Titanic: Voyage Of The Damned

Chapter 5: Secrets Unveiled

A violent shudder rocked the entire ship, jolting Rose awake with a scream. She clutched at Jack in terror as an awful metallic screeching tore through the darkness.

"It's the end, Jack!" she cried. "This ship is doomed!"

"Stay with me, Rose," he urged, though his own voice wavered.

All around them, pandemonium reigned in the dead of night. Heavy footsteps pounded past their door as crew members and passengers fled some unseen horror. Anguished wailing mixed with shrieks of pure madness echoed down the corridors.

Over the panicked din, a steady groaning creak of straining steel pervaded, as though the very rivets holding the ship together were being rent from their foundations.

Jack and Rose clung to one another like castaways adrift on a merciless sea. Neither spoke, for no words could voice their dread.

Amidst the pandemonium, Bruce Ismay's tearful voice cried out, "This ship was cursed from its birth! Oh Lord, forgive our hubris..." His anguished lament faded down the hallway, leaving only ominous creaks and groans.

When the ship settled into an unnatural stillness, Jack and Rose emerged trembling into the corridor. The electric lights still burned, casting the once opulent space in an eerie sterile glow. Shadows wavered over the paneled walls, cast by nothing earthly.

Arm in arm, they inched forward, eyes darting. The reinforced doors of the bank vault stood wide open, contents strewn wildly across the floor as if flung about by some violent force. Strange symbols were etched into the steel walls.

Everywhere lay evidence of supernatural fury unleashed. Broken glass, torn upholstery, the unearthly stench of the sea...through it all drifted mournful whispers just at the edge of hearing, like restless spirits clinging to the doomed vessel.

Reaching a staircase, Jack and Rose froze. Up from below echoed shrieks and howls of utter anguish. At the same time, heavy footfalls rang out on the stairs, rapidly ascending from whatever horrors lay in the depths.

Jack pulled Rose back against the wall just as three hysterical stokers burst onto the landing. "The bowels of this ship are damned!" one screamed, cold terror wild in his eyes.

The others babbled incoherently of fires erupting from nowhere, seawater flooding unchecked, and mangled specters oozing from the very walls themselves. Before Jack or Rose could move, the men tore past, lost in their madness.

Rose trembled uncontrollably. "This evil haunting us grows more monstrous," she gasped through bloodless lips. "Death surely hunts these corridors for us all."

Jack tightened his arm around her. "Stay behind me. We need to keep moving."

But where to seek refuge aboard a vessel surrendered fully to the forces of darkness? Still, they crept on, flinching at every gratings grown.

Turning a corner, they came upon a ghastly sight that halted them in their tracks: a steward lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs twisted unnaturally, glassy eyes staring blankly. No mark marred his body, but his face was frozen in an agonized scream.

Clapping a hand to her mouth, Rose turned away, only to find the adjacent wall crawled with shadowy tendrils squirming over the ornate paper. Jack pulled her back just before the dark mass oozed outward, reaching for fresh prey.

"We need to get above deck!" he shouted over the renewed cacophony of shrieking metal and anguished howls welling up from below. No part of the ship was immune to the insidious evil now oozing through every passageway.