They had him surrounded, forcing him into a corner. His only defense was a strong will to survive—to elude this deadly plague—to escape this sinking ship—to return in one piece to his wife and children. Whatever it took, he’d keep fighting until the cold end. He’d find a way, even if the only way were through them.
Luckily, it wasn’t.
Not yet.
He backed up as far as he could and felt the hard brass of a doorknob jab into his lower back. A moment later, he was standing in the dark linen closet, while dozens of the infected gathered outside to guard the door.
He used the first match to have a look around the cramped closet. Towels. Bed sheets. Pillows. All useless things given his predicament. Taking a nap was probably out of the question, unless he longed to be buried in a watery grave.
He used the second match to light his pipe. Then he sat down with his back flat against the wall, the pipe in his mouth, and tried to think of a plan. Through the choir of the undead, he could hear Moody’s cries finally fade away.
BROWN
“I’m not gonna tell you again, sweetheart. Get into the boat.”
“No, I won’t go without John,” Madeline said defiantly. “Or without our belongings...what will become of them?”
“They’ll be at the bottom of the sea,” Margaret replied. “Right where you’ll be if you don’t get into the boat.”
“I don’t see you getting in.”
“I’ll get in right after you.”
“I bet you wouldn’t leave your husband.”
“Honey, I left that man three years ago.”
John Jacob Astor finally stepped between the two. “Madeline, please. Think of the baby. This boat is for women and children only. I’ll find another boat. We will be together again soon, I promise.”
Madeline stared into the wooden lifeboat where four dozen other women were already seated inside, some with babies bundled in their arms or small children crammed at their feet.
First Officer Murdoch offered a hand to help young Madeline into the boat. “Come on, miss. We don’t have all night. If you don’t want to go, I’m sure there are others who would take your place.”
“She’s going,” said John. “Aren’t you dear?”
The lifeboat gently rocked against the side of the ship, held in place by a single rope on each end connected to a pulley system.
Madeline sneered. “Look at this wretched thing. Why it’s not even safe. Like this awful lifebelt you made me put on.”
Murdoch rolled his eyes. “Move along then,” he said, and pushed them aside.
“I thought we already went over the lifebelt,” said John. “I showed you how it works. I refuse to discuss it further.”
Not twenty feet away, a skirmish broke out between a number of passengers waiting to get into lifeboat number five and a walking corpse with dark brown hair and high cheek bones. The corpse lost, but not before ruining a few peoples chances at securing a seat.
“You think staying here is safe?” Margaret asked.
Madeline pouted and then looked lovingly up at John. “You swear you’ll find another boat?”
John took his young wife by her thin hips and pulled her close to him. “I will.”
“Well, isn’t that sweet,” said Margaret. “Now can we get a move on?”
“Don’t worry about me.” John continued speaking directly to Madeline, ignoring Margaret’s request. “I have to head back to the room to get something from the safe first. Then I promise I will find my own boat.”
Madeline finally submitted to the pressure.
As the first officer helped Madeline aboard, Margaret whispered to John. “What’s in the safe?”
“Twenty-five hundred in cash,” John replied without hesitation.
“You think that’s gonna buy you a ticket out of here, do ya?”
“I pray it doesn’t come to that.”
Margaret climbed into the lifeboat next with the help of Murdoch and took a seat beside Madeline. John stayed on the boat deck looking over the side as Murdoch and one of the deck hands began lowering the boat. By the time they reached the open promenade deck one level down, he had disappeared.
Madeline began to cry. Margaret hardly noticed, however, as she had spotted a friend on the promenade deck walking by himself and looking rather unwell. He was the architect of the soon to be famous Titanic, Mr. Thomas Andrews.
He turned around at the sound of his name. Even from a distance, Margaret could see the dark bags under his eyes and the sweat gleaming from every pore on his face. He was beginning to look a lot like—
One of them, Margaret thought. But that can’t be, could it?
Andrews looked directly at Margaret and then hurried off.
“What in the heck,” Margaret said, and stood up. The lifeboat swayed as the balance momentarily shifted. “Hey, Mr. Andrews. Where are you—”
“Madam, sit back down now,” yelled George Hogg, a lookout and one of three crewmen in charge of lifeboat number seven.
“I’ll do you one better.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Madeline. She had stopped crying in a flash.
“You stay here,” Margaret said. Then she grabbed hold of the railing even with the lifeboat and pulled herself through an open window on to the promenade deck.
Now Madeline stood up.
“You sit down and stay there,” Margaret barked.
“Yeah, sit down,” Hogg echoed.
Madeline reluctantly obeyed, while Margaret ran off to catch a fleeing Thomas Andrews.
SMITH
The Titanic sat dead in the water, its bow beginning to shift slightly downward. The bridge and wheelhouse were empty. All hands were on deck, the boat deck, working with a shared objective to save as many souls as possible.
An overwhelming task, for sure.
Crewmen were stationed at every entrance to the boat deck for the purpose of crowd control. But they were unarmed and could do very little to contain the disorder, as evidenced by the dead bodies lying all around. Blood ran all along the once magnificent wooden deck, seeping into the cracks between the boards, soon to be washed away.
The depravity exhibited by the infected was unimaginable. They resembled human beings only in form. In every other way, they were a thing of evil, minions of the devil himself, incapable of being reasoned with, of thinking, of emotion. They were slaves to their desires, acting purely on instinct.
So far, they made up only a small percentage of the passengers, but with each minute that passed, the scale tipped further in their direction.
If there was any good to come from the ship foundering, it was that the infection would not make it to the shore, sparring countless persons such a grim and unpleasant fate. The cold dark sea would provide the final quarantine.
Captain Smith peered over the edge of the ship. Lifeboat seven had been launched with a full load and gradually slipped off into the distance. A moment later, the crew in charge stopped rowing as a battle had broken out.
“Are you making certain no infected get into the lifeboats?” Smith asked of First Officer Murdoch, who was helping load lifeboat five.
“Trying my best, sir. Checking them as thoroughly as possible.”
“Try harder, Mr. Murdoch,” said Smith, still looking out at the infected uprising occurring on lifeboat seven. “It seems that a few may have slipped through the cracks.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Smith walked up and down the deck in a daze, mumbling to himself, wondering what in God’s name they did to deserve this. Two crewmen on the port side had taken it upon themselves to do a little deck cleaning, carrying the dead bodies one by one to the edge, and then tossing them overboard.