The Thing

  THE THING

  Towering cliffs of solid ice rose from the canyon they were exploring. They knew it was here. Fear rode the moaning wind on swirling razor-like flakes. On a muffled word from Bennings, Childs activated the nozzle. The tip of the flame-thrower sprang to life. Bennings was scanning the cliff's jagged crevices when something clutched his ankles. He looked down and barely had time to scream as his body was yanked below the surface of the ice . . .

  TWELVE MEN

  Trapped in the Antarctic.

  ELEVEN

  Discover the intruder.

  TEN

  Battle the alien force.

  NINE

  Agonize for the answer.

  EIGHT

  Desperate to be spared.

  SEVEN

  Consumed one by one.

  SIX...FIVE...FOUR...THREE...

  They will all die.

  Unless something, anything stops

  A TURMAN-FOSTER COMPANY PRODUCTION

  JOHN CARPENTER'S

  "THE THING"

  starring KURT RUSSELL

  Screenplay by BILL LANCASTER

  Special Visual Effects by ALBERT WHITLOCK

  Special make-up Effects by ROB BOTTIN

  Music by ENNIO MORRICONE

  Director of Photography DEAN CUNDEY

  Associate Producer LARRY FRANCO

  Executive Producer WILBUR STARK

  Co-Producer STUART COHEN

  Produced by DAVID FOSTER & LAWRENCE

  TURMEN

  Directed by JOHN CARPENTER

  A UNIVERSAL PICTURE

  Based on the story "Who Goes There?"

  by JOHN W. CAMPBELL, JR.

  THE THING

  Copyright © 1982 by Universal Pictures, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  A Bantam Spectra Book

  First Printing February 1982

  Second Printing July 1982

  SPECTRA and the protrayal of a boxed "s" are trademarks of Bantam

  Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any other means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording, or by any information

  storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from

  the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that

  this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"

  to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received

  any payment for this "stripped book"

  ISBN 0-553-20477-7

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam

  Doubleday Dell publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the

  words "Bantam Books" and the protrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S.

  Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada.

  Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About the Author

  THE THING

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  For my niece, Shannon,

  With a great deal of love,

  And so the kids at school will finally believe

  you . . .

  The worst desert on Earth never gets hot. It boasts no towering sand dunes like the Sahara, no miles and miles of barren gravel as does the Gobi. The winds that torment this empty land make those that sweep over the Rub al Khali seem like spring breezes.

  There are no venomous snakes or lizards here because there is nothing for them to poison. A bachelor wolf couldn't make a living on the slopes of its Vinson Massif. Even the insects shun the place. The birds who eke out a precarious life along its shores prefer to swim rather than fly, seeking sustenance from the sea rather than a hostile land. Here live seals that feed on other seals, microscopic krill that support the world's largest mammals. Yet it takes acres to support a single bug.

  A mountain named Erebus stands cloaked in permanent ice, but burns with the fires of hell. Elsewhere the land itself lies crushed beneath the solid ice up to three miles thick. In this frozen waste, this gutted skeleton of a continent unlike any other, only one creature stands a chance of surviving through the winters. His name is Man, and like the diving spider he's forced to carry his sustenance on his back.

  Sometimes Man imports other things to Antarctica along with his heat and food and shelter that would not have an immediate impact on an impartial observer. Some are benign, such as the desire to study and learn, which drives him down to this empty wasteland in the first place. Others can be more personal and dangerous. Paranoia, fear of open places, extreme loneliness; all can hitch free and unwelcome rides in the minds of the most stable of scientists and technicians.

  Usually these feelings stay hidden, locked away behind the need to concentrate on surviving hundred-mile-an-hour winds and eighty-below-zero temperatures.

  It takes an extraordinary set of circumstances to transform paranoia into a necessary instrument for survival.

  When the wind blows hard across the surface of Antarctica, the universe is reduced to simpler elements. Sky, land, horizon all cease to exist. Differences die as the world melts into blustery, homogeneous cream.

  Out of that swirling, confused whiteness came a sound; the erratic buzzing of a giant bee. It cut through the insistent moan of the wind and it was too close to the ground.

  The pilot let out an indecipherable oath as he fought the controls. The helicopter struggled to gain altitude. Whiskers fringed the man's cheeks and chin. His eyes were bloodshot and wild.

  He should not have been walking, much less guiding a stubborn craft through wild air. Something unseen was compelling him, driving him. A recent horror. It overrode common sense and rational thought. There was no light of reason in the pilot's eyes. Only murder. Murder and desperation.

  His companion was bigger, tending to fat. Normally he lived within the purview of a fine-grain microscope and composed lengthy dissertations on the nature of creatures too small to be seen by the naked eye.

