If Tomorrow Never Comes

Death Of Titanic

Lily was drawn up against the grating of a stokehold vent as water poured through it. The force of tons of water roaring down the ship trapped her against it, and she was dragged down under the surface as the ship sank. She struggled to free herself but could not. Suddenly, there was a concussion deep in the bowels of the ship as a furnace exploded and a blast of hot air belched out of the ventilator, ejecting Lily. She surfaced in a roar of foam and kept swimming.

...

Andy, Miranda, and the twins ran out of the palm court into a dense crowd. Andy pushed her way to the rail and looked at the state of the ship. The bridge was under water and there was chaos on deck. Andy helped Miranda put the lifebelt on. Around them, people flooded past, shouting and pushing.

"Okay, we have to keep moving aft. We have to stay on the ship as long as possible."

They pushed their way forward through the panicking crowd, clambering over the A-Deck rail. Then using all their strength, lowering each twin toward the deck below. Andy holding their hands and lowering them individually. They dangled, then Miranda caught them below. Andy jumped down after them and they joined a rush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narrow stairs to the well deck, the only way aft.

Seeing that the stairs were impossible, Andy climbed over the B-Deck railing and helped the other three over. They used the same method again this time Miranda lowering the twins. When Miranda came over Andy tried to catch her but she fell in a heap. Head cook, Charles Joughin, now three sheets to the wind, happened to be next to her and hauled Miranda to her feet.

"Mommy, I'm cold, I'm so cold," Caroline mumbled as the editor found ground on the deck.

Under her breath, Cassidy made a comment along the lines of everyone being cold. The older woman shrugged the coat she was wearing off her arms and draped it around the girls.

"Take it," Cassidy mumbled and let her sister shiver into the coat before moving and grabbing Andy's hand as the group pushed through the crowd across the well deck.

Near them, at the rail, people were jumping into the water. The ship groaned and shuddered. The man ahead of Andy was walking like a zombie.

He prayed, "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death--"

"You wanna walk a little faster through that valley there?" Andy asked and pushed him up the stairs.

...

On one of the steam funnels, the stay cables snapped on top, and they lashed down like steel whips into the water. Nearby, Irv watched as the funnel toppled from it's mounts. It fell like a temple pillar twenty eight feet across. It whomped into the water with a tremendous splash. People swimming underneath it disappeared in an instant.

Lily, a few feet away, was hurled back by a huge wave. She came up gasping, still swimming. The water poured into the open end of the funnel drawing in several swimmers. The funnel sank, disappearing, but hundreds of tons of water poured down through the thirty foot hole where the funnel stood, thundering down into the belly of the ship. A whirlpool formed, a hole in the ocean, like an enormous toilet flush. T. W. McCauley, the gym instructor on the ship swam in a frenzy as the vortex drew him in. He got sucked down like a spider going down a drain.

Lily swam like Hell as more people were sucked down behind her. She managed to get clear, and was going to live no matter what it took.

All around, water roared through the doors and windows, cascading down the grand staircase like rapids. John Jacob Astor was swept down the marble steps to A-Deck which was already flooded, a roiling vortex. He grabbed the headless cherub at the bottom of the staircase and wrapped his arms around it. He then looked up in time to see the thirty foot glass dome overhead explode inward with a wave of water washing over it. A Niagara of sea water thundered down into the room, blasting through the first class opulence. It was the Armageddon of elegance.