re trying to find Mr. Hargraves,” exclaimed Lou. “He tried to kill Mr. Weiss! He’s the one who stole …”

“The vial with the Toxic,” finished Weiss. “Hargraves is the Kaiser’s agent, he had it all along.” Weiss gritted his teeth. “I’m not going to let him off this ship. He …”

Smith cut him off. “I’m ordering you to make sure no one is allowed on the lifeboats that exhibits any signs of the sickness. It can’t leave this ship … in any form.”

“But—” Weiss began.

“There is no other way off this ship than those lifeboats. You’ll have no better opportunity to find your man and what he stole. I shall persevere to keep order and ensure the safety of those who are allowed to depart.”

Weiss agreed with the plan. It was more practical than any kind of search he could undertake on his own. Rather than seeking out the Kaiser’s man, Weiss would wait for the Agent to show himself.

Lou then asked, “Where’s your sword, sir?”

“Broken. Its time had come,” Smith replied. “Now go and do as I’ve said.”

“Yes, sir,” Lou barked.

Weiss searched the captain’s face, and what the German found made it difficult to say “Yes, sir,” and obey the order. But he did.

First Officer Murdoch had taken charge of seamen working feverishly to lower the odd-numbered lifeboats on
Titanic
’s starboard side, while Chief Officer Wilde supervised men lowering the even-numbered boats on the port side.

No good spot existed for Weiss to set up a mass inspection, so he did his best: he formed a line on the engineer’s promenade, port side. His job was to send passengers through to the waiting lifeboats, once they were determined clear of infection. Because the passengers’
numbers were so great, Weiss enlisted several junior officers to assist him. He gave them a rough outline of the situation: a serious infection was present on the ship. They needed to detain anyone who was feverish, complained of headaches, or most serious of all, had any dark fluid coming from their nose, mouth, or ears. Weiss refrained from explaining what happened next. Finally, he instructed the officers to be on the lookout for a man with slicked-back hair and a pencil-thin mustache. The man was a murderer who should be arrested.

Walking up and down the passenger line, Wilde and Murdoch made it known that no one would leave
Titanic
without verification that they were fit for rescue. The passengers, nearly all first- and second-class, submitted to the inspections—for all they knew, it was normal protocol to answer questions about their general health and to have eyes, ears, and mouth inspected by a medical man before abandoning ship.

As the inspections got underway, Lou stood by Weiss, acting as a second set of eyes to search for Hargraves and the Toxic. They’d seen no sign yet of the man Lou had nearly incinerated just an hour before.

The ship’s store of handguns was lost below to the zombie menace. To keep order in any scenario, Chief Officer Charles Lightoller rounded up all weapons he could find for crowd control. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, a stocky sailor with squinty eyes, revealed a pair of Browning semi-automatics that he’d smuggled aboard. “Thought they might come in handy if I ever ran into trouble,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Trouble it is,” said Lightoller, ignoring the rule violation. “But no shooting. Wave them around and holler a bit if anyone tries to get wise.”

Two Catholic priests wandered among the waiting passengers, offering comfort. Six older men in topcoats gathered around the first stack, smoking pipes and trying to look the part of elders. Lou
watched as a tearful father still in his nightclothes bid farewell to his two young sons, touching their chins and transferring responsibility for their mother onto their slight shoulders.

Eventually, a small mob of angry men formed in the inspection line. The largest hollered that they ought not wait any longer. His fellows agreed; they broke out of line and rushed Lifeboat 2, intent on commandeering the craft. Lightoller jumped in after them, brandishing one of the Brownings and threatening to do in any man who didn’t abdicate in favor of women and children. The ploy worked, even though Lightoller’s gun wasn’t loaded.

Weiss was surprised that nearly all of the passengers looked healthy. Perhaps closing the watertight doors had done some good after all. So far, he’d found only two cases of infection, a pair of young, black-haired brothers. Swallowing hard, Weiss had sent them to be quarantined in the officers’ cabins by able seamen. Both children were in the early stages of the illness, with just traces of ooze in their saliva, but each was infected just the same. “We’re going to put you on a better boat very soon,” he told them, offering kindness over honesty. “Invent some games to play while you wait.”

The continued absence of the Agent was making Weiss anxious, and he considered other possibilities: perhaps the Kaiser’s man had commandeered one of the lifeboats and escaped before
Titanic
’s crew started the evacuation. But surely news of a missing lifeboat would have reached Weiss by now. Maybe the man had his own means of escape—a military craft, perhaps an inflatable. But then what? Such a thing couldn’t traverse the ocean. It would need a ship or submarine rendezvous. While Weiss couldn’t dismiss the notion entirely, it seemed unlikely.
The simplest explanation is probably correct,
thought Weiss.
He’s still on board, and I’m going to find him.

Lifeboats had been steadily filled and lowered without incident. Yet a sense of panic was escalating as
Titanic
’s deck tilted farther
toward the water. No rescue ships were appearing on the dark horizon. On one lifeboat, a woman screamed for her husband. Fewer than a dozen lifeboats remained to be loaded, and Weiss would make sure one young lady got aboard. He took Lou by the arm.

