The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 07: Fear

Pierce was right.

They ran into a perimeter chainlink fence about a quarter mile dead east of the medical center and Dronning Maud. Blake still would have liked some kind of vehicle. Even hurrying, kicking their way through the snow, he was practically dead numb by the time they hit that fence. He was shivering violently and knew he was really pushing his luck. He and the others needed to get inside sometime soon or they were going to be looking at some serious damage from frostbite or worse. They hurried along the length of the fence until they found a way in, a gate that was still open. Blake imagined that Pierce had come through here not so long ago.

Their goal had changed. He could easily envision Whitley, or someone above Whitley, calling Special Forces in to check out the outposts to cover his ass if the government or military were doing experiments on the infection. Hell, if anything, maybe he was hoping that the SF teams themselves would become infected. It'd be easy to make them disappear, and there'd be new test subjects to boot. That would explain a lot of things: why Whitley didn't want Blake going in after Pierce, the low intel, the poor resources.

Blake wasn't a paranoid man by nature. He knew that most cover-ups in the military existed not as actual, outright evil, but more to just cover some higher-ups ass or to hide a political nightmare due to a mistake. But that didn't mean he had full confidence in the men who signed his paychecks. He could see something like that happening. But this imprinted a new objective onto his mind with a terrifying clarity: if Whitley or anyone else was experimenting on these things, was planning on taking them out of Antarctica...

He had to stop them.

If this infection hit a populated area, it would spread like nothing before. It would make the Black Death look like a slight cough. He'd seen enough movies to know that the scientists wouldn't be able to keep their hands off of this infection, and to know that they wouldn't be able to contain it, no matter how smart they thought they were.

But first thing was first, investigating this outpost.

Of course, he could be wrong, he could just be being paranoid, but if the shoe fit...

As he led the others deeper into the outpost, beyond the fence, buildings began to appear through the mist. He saw one to his left and one dead ahead. The one to his left was closer and he could see a door, so he made his way there. He didn't say anything as he kicked his way through the snow, too cold for words now. Even when he arrived at the door and tried the handle, finding it locked, Blake remained silent.

He tried it a moment longer, then turned away from it and began making for the other structure up ahead. The building to the left, what appeared to be some kind of warehouse, was obviously locked up tight. No time to try and break it down now. He was freezing. They all were. He hurried on towards the next building, a two-story structure with an exterior stairwell. As he made his way towards it, Blake spied a third structure, in between the other two, deeper in the camp. It was topped with the bulbous shape of what appeared to be an observatory.

No time for that now.

There was a door that led into the first story of the base, but it, too was locked. Frustrated, Blake hustled up the stairs and tried that door. To his immense relief, it opened up. He shoved his way in, gun at ready, trembling, and spied a trio of Scuttlers across the room. These ones were different. Unlike the others who appeared to be a head on chicken legs, these more resembled spiders, bulbous heads on four thin, agile legs.

"Open fire!" he managed, taking aim and squeezing despite his trembling. He fired off six shots from the pistol, stepping aside, and managed to bring one of them down. Williams and Pace killed off the other two. Once he was sure nothing else was coming, Blake closed the door and simply leaned against the wall, trying to get his breath back.