PERPETUAL NIGHT
PROLOGUE: WRECKAGE
The whir of the helicopter blades echoed throughout the frozen wasteland. Lake had kept the engine running, ready for a quick escape. No one wanted to spend more time than they had to here. All intended to conduct a quick check of Outpost #31 and then return to their own base. It was bitterly, remorselessly, cold and the perpetual winter night was coming down quickly and unstoppably. Darkness was wrapping the monotone vista in a black cloak. Stars struggled to penetrate through. Winds gathered in the distance, prepared for a violent assault. There was nothing friendly or beautiful about Antarctica at this time of year. And it would only get worse from here.
Weak torches and sputtering flares split the shadows. Charley tried to peer beyond the red pools of light surrounding the meagre crew. Scattered orange wisps danced ahead of them. They looked like the remains of a dying fire, churning up its final breaths. Now that she thought of that, she realised there was a faint acrid smell on the breeze, growing stronger. Above the sharp freshness of the ice and the cold sweat, there was something else. Smoke. Ash. The lingering traces of gasoline.
The team walked faster. A fallen sign announced their arrival into the American camp.
With an acute stab in her gut, Charley realised that was the only recognisable thing left.
Smouldering, blackened husks bled into the night. Their fractured remains scattered about the ice, thrown this way and that. Snow had been dredged up in great drifts, piled up around the unsteady foundations. As Charley swept her flare across the desolate sight, she spotted holes in the ground, as if something had fallen down or pierced through from below. Everything had been destroyed. She could not even recognise the individual buildings anymore. They had tumbled together - one huge smoking mass of jagged, burnt-out shells standing where the outpost once had. What the hell had happened here?
Next to her, Olander gripped his gun tighter. The weapons had been a precaution only, but now, Charley was glad they had brought them. The shadows seemed tighter, the breeze colder, the winter stiflingly oppressive. Getting closer, the remnants of the camp looked more and more ominous. They were being lured in, horror and curiosity slowly getting the better of them. What they would find here, she couldn't even begin to imagine. Wild stories threatened to undermine her scientific mind. She tried her best to ignore them.
Up ahead, Delaney was the furthest into the outpost. He stood, knee-deep in the thick snow, glancing around. The night had drawn far enough back to reveal most of the site, but there were still blind spots. Worse could be lurking there. "All of you!" he called, trying to retake command of the situation. "Search for any survivors!"
Survivors? Charley thought. It's 40 below zero and we don't know what went on here. Who would have the strength, or even the will, to survive this?
And yet she joined the search. Staying close to Olander, she wound a path eastwards, stepping carefully through the debris. Some of it had been buried already in the falling snow. Given long enough, the continent would reclaim these buildings and embrace them in the ice. Maybe that would be for the best. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what had happened. Some things were better left alone. From the moment they had got radio silence when trying to contact Outpost #31, she had had a bad feeling about it. Something told her this wasn't just a storm or an accident.
Her flashlight leaked over the remains. Pockets of fire still burned, but there were patches of darkness where even the stars did not shine. Charley looked around, keeping Olander within her sight. The meagre wreck of a shed or something - she couldn't tell - was emerging out of the night. She let the barrel of her gun go first into the shadows. Her torch flickered for a moment and she smacked it to keep it shining. Distracted, her feet hit against something. Before she could stop herself, she was stumbling and falling into the deep snow. Her heart drummed as she span around and aimed blindly.
Olander must have heard her cry. Heavy footsteps crunched as fast as he could go in this weather. "Charley? You alright?"
Charley inched forward to whatever she had just tripped over. It was not moving. She scrabbled for her flashlight and shone it down onto the inert, dark form. "Holy shit -" she breathed.
Olander appeared at the entrance to the shed. He paused for breath. "Is that a - is that a person?" he panted. Charley set down her gun and brushed her hand across what she assumed was its head. She pushed back a mass of hair, stiff with ice. The man's face was a deathly pale, his beard almost as white. He was lying, half-curled up, hands frozen around a whiskey bottle. Charley knew it was probably futile, but she felt for a pulse anyway.
"Jesus -" She pulled back, staring up at Olander. "He's still alive."
A/N: So after watching The Thing for the first time a few weeks back, I literally have been heads over heels in love with it. I don't know why I've not seen it before as it is *exactly* the kind of film I love. I can't get enough of it or Kurt Russell tbh. RJ Macready is probably one of my new fave characters of all time ~ So I really wanted to write a fanfic based around him. This is my idea for what happens after the events of the Thing, influenced by a sort of Aliens plotline and HP Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness. And I know this prologue makes it out to be that these are going to be major POV characters, but don't worry, they're not. After this, it'll be all about Macready ~~