A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Twenty-Four
Back in the Master-at-Arms room, Jack is
trying desperately to get the cuffs off. "Come on, come on, come on.
Agh!"
Through the wrought iron door of the elevator
car. Rose can see going past. Hold on, Jack. I’m coming. Hold on. The lift
slows. Suddenly ice water is swirling around her legs. She screams, and she has
a flashback of her standing on the back of the ship, Jack telling her about the
water below.
Jack: "It hits you like a thousand
knives stabbing all over your body. You can’t breathe, you can’t think...least
not about anything but the pain."
For she now knows how it feels to feel the
ice cold water around her. The car has landed in a foot of freezing water,
shocking the hell out of her. It scares the operator. "I’m going back
up."
"No! No!" She claws the door open
and splashes out, hiking up her floor-length dress, so she can move.
"Miss! I’m going back up. I’m going back
up." The lift goes back up, behind her, as she looks around.
"Crew passage...crew passage. Oh, I hate
directions, I can never find them, right."
She spots it and slogs down the flooded
corridor. The place is understandably deserted. She is on her own. She turns
into a cross-corridor, splashing down the hall. A row of doors on each side.
She does what she was told. She finally gets to a long corridor. One way the
water is building up; the other there’s hardly any water. She goes that way.
"Jack! Jack!"
Jack is hopelessly pulling on the pipe again,
straining until he turns red. He collapses back down, realizing he’s screwed.
Then he hears her through the door. "Rose!"
In the hall, she hears his voice behind her.
She spins around. "Jack!"
"Rose! I’m in here. I’m in here."
He clinks the pipes, for he knew she was partial deaf.
"Jack!"
"I’m in here!"
Keep that noise going, Jack. Keep it going.
"Jack!"
"Rose!"
Locating the right door, that fit the noise,
she pushes it open, creating a small wave. She sees him. "Jack! Jack,
Jack. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry." As she splashes over to him and
puts her around him, and kisses him. They are so happy to see each other, it’s
embarrassing.
"That guy Parrish put it in my
pocket."
"I know, I know, I know, I know."
As she hugs him again.
"Listen Rose, you’ll going to have to
find a spare key, all right? Look in that cabinet right there. It’s a little
silver one, Rose."
She slogs to the keyboard, and searches.
"These are all brass one!"
He indications the desk next to him.
"Check right here, Rose."
She starts to go through the desk.
"Rose?" She turns to him. "How
did you find out that I didn’t do it?"
"I didn't. I just realized I already
knew."
They share a long look.
"Keep looking."
"Oh." She goes back to ransacking
the room, searching drawers and cupboards. Jack sees movement out the porthole
and looks out.
A lifeboat hits the surface of the water,
seen from below, while the seamen detach the falls, Boat one rocks next to the
hull. A man and a woman sit with ten others in a boat made for four times that
many.
"I despise small boats. I just know I’m
going to be seasick in small boats. Good heavens, there’s a man down
there," said the woman, pointing.
In a lit porthole beneath the surface, she
sees Jack looking up at her, a face in a bubble of light under the water.
At the bow, the place where Jack and Rose
first kissed. The bow railing goes under water. Water swirls around the
capstans and windlasses on the forecastle deck.
Captain Smith strides to the bridge rail and
looks down at the well deck. Water is shipping over the sides and the well deck
is awash. Two men run across the deck, their feet sending up spray. Behind
Captain Smith, Boxhall fires another rocket. WHOOSH!
Rose stops and stands there, breathing hard.
"No key. There’s no key!"
They look around at the water, now almost two
feet deep. Jack has pulled his feet up onto the bench. "All right. Rose,
listen. You’re gonna have to go find some help. It’ll be all right."
She looks down at the water, and then wades
to him, kissing him fiercely. "I’ll be right back."
She wades, and throwing furniture away from here
to the doorway, and splashes away.
"I’ll just wait here!"
She laughs, as she splashes down the hall
towards the stairwell. She stops laughing, until she saw water raising in front
of her. She climbs the stairs to the next steerage hallways, D deck. She is
alone here. A long groan of stressing metal echoes along the hall as the ship
continues to settle. She runs down the hall, unimpeded now.
"Hello? Is there anybody here? Hello? Is
there anybody here? We need help! Hello?"
She notices there is nobody there. "Damn
it! Can anybody hear me, please! Hello? Hello!"
She turns a corner and runs along another
corridor in a daze. The hall slopes down into water, which shimmers, reflecting
light. The margin of the water creeps toward her.
A young man appears, running through the
water, sending up geysers of spray. He pelts past her without slowing, his eyes
crazes.
"Oh thank God!" As she grabs a hold
of his arm. "Please I need your help. There’s a man back there and
he--"
The man lets go and runs off and he doesn’t
look back.
"Wait!" It’s like a bad dream.
"Hello?" she echoes.
The hull gongs with terrifying sounds. The
light flickers and goes out, leaving utter darkness. She leans against the rail
that connects the walls, and waits. Oh God, this is it. I’m going to die. She
finds herself hyperventilating. A beat. Then they come back on. That one moment
of blackness was the most terrifying of her life.
"Hello?" she cracks, as she walks
forward.
A steward walks around the nearest corner,
his arms full of life belts. He is upset to see someone still in his section.
"Ah, Miss, you shouldn’t be here now."
He grabs Rose forcefully by the arm, pulling
her with him like a wayward child.
"Wait. I need your help."
He's not listening. And he won't let her go.
"This way, quickly."
"There’s a man down there." She
points the other way. "And he’s trapped."
"This way, all right."
"Please!"
"There’s no need to panic."
"No, I’m not panicking! You’re going the
wrong way." She struggles to let go. "Let go of me," she shouts
in his ear, "Listen!" He turns. She punches him squarely in the nose.
Shocked, he lets her go and staggers back. She ran backwards into the wall. The
force was too much for her to handle by that punch.
"To hell with you!" He runs off,
holding his bloody nose.
She groans, as she leans on the wall. It’s
hopeless. God, please, help me. As she closes her eyes, when she reopened them,
there stood a glass case with an ax in it on the wall. She unwraps the holes
from the fire extension and breaks the glass with it. She seizes the ax,
running back the way she came.
On the bridge deck, Captain Smith looks down
over the railing and sees the water pouring onto the steerage deck. Fireworks
explode and he looks up. There’s not enough time.