SSSD - Back up Julie

Ro hustles down the long hallway in time to see Julie vanish around the corner toward the basement stairs and Signe’s lab. There’s smoke, but she hears the sounds of fire extinguishers spraying. The Norwegians are taking care of things.

She skids into the doorway to see Julie finishing up. Julie pauses, even though the fire isn’t completely out. She spots the bottle in Ro’s hand.

“Good idea. Get more. And prepare them,’ she adds.

Prepare them? Oh. Ro understands. Julie wants Molotov cocktails, ready to go.

“Uh, OK.” The fire’s under control. It doesn’t appear to have been major. She backs out into the hallway.

The lights go out before Ro is even halfway back to the Rec Room.

She freezes and a piercing shriek from elsewhere in the Outpost paralyzes her, although it’s hard to know if she really heard a scream or if it’s just the fire alarm. She looks back, but can’t see anything.

“Hey,” she calls out. “Anyone got a flashlight or something please?” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she regrets them. She is helpless. Feeling blindly, she finds the nearest doorway and scampers through, bumping into something. A metallic rattle tells her that she’s in the kitchen. She’d better be careful; all those knives never did get put away.

She hears what is probably a crash and some indistinct shouting.

It’s bad. Ro crawls behind the preparation island and sits, hugging her knees in the dark.

No. She can’t do this; this isn’t helping anyone. It’s too dark; she needs a light source. Ro crawls to the corner, and the small table that Birgitte would use for everything unrelated to food. It was the one spot in the kitchen that hadn’t always been sterile. Ro reaches up and feels around. Light plastic hits the floor. Perfect. These cheap lighters that Birgitte and Marit like to use are all over the Outpost.

As the alarm wails, Ro feels across the tile floor. She finds the lighter and clicks it on, getting to her knees gratefully only to yell and flinch away from the pair of legs in front of her.

“Oh, jeez.” She lifts the lighter to find Niv staring expressionlessly down at her. “Oh, shit.”

Niv reaches out and freezes as the harsh beam of a flashlight illuminates her. She turns, only to be engulfed by a blast of flames. Ro screams and rolls away from the blistering heat.

Pans and appliances crash to the floor as Niv flails, her limbs bending and extending. An unearthly howl dies as Niv collapses, smoldering. The kitchen’s on fire now.

Niv’s still moving. In front of Ro’s eyes, Niv’s fingers get longer and longer as her body begins to shake.

“Shit,” Alison grumbles, looking down worriedly at the flamethrower. “It’s not working right.”

The flaming thing lurches around and lunges for Ro, who dives away, snatching up a fallen wok.

“Oh, shit!” Alison struggles with the flamethrower.

Ro scoots back, brandishing the wok.

“Fuck off, Niv!” it comes out as more of a sob than a threat.

“Get out of the way!” Alison steps around the island and unleashes another blast of flames that Ro is narrowly able to avoid.

Niv’s blackened corpse sinks to the floor, unmoving.

There’s plenty of light now: the fire.

Alison’s already making her way heavily to the fire extinguisher.

“No!” Ro tries to call out, only to cough on the smoke.

Alison touches the fire extinguisher and jerks her hand back with a cry of pain; it’s been heated up by the fire, and has begun to physically deform. Alison sees it and turns away as it bursts. White smoke fills the room and there’s a mighty crash. That’s Alison, falling to the floor with the flamethrower.

Ro fumbles through the smoke to find Alison sitting up and swearing.

“I think this thing’s busted,” she reports.

Ro wants to ask about the others, but Alison probably doesn’t know. There’s no time anyway. She helps Alison out of the harness and drags her to her feet. Alison wobbles a little, and there’s blood on her face. A piece of the extinguisher must have hit her.

“Shit. We gotta put this fire out,” she says, groaning and stumbling for the door.

Ro snatches up the light and follows her into the long hall. Her ears hurt from the constant alarm. She shines the light in both directions as Alison wrenches a fire extinguisher off the wall and plunges back into the kitchen.

The firelight dies and there’s only the beam of the flashlight.

“Guys! A little help!” Ro calls out.

Alison joins her. Nothing’s moving; the alarm screams while the Outpost is dark and the long hallway is still.

“Where are they?” Ro demands. Nobody can hear anything over the alarm. The others could be calling for help. “Hey, come on. I was coming this way to get vodka. As a weapon.”

Alison swallows and nods. “Let’s do it. We need more lights.”

“We need to get the lights back on.”

“Could be the box or it could be the generator. Either one… and we might still have more fires,” Alison adds, turning on another flashlight.

“What happened to Linda and Marit?”

“They bolted when the lights went out.”

“You blame them?”

“I don’t know,” Alison says as she joins Ro in swiftly fashioning a few Molotov cocktails.

“If someone killed the power, that’s suicide. None of us can survive.”

“This thing was in the ice, Ro. It doesn’t care about the cold. It can wait. It just doesn’t want anyone left to talk about it.”

“Maybe they aren’t counting on me being able to fix stuff,” Ro says.

“I don’t know. But we’re killing everyone.”

