MacReady and Childs trudged through the snow, the wind howling constantly, the flames on their sticks flickering, struggling to stay alive in the deadly conditions. MacReady came to a stop in the snow.
"Childs!" MacReady cried out, his voice barely louder than the piercing winds. "Childs!"
Childs stopped moving and slowly turned to face MacReady, the torch's flame quivering in front of his face. He wiped away the snow smeared across his goggles.
"What?" Childs yelled back.
"Can you see thirty one from here?" MacReady shouted "Do you know where we came from?"
Childs looked back pass the bulky figure of MacReady into the darkness of the night. He kept turning, searching through the pitch black that surrounded him but he could see no flames.
"No!" Childs exclaimed "I can't see shit out here!"
MacReady, trudged over to Childs, his multiple woolen jackets blowing in the freezing winds. With one swift motion, MacReady pulled Childs' torch from his hand and plunged it deep into the snow. MacReady's torch then followed suit, extinguishing itself in the ice cold white that surrounded them. Darkness enveloped the men.
"You damn lunatic! Why'd you do that!" Childs cried out in a panic.
"Because no man can chug gasoline like you did before Childs!" MacReady bellowed, his laughter being carried off with the wind.
Childs stared blankly at MacReady, who was slowly moving away from him. Childs started to twitch, then his body erupted into a series of convulsions. His scream filled the night, louder and more piercing than the winter's wind itself.
"What's the point you fucking abomination? There's nowhere to go! You'll freeze like you freezed before!" MacReady laughed.
Childs continued to convulse, blood streaming out of his nose and ears. His skin began to push outwards, the thick clothes, starting to tear off his body. MacReady could barely see what was happening, but he didn't need to anyway. He'd seen it before. Child's neck tore open, blood gushing out onto the snow and MacReady's boots. His eyes sunk into the back of his head as long, bony legs protruded through the holes. Childs grew bloated, his skin turning into pasty globs as more bony legs pushed through, blood squirting out of every orphus. The scream turned into something from out of a nightmare as the thing lurched towards MacReady.
"Fuck you!" MacReady yelled as the thing stabbed one of its bony protrusions through his torso.
The thing collapsed on top of MacReady, its skin absorbing him into the bloated and gooey corpse of Childs. MacReady screamed and cursed, but he was muffled by the convulsing thing on top of him and the howling winds of the night. The muffled screams became shorter and quieter and soon subsided. The bloated thing lay still, pulsating every so often, the snow gently falling onto it. It did not move for what may have been hours, simply laying dormant in the snow. MacReady's head suddenly protruded from within the body and was elevated high above the ground by a long, slimy tentacle. The head turned slowly, looking into the darkness. It saw a small light gleam in the distance, a beacon in the darkness. With lightning speed, the bony legs pushed the pulsating corpses of Childs and MacReady into the air and started trudging through the snow with its bony legs towards the light, blood slowly seeping out into the snow. The lack of flames and debris meant it wasn't Outpost 31, but somewhere new.
And the thing was headed right towards it.