“Ah, Christ.”
It was a man. His eyes were open. The skin of his face was frozen blue.
Dead.
Drowned.
Probably a crewman that had followed the water up the stairs from the Orlop deck.
As he leaned down to gently set the body back down in the water, another body came up. This one was still alive, somewhat. It leapt out from beneath the icy cold water like a shark and latched on with both hands to Lightoller’s coat.
Lightoller instinctively grabbed hold of its neck as though he meant to strangle it, when all he really wanted was to push it off—keep its mouth and all its teeth from sinking into him. It glared down with dead white eyes, growling, snapping open its jaw, and giving off that unmistakable putrid scent of decomposing human flesh.
Overhead, the lights began to flicker on and off.
On.
Off.
Lightoller felt his hands slipping on the wet, slimy flesh around the infected man’s neck. He wanted to reach down for the gun on his waistband but knew it was too risky. It was a war of inches, and he couldn’t afford to give one centimeter more. He lacked the positioning and leverage needed to use his full strength, and the sharp edge of the stairs was beginning to pinch into his spine. Standing, they were perhaps similar in size. On his back, he was a much smaller fish about to be eaten.
It was only a matter of time, of seconds.
This thing was a mere two inches away from making him its meal, or making him one of them, when a deafening blast from behind changed everything.
Lightoller’s hands finally slipped off its neck and the infected fell forward. For a moment, he swore he felt the teeth rip into his face, but then he realized it was just the cold dead skin pressing against him.
“Are you all right?” said a voice from above.
Lightoller rolled the infected off him and cocked his head around. Standing at the top of the stairs was Sixth Officer Moody.
“Glad to see me?”
Lightoller looked over at the infected again lying limp beside him, and the ugly black hole in its head.
“I did it. Yes I did.”
“And you could have shot me,” said Lightoller.
“But I didn’t.”
“But you could have.”
Lightoller carefully stood up. He noticed the water level had risen more than a foot since he’d come down a minute ago.
He was glad to be alive.
But for how much longer would the feeling last?
“Did you go to the bridge?” Lightoller asked, climbing back up the stairs.
“No, I never made it. I got about halfway then turned back,” said Moody. “I wasn’t about to leave you down here by yourself. We promised to cover one another, remember?”
Lightoller made it to the top of the stairs and stood beside Moody. “Yes, I also remember telling you I didn’t need assistance.”
“But, sir—”
“And I guess I was wrong, aye?”
Moody smiled like he’d just opened the greatest Christmas present. Lightoller winked and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good shot. Thanks for bailing me out.”
“Anytime, sir,” Moody said, still smiling big and wide. “Anytime.”
“Now let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”
They headed past the squash court to the port side and then back up the stairs to E-deck.
Rounding the corner, they heard before they saw.
A horde of infected lumbered in every direction. Well over a dozen. Blocking the stairs up. Blocking the way mid-ship.
Blocking every way out but one.
“We’ve got to go back down,” said Moody.
Lightoller had already brandished his revolver and began picking off a few of the infected. As the horde closed in on him, however, he quickly gave in to reason.
“Go!”
Moody headed back down the stairs. Lightoller followed behind him, looking back occasionally to fire off a couple more shots. It did little to keep the infected at bay. They had no apparent fear of stairs, though their coordination wasn’t quite in tune. Rather than step, they sort of stumbled down.
Back on F-deck, Moody stopped suddenly. “Which way?”
“Take a hard left. There.” Lightoller pointed to a second set of stairs just past the squash court. “We’ll circle back up and confuse them.”
Moody charged up the stairs.
“No,” Lightoller shouted from behind. “We need to wait for enough of them to follow us down first.”
“Understood,” said Moody.
“Stay ready. On my word.”
The impromptu strategy seemed to be working. The undead passengers piled down the stairs one after another, their collective moans swelling into a melody of miserable terror.
Lightoller waited for the first of the infected—a middle-aged woman with a beautiful silk scarf around her neck and a bloodied nose and split lip—to get within five feet of him before putting a bullet in her colorless face. She made a gargling sound like she’d choked on the slug and then collapsed. The others continued forward, plodding over her body as though she was just part of the floor.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Moody led the way up the stairs and back around the bend. Across the hall, the last of the infected were heading down the opposite staircase. “It worked,” he yelled, spinning around to make sure Lightoller was still behind him. “It’s clear!”
Had he not turned his back, Moody would have surely seen the infected man come from around the bunker. Instead, it was Lightoller stepping off the stairs that saw him first.
There was no time for any warning.
The infected man seized Moody by the shoulders from behind and went for the open flesh of his neck like some mutated vampire. With less than a second to act, Lightoller pulled the trigger on the Webley.
The infected man staggered backwards.
Moody dropped to his knees.
With no time to properly aim, Lightoller had successfully prevented Moody from being bitten, though not without a price.
The sixth officer winced in pain and put a hand to his right shoulder. The bullet had sheered through his black officers coat, grazed his skin, and then found a permanent home in the infected man’s neck—the infected man who had already regained his footing, oblivious to the kind of pain Moody felt, and who now came forward to strike again.
Lightoller steadied the revolver. Behind him, he could hear the others coming back up the stairs.
This time he didn’t rush the shot. He took the extra second to aim, knowing the only thing standing between Moody and certain death was him.
And yet it didn’t matter.
Click.
Because the cylinder was empty.
Moody looked up at Lightoller just as the infected man came down upon him, his final expression wearing all the remorse that Lightoller felt weighing heavy on his heart.
Lightoller dug deep into his pocket for the last of the ammo. If he could not save Moody from becoming infected, he could still spare him the pain of being eaten alive.
Two more infected came around the corner of the bunker. They had likely been drawn to the sound of the gunshot, or Moody’s screams.
Lightoller looked down at his hand.
Four bullets.
That’s all he had left.
Then an infected woman came up beside him from the stairs and grabbed hold of his arm, causing all four bullets to fall to the floor. Lightoller spun around and struck the woman in the face with the empty revolver, then backed off as more limped toward him.