Infected Waters: A Titanic Disaster Read online

  ~~~~~~

  Nora finished the examinations with the help of her crew, Judith and Angie, who had made it off the ship early enough.

  Leaving the passengers of the Titanic in the capable hands of the Carpathian’s crew, the ladies took the rare opportunity to spend a moment staring at the wreckage of their illustrious ship.

  “I’m very glad you both made it off the ship.” Nora sniffled as she thought about all of those they had lost.

  Judith put an arm around Nora’s shoulders. “I’m sorry we lost Jonathan.”

  “We had such a connection and now I’ll never be able to forget him. Other men won’t measure up in the same way.”

  Nora couldn’t understand how she had gotten so attached in just a few short days since they had left Southampton.

  “Look! What is that metal thing floating toward us?” Angie pointed a shaking finger across the empty space between the wreckage and their new ship.

  Judith and Nora squinted to see what Angie had seen. “That’s the mummy’s coffin.”

  “It survived the sinking of the ship?” Judith couldn’t believe it was possible.

  “The coffin was replaced in the cargo bay, which is on the end that filled with water first.”

  “Should we let the ship’s captain know about it?” Angie asked curiously.

  “No!” Both Nora and Judith turned on her.

  “Sorry. I was just asking.” Angie shrugged apologetically.

  “We don’t need a cursed coffin on this ship. I want to make it to America.” Judith’s attitude came back in an instant.

  “The mummy’s coffin can find a home out here floating until some other ship finds it. While I don’t believe in a curse, the damn thing is floating while our ship is at the bottom of the ocean.” Nora grimaced as she heard how she sounded. “I’m sorry, Angie. I think I’m just a little on edge with everything that has gone on during this voyage.”

  “You should get some rest now that there are others to help take care of everyone. We don’t have any illnesses and the Carpathian’s staff have got it covered,” Judith reassured her, hoping she could sneak away and visit with Samuel.

  “Yes, you’re right. Some rest before we land would probably be a good idea.” Nora walked away to go find a place where she could be alone and mourn her loss.

  ~~~~~~

  Gil sat on the bench, leaning against the wall with an arm around Lillian as they listened to the final moments of her mother’s life.

  “I tried to move her down the ship’s deck as the infected started to make it up to the main deck. Mother refused to move or hurry.” Samuel bowed his head. Whether in sorrow or shame, even he was unsure of his feelings at her loss.

  “She had frozen in horror, so I threw her over my shoulder and took off, but I was too late. One of the infected grabbed her arm and took a bite. I knew there was no cure and she would turn so I held her until she died.” Samuel choked back a sob, trying to regain control to finish his story.

  Richard placed a hand on his shoulder in sympathy. “Just take your time, son. There’s no need to hurry.”

  “I killed her,” Samuel stated calmly.

  “No, son. It’s not your fault she’s dead.” Richard tried to reassure him.

  “Really, I took the axe and swung it. I killed her.” Samuel fell silent, waiting for their recriminations and judgments.

  “There was no way you could avoid it. None of us wanted your mother to become an infected person.”

  Richard would miss his wife, but he was lucky. Both of his children were alive and he had made it off the doomed ship. Many of his fellow survivors were the only ones of their families left.

  “I hate those infected people,” Lillian spat angrily.

  “I’m pretty sure they’re not people anymore,” Gil pointed out helpfully.

  Lillian glared at him. “I hate the dead things that killed people. Happy?”

  Gil knew better than to answer a loaded question of such a nature, so he kept his mouth shut.

  “When we arrive in America, we’ll have a memorial service for your mother. Gil, what are your plans afterward?” Richard liked the young man, but felt Lillian was still too young to begin any major life plans with a boy.

  “Well, sir, I hadn’t planned to come to America and I’m going to return to Ireland, but now I want to see if they will let me become an immigrant. Once that is determined, I’ll find somewhere to work. Chef Joughin has offered me an apprenticeship if I want it.”

  “Will he be in New York?” Richard didn’t know much about the Chef.

  “I believe so. He is fairly well-known and his skills are amazing. There is a restaurant that was hoping to offer him the position once he arrived.”

  “Once you’ve settled in, maybe you can come and visit us in North Carolina,” Richard offered graciously.

  “Mother just died and you are just sitting here acting like nothing happened. I knew you didn’t like her, but this really takes the cake. I can’t wait to be on my own.” Samuel jumped up and went to the other side of the ship.

  Richard didn’t even try to follow him. There was nothing he could do to help Samuel overcome his grief or the guilt for his mother’s death. Only time would ease those wounds. He hoped one day Samuel would be able to accept what had happened on this terrible voyage.

  In the wake of the Carpathian’s departure, floated a golden coffin filled with the mummy’s corpse. Seeming to move of its own accord, far away from the wreckage of the Titanic, it waited for another unsuspecting ship to bring its cursed essence aboard.

  Epilogue

  The doctor’s bag with the carefully wrapped blood samples taken from the first victims of the infection was placed next to his berth on the Carpathian. Traveling on this ship in the same manner as he had spent his time on the Titanic, he was blissfully unaware he was carrying the virus which had caused the demise of an unsinkable ship.

