Titanic 1912: A Lovecraft Mythos Novel Page 4

  The huge fish swam ahead of us, and the yellow mist faded.

  One of the crewmen approached the substance, a wad the fish spit on the deck. They were vacillating, unsure if they should approach or run away, and they still had to give a report to their seniors about the loss of a man. What a dreadful time this was for every one of us.

  “Do not get near it; it is a dreadful thing,” I said, settling the issue. I felt a deep trepidation as they walked closer to the slime. Why did no one heed my warnings? If it smelt badly, it also looked nauseating, and looking upon it made my teeth throb with pain. I cannot begin to explain how terrible the jelly was.

  The man looked at the stinking chaos of pudding, and of all things, he reached out with a finger to poke at it. I wanted to shriek at him to stop. Did he not realize how dangerous it was? Had he not realized that the fish had just eaten his crewmate?

  Immediately, he began to howl with pain as the goo burned and eroded his finger to the bone like an acid. It spread up his hand, thinning out, until there was no flesh but just bare bones that glistened in the faint light.

  He passed out from the pain, his eyes rolling back in his head so only the white portion showed. His crewmate grabbed a bucket of seawater that he used for mopping the deck. Throwing the water on his friend’s hand and arm, he saved the man from being scalded alive.

  “I best get ‘im to the infirmary.” The husky crewman hefted the injured man over his shoulder and set off to get medical aid. “Sir, I can only beg ye not to speak of this.”

  “You can be assured I shall not. I dare think no one would believe me if I did tell. Will you inform the Captain then?”

  “Aye. Well, he’s asleepin’, but I’ll be finding Mr. Murdoch as soon as this man is seen to.”

  “Good deal. Be about it, and hurry,” I said.

  I was not sure what the man would do. He might throw the wounded man over the railing before having to tell this outlandish story. Whatever he did, it did not matter, for I would not approach Mr. Murdoch about the terrible matter.

  I broke a chair and scooped the disgusting mess out into the sea. The mess let out a squeal that made my teeth ache as it hissed and shuddered in the black water. Soon, we were almost out of sight of it, but I saw the big fish swim over and raise its head to swallow the slime.

  I had never seen such a thing as this fish. It was huge, ancient, and monstrous. His teeth were of nightmares.

  A prehistoric creature, he had a thick snout; black, lifeless eyes that betrayed no pity or compassion, only hunger; and a dull, rough skin that I imagined would skin anyone who touched him. His mouth was cavernous, peeled back to reveal rows of sharp teeth, each longer than my hand from wrist to finger tips.

  I knew at once that he must have escaped from that yellow-misted world where monsters abounded. His dead eyes and gigantic size made me sure he was not of our world but what world could he be from? And, moreover, how had we entered into a dimension rip? My head buzzed with all the horror and the questions I had.

  I was sick and afraid. Where were we? Where had this ship taken us, and were we moving away or closer to the abominations?

  I felt ill.

  In fear, I went to my room and crawled into bed, fully clothed but for my jacket and shoes, pulled the covers up to my chin, and tried to force the images from my head.

  As large as the Titanic was, I felt very small and vulnerable with the giant shark circling the ship and the mist so close as to almost be touched. In the morning, I would peruse the library to find out what the leviathan was.

  As it was, I never had the chance.

  Chapter Three: Iceberg, 10:00-11:40

  At 10:40 in the Marconi Room, Jack Phillips received a message from the Californian, a ship that was fairly close. “Say old man, we are stopped and surrounded by ice.” It was at least the sixth message about ice the operator had taken, and all the ships were relaying that they were among ice fields.

  Jack was tired and had been busy sending passengers’ messages all evening. For a small fee, the passengers could message family and friends and enjoyed that extravagance. Because his system was down the day before, he was backlogged and trying to catch up with his typing.

  “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy,” he sent back. Why a radio operator wanted to send messages and chat about the weather, relaying the same words over and over, he did not know nor care, but then he was not a man to enjoy idle chatter either.

  Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, trained by the Marconi School, could type over twenty-five words a minute, and they sent message after message for those who paid, as well as messages for the officers when ordered.

  While the two men received messages from several other ships that there were ice fields everywhere, they were so busy sending messages for the passengers that they never passed the messages to the officers, assuming that they were aware of the ice fields. After all, posts about ice fields had been coming in since early in the morning.

  Captain Smith may not have been aware of the reports from the evening. He knew there was ice, but was not aware that there were ice fields that evening.

  The Marconi operator for the Californian, the nearest ship to the Titanic, retired to bed as they were stuck in the ice.

  William Murdoch relieved Charles Lightoller at 10:00. The Captain was asleep but he told the crew that if anything changed, to awaken him. He had redirected them to the south slightly, and they were staying steady at twenty-two knots, almost their top speed. The seas were calm and beautiful under a moonless, star-filled sky.

  At 11:30, two men in the crow’s nest were watching the waters. They noticed a yellow haze and thought they saw movement as the ship sped along.

  They thought they must be imagining things because there was no way they saw a landmass off to the side or rodent-like creatures skittering about the mammoth legs of a creature that towered so tall they could not see its head. In this area, there were no islands or anything else that was solid ground.

  ‘The giant was a behemoth,’ like the Bible said. And then, just as the Good Book described, ‘there was a leviathan.’

  A giant fin and tail swam between the ship and the mist.

  Men of the sea could always claim they had seen amazing, unbelievable creatures, lights, and ghost ships, but these two men never witnessed anything such as this.

  “I’m a’seeing things,” Fleet said, rubbing his eyes. They were not issued binoculars and sorely wished for them. What kind of lookout was kept without necessary equipment?

  But there close to the mist’s edge, was something queer. At first, it was a small, jagged dark shape that blocked the stars on the horizon. As the ship sped along, the shape became large, arising mountainous from the water for almost seventy feet; it was clear, not white, and was the product of eons of melting and refreezing. As it had no color, it reflected the moonless sky like a mirror. It was a black-berg.

  Had they not been watching the giant fish and the mist, they would have seen the iceberg sooner. It was as if the shark had purposely distracted them.

  “Iceberg,” breathed Fleet. He was not imagining that. It was five hundred yards away. Distracted, he made a mistake.

  After ringing the big brass bell three times, they signaled the bridge; the sixth officer, Mr. Moody, contacted Mr. Murdoch who instinctively ordered “Hard-a-starboard.”

  Only a few seconds elapsed from the sighting until the ship began changing course; the system was smooth, and each man responded as he was well trained.

  At the time of the orders, Mr. Murdoch had no doubt the orders he gave would result in nothing more than a slight list as they turned. No one would even notice, except for the crewmen.

  Murdoch rang the alarm bell ten seconds so those below knew the doors were about to be closed and they should get to safety. It was standard protocol. He told the engine room to stop all engines and ordered, “Full astern.” And he closed the watertight doors.

  Although the ship veered to port, part of the iceberg, a spar und
er the water, struck the ship on the starboard side, cutting open small gashes, six in all, along three hundred feet, opening five of the sixteen watertight compartments.

  The over-all damage was small, but rivets popped with the pressure, forming a hole about the size of a door. It had been a mere thirty-seven seconds between the sighting of the iceberg and the collision.

  Water rushed in at seven tons per second, which was about fifteen times faster than it was pumped out. Firemen barely got out of the compartments before ice water shot through the holes.

  As trained, they vented the steam so that the freezing water would not cause the hot coal to explode, and they found themselves waist deep in the cold water before they could escape the flooding.

  The bulkhead, although very tall and with watertight doors, did not reach through all of the ship’s decks. Water filled one compartment and ran into the next as the ship settled into the sea. As each compartment filled, it dipped lower, allowing the sea to pour into the next area, like dominoes falling.

