"Thing From Another World" - Part Six

Part Six

            “What’re we gonna do?! What’re we gonna do?!”

            “I don’t know, man! I don’t know!”

            Cara wanted to encourage Gumball and Darwin not to freak out…to tell them that there was nothing to worry about and she had been in worse situations than her right hand being assimilated by an alien parasite.

            But, truthfully, she was just as terrified as the boys.

            She could feel herself losing control of her hand each second that passed.

            The eye that grew on her palm was accompanied by the weirdest sensation as she felt it move and blink. It made her want to vomit.

            “How the heck did this happen?!” An unnerved Gumball questioned.

            “It had to have been from the direct contact with Blair, when he touched my face,” Cara presumed.

            “Is it just your hand?” Darwin wondered. “Has it gotten to any other part of you?!”

            He unknowingly helped Cara to realize one helpful fact.

            “It hasn’t reached the rest of me yet! It’s just my hand! There’s still time to—”

            Suddenly, she found herself the victim of a strangling committed by her assimilated hand.

            Gumball and Darwin tried to pry it off her, both grasping onto Cara’s right arm.

            Unfortunately, the assimilated appendage defended itself, using Cara’s momentum to swat the boys away. “I’m so sorry,” she empathically said, despite the act being no fault of her own.

            She wrestled with her possessed hand, managing to wrench it off her neck and pin it down on the control console with her left knee.

            “Gumball,” she beckoned in her struggle. “Reach into the secret compartment and get me the Sontaran plasma dagger stashed there!”

            Her instruction made no sense whatsoever to him, but he did as he was told.

            He looked inside the secret compartment from the T.A.R.D.I.S. control console and pulled out the first thing he saw that resembled a dagger among several alien tools and weapons, handing it over to Cara.

            What happened next horrified Gumball and Darwin.

            Lacking the slightest bit of hesitation, Cara sliced off her assimilated hand!

            Fighting through the agonizing pain, she opened the T.A.R.D.I.S. doors, exposing them to the swirling blue vortex of the infinite dimensional corridor outside.

            She grabbed her living amputated hand before it could crawl its way off the blood-drenched control console, and she hurled it out through the opened T.A.R.D.I.S. doors, closing them immediately afterward.

            After the deed was done, she collapsed, overtaken by pain.

            She awoke some hours later, finding Gumball and Darwin bandaging the stump where her right hand once was.

            “You boys are so sweet,” she uttered. “You didn’t have to do that.”

            “And you didn’t have to cut off your hand for us,” Gumball movingly remarked. “You did it just to protect us.”

            “Hey, I couldn’t let some stupid organism take away two of the greatest kids I’ve ever met,” Cara said, smiling while she shared a hug with her two young companions. “Now let’s get back and help MacReady and his crew take down that thing!”

-----------------

            They returned to a station devoid of power.

            Before going into the pitch-black complex, they checked the tool shed, which had been burnt into the snow.

            Past the charred remains, they found a freshly-burrowed tunnel.

            It led underground where scavenged equipment had been constructed as a small escape craft.

            “Somebody’s in a hurry to get off this planet,” Gumball spoke of it.

            “You think it could be Mr. Blair?” Darwin asked Cara.

            “It’s possible the thing that looks like Blair survived,” Cara surmised.

            The trio heard footsteps crunching across the snow and spotted someone entering the cavernous area.

            It was MacReady.

            “Why am I not surprised to see you three here, after everything that’s happened?!”

            “What did happen here, MacReady?” Cara interrogated.

            “Most of the crew’s dead – that thing got to them,” MacReady informed. “Everyone except for Childs. He went missing shortly after the power went out – the generator’s missing, too.” His attention then went to Cara’s severed hand. “What happened to you?”

            “It tried to take control of me, but it wasn’t so successful,” Cara replied. “The perks to already being an alien, I suppose.”

            MacReady’s gaze on her stiffened. “I’m still unsure whether or not I can trust you, but you’re all I’ve got right now.”

            Cara nodded in agreement. “Yeah…I am.”

---------------

            Putting distrust and paranoia aside, the four survivors worked together in setting explosives all around the base, an idea MacReady himself came up with as the final solution to their pest problem. Shutting down the station’s power only gave the thing a chance of freezing in the hundred-below temperatures long enough for a rescue team to find it; but, consuming the station in one huge inferno would end its plot.

