The Thing: Zero Day Read online

Strand’s quarters were marginally bigger than any other but the space was taken up by filing cabinets containing paperwork of unknown purpose. He got to his knees and pulled a steel chest from under the bed. It was a gun case and once unlocked showed itself to contain a Heckler and Kock HK93 assault rifle and a P9 pistol. “You both did your national service I assume?”

  “Yeah, I was a pilot,” Norstad said.

  “Ground forces,” Oyvind said.

  Strand handed the assault rifle to Oyvind. “Ground forces wins.” He loaded the pistol and kept it for himself.

  “No weapon for me?” Norstad said with a sudden worry. “What do I get?”

  “You get to stand behind me until I fall,” Oyvind replied as he started pushing bullets into the 40 shot magazine.

  “I want to know what they’re doing in there,” Strand said whilst straightening his clothes and finger combing his hair. “There’s a vent that goes through the wall of the science lab straight into the workshop.”

  “We blocked that?” Oyvind said with a shake of the head. “I remember it on the job sheet a long time ago. Cold air was blowing into the lab.”

  “Finn blocked it by folding a blanket and stuffing it behind the grille. Low tech. If we pull it out we should be able to see through into the workshop.”

  Norstad watched the two men gain in stature as they prepared their weapons. They had guns. They were dangerous. He had nothing. “What’s the plan?” he asked softly. “Are we still looking to leave for McMurdo?”

  “Yes,” Strand said. “ASAP. The chopper’s no good so we need the tractor and it’s a three day trek. We need twelve days of rations from the galley and portable stoves. We need to lash fuel drums onto sleds to drag behind the tractor.”

  “What about Outpost #31?” Oyvind asked. “The American base is closer. In the tractor we can reach it in less than a day.”

  Strand looked to Norstad. “We can get to McMurdo by following the ridge… Can we navigate to #31?”

  “We would need to home in on their navigation beacon. We’d need the directional radio from the helicopter. It can be removed in ten or fifteen minutes… but that isn’t the problem. We would need #31 to be operating their beacon and if they’re anything like us they’ll only activate it when their helicopter is up. We can’t guarantee they’ll be broadcasting and that might leave us driving into the wilderness.”

  “I’ve got an idea to repair the radio,” Oyvind said. “Instead of patching the cable between the radio and the dog shed, why not take the whole radio to the dog shed, connect it to the aerial and power it from the lighting circuit in there.”

  Strand and Norstad weighed up the proposal. “Genius,” Strand said. “We can try that… But I still want to see inside the workshop. Let’s go and take a peek first, then we’ll try and fix the radio.”

  ----- X -----

  In the science lab, the men pushed things aside from one of the benches on Kleppa’s side of the lab. Everything was neat and fastidious. Papers on clipboards were neat, the writing was neat, his petri dishes were stacked neatly and everything had its place. A far cry from the stoner climatologists he shared the room with who had mess and dirty coffee cups amongst the experiments.

  Strand climbed onto the bench and reached up to pull off the grille cover. It was small, no more than twenty centimetres square. “I’m not going to be able to see anything,” he said pulling the blanket out from the cavity wall. “Oyvind, can you connect the camera to the monitor?” he asked whilst pointing to the portable video unit.

  Oyvind worked with the black and white monitor, spooling the cable to the camera and plugging the unit in to get it powered up. “Here!” He passed up the camera and stepped back to watch the screen as Strand pushed it into the vent. “Go closer, press it right against the grille… that’s it. Keep it there.”

  Strand pushed the blanket back into the hole, wedging the camera in place. He climbed down from the bench to look at the monitor. On the little TV screen they could see the men in the workshop working on the ice with axes, chipping away in delicate and careful motions. Finn was stood to one side with the blowtorch, unlit but ready for use. MacCloud, the cook, had a small brush that he used to clear away the ice chips.

  “They really are going to get it out,” Norstad said.

  “They’re insane,” Oyvind opined.

  Strand watched for a full minute then said, “Kleppa was right. This thing has some kind of psychological hold over them.”

  “And he said it’s not dead,” Norstad added.

