Blake gasped awake.
For a moment, just a moment, he had no idea where he was. He was faintly cold and sticky, he'd sweat a great deal during the night, he was not just sticky but practically soaked. He pulled the blankets away from him and sat up, looking around a small concrete room cramped with an untidy stack of opened and unopened boxes along the opposite wall. The only light came from an electric lantern on the floor beside the mattress he slept on.
All at once, it came back to him and Blake let out a heavy sigh and rubbed at his eyes. He couldn't remember if he'd had any nightmares while he'd slept, but he sure felt shitty enough. The positive of all this was that he no longer felt bone-deep weary. He must've slept for quite a while. That made him suddenly paranoid. What if something had happened to him in his sleep? Or the base? What if he was the last survivor?
Blake tried to make himself calm down. First things first: a test. Just to be sure. But how? He doubted there were any kits around...he thought about it for a moment, then came up with a quick idea. What was happening in those test kits? Blood was being exposed to a chemical. But a chemical wasn't the only way to get a response. Fire would do just fine. He got up and spent a few moments searching through the boxes.
He ended up coming up with a few useful tools: a scalpel and a lighter. He took a moment to give himself a little cut on his fingertip, squeezed out a few drops of blood onto the floor, then he hit the lighter and applied the flame to the blood. Nothing happened. He let out a small sigh of relief, then found some gauze from the same kit he'd discovered the scalpel in and held it against his cut. Slowly, Blake stood up and stretched.
Various joints popped and he realized he was starving again, and thirsty. How long had he been out? Before he figured that out, he needed another shower. He reeked. Blake gathered up his cold weather gear, some fresh under clothes and his blowtorch, then unlocked the door and stepped out into the door beyond. He listened for a moment and heard MacReady and North talking about something. Everything was probably fine. Probably.
He took another shower and dressed, this time putting on all the gear, including the coat because it was getting cold in here and he was likely going back outside. After that, he made another trip to the mess hall, scarfing down two cans of beans, a can of peaches and some canned beef, then two bottles of water. Once that was done, he started feeling human again. Which sucked, since he was getting ready to go volunteer for whatever job needed to be done. Heading back out into that cold or the darkness of the tunnels...
He wasn't looking forward to it.
But it needed to be done.
As he stepped out of the mess hall and made his way back to the central room, he ran into MacReady, North and Weldon.
"Blake, just in time. You've been out for about thirteen hours," MacReady said.
"Holy shit...sorry. I didn't know I was down for so long."
"It's fine, after everything you've been through, I figured you were right, you needed real sleep. But you're just in time for our test. We do one every two hours. Peltola! Get in here, testing time!" MacReady called.
The frowning engineer appeared from the corridor that led to the generator room. "Let's get this over with," he muttered.
MacReady held out a scalpel and a blowtorch. As Blake had just done, he cut his fingertip, let some drip onto a nearby table, then touched the tip of the blowtorch, which was steaming hot, to the blood. A little puff of smoke escaped and nothing more. MacReady did this for each of them, and each of them passed.
"Good," he said. "Now, to business. I'm calling a meeting. Peltola, you've been compiling a list of all the shit we need for our new base here. What's it say?"
Peltola sighed and ran his hands through his short black hair. His eyes were bloodshot and baggy. He looked harried and hassled. "Well, public enemy number one right now is the fucking generator. Notice it's getting colder in here? Our generator is on its last leg and I can only run about half the heating elements. I'd say unless we get some spare parts, we've got maybe half a day before it craps out for good and we freeze in the dark."
"Okay, what else?" MacReady asked.
"The radio. There's an antenna up top but it took some damage. I can repair it but again, I need parts. Those are the two biggies, at least in terms of shit I need. But there's a lot more, obviously. We need food, water, guns, ammo, medical supplies, lots of shit."
MacReady was nodding. "Okay, that makes sense. There's that map we found of the immediate area. Blake, you'll have to take a look at it. We've been raiding supply areas for the past few days. North and Weldon did a raid while you were asleep. There's another area that might have a good cache of stuff. It's an underground warehouse, bout a hundred meters further on down the tunnel. Right now, its our best bet for those spare parts. The only problem is...well, our numbers are dwindling. And Peltola is our only engineer. So, unfortunately, that means I'm going to have to send the two of you out there alone."