“We ain’t found him yet!” cried Lou, realizing what was happening. “And I ain’t leaving until we get ‘im!”

“It’s for your own good, Lou,” Weiss replied, motioning for a nearby able seaman. “Mr. Buley, hold her while I conduct my inspection.”

“Get your mitts off me. You know I got no sickness,” Lou growled, pulling her arms from Buley’s grasp. “No spook ever got his teeth into me and you’re the witness, so you can keep your doctor visit.”

Weiss spoke quietly, so others wouldn’t hear, as he started his exam: “You’ve seen how many have already died on this ship, Lou. More are about to die. Do you know how many of those men standing over there would trade places with you? They’re losing everything. Don’t be a fool.”

“I already lost everything,” said Lou. “Let me help you get Hargraves! He tried to kill me, too, you know!”

“I’m not giving you a choice,” said Weiss, finishing his check, satisfied. He motioned to the able seaman. “Mr. Buley, please escort this young lady to Lifeboat 6.”

“Wait!” cried Lou, pulling away from Buley. “You want me on a lifeboat? Then you come with me.”

Weiss blinked. “You want me to … ?”

“You could find your cure in Iowa, even without that vial. I know you could,” Lou pleaded, touching the tattered cuff of Weiss’s shirt. “I’ll be your assistant. I’m going to be a scientist, you know. And you could stay with us. I’m sure Uncle George would let you …”

“Lou, I can’t leave until I retrieve what I came here with,” said Weiss. “You know that I have to stay.”

Lou blinked the wet from her eyes.

“Go to Iowa, become a scientist,” Weiss said. “Just the way your mother would have wanted.”

Weiss stuck out a hand for Lou to shake and seal their deal. Lou threw herself into Weiss’s arms and hung on tight. The warmth of the girl’s face burned into Weiss’s neck, and he was overcome with emotion from everything that had happened: his escape from Germany, his capture and the loss of the vial, the battle with the zombies belowdecks, the futility of trying to control the disease. Weiss wept, and he thanked God for Lou’s forgiveness.

“Lots of people waiting,” Lou said finally, pulling away. “I’ll do you proud in America.”

DECK B, FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER CABINS
.

MONDAY, APRIL
15, 1912. 1:36
A.M
.

The zombies were contained no longer.

The able seamen guarding the stairwells above Deck Z were no match for the undead. One by one, the sailors were overrun by sheer numbers. Atop one stairwell, a soft-hearted seaman opened his Bostwick gate to let a frantic, seemingly healthy family by, but he didn’t close it fast enough to stop a rush of pursuing monsters, destroying the gate and the guard himself.

If anything, the evacuation had worsened the situation. The
Titanic
crew’s announcements and the ensuing shouts of the worried passengers only served to alert the zombies on the decks below to the presence of healthy flesh.

On Deck B, dozens of ghouls steadily emerged from multiple stairwells in ravenous desperation. Lurching through an empty restaurant toward the cabins of
Titanic
’s wealthiest first-class passengers, the zombies upended upholstered chairs and stumbled toward the sounds ahead. Screams were quickly silenced and replaced with cruel, guttural moans, which echoed off the oak panels.

Many of the luxury cabins were empty, their occupants having long since escaped to the top deck, some already safely away on lifeboats. But a fair number had stayed behind to dress properly, mortified
at the possibility of being seen in their nightclothes. They paid for their vanity.

The dead descended on the living in their opulent staterooms. Former passengers from steerage feasted on the delicate-boned faces of ladies with hair piled high under feathered hats and pulled at limbs inside elegant French couture. Bankers with silver sideburns were yanked down from behind. Skulls were gnashed, and stylish topcoats were ripped apart.

Mr. Henry Hollister, a retired barrister, shouted, “Burn in hell, demon!” before firing his silver revolver four times into a young undead man’s head and chest. Unfortunately, the sound of Hollister’s weapon and voice attracted three more creatures, and he was out of ammunition.

Titanic
’s luxury cabins reverberated with sounds befitting a slaughterhouse, and glossy white walls were stained crimson. The frenzy lasted less than half an hour and left the entire deck decimated. The staircases beckoned with the sound of more prey above.

“Be British, boys, be British,” Smith commanded to a group of men on the open deck who were desperately trying to bribe an officer in exchange for secure passage on a lifeboat. “It’s women and children first.” The shamed men relented, deferring to the captain’s authority.

“It’s as I predicted, sir,” Andrews noted. “You are needed.”

Smith nodded. The passengers were frightened and rightfully so. Even on a sinking ship, the sight of Captain Edward Smith—his unruffled figure a pillar of composure in the face of calamity—held off the threat of complete pandemonium. Now if Smith could only bring some order to the chaos surging inside his own body.