  The three men left the science lab and went back to Kleppa’s room. The biologist was off his bed and had cowered into a ball in the corner, his legs pressed to his belly and his arms wrapped around his knees. He looked a state, but it was the best he’d looked since yesterday.

  “Kleppa, this thing in the ice, how does it control the men?” Strand asked.

  “It whispers to them.”

  “So how do we stop it whispering, is there something we can do?”

  “The whispering is the host… Not the… not the other thing.”

  “I don’t understand, Kleppa,” Strand said kneeling down to look the biologist in the eye. “Help me understand?”

  Kleppa rubbed his eyes and took a deep ragged breath inwards. “The thing we can see in the ice, the creature, I don’t think that is the problem. It is still alive, but there is something else in there with it. I think it’s a parasite of some kind. I don’t understand what it’s whispering, I can’t understand what it is trying to say… but there are two voices. One voice is temptation, trying to encourage us to free it from the ice. The other voice is a warning.”

  “A warning of what?” Norstad asked.

  “A warning against the parasite… I think the creature in the ice is benign, it can sense our thoughts but it has been hijacked, it’s body is being consumed by a parasite that has taken over its form. Sometimes I can hear the parasite and sometimes I can hear the creature.”

  “And what does the creature say,” Strand asked.

  “It tells us to run.”

  “And the parasite? What does it want?”

  Kleppa looked up as his eyes teared over. “Everything. It wants to spread. It wants to get out of the ice and spread.”

  ----- X -----

  Strand handed his pistol to Norstad as he worked on the shortwave set and the power transformer. From a desk drawer he found a pair of scissors to strip wire with. “Oyvind, when we get in the dog shed, we’ll need to wire this power unit into a light fitting.”

  Oyvind looked at the fitted plug. “There’s no socket in there, but we can cut off the plug, cut the end bulb off the string and splice it direct.”

  The three of them moved to the exit to grab their coats and found Kleppa booting up unsteadily. “Are you coming outside?” Strand asked.

  “I’m scared, I don’t want to be here alone.”

  Coats on, gloves on, Norstad opened the door and began the short stretch to the dog shed, pulling open the doors to a few soft barks from the huskies. The dogs acknowledging the men’s presence, standing in their pens in expectation of exercise.

  “I’ll be outside,” Oyvind said. “I’ll get on the roof, unclip what’s left of the cable and figure out how to get it down to you.”

  Strand followed the lighting string. Eight dim yellow bulbs in a daisy chain hung between the wooden rafters. A sound came from above as Oyvind climbed onto the roof. The thud of boots, the sound of cable being ripped away, popping the brackets under the strain. “Turn off the lights,” Strand said pointing to the switch by the door.

  Kleppa shut off the power. The little man’s pale face was surrounded by the fur of his coat hood. “I think it senses what we’re doing,” he whispered.

  Strand held his hands as a stirrup on his lap and beckoned Norstad, offering to boost him higher. The pilot climbed onto the beam above the dog pens and Strand handed him the scissors. “Cut the end bulb off and strip the wires back.”

  Norst
ad straddled the beam with his legs hanging either side and got to work trimming the cable. Kleppa pointed to a thin black wire snaking its way down from the ceiling, the antenna cable, pulled away and threaded through a pencil sized hole in the roof. “Pass the transformer,” he called. Strand lifted it to him and he balanced it on the beam above them, cutting away the plug and letting it fall into the dog pen. He stripped the wires and twisted them onto the lighting cable then held out his hands for the radio.

  “It knows,” Kleppa said. “It’s sensing what we think.”

  Norstad plugged the power pack into the radio. “Juice it,” he called for Kleppa to reactivate the power. The lights came back on and a burst of static poured from the speaker. He let the microphone dangle down as he peeled back the sheathing of the coaxial and wrapped the central core around a fixing screw.

  Oyvind came back into the building. “Are we on? Are we live?”

  “Just a second,” Norstad said twisting the outer wire between thumb and finger to wrap around the second fixing screw. “That’s it.”

  “Show me the frequency,” Strand asked. Norstad tipped the radio on the beam for Strand to see; it was still set for McMurdo.

