The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 04: Infection

The storm was worsening.

Blake had led the others through the hole in the fence and deeper into the base. For a moment, he was worried that he'd be lost in the blowing snow and curling mist, but before long, he picked up on a string of light poles that burned a brilliant, vivid blue through the snow. He knew these poles were strung throughout the base, meant to guide the base personnel between structures in bad weather. Now he was following this string of lights, contemplating the horrors he had witnessed so far. They were beginning to get to him.

Blake had seen, and even done, a lot of nasty things in his life. It kind of went with the territory. He'd shot and killed men before, dozens of them. He'd seen the result of brutal interrogation techniques, outright torture, and had smelled the awful reek of flash-fried human flesh after witnessing a firebombing of a US embassy once. The horrors men could visit upon one another was something that had left him haunted, likely to the end of his days. He'd given up whatever religion he might have had within his first year in SF.

But this...this was something else entirely. The mutilated bodies down here didn't even make sense. And then there was the heads with legs, the way they had scuttled rapidly across the ground when they'd started coming for him. And the deep, discordant growling. Could they be some kind of animal? Something everyone had just missed until now, native only to Antarctic? It seemed very vaguely possible. It wasn't like the seventh continent was the most explored. But no, those faces had been human.

What could it mean?

How did it tie in with the reports of aliens?

Something tall and thin began to appear out of the mist. Blake recognized it immediately: a transmitter tower. If they could get to the radio room of this base, they might be able to get a call out to Whitley, get some kind of extraction. The situation was definitely FUBAR enough to for it. At the base of the tower was a shack.

A place to get out of the cold.

"Come on!" Blake said, struggling to be heard over the shrieking of the winds. "There's a structure up ahead!"

They made tracks through the snow, passing a frozen-over corpse leaned up against the front of the wooden shed, then opened it up. On approach, Blake noticed three additional lines of blue-lit poles leading away from the shed. So this was some kind of central nexus for this area of the base. He hurried inside, taking a quick look around. There wasn't much in the shack. Just a few crates, both metal and wooden, and a table.

It was a windbreak, at least, and kind of warm. Carter and Cruz were shivering and Cruz had closed the door behind them. Suddenly, Blake was paranoid about being in the same room as the two of them. He didn't know why, there was no reason. If there was anyone he trusted, it was Special Forces guys. On the other hand, he was still alive because he listened to his instincts. He took a moment to warm up.

"Okay, do either of you know the layout of the base?" he asked.

Both shook their heads.

Blake sighed. "Great. So that means we got three choices." He considered it for a moment. "We'll go ahead and see where that takes us."

Both of them nodded, seemingly willing to go along with whatever he said. Blake found it comforting to know that even in a hostile environment, even while facing down apparent monsters, the chain of command still meant something. Blake led the way back outside, and immediately heard a familiar growling.

"Hostiles!" Cruz screamed from behind him.

Blake had been facing the direction he intended to go after doing a quick sweep of the area. He spun around and from around the side of the cabin came a half dozen more of the little heads with legs. They were scuttling across the ice towards them, looking like sentient malignant tumors given legs. A word popped into Blake's head as he raised his MP-5. Scuttler. That's what they were to be named, at least in his head from now on: Scuttlers.