The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 05: Trust

"Pierce!"

The storm was definitely here. Wind blew the snow into an almost unnavigable mess of white and gray blur, swirling around him chaotically.

"Pierce!" Blake shouted into the storm, cupping his hands, letting his rifle hang by its sling.

Nothing. He could see or hear nothing but the maelstrom of snow engulfing him. He began walking again. They'd been making their way to the final section of the base, what Pierce had described as an area that housed the bedrooms, mess hall and communications. That last part had got Blake's attention as they'd walked away from the cabin, into the storm. He'd also said that he'd sent Williams and Pace, Alpha Team's sole medic and secondary engineer, to that portion of the base in search of survivors and information.

Blake had just been processing that, preparing himself for the mission ahead, his mind reeling from not only the fact that there was life beyond humanity and Earth, and that not only was it hostile, it was also ridiculously dangerous.

And then Pierce was just gone.

Lost behind him in the storm.

Blake walked on, cursing the lack light poles. They'd run out at some point. Blake was afraid that the creatures might have somehow disabled them or removed them, which would indicate higher-level thinking. They certainly seemed to have the ability to fool other people into thinking they were human. Blake had sure been fooled. But what if they didn't know they were infected? What if it had gotten inside of them and they couldn't even tell? Or what if if was kind of autonomous? They infected the body and got access to the memory, using it to continue functioning as the human they had once been before...

Blake heard something land nearby and it sent his combat instincts into overdrive. He dove away from the sound and rolled several times. A few seconds later, an explosion erupted. A grenade. Blake scrambled to his feet, MP-5 in hand.

"Who goes there?!" he called.

There was a pause. Up ahead, he could see the faintest outlines of a tall tower.

"Who-who is that!?" a familiar voice called out. Blake saw someone standing atop the tower, poised to throw something else. Another grenade.

"Captain John Blake, Special Forces!" Blake screamed, desperate to be heard over the shrieking of the winds.

"Blake!? What the hell are you doing down here?!" the voice called back.

"I'm coming up! Don't throw anymore damned grenades!"

"Okay! Hurry up!"

Blake kicked through the snow, shaking his head. He'd placed the voice. It was Paul Pace. They'd served together for a mission in Africa. The man was from Alabama, and sounded like it. His voice was thick with southern accent. He was technically a genius...in all things engineering. He could fix practically anything, but in almost any other aspect of life, he was kind of useless. He'd painted a whole sad story for Blake during their time together: two mortgages on his house, insane credit card debt, two failed marriages, three kids that hated him. In a way, it helped him focus almost the entirety on his life on fixing things.

Blake made his way up a pair of ramps, pushing through the winds and snow. As soon as he reached the top, Pace turned away and headed into the room that sat at the tower's top. It was, at least, out of the cold. Blake took a quick look around the room, finding nothing but a bunch of tables set up along the peripheral of the room. All manner of gear and equipment, as well as recreational paraphernalia, was scattered along the tabletops. Paperbacks, a coffeemaker, a television, VCR, stack of tapes with handwritten labels, (they mostly looked like tapes of the old Batman series with Adam West, oddly enough,) and an Atari with a copy of Pitfall!.