AN: Chap three, no major warnings, language, and violence
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Kate watched the autopsy; standing next to Wolner, as Halversen cut open what was left of the burnt creature. Adam was seated at the side table, watching with a nervous, almost disgusted look on his face at the creature and partially eaten remains.
Watching as Halversen cut into the carcass, Kate put a fist against her lips, lost in thought as the men talked over what the alien creature was made of.
"What's that?" Kate asked, eyes catching on the shiny object.
"It's a plate, for broken bone." Halversen replied, more interested in the alien, then the unfortunate Norwegian.
"Henrick, had a badly broken arm." Wolner offered, glancing at Kate. "The plate was put in because it would heal correctly."
"But why is it outside of him?" Kate asked slowly, putting on gloves to pull out the shiny metal. It was quite shiny for being inside a person, and being partially eaten.
In the background the door opened again, letting in a quiet Juliette. Kate looked over at her, setting down the metal on the side table. Juliette avoided looking at the creature and what was left of Henrick on the table, more interested in pulling Wolner to the back to chat. Adam meanwhile, taken a sample of the creature and stuck it under the microscope for Kate to start taking notes on, much more important than paying attention to the arguement
"Olav needs real medical help, the storm will not set in until later." Juliette was wringing her hands as she spoke quietly with Wolner, "They can take him on the helicopter without problem."
Kate was only half listening to the argument; she could hear the dismissal, but was to busy staring into the microscope at the samples Adam had taken from Henrick's half eaten and half burnt body. The cells weren't acting right, they were acting…
"Sanders!" Kate yelped, jumping away from the microscope, looking for the cold medical officer.
"What?" Halversen glanced at her, from where he and Adam where still bent over the dissected creature.
"The cells!" Kate backed up a step away from the microscope, her brain whirling as she thought of everything this could mean.
"They're still alive."
"Don't be ridiculous," came the dismissive tones, the tall scientist stood up, carefully pulling off and throwing away his bloody gloves. "It cannot be alive."
"If it was wouldn't it have fought the autopsy," Adam questioned.
"It might be dead, but it's cells are still alive." Hate hissed pointing t the microscope. "Look!"
Sander's looked annoyed, but walked overt to the microscope she was pointing at anyway, sitting down her vacated chair to peer into the scope.
In the background Juliette turned back to Wolner. "Then can we take Olav out?"
"Wait," Wolner said, holding up a hand as he moved closer behind Halversen and Kate, "Well?"
Halversen had stiffened on the chair, pushing away from the table to look at the others with a subdued face.
"More samples, Adam." He stood stiffly, looking into space before he turned back to Wolner, "We have a problem."
"Did you see it?" Kate demanded, eyes huge as she glanced at the microscope. "It's replicating his cells."
"What?" Wolner looked aghast at Kate, "Sanders?"
In the background Juliette twitched. .
"No one can leave," Kate continued.
"No," Halversen agreed. "Adam the samples, then gather everyone in the common area."
The hair on the back of Kate's neck rose, dread pooling in her stomach in a nauseating wave. She turned around looking at where Juliette had been standing quietly, even as the squishing cracks of breaking bones and tearing flesh reached Kate's ears.
"Oh my god," Kate whispered watching in shock as the Thing that had been Juliette gained height, it's spine break and stretching.
The four humans still in the room, crowded together like sheep, all moving backwards as the Juliette-Thing took shuddering steps forward, it's whole body shaking and trembling with every movement.
The Thing opened it's mouth, the unearthly howling screaming tearing through the room. The mandible dropping open from the once pretty mouth, a tentacle once disguised as it's tongue spilled out, whipping through the air. The cold weather jacket was ripped apart as more arms and tentacles extend from the Juliette-Thing's sides, exposing dead grey flesh splitting into hungry teeth.
Kate's heart was in her throat, as the fleshy ropes hit the ground and started for the humans. Her eyes darted around the room, trying to find something they could use as a weapon against the alien. Her eyes caught sight of the red plastic attached to the wall and she lunged. Halversen caught her as she slipped on the floor, keeping Kate mostly upright as she stretched and pulled the fire alarm.
The sudden harsh blaring of the alarm made the Thing shriek louder, through the mouth in its stomach.
Kate caught a glimpse of what was left of Juliette's face. The eyes were glazed over and dead looking, her face from above the mouth looked like some dead thing just hanging onto the monster made from the rest of the geologist's body.
Behind it the door burst open as Karl ran in with a fire extinguisher, with the others behind him.
"Kill it!" someone was screaming as the monster turned and was struck with a spray of frozen carbon dioxide.
Then Lars stumbled through the crowd with his flamethrower.
"What the fuck man!" Jameson screamed at the sight of the burning Juliette-Thing, jumping backwards and holding onto others behind him.
"Meg gud!" Lars was shouting as a burning tentacle hurled towards them through the air, slapping against Karl shoving the tall geologist into the wall amid more screaming.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Colin's breathed, holding onto Jonas' shoulder looking around the bulky Norwegian as the Thing fell to the floor, tentacles curling in as muscles burned. "Is that Juliette?" he asked hoarsely.
"No," Kate chocked out, still leaning into Halversen's hold. "It was that Thing. Pretending to be her." She gasped suddenly. "No! Don't touch him!"
Peder froze where he was bent over Karl, ready to give the other geologist a hand up.
"Kate," Halversen queried, letting go of her as she stumbled forwards.
"We need to make a test," Kate was saying quickly, "Find out which of us is which." She had seen the Thing knock Karl into the wall, and who knew how little contact there needed to be to start the replication process, to infect someone. The whole the burning tentacle had left in Karl's arm was a large bleeding hole, that pale clammy hands were clutching.
