Hopeless Doom

Chapter 15 Dry Iron

Arthur gripped the crescent wrench. The steel was slick with sweat, but he didn't loosen his hold.

“You want Deck Six? That’s a separate manifold,” Arthur said.

The man in the wrinkled golf shirt shoved a gold Rolex toward him. “Just do it. You said you knew the bypass.”

“A watch doesn't change the laws of physics, pal. This iron is older than both of us.” Arthur locked the wrench onto the brass nut. He felt the resistance—the stubborn, seized kind that warned of a snap.

“Push!” the man hissed, stepping into Arthur’s space. “The Captain is hoarding the good water for the bridge. You said you could fix the pressure.”

Arthur didn't answer. He threw his weight against the handle. His shoulder barked in protest. The wrench didn't turn; it slipped. The heavy iron head slammed into the cast-iron pump housing.

CRACK.

It wasn't a loud sound. It was the sound of dry bone snapping. A jagged black fissure raced down the side of the pump.

The pressure gauge needle fluttered at thirty, then dropped to a dead zero. From deep inside the walls, a long, hollow wheeze echoed through the pipes—the sound of the ship’s last breath.

“What was that?” the man asked, his voice climbing an octave.

“The end,” Arthur whispered. He dropped the wrench. It hit the floor-grate with a final, metallic ring. “The metal gave up.”

“The gauge is at zero, Arthur. Fix it!”

“I can’t fix gravity.” Arthur watched brown, foul-smelling water weep from the c***k.

The man looked at the gold watch in his hand. It was a useless circle of metal now. He shoved it into his pocket and bolted for the door, leaving Arthur alone with the dripping iron.

Up on the Lido Deck, the sun was a blinding white weight. Matt Jane turned the spigot. A single drop hit the plastic cup.

The woman holding it didn't move. She stared at the empty bottom of her cup. “That’s it?”

“Barrel’s dry,” Matt said. He looked at the deckhand with the filler hose. “Prime the feed. Now.”

The deckhand spun the red wheel. Nothing. The canvas hose stayed flat—a dead snake on the teak.

“The wheel’s open!” the deckhand shouted, his voice cracking. “There’s no pressure! The line’s dead!”

The crowd didn't whisper. They surged. The distance between "passenger" and "mob" vanished in the heat.

“Back up!” Matt yelled, throwing his arm out.

“You’re hiding it!” a woman screamed. “You’ve got the good stuff for the VIPs!”

“The line is dry!” a man roared, grabbing the edge of the serving table. “They’re killing us! They cut the water!”

The table flipped. The empty blue barrel hit the wood with a booming thud and rolled toward the pool. Matt didn't swing his Maglite. He held it horizontally—a bar of iron against a wall of desperate chests. He braced his boots, feeling the collective weight of fifty people trying to crush the life out of him for a phantom cup of water.

Stan was swimming in dust. The ventilation shaft was twenty-four inches of galvanized hell. He flicked his Zippo. The flame danced, illuminating copper pipes that looked like veins in a corpse.

“Stan!” Nathan’s voice drifted up from the hatch.

“I’m at the junction,” Stan yelled. He crawled over the metal slats and looked through the grate into the pump room below. He saw the c***k. He saw the weeping iron. “Housing’s split!”

“Can you patch it?”

“With what? Prayers? You need a welder. The vacuum is gone.”

The ship rolled—a heavy, lethargic tilt. The copper intake pipe, no longer anchored by the weight of water, groaned. A brass bracket snapped like a dry twig.

Stan lunged back just as the massive pipe slammed onto the grating. The steel mesh buckled, the metal screaming inches from his boot. A jagged edge of the broken bracket whipped past his leg, slicing clean through his trousers but missing the skin.

He froze. The Zippo hit the floor, the light vanishing.

“Stan!” Nathan yelled, the sound muffled by the copper.

Stan lay in the absolute dark, his heart hammering against the galvanized steel. He reached down and felt his calf. The fabric was shredded, but his skin was dry. No blood.

“Stan? You there?”

“I’m okay,” Stan rasped into the dark, his voice shaking. “Nearly lost a leg, but I’m okay.”

“Get out of there! The struts are failing!”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Stan didn't wait. He kicked his foot free from the debris and dragged himself backward, his palms scraping against the gritty steel as he scrambled toward the hatch.

In the triage room, Sarah was cleaning a table. Alice walked in with a stack of empty cups.

“Deck Seven is rioting. They just smashed the casino windows.”

“Tell Matt,” Sarah said.

“Matt’s pinned on the promenade. The barrels are gone. Someone told them the pump is dead.”

Sarah stopped. She dropped the towel. She walked to the sink and turned the handle. All the way.

No hiss. No groan. Just absolute silence.

“It’s over, isn't it?” Alice whispered.

“Yes.”

Sarah looked at the fire doors. The noise from the stairwell had changed. It wasn't the sound of people anymore. It was a high-pitched, vibrating roar—the sound of a species realizing the floor had just dropped out.

“Lock the cabinets,” Sarah said.