  The commander wasted no time. He keyed the microphone making the lights dim slightly as the radio took its share of the power. “CQ DX. CQ DX, this is Fafnir Station for McMurdo Sound. Emergency, do you copy, over?”

  They waited a moment.

  “CQ DX, Fafnir calling McMurdo Sound. Do you read me, over?”

  The radio buzzed into life. A sleepy voice replied. “Copy you, Fafnir, this is McMurdo. Over.”

  All four men breathed out together. Oyvind grinned. Strand’s shoulders relaxed and a smile touched his lips as he keyed the microphone to speak… Then the power cut out sending the dog shed into darkness.

  “Oh, no… no, no, no…” Strand said.

  “It knows,” Kleppa said. “They’ve cut the power… MacCloud and Pederson are coming… and they’re afraid.”

  Oyvind unslung the rifle from his shoulder.

  “Let’s get back inside,” Strand said. “Unhook the radio, leave the transformer for now.” Norstad unwound the wires to the antenna and unplugged the power pack. He dropped the radio to Strand and climbed off the beam.

  The four men headed outside. Snowfall was light but the wind was strong, blowing a ceaseless drifting flow through the camp. Two figures emerged from the exit and ran towards them. Oyvind was quick with the rifle, jamming the stock in his shoulder and pointing the barrel. Norstad quickly followed raising the pistol as the men approached.

  “Identify yourself!” Strand commanded.

  “It’s me. MacCloud… Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”

  The second man raised his head to reveal himself as Pederson. Then raised his hands in surrender. Neither of them were wearing outer coats and in this weather they would be dead within the hour if they didn’t dress correctly.

  “What do you want?” Norstad asked.

  “Want?” MacCloud said with incredulity. “I want to get away from that thing in there. Bjorn has it out of the ice. He’s insane.”

  Against the wind Strand yelled, “You’re helping it too. You locked yourself in the workshop to help it and you cut us off. Now get out of the way.”

  The two men stepped aside looking ashamed but anxious not to be rejected.

  “They’re out from it,” Kleppa said to Strand. “It doesn’t control them anymore. The whispering is going quiet. I don’t think it can hold on to the men. Not all of them. Not all at once.”

  “Are you sure?” Strand asked.

  “Not entirely, but something is changing. It’s going quiet. The whisper is going softer. It’s all the parasite now, but it’s definitely losing its strength.”

  “Alright… You boys are with us. But I promise you, Norstad, Oyvind, if these guys act freaky again you have authority to shoot them.” MacCloud and Pederson looked to one another then to the men with guns. They looked lost and frightened. “Let’s get back inside.”

  ----- X -----

  Once inside Norstad threw his gloves away quickly so he could hold the gun and he kept his eyes on MacCloud and Pederson who were both shivering from the brief exposure. It was gloomy throughout the base without power but at least it was still warm.

  “How did you cut the power?” Strand asked Pederson as he helped brush snow from his clothing.

  “I didn’t cut it. It was Finn. He threw the trip switches at the generator.”

  “And how did you get out of the workshop? Did you come out by the corridor?”

  MacCloud shook his head. “By the outer doors. That’s how we met you outside. Bjorn locked the door from workshop to corridor. He only opened it to allow Finn out then locked it again when he returned.”

  “Is that when you escaped?”

  Pederson made the reply. “We escaped when that thing started climbing out of the ice.”

  “It’s horrible,” MacCloud added. “It’s back is made of blue worms. They’re moving and sliding. It has three stalks on its head that look like eyes and squirming blue worms running down its back.”

  “It’s hands are like claws,” Pederson said holding his fingers into a twisted talon shape to demonstrate.

  “It’s legs bend into an awkward shape like a dog,” MacCloud added. “But it’s sick, or injured. It could barely move when it woke up and the others had to hold it and lift it out of the ice.”

  Strand, Norstad, Oyvind and Kleppa had all taken a step back to listen to the tale. MacCloud and Pederson behaved as men who had woken from a nightmare but now couldn’t fully believe what they were saying had really happened. Was it real, or was it imagination?

