Chapter 9: Into Endgame:

With some protest, Macready had convinced everyone to draw a sample of their blood. He'd also wiped Kate's blood off Lars's knife and into a petri dish.

Macready stood by the door so that he could watch the others and the main corridor at the same time. He wanted to tie everyone down, but he didn't have the time. He heated a copper wire red-hot with his flamethrower. "Copper, stand by with the alcohol." He held the wire over Kate-thing's blood sample. "Let's see if I'm right." He touched the wire to the blood. The blood screeched and reared up, causing him to drop the dish. Fortunately, Copper was quick to pour the pure alcohol over it, killing it.

"Right, let's try the others." Said Mac. "I'll go first."

He touched the needle to the sample of his own blood. Nothing happened.

"Ok, there's not a lot of space in here. Childs, step into the next room first." Begrudgingly, Childs complied. Macready re-heated the needle and tried with Childs's blood. It proved he was human. "Right, get over here and watch the others."

"Now we see if we were right about Lars or not." Said Macready, waving him into the next room. He heated the needle and touched it to the Norwegian's blood. Once more nothing happened. "I guess we owe Sweden an apology later. Ok, stand there." He pointed to the lab door, which led into the hall.

He looked at the others and decided to ask the least suspicious people first. "Norris, you're up." The geologist limped into the lab, still clutching his leg wound, as Macready heated the wire once more and touched it to the blood. The blood remained still.

"Palmer now." Palmer followed his guide into the next room and stood and watched as Macready heated the wire once more and touched it to the blood. The sample reared up and screeched. Macready and Lars wasted no time in torching Palmer, before slamming the doors in his face and throwing their weight against them.

Palmer-thing screeched and thrashed at the door, smashing holes and missing Lars by centimetres. Realising that they wouldn't hold it for long, both men withdrew. Fortunately, by then, the others had had time to retreat and the creature ignored Fuchs as it went after the main group.

They hurriedly backed away before it. Fortunately, the fire was burning through rapidly. A few shots from Macready's gun and a few whacks with a fire axe stopped it in its tracks.

"Well that was surprisingly easy."Said Lars.

However, the group was so focussed on Palmer that they failed to notice a finger, scuttling in through the door to the lab. It scuttled at the nearest leg several times, but they would each step away before it could get to them. Instead, it scuttled over to the gurney and up the side. As the group returned it paused, suspended halfway up the table leg.

After clearing Gary too, Macready sent him, Childs, and Lars to search for Kate-thing. No-one questioned why the pilot was still giving the orders since Gary was so far out of his depth anyway.


The human form had its uses, but it was also frustratingly inefficient at surviving in the cold. Kate had reached a happy medium by sprouting fur, copied from the dog. In this kind of whether, it would only give her a few more hours before she froze, but that could make all the difference.

She battled through the storm as she made her way to the tool shed and crawled in through the side hole. Just as Macready had said, the room was deserted. But it didn't take much searching to find some loose floorboards.

She lifted them up and lowered herself down to find an underground chamber, which Blair had converted to a workshop. In the centre stood a flying saucer, roughly the size of a car. It was a lot more modest than the sleek and majestic ship that had brought it to Earth, and certainly not capable of interstellar travel, but it would suffice to get one thing off the continent. Even the middle of the sea would be an improvement, at least there was life there.

To one side, Blair was working on the antigrav generators. Or rather it had once been Blair. Now, only the head and neck still resembled the biologist. The thing had repeatedly sped up its work by sprouting extra arms, many longer and thinner, others shorter and tougher, and some with extra opposable digits. Blair-thing now resembled a head perched on top of a mutant octopus.

"So this is why you've been disappearing?" She said. "But people have noticed. They'll be down here soon."

"You were supposed to be distracting them." Said Blair, as he used one of his longer arms to grab his vodka bottle from a counter.

"I was doing a good job until you tried to frame Macready. I was trying something similar, but you just made him realise something was up. We've all been fighting them on our own little island. We'll have to work together if we're going to beat them. Now, how long do you think it'll take to finish here?"

"Not sure. A few hours maybe. How long till they get here?"

"That depends how long Palmer stays hidden, but it won't be not long enough." Said Kate. "We need to come up with a plan of some kind."


Macready had finished the test. As it turned out, none of them were infected now. Childs and Lars, meanwhile had swept the building to the door once more. "There's a breeze in the radio room." Childs explained. "She must have punched out through the roof."

"Can she get back in that way?"

"Probably not. It's harder to get in than get out. Unless she uses that hole again."

"Right." Said Macready. "Barricade the doors to the radio room. Gary, Lars, we're goanna check out the tool shed. Norris, stay here. If Kate of Blair tries to get back in here without us, burn them."

After all that paranoia and sneaking around, it was almost a relief to march out together and confront that thing face to face.


With everyone otherwise engaged, Fuchs had been left to lie in the infirmary, heavily bandaged.

No one was watching as the finger-thing scuttled up onto the top of the gurney and over towards its target. Fuchs himself didn't feel it until it crawled up and on to his chest.

He tried to bat it off but he was too weak. He tried to scream, but all that came out his parched throat was a hoarse gasp.

The thing burrowed through his chest, down to his heart.


Lars and Gary hacked through the boards used to seal the shed shut. It didn't take many hits to free the door. Of course, they found the room deserted.

