The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 09: Betrayal

The Walker had turned around and was beating its deformed arms against the glass, smearing them with alien gore.

"Suck it, ugly," Blake muttered. "It worked!" he called.

A few seconds later, Falchek emerged. He was grinning. "Man, that was crazy brave!" he said, then laughed, relieving the tension that had been building between them.

"Yep...now let's see if we can't find our way out of here," Blake replied.

They moved back across the room, around the examination table Blake had woken up on, and peered in through the slit window. Blake regarded the Scuttlers crawling across the floor of the narrow antechamber. He pointed this out to Falchek.

"I see 'em," he said.

"Can you get them? How good a shot are you?" Blake asked.

"I was in the National Guard for two years before this," Falchek replied, a little touchily.

"Okay, okay, fine." He took a step back and let his hand hover over the access button. "You ready?"

"Yep," Falchek replied, shouldering his rifle.

Blake hit the button and Falchek opened fire. A few spurts of gunfire later, three very dead Scuttlers lay splattered across the white-tiled floor. Blake stepped into the room and looked around, seeing if there were any others, but he could see none. There were no guns or bullets lying around on the floor, but he did spy a flashlight of the same make and model as his previous one. He knelt, grabbed it and slipped it into his front pocket.

"Hey, there's someone in there," Falchek said, staring in through another slit window.

"It's not Whitley is it?" Blake asked, joining him.

"No, someone in a blue jumpsuit, an engineer," Falchek replied. "Hey, I bet he can fix those damned fuseboxes!"

"That's what I'm hoping, but adding another person in the mix is going to make this dangerous. We need kits and a damned flamethrower," Blake said, opening up the door. He took a step into the room and then stopped.

"Holy shit," he whispered.

For a moment, he didn't see the man with the black beard in the blue jumpsuit standing at the back of the room. Lining the long walls on either side of them were glass tubes filled with some kind of bluish liquid. In each tube floated a horror. One was a head with a thick nest of tentacles sprouting out the bottom. Another was a thick, brutish hand with two-inch long claws. Another was a thin torso with a third, gnarled arm growing from the chest.

"Yeah, and I've been stuck in here with these things for an hour," the man said. "I recognize you...Falcon or Falner, right?" the man said.

"Falchek."

"Right, sorry. I see you around sometimes. Who are you?" the man asked.

"Blake, Special Forces. Let's skip it and cut to the meat. We need to get out of here and we need your help. I imagine you know about the infection?"

"Well...yeah," the man replied, gesturing to the tanks around them. "Name's Dixon, by the way. I'm an engineer that works in this department, these tanks, specifically. I make sure they don't break down. I was in here when the base went into lockdown."

"Great, there's a few fuseboxes we'd like you to look at, Dixon," Blake replied.

Dixon nodded and began crossing the room, coming towards them slowly. "I'd love to. Pretty much anything to get out of this nightmare room."

Blake studied Dixon as they made their way back to the main hallway. He was of average height, pretty well built, his muscles looking solid beneath his jumpsuit. He had short, black hair and a small black beard and mustache.

"That is the armory," Dixon said with a grin, pointing to the door that was directly across from the surgical bay. He immediately set to work fixing up the fusebox. Blake took a moment to study both men. Falchek was staring at the Walker, Dixon seemed to have ignored it. Something about Dixon was putting him off. It was probably the way he totally ignored the locked up, clearly visible Walker, or how calmly he'd spent an hour trapped in that nightmare room. But if he was infected, then wouldn't he be acting more freaked out?

Unless an infected entity would think of that and was acting this way on purpose...Blake suppressed a sigh.

This was getting confusing. He wanted his damned test kits back.

"Got it!" Dixon said.

There was a hum of power and when Blake pressed the activation button, the door slid open. He felt relief flood through him as he stepped into the armory. Shelves ringed the room and there were guns on those shelves, glorious guns.

Everything a growing soldier could want.

"Hell yes!" Blake cried joyously.

Immediately, he grabbed a flamethrower and loaded it with a fuel canister from a nearby box of them. He pocketed three more. He then grabbed a long-barreled, gleaming silver shotgun and hastily began feeding shells into the gun, eight in all. He grabbed another sixteen shells, pocketing them, and turned to face the others.

Dixon was holding a pistol now and Falchek was just finishing grabbing more ammunition for his MP-5. Both men seemed happy, but wary now. It was obvious who had the power in the group, now that Blake had the flamethrower.

"Are you okay with taking orders?" Blake asked after a long moment.

"I am," Falchek replied.

Dixon seemed to consider it for a moment, then nodded slowly. "So long as they make sense, I guess I am," he replied.

"Good, because I'm going to need all the help I can get. Obviously, Whitley has lost it. This infection cannot get off this continent. We need to do whatever we can to put a stop to it, to get the word out and quarantine Antarctica. Now...come on, let's go."