  But he was not hunting microbes now. His demeanor was anything but composed. There was nothing of scientific detachment in his voice as he shouted directions to the pilot while staring through a battered pair of Zeiss binoculars. Across his thighs rested a high-powered hunting rifle, the 4X scope mounted on it a clumsy parody of the elegant instruments he usually worked with.

  He lowered the lenses and squinted into the blowing snow, then kicked open the door of the chopper and set the restraining brace to keep it open. The pilot growled something and his companion responded by raising the rifle. He checked to make sure there was a shell resting in the chamber. The two men argued madly, like children fighting over a plaything. But there was no note of play in their voices, no innocence in their eyes.

  The wind caught the machine, throwing it sideways through the sky. The pilot cursed the weather and struggled to bring his craft back to an even keel.

  Ahead and below, a dog turned to snarl at the pursuing helicopter. He was a husky and malamute mix, but still looked as out of place on that cold white surface as any mammal. He tur
ned and jumped forward just as a shell exploded at his heels. The sound of the shot was quickly swallowed by the constant, uncaring wind.

  The chopper dipped crazily in the whirlpool of wild air. It continued to fly too close to the ground. An inspector would have recommended revocation of its pilot's license on the spot. The pilot didn't give a damn what anyone watching might think. He didn't care about things like licenses anymore, now his sole concern in life was murder.

  A second shot went wild and hit nothing but sky. The pilot slammed a fist into his friend's shoulder and pleaded for better aim.

  Panting heavily, the dog topped an icy rise. It found itself confronting an alien outcropping. The sign had been beaten up by the weather but still stood, its foundation imbedded in ice as solid as stone. It shifted only slightly in the wind. It read:

  NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION—OUTPOST #31

  UNITED STATIONS OF AMERICA

  A blast from the rifle missed both sign and dog alike. The animal pulled itself together and galloped down the opposite slope, half-running, half-falling through the slick snow and compacted ice particles.

  The plain, rectangular metal building lay nearly hidden beneath shifting snow, a structural corpse subject to regular winter burial and summer exhumation. Not far from its tall tower thrust bravely into the wind, multiple guy wires keeping the unavoidable swaying to a minimum. Instruments poked out of its crown at various angles and for various purposes, sampling wind velocity, precipitation (which was rare), pressure, temperature, and a plethora of other meteorological phenomena without parallel anywhere else on Earth.

  Lying at varying distances from the central building, which looked like a steel trap in the middle of the compound, were several sheds of varying permanence and composition. The solidity of their construction depended on the importance of their contents. Some were constructed of metal welded or riveted together. Others were makeshifts cobbled together out of slats of corrugated steel, plastic, and scrap lumber. There was no evidence of that mainstay of modern construction, concrete. In the climate of Antarctica concrete quickly turned back into piles of sand and gravel. Wind and ice assaulted each edifice with a fine impartiality.

  Walkways made of wooden planks regularly swept clear of blowing snow connected the hodgepodge of buildings, the wood starkly incongruous in a land where the only trees lay long buried and fossilized. Guide ropes stretched in pairs from structure to structure, marking the location of the walkways and singing steady songs to the wind with vocal cords of hemp.

  Multicolored pennants snapped at the wind's whim, marking not only walkways and buildings but the often concealed locations of outdoor experiments; color-coding science.

  Behind a slanted wind shield that pointed toward the nearby bottom of the world a pair of helicopters squatted idle, their blades rendered heavy and immobile with accumulations of ice, their transparent bubble cockpits turned opaque. A powerful bulldozer sat nearby, its protective tarpaulin flapping in the gale like the wings of a lumbering albatross.

  A large red balloon bobbed and ducked at the end of its restraining cord. From the end of the cord hung a small metal box, ready to go wherever the balloon chose to carry it and already beeping efficiently to the automatic recorder safe inside the main building.

  Norris held the middle of the line and stared at his watch. He looked something like the glacial outcroppings that occasionally broke the level monotony of the terrain surrounding the outpost. That was appropriate, since his interests were primarily concerned with rocks and the ways in which they moved and what moved below them. He was particularly interested in the black, viscous substance that filled the industrial bloodstream of the modern world. That interest was the principal reason for his presence at the outpost, though he often assisted in general study and research as well, hence his helping with the weather balloon.

  He tried not to stay outside any longer than was necessary. By rights he shouldn't be here at all because of his unstable heart, but his agile brain and repeated requests had overcome the resistance of those who made such assignments.

  Bennings was glad of the help. The meteorologist had sent up dozens of red balloons and their beeping passengers by himself, but it was always easier with someone to hold the balloon while you made final adjustments. During his first tour he'd made the mistake of going outside alone in late fall, only to see his balloon soar gracefully off into the sky with its instrument package still sitting on the ground.

  Twenty yards from them a much larger man was hunkered over a snowmobile. He'd pushed its shielding tarp aside and used a special plastic pick to chip ice from its flanks. This was necessary to gain access to the machine's guts, which were overdue for a checkup.