  His arrival was greeted by extended family, who allowed him to retire so he could recover from his harrowing experience.

  When he caught his nephew trying to play with his stethoscope, he yelled, “Don’t ever get into a doctor’s bag. There are too many adult things in there that you could get hurt by.” Dr. Hughes took his flask out and put it to his lips. He shuddered as the memories of the Titanic flooded his mind. “There are so many terrible things that have happened to me since I became a doctor. Don’t ever follow in my footsteps.” Slamming the door on his nephew’s departure, the doctor came to a decision.

  Closing his medical bag, he placed it on the top shelf of the closet behind several other empty traveling bags and promptly dismissed it with the memories he so desperately wanted to forget.

  His death in 1925 was caused by liver failure, allowing the case to sit unnoticed until his nephew’s return in 1934, who began to clean out his uncle’s belongings to make space in the attic for the sale of their family’s home.

  Sighing fondly, he pulled the bag down and placed it on the floor.

  Opening it, he was mystified to find three vials inside labeled with the words.

  “Victim A. Titanic 1912.”

  “Victim B. Bitten by victim A.”

  “Victim C. Scratched by victim A who rose from the dead and infected him.”

  Carefully placing each glass vial on the floor, he pulled the journal out from underneath them. Written across the front was the name, Nora Ryan, nurse aboard the ship, Titanic.

  The Survivors of Titanic

  Nora stayed single and continued her nursing career with two more ships that were sunk during the World Wars.

  Judith flirted her way into the Red Cross, but the epidemic on board the ship had changed her so much that she became one of the best nurses during WWI. She met a recovering soldier and settled down during the Great Depression.

  James had so much guilt from watching his friends die that drifted from job to job until he rescued a small child crossing the street and realized he still had a future. He joined the army and went o
n to become a Sergeant, who saved his men several times from death.

  Gil and Lillian stayed in touch and wrote each other as the war broke out and Gil joined to bake his way through the artillery shells. He managed to make it back and ask her to marry him which they did immediately. They had four children and many grandchildren who were never told the real story of what happened when their ship sank.

  Samuel attended the university and became a lawyer, before the war broke out. He enlisted as a pilot flying many missions and facing death daily.

  Richard remarried years waiting until after Lillian and Gil married. He pastored a small church in Virginia until the day he died at age 90.

  The other survivors all kept the secret of Titanic’s demise hidden and no one knew the reasons behind the crash into the ice burg causing it to sink.

  Many people discussed having an expedition, but were always kept away by the survivors. The frozen infected were left to float in the North Atlantic undisturbed for many years.

  Infected by Jessica Gomez

  Chapter 1

  I stumbled down the sidewalks crumbled remains, watching the grey and white clouds swirl a daring dance around each other; waiting for rain to descend from their bellies. I couldn’t remember when the last time was that a drop of water touched these lips. Most of the rivers and streams have either dried up, been poisoned, or are guarded by renegade survivors―People you would be smart to stay clear of.

  I scanned my surroundings, surveying the dilapidated, deserted city. The same broken cars, buildings, and roads that were once normal pieces of society flooded my vision. Roads and buildings overgrown by trees, weeds, and any other vegetation that wanted to reclaim their land. I always thought it would take longer than a year to erase anything and everything the human race was once proud of.

  Buildings had been brought down by the rough year after the Flash, some still stitched together by steel beams, missing their skin. Others still stood, dressing up in vegetation. Either way, they all appeared as if they belonged in a graveyard, left abandoned by all the people who used to go about their daily lives in them.

  The worst parts were the bones and tattered clothing left behind by those who perished, laying bleached in the sun. Some of them still held remnants of hair and skin.

  I paused to gaze at myself in a broken window. How long had it been since I’d last seen my reflection? I pulled the hood off my head and studied my features. My hair was brushing past my shoulder blades now. The last time I’d attempted to cut it, I’d used a piece of broken glass from a window. I almost severed one of my fingers in the process, so I decided to let it grow out.

  My long, blonde hair reflected off the few streams of sun radiating through the clouds, the color resembling shimmering wheat fields. Standing at about five foot two, I was a slight thing–not too short–yet not tall by anyone’s standards. I was always slender, but since the foods scarce, my clothes hang off me like rags. My green eyes sparkled back at me like emeralds, the one and only thing I loved about my appearance, and the one thing that could never be robbed from me in these rough months.

  Seemingly, out of nowhere, my eyes locked onto seven men and two women who were standing behind me, smiling vindictively in the reflection on the glass. It was like they appeared out of thin air. I turned to run, but they were already surrounding me in a semi-circle. My breathing slammed in and out of my lungs as I began panting, as if I’d just ran a marathon. My vision was beginning to narrow and I knew that I needed to control myself.

  “Go on, Ryan, you know what your choices are. Are you going to save her?” The man that spoke tilted his head back and laughed as if he’d said the funniest thing in the world. Ryan, the man he spoke to, wasn’t much older than me–maybe nineteen to my sixteen–and possibly one of the best-looking guys I had ever seen. His brown hair flopped into his bright blue eyes, his skin tanned and toned.

