The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 09: Betrayal

For Blake, the process of waking was normally a quick and efficient one. Being a soldier in the Special Forces meant that it was kind of a job requirement. So he was having a difficult time understanding why it was suddenly so damned hard for him to just wake up. He was conscious, only not really. It was like he was still half-asleep, like he'd awoken in the middle of the night after blacking out from drinking too much. He was confused, disoriented. Hands were touching him, carrying him. He tried to struggle, but he had no strength.

Consciousness faded, the world drifted into darkness several times. He woke up a few more times, once in the back of a truck, once being carried across snow, once being dragged down a hallway, once more in some kind of stark white room.

Once, he thought he heard a gunshot.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes and his head was clearer. He found himself staring up at a dangling piece of steel machinery that ended in a long, sharp needle. It was dark and something was shooting blue-white sparks from somewhere. Blake groaned. His head hurt, his neck hurt, well, everything hurt, honestly. As the world slid into focus, he sat up, feeling the sudden urge to move. A sense of danger and fear permeated through him.

He took a quick look around. What immediately stood out was how high-tech and glossy everything looked. It was almost like he'd stepped into some futuristic sci-fi movie. He'd awoken on an examination table in the center of the room. Everything seemed to be built around it. Ahead of him was a large bank of huge computer monitors that were still functional. They displayed all sorts of what appeared to be x-rays and other medical crap. He studied it all for a moment, then turned away from it, looking around further.

A few thin countertops that seemed to be built straight into the wall with nothing beneath them occupied a few open spaces around the edge of the room. There were three doors. Two of them, one ahead and one behind, were large, broad doors with windows built into him, the other was actually a doorway, built into the wall at the foot of the examination table. It looked like it might lead to an observation room.

A few of the thin counter slabs supported binders and computers, but the computers were all dark. The blue-white sparks seemed to be coming from the observation room. He decided to take a quick look through the windows in the other larger doors first. The one at the back of the room seemed to lead to a small, long transitional chamber with another broad door across the way and another open door to the left.

A few Scuttlers crawled around on the floor, twining among a pair of corpses. Not good. Wherever he was had been compromised, infected, overrun obviously. That thought sent a wave of cold roaring through his body. He checked his pockets, felt for his backpack. The pack was gone, his pockets empty. All he had on him was his cold weather gear, which was making him hot. He ignored the heat for the moment, slowly checked every single pocket, but came up empty. Not a bullet to his name. Blake sighed and thought fiercely for a moment.

He needed to find survivors, flame-based weaponry, test kits, a way out of here. He needed to find and stop Whitley. A familiar sound came to him. Something was thudding around, behind him. Blake whirled around, suddenly terrified. Beyond the window in the far door, he saw a dark shape moving. Hurrying over, Blake studied it.

A Walker.

It was one of those hideous dog-headed, torso-tail ones, like the pair he'd encountered back at Dronning Maud, when Williams had forced him to eliminate them before he'd help out. The creature didn't seem to notice him. It turned around and began walking away on stilted legs, stumbling slightly. There was another body out in the corridor.

"Great," Blake muttered.

He walked over to the small observation room and looked around. A few things leaped to his attention. The first was a broken, sparking fusebox. The other was a window that looked into a small room, what looked to be an emergency shower area. Standing there was a man in a white jumpsuit. He stared at Blake. He opened his mouth to say something, but the room was apparently soundproof. Blake pointed at his ear and shook his head. The man pointed out, into the hallway where the Walker was. Blake looked at it, then nodded, then held up his hand, the sign to wait. The man reluctantly nodded. It seemed he was trapped.