They found the loose floorboards and lifted them up to reveal Blair's underground chamber.

"I guess this explains all that missing equipment." Said Macready. "A few more hours and Blair would be on his way to New York."

Macready had six sticks of dynamite with him, but decided three would do. He tied them together and lit it up, only to realise that Lars was trying to gain his attention. "Listen." He said.

The other two did. A faint rumbling could be heard over the wind. And it was getting louder. They took a look out the door and saw what appeared to be a small abominable snowman driving the station's smaller bulldozer at them. They only saw it coming for a second, before it collided with the front of the shed, smashing both the walls and the roof to pieces. The three men instinctively scattered to avoid the falling debris.

Macready felt the dynamite slip from his hand as he tumbled across the snow. Seconds later, he found himself at the bottom of the slope, with the others lost in the haze. Not sure where his explosives had landed, he simply ran towards the faint glow from the station's searchlights.

Kate stepped down from the cab and looked around. As she'd hoped, the group had dispersed. Only one remained, crawling out from under the wreckage. She promptly grabbed Gary round the face. "I was hoping for one of the stronger guys. I guess you'll have to..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the dynamite exploded to the left of where she was standing, knocking her sideways for a second. As she hauled herself and Gary up, she heard a low crumbling and watched as the ground indented itself in front of her. The blast had created a tremor that had caved in Balir's underground workshop. The spaceship was now effectively buried.


Lars too saw the blast. Some of the wreckage from the shed had caught fire and now lay in the new crater, directly above Balir's spaceship.

The Norwegian had an idea lit a flare, and looked around, trying to remember where he'd last seen it. He guessed correctly and located the station's mechanical digger, not far from the entrance. With no time for fineness, he pried open the main access panel with the axe, before yanking the fuel line free, through mostly brute force, and feeling his way back towards the base.

Macready was also just arriving, but not Gary. No-one was in any doubt as to why.

"They're building some sort of space ship out there." Macready explained. "We've buried it for now but they'll dig it out eventually."

Lars held up the fuel line. "Dig. Machine. Fuel."

Macready thought for a moment, then grinned. The thing would never be able to dig the ship out with spades in this weather. They'd need that digger running. Now they had something it would want. It would have to come to them. "Childs, board up the main door, but make sure the job's only half done."

"What?" Said several of them.

"It'll look like we're trying to keep it out. Really, we want it to come through this way. We'll meet it in the entrance, torch it."

Lars watched the pilot's unwitting gestures and saw a flaw in what he seemed to be planning. "No." He explained the problem in Norwegian, whilst theatrically miming firing a flamethrower at the door, before making a whooshing sound and waving his arms over the others.

"I think what Lassie's trying to say," said Childs, "is that we probably shouldn't meet something that big in a confined space. Particularly if we're trying to burn it."

"We'll meet it back there then." Said Macready, pointing to the first fork in the corridors. "Get three of us to attack it, one on each side. Spread some oil around here to burn it quicker."

"But if it gets a good look at us, it'll think twice." Said Copper.

"Not if it chases one of us. Childs, listen from the door. When it hits the first time, run. I'll stand in Gary's office. Lars can go in the main corridor." He spoke slowly and pointed to show the Norwegian where he was supposed to go.

Lars pointed at Copper and Clark. "You two should go down the far end of the building." He pointed. "Just in case it tries anything else." He pointed at Norris. "You go to the basement. Guard it." He pointed down.

"You want me downstairs?" Said Norris.

"You're not a lot of use up here." Said Macready. "This way, the thing will have to get through all of us before it gets to you. Take the fuel line down there with you."


Assimilating the heart first had allowed the thing to spread through Fuchs's body much faster. But he was still partly human and in no position to attack. Nonetheless, he listened to Macready's plan through a crack in the door and thought for a means of interfering.


Blair had assimilated most of the matter they'd got from Gary and now resembled some multi-headed, multi-limbed monster. Kate too, was looking less and less human, growing as many claws and stingers as she could with the body mass present. She could have joined up with the Blair/Gary monster, but her new plan depended on being small and maintaining these human hands.

Kate had exchanged memories with the monster, rather than shout over the wind. It didn't look good. Blair-thing had tried to get back in by unwittingly leading the guard away from their point at the entrance. But Norris had been too injured to go out in the snow after him.

Now, they were looking at the disabled digger and realised that they would be unable to dig their ship out. With every entrance boarded and guarded, they would be trapped outside to freeze solid.

"It's just what they want." Said Kate. "To hold us here, till they can dig us up and burn us to ashes." She sighed. "Whether we freeze or not, we can't let them live through this."

The monster-thing grew a new mouth. "But they'll be expecting us to come in through the front door. They'll have laid a trap."

"Good." Said Kate. "If my plan's worked, our inside man can attack them from behind. Also, I think I've found another way in. Just one of us needs to get to the generator and they're done for."


"How long?" Said Lars.

"30 minutes." Said Macready, who was getting used to guessing what Lars was asking.

"Feels longer." Lars muttered. They'd been sitting, waiting for the thing to come for ages now. They imagined it was letting them stew in fear, except that it wouldn't have time. It was planning something big, they could tell.

Finally, Childs heard a scraping. "It's here."

"Wait a few seconds longer." Said Macready.

The door thumped and crunched several times before a clawed arm finally burst through, missing Childs by an inch.