“They’re empty, Sarah. There’s nothing left.”

“Lock them anyway,” Sarah said, grabbing her bag. “If they find empty shelves, they’ll tear the walls down thinking we’re hiding the good stuff. Let them fight the locks for a while.”

Alice clicked the padlock shut. Sarah stood by the dry sink, listening to the thud-thud-thud of boots in the hall. She closed her eyes, letting the screaming wash over her, waiting for the heavy metal doors to finally give way.

Byron jammed the crowbar into the seam. He didn't just lean; he threw his entire weight against the steel until the hinges groaned.

The magnetic lock snapped with the sharp report of a gunshot. The doors swung back, slamming into the bulkhead. Jeffrey didn't wait for the dust to settle. He stepped inside, raising the lantern.

Rows of wire shelves. Cardboard boxes.

“Open one,” Jeffrey said. His voice was level, the tone of a man who had already committed to the crime.

Byron dropped the crowbar and tore into a box. He didn't use a knife; he used his fingers, driven by a hunger he’d been burying for weeks. He pulled out a silver foil packet.

“Beef,” Byron muttered. “The real stuff.”

Jeffrey looked at the stacks and felt something colder than hunger. Power. “Bring the pallets from the utility closet,” he called out to Brian and Jerome. “Stack ‘em high. Leave a gap, just enough for one man. We’re turning this hallway into a throat.”

Jerome hesitated, glancing back at the dark corridor. “Nathan’s on his sweep. He’ll be here.”

“Nathan is an artifact playing with paper maps,” Jeffrey said, tearing a packet open with his teeth. The salt hit his tongue like a jolt of electricity. God, that was good. “By the time he figures out the math has changed, we’ll be behind a wall of oak and iron. Let him come.”

Ten minutes later, the rhythmic thud of boots echoed. Nathan rounded the corner, flashlight in hand. Nelson was a step behind him, white-knuckling a fire axe. Nathan stopped ten feet back. He didn't aim the light at their faces; he kept it on the barricade.

“Brian. Jerome,” Nathan said. No anger. Just that steady, captain’s tone that used to mean something. “Drop the wrenches. Go back to your posts.”

Brian’s grip tightened on the pipe wrench. He looked at the floor. He didn't budge.

Jeffrey stepped into the gap, tossing a can of fuel hand-to-hand. Look at him, Jeffrey thought. Still trying to command a graveyard.

“They don't work for the company anymore, Captain,” Jeffrey said. “The company’s at the bottom of the Atlantic.”

“That’s the central reserve, Jeffrey,” Nathan said. “That food belongs to the four thousand people upstairs.”

“The ‘people’ are a statistic. This?” Jeffrey tapped the pallet. “This is survival. There’s enough in here to keep five hundred men strong, or four thousand people starving. I’m choosing the five hundred. I’m choosing us.”

Nelson moved to swing the axe. Nathan’s hand shot out, slamming against Nelson’s chest.

“I’m saving the ones who matter,” Jeffrey replied. “You want the boxes? Come get them. But Byron’s been itching to use that bar.”

Nathan looked at the barricade, then at Byron’s heavy frame. It was a suicide mission.

“Fine,” Nathan said. “But if you stay in this hole, you stay here. You don’t get a drop from the water barrels.”

“We’ve got fifty cases of soda in the back,” Jeffrey smiled. “We’ll be fine.”

Nathan turned without another word. Nelson lingered, spitting on the tile before following. They hit the stairwell, the sound of the axe clanking against the railing as Nelson let out his rage.

“You just gave it to him!” Nelson yelled. “That was it! The last of the stores!”

“Shut up, Nelson,” Nathan snapped. His mind was racing. If they know the food is gone, the ship dies before the crash.

“The crowd is eating fish scraps, Nathan! They're going to find out!”

Nathan stopped on the Deck 5 landing. “No, they aren't.”

“What?”

“If I tell them a billionaire stole their dinner, they’ll riot. They’ll crush each other in the stairwells. I don’t need a massacre.”

Nathan pushed the door open to the Lido Deck. The heat hit him—a thick, humid wall of human desperation. Thousands sat in the dark, waiting for a miracle or a meal. A man in a golf shirt stood up, his voice a dry rasp.

“Captain? Robert said the upper pantry is empty. Is there anything left downstairs?”

The silence was heavy. Thousands of pairs of eyes locked onto Nathan. Nelson watched from the shadows, the axe heavy in his hand. Nathan didn't blink. He stood tall, projecting his voice as if he still had a ship to command.

“The central reserve is secured,” Nathan said. The lie tasted like scrap iron in his throat, but his voice was steady. “We have high-density rations for everyone. We’re holding them for the final push.”

A collective sigh moved through the crowd. It wasn't a cheer; it was the sound of a thousand people deciding not to die today.

“When do we eat?” a woman called out.

“Tomorrow morning,” Nathan said. “Get some rest. You’ll need your strength.”

He turned away before they could see the flicker in his eyes. He walked to the railing and gripped the steel. The ocean was a black void. Just the vibration of a dying ship beneath his boots.