For the next two hours, Kay poured over her notes and those in Norwegian. She knew very little of the language, unfortunately, so she could only make out a few words. She tried using her own experience with the creature to guide her to some sort of solution for the men, but she could find none. Even if they didn't have the notes or even her own knowledge, the men had just as much of a chance at surviving as her own base had had. She could only pray the outcomes wouldn't be similar.
Blair was quiet as he looked over the notes. He spoke to Kay a little, but he was mostly wrapped up in his own thoughts. Every time he looked down at a note or reviewed the video footage, Kay saw a look in his eyes; it was as if he knew a storm was coming and there was no way to stop it. She had a feeling he wasn't that far off. When Kay had reviewed her own notes at least a dozen times, she heard Windows announce that MacReady, Norris, and Palmer were back. Kay followed them to the Rec Room where the trio was already stripping their outside gear off. She looked at MacReady and almost had a giggle fit. He had a huge Texan cowboy hat on his head. He looked up at her with a puzzled look on his face.
Once the group had settled in, MacReady began to describe what they had seen. A gigantic space craft hundreds of yards wide, buried under the ice for at least 100,000 years. He began to grow tired of recounting his tale as one guy after the next asked him questions he couldn't have the answer to. "I don't know," MacReady sighed as he swallowed the drink he had poured. "Thousands of years ago, this aircraft crashes and this Thing gets thrown out or crawls out, and it ends up freezing in the ice."
"I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit," Childs exclaimed, puffing on his cigarette.
"Childs, it happens all the time, man," Palmer said from his seat. "They're falling outta the skies like flies."
Childs turned to Kay and Blair. "Do you believe any of this voodoo bullshit, Blair?" Blair was silent, staring down at a photograph. Childs looked at Kay and said, "I suppose you believe it, right?"
She nodded. "I've lived through it."
Garry stood up at this. "Come on, now, MacReady. The Norwegians get a hold of this, and they dig it up out of the ice."
"Yes, Garry, they dig it up. They cart it back. It gets thawed out, wakes up, not in the best of moods. I don't know; ask Kay, she was there." He nodded towards her.
Suddenly, Nauls rolled into the room and addressed everyone. "Which one of you disrespectful men been tossin' his dirty drawers in the kitchen trash can?" He tossed a shredded pair of long johns on the pinball machine. "I want my kitchen clean and germfree, okay?"
Childs spoke up again. "Now how's this motherfucker wake up after thousands of years in the ice?"
"And how could it look like a dog?" Bennings chimed in.
MacReady looked up and said in an exasperated voice, "I don't know how. 'Cause it's different than us, see? 'Cause it's from outer space. What do you want from me? Ask one of them." He nodded to Blair and Kay.
"You buy any of this, Blair?" Childs asked frustratingly.
Blair was silently staring at the photo of our group around the block of ice that was the creature. He didn't say anything. Instead, Kay spoke up, "My group and I didn't understand its capabilities either. Truthfully, we got very little data before it started attacking us."
"So you don't know why this creature can shape shift?" Childs asked.
"Well, I don't know the exact reason, but it's just the way it is. It's the way the cells were designed. Wherever this creature came from, it lives and continues to thrive on other organisms by becoming them. I know it sounds impossible; believe me, that's what we all thought, but you have to believe what's in front of your own eyes."
"What should we do with the bodies, then?" Bennings asked.
Garry spoke up. "We should lock them up in the storeroom until we can decide what to do. Everybody should grab their stuff from there beforehand." He turned to Kay and said, "There're some spare clothes in the storeroom you should put on. If you're helping us, you'll need to protect yourself from freezing to death."
She nodded. "Thank you."
Everybody started leaving the Rec Room. MacReady looked over at her and said, "I think Garry's finally warming up to you."
Kay snorted. "I doubt it. He needs my brain to survive."
"It's a good thing we have your brain," he stood up. "We're clueless."
She chuckled lightly. "That's a nice thing to say about your team."
He shrugged. "They're good guys, don't get me wrong."
"You don't talk to them mostly, do you?" she asked suddenly.
MacReady stared at her silently. "Why do you ask?"
"You just seem…I don't know. You seem distant from them. Do you live in that shack all by yourself?"
"Yes," he replied. He looked away from her and picked up the shredded clothing Nauls had brought in. "I like it that way."
"Why?" she stood up and walked closer to him. "In this part of the world, the last thing you should want is to be alone."
"You wouldn't understand."
"You're right, I don't. At my base, I was isolated too, but it wasn't my choice. Denny was the only person who ever really tried to get to know me."
"Yeah, and look what happened to him," MacReady said. "He's dead. He got himself killed for no good reason."
Kay felt anger flare up inside of her. "You want to know how Denny died? He was injured trying to protect me."
