Author's notes: No official novelisation exists for The Thing prequel, so I thought I'd write an unofficial one. As with Dean Foster's novelisation of the original, I plan to bring the story closer to the original script (as best as I can discern from interviews) before executive meddling spoilt a lot of things (but still left behind a very good film.) I will continue in the new year.
Disclaimer: I do not own The Thing, nor any characters involved.
All Norwegian dialogue is indicated by italics.
Prologue - The Crack in the Ice
The Antarctic wastes hadn't seen life for millennia. What few creatures had evolved to survive on the continent rarely ventured inland, if at all. Even bacteria could not remain active in the perpetually sub zero temperatures. The only life forms for miles around occupied three seats in a large tracked vehicle as it glided effortlessly across a glacier. An insignificant three man dot in the pristine wilderness.
To the men in the snowcat, exploring lands that no human being had ever set eyes upon had long ceased to amaze them and the mood was little different from any car journey back in Norway.
"Okay, I've got another one." Said the man in the passenger seat. "A good one." He added. "There's this couple who are making love one night, when they realise that their son's wandered in..."
The man paused as Lars, the driver, held up a finger to silence him.
"Hold on." Said Lars. He turned to the man in the back, who was peering at a collection of signalling devices. "Olav. Are you sure this is the right way?"
Olav had discovered some days beforehand that a mysterious signal was interfering with the research station's equipment and had set up several radio receivers and scanners in back of the vehicle in an effort to triangulate the source.
"Keep going straight, it should be just ahead of us." He said.
Lars gazed ahead. Surely, he thought, a transmitter that strong would be visible by now. But Lars decided that it wasn't his place to make such objections. Instead, he turned back to Peder, the man next to him, and said "Continue."
"So anyway," said Peder, "this boy's horrified by what he sees and runs from the room. The mother says "You'll have to talk to him." So the dad goes to look for the boy and finds him in another bed, lying on top of grandma. And they're going up and down, and up and down. So the boy turns to his dad and says "Not so funny when it's your mother is it?"
Lars laughed. So hard in fact, that he didn't realise Olav was trying to get his attention until he shook Lars by the shoulder and shouted "Stop!" Lars immediately hit the brakes.
"We're right on top of it." Said Olav, with just as much disbelief as Lars and Peder felt.
Just then, the three men heard a crunching sound, which Lars knew, from experience, meant that they'd driven onto a patch of fragile ice. Before he could re-engage the engine, the ground beneath them gave way, revealing the mouth of a crevasse, just large enough to swallow up the snowcat. The three screaming men were flung forward as the snowcat fell and slammed into the windscreen. Fortunately, however, the crevasse narrowed as it went down and the snowcat wedged itself to a halt after just 7 metres. The crew were left staring down into a pitch black, seemingly bottomless, pit.
"Don't move." Lars breathed. Very carefully, he reached over and flipped on the snowcat's powerful spotlights.
At first, the beams illuminated nothing but the cloud of ice flakes they had brought down with them. But the ice soon cleared allowing them to see further. The dim outline of the bottom appeared not more than six metres away. As the air cleared further, the bottom came into better focus, revealing something which made the crew briefly forget their current predicament. Instead, staring down in amazement!