The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Chapter 14: Hostile Territory

"I vouch for Lavelle," Blake said, tossing away the kit. "I was there when he was last tested and he hasn't been out of my sight since."

"Good enough for me," Powell said.

"Great...now what. Both of those locked doors led to dead-ends. How do we get out of here? Or have I seen all there is to see of this building?" Blake asked.

"Oh, no. There's a door we passed coming back up here, it leads deeper in," Powell replied. "Come on, I'll show you."

They made their way slowly through the facility, occasionally hearing a distant gunshot or scream. Blake hoped the asshole guys in gasmasks were really getting creamed by the monsters they had helped breed. Powell brought them to the door and opened it up, stepping back to let Blake go first, since he had the gun and he knew what he was doing. Blake kept his MP-5 tucked up against his shoulder, finger on the trigger, trying to prepare himself to fight whatever might be waiting for them. The door opened into a long, white-tiled corridor.

There was nothing in it waiting for them except for a pair of doors: one at the very end, one to the right of that end door.

Blake, Lavelle and Powell came to stand there, in front of both doors, and remained still. Blake considered either door for a long moment. He felt like he was playing Russian roulette. What was behind Door Number One? Door Number Two? Blake realized he was drifting, losing focus, getting worried over nothing. Well, not nothing, but he faced down life or death situations often, significantly more so than the average person. So why was he hesitating now? He supposed it was because this situation was so much deadlier, so much more different. He was facing shape-shifting aliens in the freezing cold where any man could be a Thing...

He turned right, flipped the switch and opened the door. It led to a darkened corridor that extended for a good twenty feet, then veered sharply left. There was nothing in the corridor. It felt lonely and cold and isolated. Blake shivered slightly and pressed down it, keeping his gun tight and steady. He reached the corner, paused, then stepped out, revealing as little of his body as he could, in case someone or something was waiting. But there was nothing. Nothing alive at least. He spied a couple of crates with a scattering of something atop them, what might have been magazines or grenades, and set off towards them.

That's when he noticed the windows set into the left wall. They gave a view into the room the other door had led to. It was very well-lit, what appeared to be a cold, sterile environment. He spied a few dollies, some tables, crates.

And a trio of soldiers.

"Shoot!" Blake yelled, aiming and firing.

There was shattering glass, screaming, gunfire. He put half a dozen rounds into the nearest man's chest, then two more into his neck and one in his head. Powell and Lavelle opened fire as well, managing to kill the other two with Blake's help. As the final corpse hit the floor, Blake waited, seeing if anyone else would come out of hiding. There was a big support pillar in the center of the room that was blocking off his view of most of the room, but no one came out from behind it. Blake did, however, hear some nearby growls.

"Where's that coming from?" Powell asked, his voice breaking slightly.

"There," Blake said, pointing to the far right at a large steel door. "They've probably got some creatures locked up."

"Fantastic. At least they're behind a door," Lavelle said. "We don't have to go in there."

Powell sighed softly. "Actually...we do."

Blake turned to face him. "What?"

"There's a reason I had to come down here," Powell said, shrugging awkwardly. "It's part of the overall plan, developed by the resistance."

"And what's that?" Blake asked.

"This is where they store C4 charges. We need them, to blow up the planes. There's four planes at the airfield, I know they're planning on loading them up with 'specimens' and bringing them back stateside," Powell explained.

"Jesus," Blake whispered. "Come on. We need to get them."

Before leaving the corridor, he moved forward, to its end, and checked out what was on top of those crates. As it turned out, his checking out was warranted. There was a shotgun leaned up against the wall and a box of shells, as well as a few magazines for a pistol and two incen grenades. Blake took the shotgun, loaded it up, pocketed the rest of the shells and the grenades. After passing the spare pistol magazines to Powell, he led them back out of the corridor and into the room with the three corpses. He quickly checked it out, moving along the wall, making sure there was no one else in there with them. The growling went on.

They were alone, at least in the main room. There was nothing worth grabbing and the soldiers had been painfully under-equipped. One of them had a shotgun and the other two had MP-5s. The shotgun was half-empty and he pocketed the extra four shells. He gave the two salvaged magazines from the MP-5s to Lavelle, who thanked him. They converged on the only other door in the room. Blake had Powell retreat further back and Lavelle stand by the lever that would open it, then switched to his flamethrower and took aim.

"Do it," Blake said.

Lavelle threw the switch. The door slammed open. A Bulldog Walker came screaming out, like a bull released from its pen, and Blake immediately hit it with the flamethrower. The thing shrieked as it went up like a torch and charged straight for Blake. He screamed and dove out of the way, rolled and scrambled to his feet. He heard gunfire and saw the thing, still burning, making for Lavelle, who was backing away from it and shooting it.

Blake raced forward and hit it again. This time, it staggered, paused, staggered forward again, and then collapsed.

"Whew...thanks," Lavelle said.

"Anytime," Blake replied.

They regrouped and stepped in through the open door. The room wasn't very large, and most of it had been smashed up by the Walker. There was, however, a battered but intact case at the back of the room. Blake walked carefully over to it and opened up the case. Inside, he spied four small squares of C4 charges and a detonator.

"Perfect," he muttered.

He pocketed the small charges and passed the detonator to Lavelle, who accepted it without comment and pocketed it.

"Let's go do some damage," Blake said, and began leading them out of the building.