  “Let’s get the power back on,” Strand said. “Let’s turn it on, keep it on and try with the radio again.”

  The odds had changed. They were now six, providing MacCloud and Pederson could be trusted. If what Kleppa said was true, that the creature was losing its ability to hold the men by whatever alien means it had, then they were now six men with guns against six without.

  They headed along the corridor towards the workshop and ultimately the generator room until they passed the science laboratory. The video monitor was still active, running on battery power. “Let’s take a look at this thing.”

  The men crowded the little black and white monitor to see dark shapes of the men bundled together, working on something. It looked like they were helping to dress someone. Bjorn was in the middle with his hands in the air.

  “So where’s the creature?” Norstad asked.

  The men in the workshop worked at something with feverish energy for a few moments then stepped back to reveal Bjorn as he lowered his arms. The creature was hidden from view, standing behind him.

  “What the?” cried MacCloud. “It’s eye is stuck onto the back of Bjorn’s head… Look. It has three eyes. One is drilled into Bjorn’s head and the others are dug into his shoulders.”

  It was true, or it looked true. On the grainy black and white monitor, it appeared that something with bent legs was standing behind the doctor, but it had in some way fused with Bjorn, turning his skull into a malleable object to deform and warp into a teardrop shape.

  “Are his arms getting longer, or is it just the video?” Oyvind asked.

  The men stared at the screen, barely daring to breathe as they focussed on Oyvind’s observation. It was true. Bjorn’s hands were hanging by his side but were now closer to his knees and his fingers were slowly extending, growing to twice their normal length as his limbs became thin and spindly with the increased length. At the same time, the arms of the thing began to wither and absorb into its body, changing the thing behind into a monstrosity of thick bent legs supporting a smooth torso that then attached to the back of the doctor’s head. A fusion of man with alien. The flesh morphing and moulding with the viscosity of poured honey.

  Then one of the men in the workshop began stripping off his clothes. It was uncertain which of them it was, the cl
arity and angle of the image too difficult to give identification; but the naked man approached the amalgamated human alien being and wrapped his arms around the beast as though to hug it. Within moments, the man began to melt as though he was gripping an acid of such corrosive power it could demolish him as surely as a hot pan could melt butter. The thing was taking him, absorbing him, melting his flesh and adding the man’s cells to its own to grow in mass.

  “Strand… Strand, what the heck do we do?” Norstad asked with a sense of brewing panic.

  The commander stared at the horror on the screen with an open mouth. “What we do? We get the hell out of here.” Suddenly the commander was back, snapping away from the gruesome melting people on the monitor to bark commands and orders at the crew. “Oyvind, take Pederson and get the tractor. Bring it back to the entrance. If anyone gets in your way, shoot them… Norstad, you come with me, we’ll try and get to the generator room, throw the trip switches and give the radio one last shot before we leave… MacCloud, we need provisions for six men to last three days, take Kleppa and get what you need from the galley. We all meet up at the exit in twenty minutes, we strap as much fuel as we can to the tractor and we head to McMurdo… Any questions?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Gentlemen… See you in twenty minutes.”

  ----- X -----

  MacCloud worked through the larder at speed. He went straight for the high energy proteins and began packing a box with survival rations. “This is all we really need,” he said passing an entire box of survival biscuits to Kleppa. “One pack lasts a man three days, but it’s like eating stale tasteless cake. If we’re going to be out there for three days, I want to take some hot foods, instant coffee, powdered milk and sugar… We’re going to need cups and mess tins too.”

  Kleppa stared at the cook as he packed a few tins of soup into the box. He dropped three small gas canisters in there too. “What was it like?” Kleppa asked. “What did it feel like, when you were helping the thing?”

  MacCloud stopped his larder raid to consider the question. “At the time it felt like bliss. Like being in a dream that was so warm and comfortable I would never want to leave. That was how it felt at the time.”

  “And how does it feel now?”

  “Now… I’m terrified. I’m scared it could happen again and I just want to get as far away from it as possible.” He took a small camping stove, a tripod burner that connected to the gas cylinders. He dropped it on top of the provisions. “This is all we need to survive.” Then as an afterthought he opened a cupboard and took bars of chocolate and some cookies. “We’ll take these too. To keep our spirits up.”

