The story of the RMS Titanic still haunts
people 36,500 sunrises after that horrific morning the numb survivors rowed the
few lifeboats to their rescue ship, Carpathia. As a young child I watched A
Night to Remember, the black and white 1958 film adaptation of Walter Lord's
book of the same name. It fascinated me, scared me and woke me up to the
reality of what exactly class distinction was all about.
I questioned my parents extensively about why the
majority of the people who perished that dreadful night were the poor, and why
they were kept locked in their doomed, third class level. As best they could,
they explained class distinctions, and our own upper, middle and lower classes
right here in America.
However, because of the Titanic, those distinctions blurred some, and if the
same event were to happen today, hopefully, class or financial stability would
not come into the matter of who was worthy of life and who was not. Although
some would argue that such distinctions still exist and life and death situations
are still played out by financial reasoning.
Throughout the last century, it’s
come to light that the third class was never barred or held at gunpoint from
reaching the deck where the lifeboats were filling up. Regardless, the fact
remains; those who suffered the worst were the poor. Fifty-three children died
that night, fifty-two of them third-class passengers, one, being a first class
passenger.
Which brings me to one of the
stories that most fascinates me about the Titanic. It’s the story of the Allisons.
Millionaires, Hudson and Bess Allison boarded the great ship in Southhamptom,
after conducting business in Europe, for their trip back to Montreal. With them were their two children,
Loraine, age two and Trevor, eleven months, along with a number of staff.
No one will ever really know the
true story as to why Loraine Allison ended up being the only child in first or
second-class to die, but the story is heartrending. The account most often told
has the nurse of baby Trevor, Alice Cleaver, taking him to the boat deck and
getting into a lifeboat without his mother or father’s knowledge. This led his
mother, Bess, who was nervous by nature, to refuse a seat on a lifeboat until
her son was found. Clinging to young Loraine, the frantic parents searched the
tilting ship in an attempt to locate their baby.
How many of us in this situation
would do the same thing? Could any of us get on board a lifeboat knowing one of
our children was unaccounted for? However, the fact that Hudson would have to
stay on the doomed ship no matter what, being that the call was for woman and
children, couldn’t Bess have simply gotten herself and Loraine to safety and
been assured by her husband that he would find Trevor?
Keep in mind, all these life and
death decisions had to be made while a growing panic rose around them. Flares
being fired, the alarm of other passengers running back and forth, perhaps even
gunfire sounding in the air. Whatever had been the case, by the time they heard
that the baby had gotten aboard a lifeboat with his nurse and was safe, it was
too late to save themselves and their tiny daughter, Loraine. Accounts have
them last seen standing on the deck, huddled together, smiling.
It’s haunting in the horror of it.
To face death in such a terrifying situation is bad enough, but to face it with
your child snuggled in your arms would be absolutely unimaginable.
In the end, little Loraine’s body,
nor her mother’s, were ever found. Hudson Allison’s body was found and buried
in the family cemetery.
Baby Trevor grew to be a handsome
young man of eighteen before food poisoning finished off what the Titanic
couldn’t. He was buried next to his father.
This is, pardon the pun, only the
tip of the ice burg in detailing the life and tragic death of the Allison’s and
the conjecture of what exactly happened to them that starry night. Follow my
blog tour as I discuss other heartbreaking families and their last night of
life on board the doomed pleasure palace, Titanic.
Blurb:
Beautiful Cornelia Bainesworth cared only about herself and her own life
the night the Titanic went down. A curse brought on by a woman who witnessed
her selfish behavior that evening destroys her, but it doesn’t stop there.
One hundred years later, the curse rears its ugly
head in the life of small-town teenager Callie. As if the tragedy of her
boyfriend’s death wasn’t enough, strange occurrences bring her to the brink of
insanity. Callie’s search for answers is unsuccessful until a nerdy schoolmate
takes up her cause and together they experience frightening apparitions, unexplained
phenomena and chilling truths. These truths turn Callie’s life upside down and
reveal a shocking ending to a story that began on the deck of a ship doomed the
moment it saw light.
Excerpt:
Callie went to her
window and stared out at the streetlight in front of their house. Lost in
thought, she caught a quick movement, but ignored it. When she saw a small
child peek out from behind a telephone pole and looking up into her window,
however, she grew concerned.
“What the hell?” She
watched the little figure’s head dart from behind the pole, look up at her and
quickly retreat back. It seemed to either be playing games with her, or trying
to hide.
“Hey, you? What are
you doing up so late?”
The child gave no
reply. She walked out of her room, down the stairs and opened the front door. I bet some neighbor kid walked out of their
home and can’t find how to get back.
Stepping out on the
porch, she wrapped her arms around herself. The air was still hot and muggy,
but it was worry, not chill that had her hugging her body.
“Hey? Where are you?
Come here.”
No movement, but she
saw an arm still visible from around the pole. Gathering some bravado, she
stepped off the porch and walked toward it.
“Hello. Don’t be
afraid. Are you lost?”
The person stepped
out from behind the pole.
Callie’s eyes had
adjusted enough to see a boy with light hair and fair skin. His clothes, if
that’s what they could be called, were rags. A gray suit, that had to be
several years old, hung off his skeletal frame.
