by Chris Pauls
“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.”
42
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 cal
l 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.”
43
SAFE HARBOR.
MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1912. 1:37 A.M.
A plume of dark smoke spilling from the steamer’s stacks did little to interrupt the serene backdrop of lazy clouds mingling with friendly blue sky. The ship, having completed its journey, cleaved into Plymouth Harbor, leaving in its wake a collection of sailboats whose masts were graced with the orange hue of a beautiful sunrise.
Just ahead to the port side, two fishermen sat in a small rowboat. The one in the bow was trying to get in a final cast before the huge vessel churned up the calm water and ran off the fish. Soon the ship would pass them. Soon it would finally be home.
The painting Thomas Andrews had purchased for Titanic hung above the fireplace in the first-class smoking room. It was entitled Safe Harbor. Andrews calmly pulled up a chair. He was at peace, smiling at the last thing he would ever see.
44
BOAT DECK.
MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1912. 1:42 A.M.
Weiss heard the moans of the emerging zombies, and he hastened his inspections. All the while, he searched the crowds for the German agent. The man was still on the damned boat; Weiss knew it in his bones. The few lifeboats that remained were filling fast.
Weiss ignored the outer trappings of face after face and focused on spotting those sharp, intense brown eyes. He’d recognize them no matter the disguise. Then a commotion drew his attention. One of the ship’s quartermasters struggled with the next passenger in line.
“I am not ready to leave this ship!” shouted a small woman wrapped in expensive furs and oversized, extravagant jewelry. She clawed at the quartermaster, who looked ready to throw her overboard on general principle.
“Hold her arms tight,” instructed Weiss as he thumbed the well-powdered flesh below her eyes, forcing them open so he could clear the grande dame for rescue. She thrashed her head this way and that as Weiss tried to examine her nostrils, ears, and gums.
“The indignity!” she screamed.
“Madame, I assure you, this is absolutely necess—”
“I’m not talking about your bloody health inspection!” squawked the woman. “This brute forcibly removed me from my cabin before I could find my good hair! Wait until Mr. Ismay hears how you treated me!”
Weiss paused, remembering. This was the same woman Lou had pointed out during boarding, the distinguished older lady with the absurd silver-blue hair. “Your good hair?” asked Weiss.
“Stolen!” cried Lady Cardeza. “Miss Anna placed it on the wig stand when I went to sleep. Hair doesn’t just stand up on its hind legs and go for a stroll. Where is the captain? I demand an investigation!”
“Put her on a boat,” said Weiss, standing now to survey the remaining passengers. With the sound of the wailing Lady Cardeza fading to the port side, Weiss strained in the dim light to spot the woman’s wig. He cursed silently. Once again, the German agent was one step ahead of him. Weiss had alerted Titanic’s officers to watch for a man fleeing the ship, not a woman!
He rushed to the rails. Lifeboats dotted the black horizon, their passengers incredibly difficult to make out with clarity. He swung a kerosene lantern in front of him. Its pale light only served to show how far Titanic had dipped into the icy ocean.
Undaunted, Weiss kept surveying the bobbing crafts. Then he saw his target. The silver-blue hair sat atop a large woman, wrapped in a heavy woolen shawl, huddled among at least sixty other passengers on the recently departed Lifeboat 6. Lou was among them.
The Agent was escaping with the Toxic.
45
BOAT DECK.
MONDAY, APRIL 15, 1912. 2:14 A.M.
Twin inevitabilities threatened to stop Titanic’s band from continuing to play. The first was the sinking ship itself, its bow now dipping below the waterline. A trio of brass propellers in the stern towered far in the air, assuring that the vessel had only moments left afloat before it would be pulled under.
The second was a multitude of horribly disfigured ghouls marching toward the sound of “Nearer My God, To Thee.”
Wallace Hartley’s violin bow did not so much as quaver.
He and his band had accepted the captain’s call. There’s nothing more noble than using our God-given gifts—that was Hartley’s counsel to Mr. Krins, and those words passed the test of truth. The players provided enough distraction to allow Titanic’s final lifeboats to launch without being overrun by the dead-faced menace. Each musician understood he would not escape death, yet every one of the seven played on.
Wallace Hartley would never marry Maria. He would never hold her hand, kiss her lips, or see her beaming smile on Earth again. The men had nothing now but their music, which wafted through the air with the utmost serenity. They were oblivious to the carnage raging around them. Their trust in God’s greater plan was total, and with this song their lives were complete. Drawn to the music like bugs to light, the fiends reached for Hartley as he applied a final, spectacular flourish to his violin and accepted the fate God had determined.
The zombies’ grasp fell short. For as Hartley held his final note, Titanic broke in half, sending a wave of water across the deck that washed the band away from their tormentors and into the frigid sea where each man would sleep. Heroes to the last, the seven men believed God’s mercy had spared them from a fate worse than death.
Captain Smith tried to wrench himself free, but the handcuffs clanked and held firm. He’d left the key in King’s office for a reason. Something like a laugh escaped from his blackened mouth as he held the pegs of Titanic’s wheel.
When Smith had locked himself in place, the ringing in his mind had reached a sharp, shrill crescendo and then fallen away as something inside him snapped for good. Outside sounds entered his head, but what he heard was no longer recognizable as music. Screaming passengers sailed past the wheelhouse, and the sharp metal cuffs tore into Smith’s wrists as he struggled to break free and chase them. Then, with a sickening lurch, he was tossed forward into the wheel as the bow dove completely underwater.
Captain Edward J. Smith was pulled directly into the Atlantic along with the front end of his finest ship, but he felt no pain, no sorrow, no regret. Only his body sank like a stone.
The deck shifted beneath Weiss’s feet as Titanic broke in two. While the stern appeared to settle back to even keel, the bow on which Weiss was standing was nearly gone. He tightened his life jacket and backed up two steps to get a running start. With a deep breath, he sprinted for the deck’s edge just before it disappeared, vaulted over th
e brass railing, and flung himself into the ocean.
The icy water sent an electric shock through his skull. His plunge took Weiss deep below the surface and into utter darkness. The frigid water numbed the pain in his shoulder as Weiss let the lifejacket return him to the surface. When he finally broke through, he erupted in a long spasm of sputtering gasps.
A deck chair floated next to him, and he tried to pull himself atop its wooden frame. But it did little to keep his body out of the glacial water and he abandoned it. With surprising strength, he began swimming toward Lifeboat 6.
Panicked screams surrounded him. Hundreds bobbed in the water, each person desperately searching for something to cling to as the freezing water drained all feeling from their bodies.
Where the black waterline met the night sky, lifeboats slowly rowed away from Titanic. Passengers pleaded with crewmen to return for those in the water. As he swam, Weiss spotted a few zombies along the surface, but to a creature, they sank like anchors. Their awkward movements were too clumsy and slow to even tread water. Weiss suspected the pressure of the deep would eventually crush the creatures’ skulls into oblivion.
“Mr. Weiss!”
Weiss shook the saltwater from his eyes. Lou was waving at him from Lifeboat 6. “You can make it, Mr. Weiss!” Lou shouted. “You’re doing it!”
He wasn’t so sure. Even though he’d only been swimming for minutes, his arms weakened and his progress slowed. The lifeboat was perhaps fifty yards off and moving away, as its two able seamen rowed like mad. In the boat, the matron in silver-blue hair shifted and smiled in his direction.