  ----- X -----

  Oyvind and Pederson fought against a howling wind and biting snowfall. Visibility was cut to less than twenty meters and from leaving the exit, they followed the building until they saw the orange mass of the tractor.

  Pederson led the way, holding his hood forward with one hand as he stooped into the blizzard. “Come on,” he yelled, beckoning with a sweeping wave of the arm as he ran towards the vehicle. He climbed onto the front caterpillar track and opened the door, beckoning Oyvind to enter first.

  Oyvind unslung the rifle from his shoulder and climbed the caterpillar track to get into the vehicle. The air temperature inside the metal hulk was at least fifteen below, but getting out of the cutting wind and snow felt like he’d fallen into an oasis.

  Pederson moved back along the caterpillar track towards the door and climbed inside. He smiled to Oyvind as he went to close the door, but suddenly the door pulled back, wrenching his arm. Hands stretched into the cabin and grabbed at his clothing to drag him back out of the vehicle. It was Hans, the leader of the climatology scientists. His thick blonde hair and beard uncovered. He wore no outdoor clothes. Madness. He would die without them. Oyvind thought Hans was fighting to get inside the tractor, but as Pederson began to scream he saw that Hans intention was to pull Pederson back out.

  “Help me!” Pederson screeched, but it took only a moment for the man’s huge frame to be sucked outside and into the blizzard. Oyvind pulled off the glove to his right hand, the better he could pull the rifle trigger, and positioned the weapon towards the door but it was too late. He could see nothing but snow lashing past the vehicle with flurries coming into the cabin.

  “Pederson… PEDERSON!” he yelled.

  From within the snowstorm he heard the piercing screams of Pederson. The man was crying out. In trouble, in need. Fighting against Hans in the midst of a ferocious snowstorm that cut visibility down to only a few meters.

  Oyvind slid back across the seat and out of the vehicle, swinging the rifle ahead of him, searching through three hundred and sixty degrees. “Pederson… Pederson…”

  He heard screams coming back, but mixed with the howling of the wind it was impossible to determine the direction.

  He had to go. He knew he had to go before Hans or some other crazy man from the workshop attacked him, but he couldn’t leave a man in a blizzard. “PEDERSON,” he yelled again. “PEDERSON…”

  There was no answer.

  With the gun as his protection he circled the tractor, crying out the man’s name, screaming into the wind in the hope of a response but with one full circle of the tractor he knew it was hopeless to do this alone. He would take the tractor back to the exit and alert the others. They couldn’t leave Pederson out in this. They had to come back and find him.

  ----- X -----

  Norstad and Strand cut through the ice tunnel to the generator shack. When the camp was first built, the engineers had cut a trench to make a refuge from the weather. The walls were ice, but it was possible to survive in this subterranean corridor. Once the camp was functioning, this existing corridor had dictated where the generator would go.

  The lights were on in the corridor. Pale bulbs on a string that looped along the wall, but despite the illumination, the far end of the ice tunnel was barely visible.

  “Let’s go,” said Strand, ushering Norstad forward.

  “You expect me to go first?”

  “You have the gun.”

  Norstad contemplated for a second then started down towards the generator. The machine could be heard rumbling which meant Kleppa was probably right in that it was only the trip switches that had been thrown.

  At the far end of the tunnel, Norstad climbed up the wooden steps into the generator shack. The bulk of the machine was a heavy looking diesel engine painted in dark green. Against the wall were racks of spare parts. As the generator was essential to life support there were almost enough spare parts to build a second generator should it be necessary.

  “The switches,” Strand said pointing to a grey fuse box on the wall. Norstad opened the unit. Two banks of switches presented themselves, almost all of them were shut off. All except the workshop. “They cut power to everything except themselves.” Norstad said.

  “Put it on in the dog shed,” Strand said. “Leave the rest, let’s not draw attention to it otherwise they might come back and cut it off again.”