"Seriously?" Peltola asked.
"I'm afraid so. We can't leave the base undefended. I know it's a gamble, that's why I'll be giving you our only flamethrower and some other supplies. We need those generator parts," MacReady replied.
"Fine," Peltola said with a sigh.
"Blake, you and Peltola head to the armory. There's a map in there you can take with you and a handheld radio. We all have one, you'll need one too. It's not the greatest thing, especially underground, but it should work at least somewhat. Try not to take too long."
"Got it," Blake replied.
He and Peltola headed down the hallway that led to the armory. Once inside, Blake spent a few minutes appropriating his gear. It felt good to get back into it. He pocketed the radio, looked over the map for a minute, then folded it and pocketed it as well. Following it went a flashlight and some batteries, the MP-5 and two magazines of ammo and he traded his blowtorch for a flamethrower that had been topped off with fuel.
He considered taking more, and ultimately did end up pocketing one of the few remaining fuel canisters, then left the room. Peltola only grabbed a pistol and several magazines for it. The man probably wasn't too keen on firearms, so maybe it was for the best.
"Let's go," Peltola grumbled.
They headed out of the base, the others wishing them luck.
The tunnel was just as dim and intimidating as before. Well, maybe not that intimidating, now that he'd eaten, showered and slept. He felt more focused, more awake, more capable. Ready to take on the challenge, and he'd been through far worse than this over the past few days. The flamethrower felt good in his hands as he surveyed the section of tunnel before him. The area was fairly open, though beset on both sides by debris from whatever war had ravaged the area.
"Come on," Blake said, striking off.
Peltola followed him silently into the devastated, subterranean gloom. The two men moved deeper into the tunnel, into the dark unknown. Blake studied his environment carefully as they moved away from the base. So far, the concrete tunnel seemed to be filled mostly with crates of varying sizes, wrecked vehicles and partially collapsed sections of wall and ceiling. And bodies, of course. There were lots of bodies.
Whatever cataclysm had occurred here must have been something to behold. Blake wondered how Gen Inc could have let the situation get this out of hand, but, then again, when you were dealing with an enemy like the Thing, all bets were off. With the flamethrower set firmly in his grasp, Blake led the way through a small maze of smashed crates. He stepped carefully over a burned corpse as he moved down a narrow alcove between the two metallic crates. For the moment, he could hear nothing in the tunnel but their own movements.
He kept going.
"So," he said, quietly, after a few minutes more, "Peltola, how do you figure into this?"
"What do you mean?" the engineer replied just as quietly.
"What are you doing down here, in Antarctica? How'd you end up here?"
"I'm a former Gen Inc employee. I don't know how much you heard, but I was part of an underground movement, mainly of engineers and medics, that formed to stop what Gen Inc and Whitley were doing once we learned the truth. It all went to hell but we at least did some damage. I was at Strata Station, a support area next to an airfield. I barely made it out of there before it blew, then I got captured by the black ops guys. Mac broke me out," Peltola replied.
"Shit, I was there when that happened, made it out by the skin of my ass. Whitley set that bomb in the underground portion, or had someone set it," Blake said. "And yeah, I met a few people from the underground movement. Temple. Lavelle. Powell. Reed."
"Any of 'em make it?"
Blake shook his head. "As far as I know, with the exception of North and Weldon, everyone I ran into during my first campaign against Whitley are dead."
Peltola grunted in response. They kept going, moving around a huge, flipped over dump truck. Up ahead was another open area, this one was at least decently well-lit. There didn't seem to be anything waiting for them, and the large, partially open entryway off to the right marked their point of ingress. "There," Blake said, pointing.
"Let's get this over with," Peltola muttered.
They crossed the distance and approached the door. Blake peered in through the opening. The door was one of those high-tech rigs that split down the middle and slid into the walls. It was partially open, revealing a dimly-lit, vast space beyond. At first glance, it resembled a warehouse. It reminded him a lot of the place he'd met Collins in, right after losing Pierce. Not something he wanted to be thinking about right now.