  Childs had not been one for a long time, though he still knew how to enjoy himself like a youngster. He loved three things: machinery, singing groups who danced as much as they sang (and often better), and a woman far away. He'd grown up in Detroit, so Antarctica didn't seem as bleak and desolate to him as it did to most of the others.

  A familiar but unexpected noise, a distant humming, made him turn and look curiously to his left. The fringe of fur lining his jacket hood tickled his mouth and made him spit. The sputum froze instantly.

  Norris looked up from his watch and stared curiously in the same direction. So did Bennings, the weather balloon momentarily forgotten. A loud whine was coming rapidly toward them. He frowned, making the ice in his beard crack.

  Out of the distant scrim of blowing ice particles came a helicopter. It shouldn't have been out in this kind of weather. It certainly had no business near the outpost, where aerial company wasn't due for months. Once it dipped so low that the landing skids flicked snow from the crest of the little hill it barely cleared.

  A man was leaning out of the right side of the transparent cockpit, seemingly without thought for his own safety as the craft dipped and bobbed in the clutching wind. He was firing a rifle at a small, running object. A dog.

  Norris looked to his right, and found Childs staring incredulously back toward him. Neither man said anything. There were no words capable of explaining the insanity coming toward them, and no time to voice them if there were.

  The complaining copter engine began to subside as its unseen pilot fought to bring it in for a landing. It was going much too fast. The skis bounced once off the hard ice, the force of the impact bending both. It bounced forward again, clearing the racing, dodging dog, which cut sharply to its right to avoid the plunging metal.

  A third bounce and it seemed as if the craft would come to a safe halt, But the wind caught it, skewing it dangerously sideways. It flipped over on its side. Norris, Bennings, and Childs all dove for cover, trying to bury themselves in the snow as rotors snapped off like toothpicks. The fragments of steel blade went whizzing through the air in random directions like weapons thrown by some mad Chinese martial arts expert. One whooed dangerously close to Norris's head, coming within a yard of decapitating him.

  The man with the rifle managed to jump clear and scramble to his feet. He was bleeding from the forehead and limped on one leg as he tried to aim the rifle.

  Behind him, sudden warmth temporarily invaded the realm of cold as the fuel tanks ruptured and the copter vomited a fireball into the wind. Above it, an already forgotten red balloon was soaring toward the Ross Ice Shelf.

  Norris and Bennings rose cautiously, then started toward the blazing ruin of the helicopter.

  Less than a dozen men remained inside the compound. A few had been playing cards. Others were monitoring their respective instrumentation, preparing lunch, or relaxing in their sleeping cubicles. The sound of the exploding chopper shattered the daily routine.

  The dog reached Norris and Bennings as they struggled through the snow toward the still flaming wreck. At the same time the copter's sole survivor spotted them and bellowed something in a foreign tongue. He was reloading his weapon as he raved on at them.

  The two scientists exchanged a glance. "Recognize any markings?"
Norris shouted above the wind.

  Bennings shook his head, and yelled toward the bleeding survivor. "Hey! What happened? What about your buddy?" He gestured toward the burning craft.

  Showing no sign of comprehension the man with the rifle waved angrily at them. He was screaming steadily. Blood was beginning to freeze on his face, blocking one eye.

  Norris stopped. The dog stood on its hind legs, pawing Bennings and licking his hand. It was whimpering, sounding confused and afraid.

  "Say, boy," the meteorologist began, "what's the matter? Your master is—"

  The man from the helicopter raised the hunting rifle and fired at them.

  Bennings stumbled backward in shock, the husky going down in a pile with him. Norris stood as frozen as the land under his boots, gaping at the oncoming madman.

  "What the fu—?"

  The gun roared a second time. The man came stumbling toward them, trying to aim and yelling incomprehensibly. He was seeing, but not clearly. Blood continued to seep into his eyes. Blood, and something more.

  Ice and snow flew skyward as one bullet after another whacked into the ground around the two stunned scientists. Another smacked wetly into the dog's hip, sending it spinning. It yelped in pain.

  Childs stared at this windswept tableau in disbelief until the gun seemed to swerve in his direction. Then he dove behind the snowmobile's concealing bulk.

  A fourth shot struck Bennings. Still gaping dumbly at their crazed assailant, he fell over on his side. Cursing, Norris reached down and got both hands on the shoulders of his friend's parka and began pulling him toward the main building. Trailing blood, the dog fought to crawl along beside them.

  The stranger was very close now. The muzzle of his rifle looked as big as a train tunnel. But there was a sudden lull in the shooting.

  Raving steadily to himself, the man stopped and frantically struggled to reload his weapon. Shells fell from his jacket pocket into the snow. He fell on them, scrabbling through the white powder and shoving them into the magazine one at a time.