"She's right," Halversen finally said, surprisingly. "Everyone to the common area be sure not to interact or touch each other.
As the men started filling out, Peder and Lars pausing to carefully wrap the smoking Thing in a tarpaulin, before removing it from the lab room, taking it outside to be burned more. Kate could see Carter glancing back at her, watching over others shoulders she frowned when he abruptly turned away.
Karl was helped into a chair by Griggs and Jonas, both with their arms wrapped up where they had to touch him. The scrapes along his side, and the puncture in his right arm had stopped bleeding but still looked bad, like something had stabbed through the flesh.
As soon as the tallest Norwegian was settled in a chair both Peder and Jonas backed away, throwing away the clothing they had wrapped around their arms and hands to hold him up.
Soon all the Thule and company was settled apart from each other in the common area, under Wolner's watchful eye as they waited for Halversen and Kate. Someone had even brought in Olav; the guide wrapped in a blanket, staring at nothing as he shivered on the couch.
Carter had settled in a corner, the farthest from everyone else, sitting on the floor to watch everything and one else in the room. He and everyone else had seen the thing in the lab, the Thing that still had part of Juliette's face attached. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together to get a body-snatching alien.
His left hand went up to tug on the thin hoop of metal hooked through his ear. Tugging for luck, superstitions aside, tugging to make sure he'd only dreamed of it vanishing and voices screaming at him.
He felt like he was back standing on the edge of the darkness again, listening to paranoid and angry whispers from all sides and the feeling of bloody red eyes devouring him.
"Sa snill, please…" Olav was praying into the thick blanket.
Carter glanced at him warily, happy to have been brought away from thoughts of that Thing, but not so happy at the sign of the impending breakdown.
"Make it stop!" Olav was shouting now, almost struggling with the blanket, repeating phrases in English and Norwegian. "Always with the eyes! The shadows following, the eyes!"
Carter stiffened, sitting up straighter against the wall, completely focused on Olav he missed the complete quiet as everyone stared at the formally quiet guide.
"Eyes?" Carter asked getting up on his knees, voice breaking as he thought of the three red eyes that followed him.
"Too many eyes," Olav whimpered, falling to the floor as he finally fell from the couch, thudding against the hard wood. "They stare, and it hates… so hungry." Olav lunged at Carter, wrapping trembling arms around the pilot's waist and hanging on; even as the ex-soldier's hands made to break bones that had foolishly gotten too close.
Kate gasped from the doorway, big eyes staring at the terrified man wrapped around Carter.
"Bloody!" Olav was sobbing as he clutched Carter, "They want to eat me!"
The panicked looking pilot patted awkwardly at Olav's shoulder, tears were tears no matter what sex was sobbing. Not to mention mucus.
"Red eyes?" Kate asked stepping into the room, she didn't sound scared her face was flat, and Carter could see her chewing on her lower lip. "Three red eyes?"
Now everyone, aside from the Norwegian soaking Carter's jacket, was staring at Kate. Panic, distrust, wild emotions on everyone's face. Apart from Olav clinging to Carter, all of the Thule people were separated. None within an arms length of each other.
"We all had the dreams right?" Kate said, teeth chewing her lip, but voice steady. "Something trying to attack us," She talked over Olav's mutterings of being eating, "the Thing, with three red eyes, and tentacles for hair."
"Hungry," Olav moaned wetly into Carter.
Jonas nodded slowly, looking at the floor and refusing to meet any eyes, "ja, I saw it."
Peder was the next to nod, followed by the American's, upon turning to face Halversen nodded with tightly compressed lips and Adam with nervous jerks of his head.
"What a crock of shite." Colin's sneered. "So we all had nightmares about that Thing, who wouldn't after it ate Henrick? It proves nothing."
"I don't remember the thing in the ice having hair, of any kind." Kate said calmly.
There was silence from the Englishman, Colin frowning at nothing and sitting back into the chair he had claimed.
"Then what d'you expect ta do now." Colins' accent got heavy with anger coloring his words.
"This Thing, attacks and replicates us." Kate started, looking at everyone in turn. "It was eating Henrick when we killed it, but it was still copying and replacing his cells. At some point it mut have gotten to Juliette and… absorbed her. It took over Juliette and pretended to be her until it attacked." Kate took a deep breath, not letting her nerves show on her face.
"It became her. It could be any of us."
"Fucking insane, man." Jameson was the first to speak but he was quickly followed by everyone else chiming, shouting, in.
"Don't let it eat me," Olav begged, looking up at Carter with watery eyes. "I don't want to be one of them."
"Eh," Carter was still patting at Olav, "Kate's on top of everything. She'll figure it out." Carter tried to reassure, his words fell flat as those eyes stared.
Then Karl was falling forwards, puking blood, face splitting in half, human scream changing into an inhuman screech. The inhuman screams were quickly joined by more human shouting and screaming.
"Where's the flamethrower? Lars!"
Kate grabbed the flamethrower from the doorway where it had been abandoned, ignoring Halversen and Adam backing away behind her, and the others crouching against the far wall. Ignored the screaming, human or otherwise, and aimed the nozzle not bothering to heft the large pack.
Soon Karl was nothing more than a twitching black shape. Kate moved forwards, ignoring the men shuddering against the wall, and leaned over what was left of Karl. Something shiny caught her eye, bright almost new looking metal among the blood on the floor.
Looking around, Kate grabbed a napkin using it to pick up one of the metal pieces.
"A crown?"
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