“Hi, honey. What are
you doing out here so late?” Callie squatted and held out her arms for the boy,
hoping to show him she meant no harm. His dirty, drawn face held the soul of an
adult, although he couldn’t be older than three or four years.
“Tis late?”
“Yes, it’s
two-thirty in the morning. Where do you live? Where are your mommy and daddy?”
“I don’t know,” he
said shyly.
She caught the
distinct brogue of the Irish in his speech. “You don’t know? Well, where do you
think you live?”
He pointed down the
road.
“Is it close by?”
He shook his sad
little head. “No.”
“Okay, look, come
with me. I’ll get my car and drive you home. Do you think you can find it if we
drive and look for it?”
The waif nodded,
yes.
Once in the car, she drove for
about a mile. Every so often, she glanced at the boy to see if he recognized
anything.
“Nothing looks familiar, huh?”
The child shivered.
“Are you cold, honey? Here, I’ll
put the windows up.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.” He
sat up, straightened his legs and looked out the window, obviously searching
for something familiar. His thin hands were folded neatly in his lap, but rose
occasionally to point the way. Callie realized he was leading them to the
neighborhood where the Coopers lived, Bainesworth Manor. It butted up against a
large field that turned into woods further back. On the other side of the
street were miles of barren farmland, waiting patiently for the inevitable
McMansion to be built. However, they drove past Bainesworth Manor and about a
half mile down the road he spoke.
“Here it is,” he said timidly.
She pulled into a dark,
park-like area barren of any homes. Her blood ran cold when, upon closer
inspection, she noticed it was no park, but a cemetery. Not just any cemetery
either, this was the kind of cemetery where skeletons wandered and witches made
their brew. The kind where werewolves hid behind gravestones and hands reached
up from the netherworld, searching around for the ankles of unsuspecting
mortals stupid enough to be in a graveyard after dark. She pressed the gas
pedal, but instead of moving, the car died.
“What?” Frantically, she turned
the key and the engine turned over once and stopped. After several more tries
she realized if she continued she’d simply flood the engine. She reached into
her purse for her cell phone. In her panic, she’d forgotten her passenger and
looked across at him.
“Sweetie, this is a graveyard.
It’s not your home.” Unable to find her phone, she dumped the contents of her
purse between the driver and the passenger seat.
“Dammit. This is not
happening.” Without even glancing his way, she apologized for her use of foul
language.
Resigned, she sat back in the
seat and stared ahead. “Great, I guess we can walk to the Coopers.” She put all
the items back into her purse. Slinging it over her shoulder, she grabbed a
flashlight out of the glove box and stepped out of the car.
“Come on, honey. I know some
people who live a bit down the road. We can wake them up and hope they won’t be
too pissed off.” She glanced at the squirt. “I’m sorry, again. I mean angry.”
This cemetery was unknown to
her, but from the looks of the dates she spotted as they walked, it had filled
up long ago. The new one, where Blake was buried, was on the other side of
town.
She glanced up at the full moon.
“Queue the howling.”
Attempting a bravado she didn’t
possess, she closed the door and moved away from the car. The moon cast enough
light to see perfectly.
“I’m fine walkin’. My home is
right there.”
“I don’t see any houses.”
He pointed into the cemetery.
“You live past the graveyard?
Are you sure you don’t want me to walk with you?”
“If you be a wishin’ to.”
She smiled at him. “Come on,
let’s get you home to your mother.” She put her hand reassuringly on his
shoulder.
“Me mother is dead.”
“Who do you live with? Your
daddy?”
“Never been knowin’ me dad.”
“Well, you must live with
someone.”
“All the kind people. They don’t
know me, but when I get to cryin’ someone will rise up and come to me.”
Large prickly gooseflesh covered
her body from head to toe at that comment. Something wasn’t right. She’d
suspected it the first time she’d laid eyes on the boy, but now, she knew for
sure.
He began to walk. In the middle
of the graves in a noticeably older area, he stopped and turned toward her. He
seemed to grow paler, thinner, and sadder. He took a couple more steps, stopped
and stared down.
“I be home now, mum.” His
expression was heartrending, his large eyes rose and met hers.
“What?” She looked at him.
“There’s nothing here but weeds.”
“I’m home. Tis my home ‘til the
curse be lifted.”
Stunned at his words, Callie backed
away. “What are you talking about?”
“The curse, ma’am. It’s stickin’
good.”
A wind picked up and, before her
eyes, he metamorphosed into a mist, which swirled about for a moment before
sinking into the ground.
A cold sweat broke out on her
skin and a crippling fear stabbed roughly at her chest. An ugly, wintry fright
came close to bringing her to her knees and impaled her to the spot. Paralyzed,
she willed herself to breathe.
“How…why?” She gathered her
courage and backed away, clutching her stomach, forcing the urge to vomit away.
“Dear, God, what just happened?”
Elliott is another supernatural featuring in Dahlia's full supernatural dance card. He is of the mild snark and general hilarity, and claims at times to have brushed elbows with such popular figures as Lord Byron and Bram Stoker.