  Captain Smith, like many of the others, felt a shudder; those deeper in the ship felt more of a rumbling and bumping. He found the curious movements unusual and was at once concerned. What had caused them to reverse the engines?

  The Captain went immediately to the bridge for a full report, nodding at Mr. Murdoch grimly. The orders were exactly as he would have given. There were ice, broken off the berg on the upper decks and passengers who had awakened and were walking saw it and kicked at it happily. A few of the younger men played a game with the ice.

  Captain Smith knew the ship, and he knew the Titanic had struck the iceberg, but he could not imagine how much damage was done or what the damage might mean.

  “Someone one bring Thomas Andrews to me at once,” Captain Smith ordered. Of all aboard the ship, Thomas Andrews, the architect who designed the ship, knew her the best. Smith cursed his luck aboard the sister ship to the Olympic, who had given him trouble in the past.

  Andrews appeared quickly, saying he was awake, felt the movements, and was headed for the bridge when he was called; together the men went below to check the damage.

  Bruce Ismay tried to have a conversation with them, but they hurried along, too busy to listen, “We were making excellent time. She will stay afloat. Start the engines,” he called.

  “It was but a small shudder,” Thomas Andrews said, hopefully.

  “More like a dragging,” Smith agreed, “but it was a berg.”

  “And the berg caught her side?”

  “We were turning when she hit. I fear it was a low impact.”

  He was correct. When the ship hit the spar of ice, she was turning so that ice snagged at the lowest part of the ship, well below the waterline.

  “You designed her. What are your initial thoughts?”

  “She has bulkheads, and she can limp along easily with two or three of them filled. She might stand even a fourth damaged. If it is worse than that, we will be fine until the rescue ships arrive if they are quick about it,” Andrews said.

  The forward cargo held; the squash court and the mailroom were awash with several inches of seawater. Over 3,500 bags of mail were soaked, but there was more to consider than mere mail.

  The ship was flooded with fifteen feet of water. The forward holds were under water.

  “Boiler Room six is under water,” William Abrams said, “Captain, things ain’t right. There’s things in Boiler five, and we heard a horrid screaming from the mail hold.”

  “Did you check the mail hold?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Why didn’t you check? Of all things….”

  “Captain, you can yell all you want, but not a man among us would venture into that room….”

  “They were drowning and needed aid,” Thomas Andrews said, “That’s cruel of you to ignore their cries for help.”

  “I beg your pardon, Sir, but I’ve work many a’ship, and that weren’t the screams of any man a-taken by the sea. We heard the screams of men having their flesh and minds ripped away.”

  “Really now,” Andrews said. He had no time for such drama. Men brought him reports, and he took the information in and considered it.

  Abrams nodded, “it is bad enough what we’ve got around us. Never ‘ave I imagined such madness, Sir.”

  “Mr. Abrams, please explain about Boiler Room 5, and remember I have much to do,” Captain Smith said, but he became aware of shouting and squealing coming from the boiler room in question. He walked over to look with Abrams and went pale as milk. The firemen struggled to pump the water out, but they had to stop often and swipe at the creatures that swam, splashing dangerously on the water.

  At first, Captain Smith thought the creatures were fish swimming on the surface, but he did not understand why men hit them with shovels until one of the lumps washed close enough for him to see it clearly.

  “My God,” Captain Smith said, as he looked at the rat-like thing that had stubby legs, webbed claw feet for swimming, and a scaled body with some type of fungus or fur between its scales. It had the repulsive face of a spider complete with wicked-looking little fangs and a tiny opened orifice as a mouth. The creature’s eight eyes, two large and six small, focused on the Captain, moving as he moved. With revulsion, he kicked it away.

  It was so obscene that it was an affront to every living thing on earth.

  “What….” Thomas Andrews could not form the question properly.

  One of the firemen yelled and shook the creature that grasped him before it could sink those terrible fangs into his flesh. The slick scales made it hard to grasp the abomination, so it wriggled and slid in the man’s hands.