"Looks clear," he muttered.
"It always does," Peltola replied morosely.
They headed inside, Blake letting the black muzzle of his flamethrower lead the way. The area beyond the door was a wide open space boarded by crates. Ramps of corrugated metal led up to a catwalk ringing the interior of the room, creating an impromptu second story. Only a few lights were still on overhead, hanging high in the ceiling, looking like distant stars. Blake took a few steps deeper inside, motioning for Peltola to stay back.
He heard heavy footfalls somewhere nearby.
Multiple sets of them. Walkers.
Blake moved to the middle of the open space, suddenly feeling like he was in an arena. He listened intently, trying to figure out where they were. He had just determined that one was to his right when one of the hideous, deformed things stepped out from the shadows. It was a six and a half foot beast, the same model as the very first Walker he'd encountered when clearing the Norwegian base, Dronning Maud, to get Williams' help. It was a godforsaken abomination that sported a split-open dog head with a tube sticking up out of it, ending in snapping jaws. Its thin, bent pole legs began dragging it forward and its big, split-limbed arms reached for Blake. Probably the most disturbing feature of all was the human torso growing out of its back, almost like a tail, being dragged along the floor. Blake broke through his terror and raised his flamethrower.
He squeezed the trigger.
A hot jet of flame shot from the muzzle, crossed the distance between them and lit the thing up like a torch in seconds. Blake took several steps back as it came closer to him...and he almost backed right into a second Walker.
"Blake! Behind you!" Peltola called out, then opened fire.
Blake spun around, backpedaling away from both of them now, as he spied a thing made of sickly pale, leathery flesh. Both of its arms ended in huge crab claws, one of them inexplicably blue, the other a deep, bloody red. Bullet holes were opening up on it, sprays of black gore jetting from its awful pallid flesh. Blake raised the flamethrower and lit the fucker up. The beast began shrieking and ran straight for him.
It wasn't going down.
Cursing, Blake quickly switched to his MP-5, letting the flamethrower hang, and cut loose, spraying the creature with short, controlled bursts of gunfire. He ended up putting half a magazine into the thing before it stumbled to a halt and collapsed into a smoldering heap on the floor. Blake coughed violently as the smoke hit him.
"Fuck, they reek," he growled as he stepped away, joining Peltola back at the entrance.
"Think it's clear?" the engineer asked.
"Probably. Usually a battle draws the others out of hiding. Now, go find your parts, I'll watch your back," Blake replied.
Peltola grunted in reply and reluctantly entered the warehouse. They spent almost a whole hour poking through the warehouse. There weren't any other rooms to investigate beyond a bathroom that looked like the set of a horror movie and a break room that had been cleared out. There were only a few Scuttlers hiding out that Blake put down without too much trouble. In the end, they managed to find a small cache of medical supplies, a blowtorch and the parts for the generator. Blake loaded it all up in Peltola's backpack.
As they were heading for the exit, Blake's radio spat out a string of static-laced dialogue. Flashing back to investigating Outpost Thirty One and picking up Pierce's distress call, he grabbed the radio and responded. "Repeat your message, over," he said.
There was a pause, then, "-ho is this? Over."
"Captain Blake, Special Forces. Identify yourself. Over."
"-name is Corporal Chase...zzt...at a small structure...zzt...Way Station Thirteen...need help...with Special Forces! Over!"
"Shit," Blake muttered, pulling out his map and checking it. There was a portion dedicated to showing topside structures. Way Station Thirteen wasn't all that far away. He weighed his options, looking at Peltola, who frowned deeply at him. It could be a trap...or the man could be infected. Or it could be an ally that needed help.
"Get back to the base, I'm going to investigate this."
"Are you crazy?" Peltola replied.
"No, head back. Tell MacReady what happened. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Peltola growled, looking down at the blowtorch in his hand, then sighed explosively. "Fine...good luck."
"You too."
Blake watched Peltola go, then brought his radio once more to his mouth. "I'm on my way to your position. Out."