Ro pauses, taken aback. “Everyone?”

“Everyone,” Alison agrees. “Let’s hit the basement first.”

She says it as though going down there in the dark is the most normal thing in the world and not literally the most terrifying thing that Ro can imagine.

“How can we kill the alarm?” she shouts.

“Put the fires out!”

Great. Very helpful.

With cocktails and flashlights, they venture into the hallway and make their way down. The flickering glow of flames is visible, but not particularly strong. The amount of smoke is rough, though. Keeping low, they get the extinguisher from the corner and take care of the last of the flames. There’s a lot of damage, and another extinguisher lies on the floor.

“Come on.” Alison leads the way to the basement. The door stands open, and she shines her light down.

Signe is just a few steps down, looking up at them.

“Wait,” she says, but Alison slams the door and locks it.

“What are you doing?” Ro demands.

“What’s she doing down there?”

“Probably checking on the power! What if you locked her down there with it?”

The fire alarm drowns out any sound, but Ro notices the doorknob turning. Signe’s trying to open it. Alison spots it.

“Fuck. Back off or I’ll burn you!” she shouts, then throws the door open.

Signe has retreated a few steps. Alison weighs the Molotov in her hand, clenching her jaw.

“Is it the box?”

“No,” Signe replies at once.

“Anyone else down there?”

“No.”

“Then you’ll be safe,” Alison bites out. She slams the door and locks it again.

“Jesus Christ,” Ro frets. “I thought you trusted her.”

“I really like her.”

“That’s not an answer!”

“If it isn’t the box, we have to go. Move.” Alison pushes her.

“So, you believe her?”

“Hell, I don’t know.”

The flashlights sit on the floor while Alison and Ro use their beams to don gloves and goggles to go outside. Ro’s already thinking about possible damage to the generator. Some things, she can fix. Others, not so much.

“Are we really gonna die out here?” she asks.

“Probably,” Alison replies and pops a flare.

They venture out into the storm. The wind is against them, and the cold is deadly. Just a short walk seems to take hours. There’s a barely concealed rage in the way that Alison moves. She must be beyond exhausted, but she’s still going.

The generator shack is locked up tightly. Ro has to take off her gloves to use Golda’s keys. Alison does her best to shield her. Together, they get the lock off and the shed open. The space is perhaps half the size of the garage, with a tall ceiling and plenty of room around the generator itself, which is the size of a small car.

Snow swirls around the interior and has begun to coat the generator, which is still steaming. Ro doesn’t see any damage right away, but something’s clearly wrong. The air stinks with melted plastic and electrical burns.

Alison pulls her hood down. “Wait a minute,” she says, lifting her flare. Ro follows her deeper into the shed. The damage is on the other side of the generator. A panel has been broken off and some wires jerked free. It’s crude, but… maybe the damage is only to the wires.

Ro comes to her senses. “Wait a minute? What are you talking about?”

“If you had the keys, why was this place locked up?”

“Uh…”

Alison has a point. And why’s there snow in here?

They look up. A window is broken.

“It got in through there?” Ro asks. She frowns at a touch to her shoulder.

Alison looks over at the stringy goo dribbling onto Ro.

Ro moves the beam of her light to reveal the Thing clinging to the ceiling. It’s all limbs, heads, and joints.

“And it didn’t leave,” Alison says, shoving Ro out of the way as violently whipping tendrils shoot out. Ro drops her flashlight and fumbles with her Molotov, clicking her lighter.

Alison’s doing the same. Ro’s comes on as the creature drops, landing heavily on the generator and reaching out. She tries to scoot away, and her Molotov won’t light. It’s the cloth they have stuffed in it; the vodka hasn’t frozen, but the cloth has.

Ro keeps wiggling away as the clawed limbs reach for her. She tugs off her glove with her teeth and breathes on cloth, then grips it with her bare skin. The problem isn’t that it’s cold. It’s wet from the snow. This isn’t going to work.

Alison has come to the same conclusion. She appears over the creature, pouring from two bottles rather than trying to light them.

Ro runs out of room to scoot and hits the wall.

A strong limb shoots out, sending Alison sprawling.

The thing is still covered in booze. Ro clicks her lighter on and throws it, shielding her face as the creature goes up with a shriek. More tentacles flail as the creature reels away. Ro drags Alison out of its path as it stumbles through the open door, into the storm, only to be met with a jet of flames.

Ro and Alison stagger out of the shed.

Lit by the brightly blazing corpse, Signe stands with the flamethrower, flanked by Marit and Linda.

Signe turns the flamethrower on Alison, who instinctively raises a fresh Molotov.

Julie comes jogging out of the storm. The wind howls and snow swirls around them all. Signe and Alison are ready to strike, but they’re both really looking at the charred, mangled corpse in the steaming snow. It’s unrecognizable. Maybe it was the one that Signe and Alison thought had been following them. There’s no way to be sure.

There’s no way to be sure of anything. The flames are reflected in Marit’s goggles. Julie seems uncertain. Signe and Linda are unreadable. They each look at each other.

“What do we do?” Julie calls out.

The End!

(Epilogue on the next page)