return for them but they did not. They couldn’t go through with the plan.”
“The plan again?”
“To hold those boats in beside
He nodded. “Not one of the lifeboats came back for survivors in the water until after she went down. True, regardless of the fact men in just under fifty degree water had only ten or fifteen minutes before succumbing to hypothermia.”
He knew it was true—disturbingly so; that it read the same in every account, how the crew members flatly refused to return in the lifeboats to help those in the water—despite the horrible pleas. Those in the water would have been close in on the ship. Returning for them would jeopardize the lifeboats and crewmen would have known this.
Eventually all the survivors, numbering 707, were picked up by a merchant marine ship, the Carpathia, which, hours away, had steamed full-ahead toward the disaster site in hopes of getting to the coordinates early enough to be of service. “So… was this mysterious disease… was it brought on board the Carpathia?” he asked. “Were the survivors deposited in Newfoundland, Canada infected? Any deaths reported aboard Carpathia?”
“No… not in Newfoundland nor New York at that time, that is except for a dog that’d somehow gotten off
“Then perhaps the men of
“Not so according to the journal. Thomas Coogan made a few entries from Newfoundland before he disappeared. I fear they did fail, that the plague-carrier slipped through to survive. If he or she did get off the
“Going dormant?”
“Please, keep your voice down,” she said, indicating the door.
Just outside her door, they again heard someone noisily stumbling down the corridor. After a moment, Kelly added, “Now this thing—yes, it is aboard
“This disease organism has somehow gotten aboard
“You don’t understand, it… it uses its hosts… humans. It—”
“Now it’s an it and not a microcosmic creature?”
“I’m trying to tell you that it gets into the brainstem and the brain, working through the spinal column; it has evolved and it’s sophisticated in its pretense of being like you and me—human.”
“Human in appearance—aboard, among us?” David scratched at his neck, his legs firmly apart, rocking on his heels.”
“So you see, I can’t trust anyone.”
“No one? No one but me, you mean?” He stared into her eyes, searching for any trace of madness.
“If this thing—now in human form—if it knew all that I know, I’d be a target for assassination.” She dropped her gaze and shook her head, holding back tears.
“So you want a fellow target?” David took hold of her shoulders, demanding an answer.
She returned her gaze to him. “I need someone I can tell all this to, David. It’s tearing me apart.”
He stared long and hard at her and finally whispered, “Just how serious are you about your… this belief in this journal of yours, Kelly?”
“Deadly serious.”
He raised his hands in defeat. “A disease-carrying creature spawning death from stem to stern on
“Harvesting its young. That’s the supposition.”
“Sheeeze. The supposition these many decades according to whom? How can you trust words in a 100-year- old book? It’s fiction.”
“Look, I’ve done research surrounding a number of mysterious deaths that came about in various communities from Newfoundland to Boston and New York in the intervening years. Bodies found with the same result… an identical appearance as those found on
Ingles studied the photos in silence for a moment, thinking anything can be photo shopped nowadays, especially with Quasarnet-Adobe2012. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” he finally muttered, staring at the condition of several completely brown, leather-skinned, desiccated bodies. While curiously enthralled by the unusual death photos, he asked, “Aren’t these simply shots of petrified mummies?”
She said in his ear, “Each of them drained of bone marrow, spinal fluid, every ounce of moisture, all gone. Know of any disease that does this to a person gone missing a mere twenty-four hours?”
He shook his head. “I refuse to believe this—” he stabbed a finger at the photo— “drove Smith and crew to- to—” David could not say the words.
“There was only one recourse left them—to sink
“Spawn more of its kind—the carrier—do you realize how incredibly insane all this sounds, Kelly? No matter this… this evidence, these photos. If you so much as whisper a word of it, you’ll never see the inside of
“David, you don’t get it—someone on board this ship—is the descendent of the carrier, and its—his or her— reason for being here is to bring up from
“Progeny?” he repeated, his brow scrunched, telegraphing his disbelief.
“Its spawn… its god damned eggs.”
“Eggs? Spawn?”
“For God’s sake, man, I am talking about the resurgence of this parasitic organism we know nothing about. Kane, Forbes, and the others may be in search of treasures in the holds, but this thing… this virulent parasite, it wants its children, and eventually it wants to take over the Earth.”
“I can’t believe—”
“Believe it! It has the potential to wipe out the human race, Dave.”
She put a finger to his lips, as a passing crewman lingered just outside the compartment as if to take note of their banter. They let him pass before going on. “For all we know whoever that was passing by, he could be the…”
“You’re saying it has survived for over a hundred years. Is he some sort of vampire?” David was on the verge of laughter—again.
“It replenishes itself; it infiltrates the host body, uses it up in slow increments, until it chooses another host, when the earlier host is used up, the corpse left in a state of absolute exsanguination and dehydration.”
“Sang—what?”
“All the blood gone—along with—”
“All bodily fluid, you say.”
“Declan says so, yes, and-and the ME’s who worked on these bodies say so, too, David. This is not some fairytale.” She held up the current day victims. “All liquids drained—down to the spinal fluid. Look, David, I’ve seen such a victim at the Boston ME’s office. Not even the ME could believe what he was looking at.”
“How did you get access to the ME’s?”
“Made it my business to get chummy with a guy in the ME’s office.”
He stood and paced the few feet he had to work with. “Man, I can’t believe this.”
“I’m sure you’d prefer to have remained ignorant of it, but I have to trust someone.”
“Thanks… thanks a lot,” he replied in a sarcastic tone.
“You can’t not help me, Dave; bodies have cropped up—like I’ve said—from Canada to New York in enough numbers and in such a mysterious condition that yeah, the authorities and the CDC have taken notice. They just don’t know what they’re dealing with.”
“What notice did they take? I mean when you showed them the journal?”
