DECK Z, ELECTRICAL STORAGE ROOM.
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1912. 8:04 A.M.
Joe Clench led the able seamen past the first watertight door down the narrow hallway to the storage room, pistol drawn and grumbling all the way. “You ask me, Captain Smith has this all wrong. If there’s more o’ those things to fight, we should be the ones doin’ the fightin’. Who’s going to fend off the next one of those zombie-monsters, the git with the slide rule?”
“Torch tanks are heavy, Clench—don’t expect the little fella could handle one,” sneered Holman.
McGough and Terrell sniggered, but truth be told they preferred retrieving welding torches to another battle with monsters. If Mr. Andrews or Mr. Weiss wanted a go, they could have it. All was calm as the able seamen made their way. Even so, Seaman Holman, as last in line, warily surveyed the hall behind them, his White Star gun at the ready.
Clench wiped his brow with the sleeve of his blue denim shirt. His wool flannel underthings were just right for work on the boat deck, but they were a damned nuisance below; he was too hot by half. He reached the door to the storage room and tucked his pistol into the back of his pants. “Time to haul, boys,” he grunted as he pushed open the door.
As more zombies emerged from the room, Terrell and McGough aimed their weapons into the zombies’ decaying midsections, completely forgetting Weiss’s instructions. By chance, two zombies were struck in the head and destroyed, but they were simply trampled over by others in stained white sailor’s caps cocked at crazy angles. Terrell was savagely mauled, as three zombies shoved at one another for the chance to tear into his flesh and brain. McGough emptied his gun into a single assailant, a former junior assistant engineer still wearing wire-rim spectacles and not more than twenty years old. The last shot took the thing’s ear off, but the junior engineer overpowered McGough to return the favor and more.
Holman was last in line and escaped the initial crushing flail. When a zombie sent Holman’s pistol sailing, the seaman had but one thought—run like hell.
He ran for his life, arms pumping side to side, into the potential safety of the room that housed the top portion of the ship’s reciprocating engines. Holman’s labored breathing might have echoed in the machine room had the reciprocating engines not been so deafening, a steady drone of whirring and pumping that turned Titanic’s triple screws. He nearly ran headlong into the room’s far wall and panicked, realizing he’d rushed to a dead end. So he spun back the way he came in search of a different escape route.
Ahead, at the edge of the reciprocating room, Holman saw a stairwell that might offer escape. But he never set foot on the stairs or even heard the moan.