Smith had progressed much more quickly into Stage Two of the infection than he would have expected. He wondered if he had become
infected long before his battle with Clench, though perhaps the location and severity of Clench’s bites had hastened the Toxic’s path to his brain. He had never experienced this kind of discomfort—and over a lifetime of soldiering and seafaring, he’d been burnt, stabbed, and beaten. He felt like the hull of an old steel ship, rusting from the inside. There was a dull, pervasive itch throughout his internals, more irritating than painful. He was mostly able to ignore it.

What couldn’t be brushed aside was the inescapable ringing inside his head, a high whine that emanated directly from the middle of his skull. The clamor increased in pitch and intensity with each passing minute. As it grew, he could feel it overwhelm his concentration, even his intellect, effectively drowning out all higher functions. The shrill screeching was making him agitated in darkly violent ways, inciting base passions that rattled his windows into reason. When those shattered, he would no longer be human.

A lifeboat was preparing to launch and still loading passengers. “Go, Andrews,” Smith commanded. “It’s time. You’ve served with honor. Now save yourself.”

Andrews thought to protest, but did not argue upon seeing the look in the captain’s eyes. “Thank you, sir. We did the best anyone could. I’m off to see safe harbor.”

After Andrews departed, Captain Edward Smith turned and let go a moan of agony, his shallow, rotten breath visible in the frigid air of the forward deck. Amid the commotion of the lifeboats, no one heard his throaty groan. It was a good thing, too. He was just cognizant enough to realize passengers were still watching him closely for signs of panic. As long as he remained calm, so would they.

Ahead, Weiss and
Titanic
’s crew continued loading women and children into the few lifeboats remaining on the bow, even as that part of the ship dipped dangerously near the water’s surface. There was nothing more he could do. Smith summoned what sanity remained
and strode toward the aft portion of the ship. He would stop by Mr. King’s old cabin and procure a solid pair of handcuffs.

The sounds of terror rang in the night sky.

Captain Smith saw that total anarchy reigned on the promenade at the ship’s rear. Zombies were emerging onto the boat deck from stairwells leading up from the first-class passenger cabins. Nearly everyone, even a few crew members, fled in terror from these living horrors, though most were trying in vain to hold them back. Sadly, Smith watched several men attempt to batter and wrestle the creatures to the ground, only to be overcome; the uninitiated did not know how to fight such an unrelenting foe. Except for the few ghouls stopping to feast on the heads and bodies of the fallen, the zombies’ slow yet deliberate charge raged mostly unchecked.

Uninfected passengers were quickly realizing that running for the bow was their only chance. An elderly couple understood they were too slow to escape, choosing to hold each other in their final moment before being ravaged by five devils. The increasing tilt of the deck caused many to slip and fall, zombie and person alike. One gentleman with a rusty goatee attempted a leap over a fallen zombie but slid all the way down the deck and under the rails, tumbling into the icy waters below.

Captain Smith could see that the fleeing passengers were inadvertently leading the murderous mass toward
Titanic
’s stem, where the final evacuations were proceeding. If the zombies reached the lifeboats before they were away, the catastrophe would be total and complete. Smith needed more men to have any chance of delaying the pack long enough.

Smith spied Ismay fleeing for a collapsible that was being unfurled on the officers’ deck. To his credit, the head of the White Star line
had helped load passengers earlier, but now he was running for his life. The captain intercepted him, swallowing a mouthful of fluid dark enough to write with. “Mr. Ismay,” he called, “join the fight. We need every man.”

Ismay saw the black dribbling through Smith’s beard. He caught his breath. “Dear God, not you, too.”

“We must stop them before they reach the lifeboats,” said Smith.

“Don’t come near me,” Ismay shouted, terror in his eyes as he backed toward the collapsible.

“Bruce, don’t,” implored Smith. “There are still lives to save.” The captain could barely hear himself talk above what sounded like the mating call of one million cicadas echoing inside his skull, and for the first time he felt the urge to attack.

An inhuman sound escaped his mouth, voicing a combination of rage and something like hunger—but not to fill his stomach, not exactly. He staggered forward before the look of fear on Ismay’s face brought the captain back to humanity. Ismay stumbled backward into the collapsible and pulled the strings of a life vest tight. “Launch this thing now!” he screamed, and the crew pushed the lifeboat free of the side.

Smith halted, again tamping down his unholy compulsion, and called out one last time in a strangled voice: “If you leave on that boat, you’ll regret it forever. Live as a coward or die a hero!”

Ismay did not reply as the lifeboat lowered out of sight. Smith turned to see the advancing mob of zombies loping inexorably toward him, one gruesome woman literally dragging a leg. The tilt of the slick deck was causing them to lean almost to the point of tipping over. Their dead stares fixed on the uninfected passengers crowded around the final lifeboats just ahead.

Smith’s decaying mind lost its tether to the present amid a jumble of memories. For a moment, he returned to the embassy in Kabul, as
he prepared to rush forth and visit his rage on the enemy closing in. “It’s our final stand, boys!” Smith cried. “Will no one join me?”

A firm hand grasped Captain Smith’s shoulder. Smith spun hard, but did not recognize the young face. He was forced to read the lad’s lips: “How may we help, Captain? We are at your service.”