Andrews sat behind the desk in his stateroom sobbing for the ones who couldn’t be saved, and for his own personal family, praying they find the strength to carry on without him. He thought of his wife Helen. They wouldn’t make it to their four-year anniversary in June; their marriage was coming to an unexpected end tonight. Nor would he be around to help raise two-year-old Elizabeth. In fact, she’d grow up never knowing him at all, or not remember the short time where she had—from this point forward he would only exist to her in photographs, stories, and melancholy newspaper articles.
Thus, he sat with his head in his hands wondering how best to make use of his final moments. He could remain closed within his room sulking in regret and waiting for the water to crash through the walls and take him under, or he could die with some small measure of dignity.
Andrews left his stateroom and began helping the crew warn passengers of the coming doom. There was no use lying to people to avoid a panic, the panic had already long come.
He walked from one end of the ship to the other, up and down decks, knocking on doors and urging people to put on their lifebelts and begin heading up to the boat deck. Some people did exactly as he asked, while others either completely ignored him or couldn’t grasp the severity of the situation. Many stayed hidden in their rooms, afraid to come out. Everyone was well aware of the infection by now, and its effects were painted all over the ship. Around every corner was another corpse, its flesh mangled and half-eaten. Blood stains everywhere. The critical status of the ship, however, was still very much unknown to a large segment of passengers.
The number of wounded he passed along the way was startling. The newly infected often crowded into the hospitals or just ran around looking for anyone they thought could help them. Those further along in the cycle sat hunched over in chairs or lying on the floor, trembling and foaming at the mouth.
He tried his best to ignore those of the non-violent variety, even going out of his way to walk around them. Those that he couldn’t avoid he asked to return to their rooms. It tore at his heart to do so. Not helping people in need went squarely against his nature, but these people couldn’t be helped, not in any real sense. Becoming infected, while no fault of their own, guaranteed they wouldn’t have a seat on a lifeboat. Like him, they were already dead. They just didn’t know it yet. Soon the sea would sign their death certificate.
Those of the violent form were also quite numerous, though he didn’t try nearly as hard to avoid them. Sometimes he would even help fight them off if he saw them attacking a crowd. He didn’t have a gun or knife or any other conventional weapon, all he had were his hands and the certain knowledge that in no more than an hour or two he’d be dead. This unfortunate truth brought a level of toughness out of him that he’d never exuded before. For the first time in his life, he had no fear.
No more timid Thomas Andrews.
He strolled along the A-decks first-class open promenade tossing any chairs that weren’t nailed down off the side of the ship. Perhaps someone could use them to stay afloat later if it came to it. Above him on the boat deck, he could hear the officers beginning to load the lifeboats, along with the occasional gunshot.
As he came to the entrance to the aft first-class staircase, a dozen passengers came running out, hollering in fright at the disfigured monster behind them. Not long ago the monster had been a woman from first-class.
Somebody’s wife.
Somebody’s mother.
Now she was just a moaning thing with an appetite to feed in her finest fur coat.
Half of her hair had fallen or been pulled out. One of her arms was severely dislocated at the shoulder, pointing the wrong direction. Her jaw was broken open and locked to one side. A wide trail of blood and guts ran down from her neck to the bottom of her dress.
She had been busy.
Andrews waved and yelled to draw her attention away from the innocent passengers she’d been pursuing. She took the bait and went straight for him against the railing. A moment later she was falling from the ship in a dead dive.
Andrews looked over the side and watched her hit with a big splash, flailing only once before disappearing into the dark water. Throwing her overboard had been much easier than he expected it to be, and he was no worse for wear.
He turned back around, hearing the awkward sounding footsteps behind him.
This time it was a grossly overweight man dressed in a ruffled tuxedo. This one probably just woke up, because there wasn’t a drop of blood on him. Aside from the ashen color of his skin, his left eye was the only indicating sign that he was infected. Having swollen to three times its normal size, the eye had been forced from the limiting confines of its socket and now looked ready to burst.
Unafraid and battle tested, Andrews went right at the fat man.
This one wouldn’t be so easy.
It took more than a minute, and the help of a few younger male passengers nearby, to finally send the sharply dressed monster over the railing. The splash he produced was tremendous, rousing a smile among many of the men.
Not Andrews.
He pressed the others to find a lifebelt and hurry up to the boat deck. Then he sauntered away, his former confidence gone.
The scratch on his neck barely broke the skin.
But it was deep enough.
LIGHTOLLER
“Bloody hell,” Lightoller whispered.
He was standing on the F-deck spectator gallery looking down through the thick glass into the squash racquet court. The court extended two decks high and thirty feet in length. First-class passengers could pay two shillings to use the court for one hour. It was vacant as it had closed for the night, but that didn’t stop the water from seeping in from under the door.
We’re taking on water, Lightoller thought. God almighty, that can only mean one thing.
A breach in the hull.
After separating from Moody, Lightoller had made his way into the third-class permanent section of the bow, which contained about two dozen rooms, each with multiple bunks for single men only. Single women and families were kept apart at the stern.
He ran into a few passengers along the way but no infected. After taking the stairs on the port side down to F-deck, the ghostlike silence intensified.
The one good thing about the infected was you could almost always hear them coming, hear them moaning, to be exact. They had no problem voicing their intentions even if it eliminated the element of surprise. The bad thing was this could cause one to become complacent and let their guard down, especially if other problems were demanding equal attention—like water filling the squash court below.
Lightoller turned the corner and headed down a set of stairs parallel to the spectator gallery. Two feet of freezing cold water met him at the bottom, piercing through his boots and pants so painfully fast he nearly lost his balance. He let out a small whimper and then retreated back to the staircase. From there, he looked out at the post office across the way. Letters and mailbags floated on the surface as the water level continued to rise at a remarkable pace.
Then he saw something else in the water.
It looked like a person floating face down.
As it passed the stairs, Lightoller pulled the body out of the water and turned it over, face up.