Carpathia by Matt Forbeck Page A

filled the night, hundreds of people terrified for their lives. Having been caught in the blackness underwater just moments ago, Quin's eyes were quick to adjust to the lack of light, and he soon could see the outline of the ship towering over him, a mountainous hulk of blackness against the brilliant stars filling the cloudless night sky.
      "Quin!" someone shouted off to the right. He knew it could only be one person.
      "Abe!" Quin shoved his deck chair in front of him and kicked toward Abe's voice. The chair made for a lousy raft, unable to support much of his weight without sinking, but it proved to be better than nothing. Holding onto it gave him some strange comfort, as if it confirmed that he wasn't alone out here in the freezing waters with nothing at all to help him.
      "Dear God, Quin," Abe said. "After that wave hit us, I thought I'd lost you for sure."
      "I thought we were both dead."
      Quin could see Abe grinning bleakly back at him. The starlight surrounded them, coming not only from the sky but also reflecting off the water all around them. In it, he could see the whites of his friend's teeth and eyes.
      "That too," Abe said. "It's a miracle we survived."
      Quin grunted as he pushed the deckchair toward Abe, who grabbed on to the other end of it. This made it even more useless as a flotation device, but Quin felt the tradeoff was worth it. "For now," he said.
      "You're always such a pessimist," Abe said.
      Quin barked a short laugh. "You must admit this is a situation that might call for it."
      "Hey, we may be in the water, but the Titanic' s still afloat, isn't she? That's something."
      As the words left Abe's lips, a series of loud cracks and bangs erupted from the direction of the ship. Although Quin hadn't much experience with firearms, the flat, lethal noises sounded like gunshots to him. He supposed that Abe, who'd often gone fox hunting with his father Lord Godalming, would recognize if that were so.
      "Are they shooting people?" Quin asked aloud.
      Abe shook his head.
      "Are you saying they're not?"
      "I'm saying I don't know. I've never heard anything like that."
      A board zipped by Quin's head and landed with a splash behind him. Abe gave up his grip on the deck chair and swam for it. Quin kicked along after him for a moment, peering back over his shoulder at the ship as he went.
      Then Quin spotted what was making the noise. He stabbed a frozen finger up at the Titanic 's towering bulk. "It's not the people," he said. "It's the ship!"
      Just above where the ship had entered the water, the whole thing snapped in half. It broke, not clean and sharp like a dry matchstick but instead crumbled, sheared, and tore away with a mighty, extended screech that sounded like the protestations of a choir of angry demons.
      As Quin and Abe watched, the top half of the ship – no longer held in place by its lower half, like a knife stabbed into a steak – toppled back into the water, landing on its keel. As it fell, Abe pointed toward the waters behind the ship. Scores of people floundered about in the shadow of the gigantic ship as it came rushing down at them like a great tower chopped off at its base.
      Quin could do nothing but watch the massacre in helpless horror. He couldn't have reached any of the people under the falling ship in time, and even if he had, what could he have done, other than be crushed with them? Some part of him hoped that the water would cushion the ship's fall some. Perhaps the wave it caused as it fell would shove some of the people out of the way like beachside swimmers riding the surf.
      In his heart, though, Quin knew each of those poor souls – every last one of them – was doomed.
      "Dear God." Abe's voice sounded hushed, almost reverent. The words formed not a prayer but a profession of awe at the horrible spectacle playing out before them.
      The ship fell over like a gigantic tree felled by an impossible blow. It