“Do ye know what’s a’happenin’?” a steward asked Daniels. He looked at everyone watching him and threw his arms up, “What ‘ave ye ‘eard? ‘Tis a foine mess we have got ‘ere.”
“We have no word from above. We are looking to find out.”
“All of ye?”
Daniels nodded, his face flushed, “All of us. We will find out and let you know.” He thought the group with him was a spectacle.
F deck was for third class passengers and featured the beautiful Turkish baths that some had enjoyed. Stewards here calmed passengers and told them that there was nothing wrong at all and there was no need to do anything but gather in the salons with life belts. They assured everyone that this was a minor issue, but protocol demanded the reaction.
Several stewards blocked the stairway so none of the third class passengers could go up the stairs, but they did not bother the large group going down, led by Daniels. Instead they looked at them curiously, wondering what they were about and why.
From that deck, they would use a regular stairway, as the grand stairway did not extend that deeply.
“Ya can’na go down to G. She’s flooded,” said a steward as he passed them.
Daniels grabbed another steward, “We want to know what’s going on. Above, we have no news of what is happening here.”
All around them stood the third class in their dining area. Women wept, and men cursed, demanding to know what was happening. Those who could not understand English were vexed.
The steward sighed, “Some of the firemen have locked themselves away and are pumping out water to keep the lights on so we can send distress signals and see, or we’d be in pitch black.
I fear they will remain there until the ship goes down. The mail workers are trying to save the mail and refuse to leave. G deck is a mad house. The mail cargo room and boilers have flooded fully.”
“Well, we’ll make them get out of there and go to the life boats,” Maggie said. Before anyone could say a word, she walked down the hallway. Everyone followed her. “When will these people be taken up?”
“As soon as first and second class are loaded into lifeboats, Ma’am,” Daniels replied.
“The staff neglected the lifeboat drill,” Maggie said, “and it will be pandemonium. Think of how long it will take to get these people loaded when half don’t speak English.”
John stared ahead, going still. Before him was the beginning of seawater that had flooded into the ship. He stood in an inch of water. He suggested most wait there and keep dry.
The water was twenty-eight degrees and painfully cold, but he walked along until his knees were immersed. “I will go see what is happening.”
In a minute, his toes were numb, and it felt as if knives pierced his shins.
Opening the doorway to the heated pool, he found that instead of water in a pool surrounded by elegant marble tiles and decor that made one think of Roman baths, the entire room was a pool. Movement caught his eye.
Claire Cotton, her brother Sam, Howard, and Karl Behr followed John.
“Be careful. The pool is somewhere. and you would go under. It’s impossible to know where the pool lies,” John said.
“What is that? Oh no, have people fallen in?” Claire asked, wading forward.” No one came to help them?”
“Stay to the walls,” John warned again.
On the surface were floating, flesh-colored bodies moving slightly. At the far side, a figure was sitting with her head down, weeping, her long hair covering her face that was barely above the water. Her body was immersed in the freezing cold water.
The group skirted along the edge next to the wall to get to her.
The lights were dull.
“We are coming. It is all right now. You’re safe,” Claire called. “Just a second, and we shall be right there with you, and we will find something warm for you.” She wondered how the stewards could neglect their passengers in this way, leaving them to drown by the pool and freeze in cold water. The Third Class was treated horribly, she thought.
“We are here,” Daniels called.
“Stay there. Claire, please go back. We can get her out,” John pleaded.
Howard forced himself forward. Below his knees, the icy water felt like painful daggers, stabbing into his flesh repeatedly. It was so cold that it hurt. His bones felt like glass breaking, and his skin was going through terrible pains. The nerves burned and ached and felt torn, crushed and stabbed, all at once. Howard shivered with cold and pain.
How could the woman sit in the water and not scream and still be alive? Why was she naked like the rest of them? How had they lost their clothing? Something was terribly amiss.
Claire and Sam reached the woman first, and Claire knelt, murmuring reassurances. Claire’s skirts were soaked, and her teeth chattered, but she was determined to save the woman. A hot bath or warm blanket was a luxury she thought of continuously, as a person dying of thirst might dream of water.
Pale with the cold, the figure looked bloated and much too soft, Howard thought. Her naked flesh looked like soft, whipped cream. If someone were to touch it, his hand might be engulfed.
Howard called out a warning, but it was too late. The creature, that looked human from a distance and that pretended to be a person, raised its abominable head. It was not hair hanging down her face, but very fine, very dark tentacles. It brushed back the strands absently.
Serpent’s eyes, gold and cruel, looked at them, and the being was not smiling but had a frog-like mouth, lipless, wide, and wet. There was no nose or ears, and its arms were thin appendages with three splayed fingers on each.
“Oh dear, God,” Jack cried, stumbling backwards and almost falling.
Howard stood frozen in place as the frog snapped out its long, black tongue towards Claire. She screamed as the barbs and saliva took the flesh from her cheek in a bloody, raw strip. It sounded like cloth being ripped. In a flash, it swallowed the strip of skin.
Sam pulled at Clair, but she slipped to her hands and knees, clasping at her face and wailing. Before she could get up, the frog-women lashed out twice more, removing Claire’s right eye and other cheek; she shrieked. The eye socket was empty, as if someone had scooped away the organ and left only a bare stripe from the top of her cheekbone, across her eye, and to her hairline. It had taken only a few seconds to remove her face.
Sam grabbed Claire under her arms and pulled her away, but the creature was able to steal flesh from the girl’s ankles and legs, leaving bloodied swatches. It swallowed the tattered bits of her stockings along with her flesh. Claire threw one arm over her face to protect herself and used the other for balance as she kicked at the frog-people.
John kicked the one attacking Claire in the face, and the creature’s skin was soft. Bones and white flesh caved in, leaving a hole where the face and mouth of the creature had been. John did not know if it were a beast or a girl, but the thing squealed with pain.
“Look out,” Peter Cavendar called. He and the rest were dry but watching fearfully.
Karl helped Sam pull Claire away, but the creatures that were floating complacently upon the pool’s surface suddenly became active, kicking over to the group with frog-like movements of their dark, slimy, back legs. All of them showed wide mouths and yellow eyes as they swam closer, flicking their tongues in the air as if tasting blood.
Sam and Claire tried to avoid them, dodging to the side, but they fell into the pool, vanishing under the surface. Karl stepped back before he fell in.
No one could get to the brother and sister as the monsters dove after them.
When Sam and Claire surfaced, they wailed with pain as the creatures used their tongues to slurp flesh from their bodies, staining the water bright red. The frog-people attacked in a frenzy. Each time they flicked their tongues out at their victims, a section of flesh ripped away from Claire or Sam who could not swim.