  The man’s words began to register and I knew that I had to get away, but before I could move, I watched as Ryan’s face changed from concerned, scared, and pitiful, to fierce and determined. He began his advance and I watched in horror as his eyes devoured me where I stood…

  I bolted upright, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs at a burning rate. I glanced over to check the tiny sleeping bundle next to me. I waited for her blankets to move up and down, making sure she was still breathing before I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead. The dream always had a way of igniting my adrenalin, even after years of repetition. Taking a shaky breath in, I settled my nerves and placed a hand on my little angel, reassuring myself again. Life is completely fucked up. Not only did life as we know it end, but some of the worst events in people’s lives can bring about the best.

  I pulled out the cracked mirror I’d found a short time ago from my pack and studied my features, the rising sun giving me enough light to see my reflection. I looked like a vagrant, someone who struggled to survive. I used to imagine being something–someone–a veterinarian, maybe? I always loved animals. Animals never judged you by the way you looked or where you came from. They loved without prejudice.

  Growing up in foster care made me want to prove myself and show the world that I wasn’t “foster scum,” as some of the kids called me, but none of it mattered now. I was nobody, just like anyone else who remained in the world.

  After the Flash lit the sky, the majority of the six and a half billion people on planet Earth dropped dead, or they mutated and died. When the Flash filled the sky with blindness, nobody expected it. People were going about their daily lives―shopping, working, playing with their children. Most people–the lucky ones–dropped where they stood, as if someone had flipped the off switch on millions of lives.

  The ones who didn’t die became the Infected. They were the ones who lived, but were affected by the Flash. They didn’t die immediately, but most died within months. Their deaths were rather unpleasant; they were normal one day, and the next their heads would start to blister. Those blisters became larger, looking more and more like tumors that leaked out bodily fluids resembling thick curdled milk from every part of their bodies.

  To make matters worse, these effects began driving them mad. The Infected would brutalize people, terrorize towns, and set buildings on fire, even if they knew people were inside―especially if they knew people were inside. The Infected ran riotously through the streets, harassing, killing, and beating any civilians they encountered. It was their sole purpose to kill and create chaos.

  Now, years later, they no longer existed. Anyone who survived was relieved it was over. We were the Immune. We may have survived the Flash and the Infected, but we had the privilege of watching everyone we loved around us perish to various degrees. I went on living and breathing today as I did before the light in the sky ended everything. However, my surroundings were quite different. I never thought I would have to plan my future when no future existed to plan.

  Some of the Immune, which were becoming few and far between, turned to killing, robbing, raping, and even cannibalism. It was everyone for themselves. Most of this type died off. There were only so many people available to kill now that most of humanity was already dead, but there were people who had found ways of hiding or so one would believe. The Immune had to find a new way of life, doing whatever they had to do to survive. The new future consisted of only one motive, and that was staying alive.

  The news stayed on long enough for the survivors to learn that the Flash was some sort of chemical weapon. Officials never released an official story as to whether it was ours, or if it was from another country, but at that point, it didn’t matter. The damage had been done, and had already Infected the entire world.

  Information was never really accurate when it came to the Infected and the Immune. During that time, I wasn’t aware that I was Immune. I kept expecting to wake up with blisters all over me, eventually growing into baseball-sized tumors.

  I watched as the news anchor became Infected with growths everywhere. When it was apparent that he
was not Immune, he went on air and made a statement that even though he was not Immune, it was still his job to report to all the remaining people who were Immune, as much information as possible. He promised to do this until this infection took over and he could not continue any longer. He bowed his head after that day’s speech and never returned to the air. I’d assumed he died that night, but there would never be any way of knowing. He was a nice man, it seemed, and I had hoped that he had simply died, and that he never had to suffer from the madness that took over so many.

  The information he was able to share did help. We knew what had taken place, what the outcome was, an estimation of people who had died, as well as the amount of people who may have survived. Only a small percentage of the human population remaining were assumed to be Immune from the Flash, but that estimation was made before they realized that just because you lived through the initial Flash, didn’t mean you were Immune. The real number of Immune, the people who suffered no side effects, was much lower.

  I was one of them.

  I’ve always been a drifter, never having any ties to one place for too long. With no family to speak of, I was just a child passed around from foster home to foster home. When I reached thirteen, I ran away and lied about my age to get a job.

  When the Flash hit, I was doing pretty well for myself. I worked at a drive-in movie theater and lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. The place was nothing special, but it was mine. Now, making a living doesn’t mean anything. Keeping yourself alive becomes your main priority, every second of every day.

  Occasionally, you run across items that aren’t very useful, but helpful in making life feel somewhat normal. Earlier that morning, I found a calendar from the year 2049, the year the world changed forever. I was fifteen. It also had in the back, a calendar for the next three years, up to 2052. Today was June 19, 2054, meaning that my birthday was tomorrow, June, 20th. Happy Birthday to me. I’ll be twenty years old.