  Fortunately, it could not hold on well because of the webbing of its feet, and with a curse, the fireman dashed it into the steel wall. Because the man threw it like a ball, the creature exploded into red and green glop.

  “What…what are they, Abrams?” The Captain could not help but imagine the poor souls in the mail hold if those appalling things swarmed them. No wonder they shrieked. What if it were something worse although the Captain could not imagine anything more repellent.

  “I don’t know, Captain. They may come from deep in the ship or washed in wit’ the water, but I ain’t never seen such things and don’t think they are…natural.”

  “They aren’t from the ship,” Andrews said.

  “They ain’t from a sea that I ever seen,” said Abrams and Andrews who were in a standoff with the origin of the creatures.

  “They are from hell itself,” the Captain muttered.

  “I have seen some terrible lookin’ fish, but these swim on the top of the water like they are a-breathin’ air. I don’t know where they’d be from beside hell, Mr. Andrews,” said Abrams, agreeing with Captain Smith.

  The flooding rose to three feet and had a bloody, oily sheen that surrounded the dead bodies of the rat-spiders. The firemen crushed several dozen of the disgusting creatures.

  From a corner, white tendrils rose from the dark water, feeling along the wall blindly and stretching out thinly to reach for one of the men. The fireman stood, in shock, watching the slender, slimy appendages reach out for his face. He moaned.

  “What is that?” Andrews shouted, “Man, get away from that thing.”

  The fearful crewmember broke and ran toward the door, as the tendrils found nothing to grab onto. Had he looked over his shoulder, he might have tripped and fallen.

  “Get out. Everyone out,” Smith ordered. The stunned shock was broken, and all the men ran from the room as Abrams sealed it.

  Smith was relieved no one was hurt, but he could not erase the vision of the spider-faced rats swimming and the white tendrils that went after one of the firemen. It was more than he could accept.

  Most seamen could tell tales about sea monsters. A quarter of the stories were true. Half of the stories were believed to be true by the drunken men who claimed the visions. These visages were not stories but were real, yet the monstrosities did not fit the usual creatures
of sealore as they were not a big squid or mermaids. Maybe that is what made it all worse.

  Right before the door closed, Smith saw the owner of the white tendrils: a horrible black beetle that released and contracted the tendrils from its shining, dark carapace. A worse outrage was that the creature had human-like, blue eyes, which showed intelligence as it regarded the men. The beetle knew it had missed its chance to grab the fireman but promised, in its gaze, that it would find another chance to get someone.

  Smith walked to the side and vomited. No one remarked upon that.

  “Mr. Andrews, what is your professional evaluation of the situation?” Smith asked. “Of the ship, not the creatures, please.”

  Thomas Andrews turned sad eyes to the Captain and took a deep breath before he spoke, “The water cannot be pumped out. The damage is too great; the ship is doomed. She cannot stay afloat for more than two hours, Sir.”

  “And of the rest….”

  “Of the creatures, I cannot begin to suggest anything about where they have come from, why, or what they are about,” Andrews said, “but I wish I had not laid eyes upon the beasts.”

  Smith nodded and motioned them to walk with him. He went back to the bridge, wondering what to say and what to do. In all his training and experience, he was not prepared for his ship to sink like this or to be attacked by monsters, something about those human-like, blue eyes….

  His men stared, awaiting orders. Captain Smith’s eyes were far away, and he felt weak. Trying to think, he kept seeing the white tendrils, trying to grab the crewman.

  “The life boats are to be uncovered. Send a distress call.” He sat down in a chair and lit a cigar, his eyes glazed over. He now could see nothing but the monster’s eyes watching him and taunting him.

  It knew he had failed as a Captain. It was down in the hold laughing at him, making jest of his failure and enjoying it all. It was satisfied and pleased with another life’s dread and fear. It drank in sorrow. It probably lapped up tears.