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In the melee and confusion of the dining saloon, where hungry, infected immigrants and the overfed, unsullied elite fought one another for survival, they barely noticed the collision. The clean, metallic smell of fresh blood mixed with the rotting stench of death and decay to produce a piquancy that chafed the throat and turned the stomach of those lucky enough to still feel repulsed by such things. Many had succumbed to the hoard, some dying in a pool of their own blood, either physically unable or not quick-witted enough to escape. Some stayed their ground, believing their social standing alone would be enough to secure their safety: that these rabid animals, driven insane by bloodlust, would listen to reason if delivered in a courteous but firm tone.
Benjamin Guggenheim was under no such illusion. He and a few other gentlemen who shared his noble, humanitarian attitude were taking the fight to the diseased, intending to establish safe passage for as many ladies as could be rescued. Guggenheim himself was in the centre of the fray, brandishing a bottle of VSOP Cognac, the contents of which he drank straight from the bottle as he punched and kicked his way across the room. Their positive approach had taken the infected by surprise, although significantly outnumbered, they had already furnished aid to several damsels in distress and incapacitated, at least for a short while, several of the inhuman beings.
Guggenheim struck one of the creatures so violently about the head with a broken chair leg he heard the skull break away from the neck. The creature’s decayed flesh sheared away as the head, teeth bared in expectation, bounced across a nearby table. Guggenheim put his foot in the bloody remains of the poor soul’s dinner and looked down to see the charlatan, Lord Bernard’s death-mask face looking up, wide-eyed and leering. His pale hand still clasped Katherine Black’s hand to his empty chest cavity, their fingers entwined; her arm severed at the elbow, her disembowelled body lay a few yards away. A young boy of about eight scavenged her remains for any morsel of meat overlooked by those who’d torn the rich widow apart. With a tear in his eye, the impeccably dressed American took a few steps, taking care not to slip in Bernard’s remains, and swung the chair leg like a major league hitter, dispatching the child to a more peaceful death than he had so far experienced.
As the terrified diners fought for their lives against increasingly overwhelming odds, three members of the string quartet continued to play a selection of hymns while the fourth, the cellist, slumped in his seat. A well-known American vaudeville singer, her long dress hiked up past her knees, sat astride his legs ripping the flesh from his face with her teeth. A plump, middle-aged woman screamed hysterically as she witnessed the once attractive soprano stuff one of the cellist’s eyeballs into her mouth. Thick, clear fluid ran down her chin as the eyeball burst open with a popping crunch.
The plump woman stopped screaming and just stared at the ceiling vacantly as Esme, fresh from slaying Violet, broke her neck with one violent twist. She let the plump corpse fall to the floor among the abandoned handbags, gentlemen’s scarves, and body parts now littering the expensive Axminster carpet, before she began to feed on the more choice cuts of meat. It took her a few moments to tear through the subcutaneous fat and locate the oversized liver, but the exquisite taste of the fatty organ made it all worthwhile.
The darkly lined and mottled corpse that, until a few hours ago, had been the bright and engaging maid, Esme Jackson, took her fill of the open platter of warm meat on offer. The vile, blood-soaked monster hunched over the dead woman’s ample remains no longer bore any resemblance to the vivacious young woman who had turned many a young man’s head as she pulled pints in the Belvedere Arms. All traces of her humanity were consumed by the plague that relentlessly ate away at her rotting flesh. When the food supply ran out, she would no longer be able to replenish what it consumed, and she too would die. Although for Esme, and those like her, death would come as a blessed relief.
But she had one more score to settle. A score felt so deep it left a mark on her soul, a mark that only Miss Wilson could expunge. Leaving the empty carcass for the scavengers, Esme staggered to her feet and headed purposefully towards Miss Wilson’s office.
Pandora, her head tilted to one side, watched Esme weave her way through the pandemonium of the saloon from her vantage point on top of the grand piano. Having sniffed the air, searching for signs of danger, she joined the other scavengers stripping the rich, fatty meat from the bones of Esme’s kill.