  Norstad reached his hand to the switch but stopped when he heard footsteps. “Do you hear that?”

  It was in the ice corridor. Somebody down there, coming towards them. Norstad moved to the front and kept the pistol by his side but firmly in his grip. He could see a man moving in the corridor, coming towards them. Strand went back to the switch panel, threw the switch for the dog shed and closed the box.

  “Who is that?” Norstad whispered.

  Strand stepped to the entranceway and called firmly, “Identify yourself.”

  The man in the corridor didn’t respond but continued walking forward. Silhouetted by light from the far end of the tunnel, he moved in and out of the pools of light from the bulbs without giving away his face.

  “I think it’s Moller,” Norstad said. “He ran me over in the tractor, he tried to kill me.”

  “He tried to kill us all,” Strand whispered. Then firmly to the corridor he yelled. “Moller? Molle
r is that you? Come on out.”

  The man in the corridor moved faster, walking with pace as though he had decided to give up the subterfuge and step forward boldly. It was… They were right, it ‘was’ Moller.

  “Moller, you’ve got some explaining to do…” No sooner Norstad spoke than the balloon man rushed in pulling an ice axe from behind his back. He raised it above his head as he charged, running in to attack.

  Norstad raised his pistol but hesitated.

  “Shoot!” Strand commanded but it was too late. Moller was slicing through the air with his weapon and Norstad, in the blink of an eye, had pushed in to meet him, grappling with the man and pushing him against a rack of spare parts. The shelf units shook and crashed against the wall, shaking their wares and spilling things to the floor with the sound of crashing metal.

  Strand ran in to help and grabbed at Moller’s axe wielding hand, but it was as though he had the force of ten men and he tossed Strand and Norstad back like they were children against a bear. Norstad hit the ground and scrambled to his feet, running around the generator to buy time. Strand scrambled to safety and found a snow shovel. He turned to face Moller, holding the digging tool at full stretch to keep the balloon man at a distance but Moller raised his axe again and charged at Strand.

  There was a single gunshot.

  Aimed true, Norstad placed a bullet in Moller’s chest, above the heart. Strand pushed the man back with the shovel to the wall and jammed his weight against it, pressing the diamond shaped tip through his abdomen in a move that would almost sever him in two.

  Moller’s face twisted in agony as he swiped air back and forth with his axe above Strand’s head. The commander pushed him backwards as Norstad came to help, grabbing Strand and pushing Moller harder with the ice shovel until the man hit the open door and the tool passed through his body, cutting through his spine and impaling him to the door.

  Strand and Norstad fell backwards as they released, both dropping to the floor gasping. “I shot him,” Norstad gasped between breaths. “Oh, my God. I shot him.”

  “He would have killed us both,” Strand gasped.

  Norstad looked up to his assailant, impaled with a shovel and stuck to the back of the door. Moller’s right elbow was jutting out awkwardly and his mouth was slack jawed, his eyes looked back with lifeless penetrating stares. Then Moller tilted his head and moaned with an almost inhuman cry as his left hand gripped the handle of the shovel. There was no way he was going to attack, he was almost severed in two, but he wasn’t dead. Not by a long stretch was Moller dead.

  Norstad raised the pistol but didn’t shoot. “His hand, look at his hand,” he cried out.

  Moller’s right arm had fallen low but his hand was stretching down to the floor as though his arm was made of rubber.

  It was then that Strand realised the impaled man should be bleeding, but instead dark flesh had begun to wriggle by the wound as though he were filled with bubbling tar rather than human fluids.

  “His hand…” Norstad cried again, this time in a high pitched squeal. Moller’s hand had reached the floor, his arm stretched to almost the full length of his body until a sudden spasm of movement jerked Moller in a fierce spasm. Worms of human flesh began burrowing out of his face and chest. They were like creatures of their own design, digging out from within his body, eating their way to freedom through his eyeballs and cheeks, from his neck, from the bullet hole to his chest.

  Norstad stood captivated and horrified in equal measure as his friend, Arne Moller, was eaten alive from the inside out by tentacles of flesh. What was left of the man screamed a low moaning sound that was neither human nor animal.