MacReady took a long sip of his drink. "How'd that happen, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Well, we were the only ones left after that thing killed everybody else. We tried blowing up our base to destroy it, and it came after us. While we were setting up charges, it attacked. It threw me against a wall and hurled a large piece of metal at my head. Denny knocked me out of the way so the metal stabbed his side. We blew up the base and ran for our lives right up until you found us in the snow."
He was silent once more. "I didn't know," he admitted. "I'm sorry; he was your friend and I should've respected that."
She sighed and rubbed her temple. "I can't believe he's gone. I knew his chances were slim, but still…" Kay looked MacReady square in the eye. "I'm not going to let that thing do to you what it did to Denny and I."
MacReady smiled a bit. "You're one brave woman, Kay. I admire that."
Just then, Copper stuck his head around the corner. "Hey Mac, we're moving those things into the storeroom. Can you come get your stuff? And Kay, you need those spare clothes."
"We're coming," MacReady replied. "I'll show you where it is, Kay." The two of them walked out of the Rec Room and he led her down the hall and around several corners. The storeroom door was wide open when they walked inside. Kay cringed when she saw the creature lying lifeless underneath a sheet. MacReady pointed to one shelf. "The spares are right there. Help yourself." As he started gathering up his stuff, she sifted through the spare clothes she needed. She took a pair of thick pants and an extra thermal shirt and a heavy coat for outside. Just as they were about to leave, Bennings and Windows entered the room, carrying the dog creature under a white sheet.
"Sorry, Mac," Bennings said as they set it down on the floor. "Doc says you gotta move your stuff—" He stopped when he realized MacReady already knew. "Doc says we got to stash them in here and lock them up."
Kay grabbed the spares and walked out of the room, MacReady following behind her. But then, Fuchs came up to him and said, "I need to talk to you."
"I'm tired of talking, Fuchs," MacReady said. "I just want to get up to my shack and get drunk."
"Mac, it's important," Fuchs said.
"What is it?"
"Outside."
"It's forty below outside," MacReady exclaimed.
"In the Thiokol. Please, Mac," Fuchs insisted.
MacReady finally sighed and set his stuff down. "You okay from here, Kay?" he asked her.
She nodded. "I'm fine. Go ahead." As the two of them left, she made her way down the halls to where her stuff was. She learned from Copper that her coat and other belongings were back in the lab where she was first brought in. Some of it was damaged by the creature, but her gloves and hat were still usable. When she finally located the lab, she pushed open the heavy doors and paused where she stood. They still had Denny's body on the long lab table; the blood on his sheet was now brown. On the table next to him, however, was another body. She realized this was the man who had come after the dog; the man from her base she thought had died.
Kay set her stuff down on the floor and slowly approached the table. With a shaky hand, she grasped the sheet and pulled it back to reveal a pale face covered in blood. She knew who it was instantly: Jans Boland, their team leader. She saw he was shot through the eye, so his death was instant. She thought he was killed as they set up the explosives, but she was mistaken. She couldn't help but wonder if he tried searching for Denny and herself. Kay quickly covered Jans's body back up and turned to Denny. She couldn't help it; she needed to see him once last time. She reached for the sheet and pulled it back to reveal Denny's face.
Kay had never felt so mournful in her entire life. Denny was pale and still just like Jans, his eyelids and mouth closed. His hat was gone so she saw his brown hair matted down on his forehead. She reached out and touched his face. He felt cold and emotionless, a hollow shell of someone she used to know. She could feel the texture of the beard he was growing underneath her fingertips. She held one of his hands at his side, and let out a soft cry. She felt a few tears fall down her cheeks, wondering how she would explain to his family the death of their only son. Kay felt a chill run through her body, and she knew she had to change into something warmer before she froze to death. She gazed upon Denny's face one more time before bending down to kiss his forehead. She pulled the sheet back over his head and turned her attention to her own clothes. She pulled on the thick pair of pants and changed into a fresh thermal shirt. As she picked up her own hat and gloves, an alarm echoed throughout the base. The same alarm that sounded when the creature attacked the dogs. Kay grabbed her coat and ran out into the hallway. She saw Norris and Childs run past her outside, and she quickly followed.
Outside, the cold stung her cheeks, but she barely noticed. The men were forming a circle around something kneeling in the snow, and they all appeared frightened. She saw MacReady standing by a barrel of gasoline. "Keep back! Stay back!" he shouted. "It isn't Bennings!"
Kay looked closer and saw it was Bennings, except it wasn't. She saw the blood on his clothes and the bleak look in his eyes, but that wasn't the worst of it. He had two large disfigured hands covered in blood, and soon, he began to screech. It sounded eerie, as if a thousand men were shouting from the depths of Hell for someone to help them. MacReady knocked the barrel over and gasoline spilled out around him. He threw a lit flare onto the gas, and Bennings was covered in flames within moments. As his screams echoed around the base, everybody looked around nervously at one another. Kay felt something in the pit of her stomach, an uneasiness that made her realize protecting these men would be harder than she thought.