  A sudden swipe, as Moller’s extended arm whipped across the room, sending both men into a crouched position. Norstad fired twice, hitting Moller both times but the bullets had no discernable effect.

  In defence, both Strand and Norstad backed up as the monster impaled to the door swung its extended arm back and forth across the room. It’s long extending fingers growing to talons with sharp claws protruding from the tips. It’s hand grasping like a claw, trying to reach and capture them.

  “We’ve got to get out!” Norstad yelled. But how? The Moller creature was against the only exit. Strand looked about him and spotted a small steel bucket under the chugging generator. He knelt and pushed it to the fuel drain and turned the tap, pouring off a half bucket of diesel. Norstad saw what he was doing and reached in his pocket for his cigarette lighter. A Zippo. He flashed it to Strand, both men on the same wavelength, thinking the same thing.

  Strand threw the diesel over the Moller creature as it’s taloned hand slashed through the air. The fuel only partly hitting Moller but it was close enough. Norstad sparked the Zippo and threw it at the creature.

  Flames burst up to the ceiling with a high pitched scream from the monster. An orange and yellow fireball rolled up the wall and across the ceiling towards them. The blast of heat was intense and both men ducked away to cower behind the generator as the fire began to take hold of the shack and the room filled with smoke.

  Strand grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall and primed it, holding it towards the generator. To hell with Moller, he could burn, but the generator was life giving. It had to be preserved.

  Within seconds the room was filling with acrid black smoke. “Shoot out the skylight,” Strand called. Norstad aimed the gun high to the window in the ceiling and placed one shot into the glass. It splintered, cobwebbed and a second later began raining down in pieces whilst simultaneously sucking the black smoke out like a chimney.

  The fire began dying down, the heat not intense enough, the fire retardant of the generator shed coating working well enough to fight the flames.

  “What the hell,” Norstad exclaimed as the air cleared. He was looking at Moller. The man had stopped moving, killed by fire. His burnt and blackened body contorted into some grotesque and inhuman shape.

  Strand moved closer and sprayed the fire extinguisher on the remnants of flame. Both men moved closer at an ever slowing speed. Wanting to get closer, not wanting to do it quickly. Then came the crash as Moller’s arm moved and seemed to run up the side of a rack. Both Norstad and Strand jumped back as they saw Moller’s distended hand break away from his arm and run like a giant spider. It was a new creature in its own right, scurrying on blind legs away from the heat still inherent in the dead man’s body.

  Norstad grabbed the gun and trained it on the body part as it began scaling the wall.

  “Wait,” Strand said. They both watched, mesmerised by Moller’s hand, its fingers now twice the length of normal grew coarse looking hairs from the pads of the fingertips and began crawling out onto the ceiling like a spider.

  Strand looked about the floor and spotted Norstad’s lighter. He passed it back and said, “Get some more diesel.” He then took hold of the burned shovel used to impale Moller and yanked it back, collapsing the charred remains of the Moller creature against the floor.

  Norstad had the diesel and nodded that he was ready. Strand stretched the shovel to full extent and swiped it hard against the spider-hand on the ceiling. The thing dropped down with a squeal, emitted from a mouth that couldn’t be seen and Strand pinned it to the floor with the shovel. Norstad was in quickly, throwing his diesel onto the unholy moving flesh and then dropping his burning lighter into the pool.

  The hand creature shot out from under the shovel as it burst into flame. Running blindly away, beneath the generator and towards the ice tunnel where it slowed, stopped and seemingly died. Strand grabbed the fire extinguisher but showed no hurry to extinguish the alien hand, preferring to let the diesel burn out.

  As the last flames died the scene went back to the steady chugging of the generator as snow flurries dropped in through the broken skylight.

  “Are you alright?” Strand asked.

  Norstad shook his head. “No… I’m pretty far from being alright.”

  “I mean are you injured?”

  “No, no injurie
s, I’m cool… what the hell is it? What the hell are we dealing with?”

  Strand held his poise. “I don’t know what it is. But we can kill it with fire… Let’s just get the hell out of here.”

  Part 4

  The Thing