            They started with blowing up the escape craft and the cavern with it.

            After that, they separated, with Gumball and Darwin assisting MacReady in destroying portions of the base while Cara planted charges within the generator room, keeping an eye out for Blair or even Childs.

            Working with one hand in the declining temperature proved difficult, yet Cara was able to get most of the charges set.

            “CARA! CARA!”

            The frantic screams of Gumball and Darwin drew her away from the task.

            She saw the boys run into the generator room, hiding right behind her.

            “What’s matter with you two?!” She queried.

            “It’s him…it’s MacReady,” Darwin breathlessly alarmed. “He’s the thing!”

            Before she could further question their allegation, she detected stomps rapidly reverberating from the stairwell MacReady emerged from.

            “Is everything alright?” He asked. “You guys just ran off for no reason!”

            “Oh, we had very good reason!” Gumball retorted.

            “They’re saying you’re the thing,” Cara told MacReady.

            He frowned over the accusation. “Why would it be me when I’m helping all of you?!”

            It was a valid point that only made it harder for Cara to consider Gumball and Darwin’s conviction. Nevertheless, the boys were genuinely frightened; she could sense the way they trembled beside her legs.

            She ultimately decided against MacReady, aiming her sonic screwdriver at him.

            MacReady glowered with feigned disappointment. “And here I thought we were just starting to trust each other.”

            He raised his left arm, which had metamorphosed into a long, grotesque tentacle that whipped at Cara, Gumball, and Darwin, knocking all three off their feet. Their bodies flung in all directions, slamming into several stored items, including gas barrels and steel pipes.

            In the attack, Cara dropped her sonic.

            She attempted to retrieve it as a defense towards the assimilated MacReady; regrettably, her current handicap bought him time to lunge at her, pinning her against the cold stone wall.

            He ripped at her thermal top while his head transmuted, one side of it expanding and splitting into a monstrous mouth with fangs prepared to chomp into Cara’s exposed shoulder.

            “HEY, MACREADY!”

            The creature still reacted to the name, turning away from Cara and setting its sights on Gumball, who had Cara’s sonic screwdriver pointed right at the detonator. “Why don’t ya eat this,” he cheekily said, prior to activating the switch with the sonic.

            Explosions erupted all over the room.

            The effect was enough to provoke the creature in releasing Cara, who escaped the generator room with Gumball and Darwin before they were caught in the blast that consumed the thing from another world.

            They witnessed the mass destruction of the research base from a safe distance near the T.A.R.D.I.S.

            “There goes the neighborhood,” an approaching voice stated.

            Cara, Gumball, and Darwin were stunned to see that it was Childs.

            “You’re alive!” Darwin gleefully cheered.

            “Barely,” stated an exhausted and freezing Childs. “I was chasin’ after MacReady ‘til we lost each other in the storm. That thing got to him.”

            “We know,” Cara acknowledged. “But it’s not gonna be a problem any longer.”

            Childs could almost feel the warmth of the distant inferno. “The only problem now is havin’ our butts turn to ice cubes. No way we’re gonna survive the night, even with all this fire.”

            “No problem at all,” said Cara, opening the doors to her T.A.R.D.I.S. “Just step right inside, and we’ll give you a lift back to civilization.”

            “Wait a sec,” Gumball protested. “How can we be certain Childs hasn’t been assimilated?”

            Responding to his doubts, Cara made a quick bio-scan on Childs with her sonic screwdriver. “He’s human,” she clarified at ease.

            Gumball’s jaw dropped with infuriating disbelief.

            “You mean you could’ve done that the whole time in this crazy adventure?!”

            “Hey, I’m only human…sorta,” Cara wryly rejoined.

NEXT WEEK!

"Thing From Another World" - Part Five

Part Five

            Cara and the boys remained deathly silent in the shed.

            Sometime passed since the gunshot rang in the station; they knew it was too dangerous to escape, so they stayed.

            MacReady and his men arrived to deliver Blair.

            Apparently, he was the one responsible for the gunshots, his paranoia having reached at an all-time high, according to MacReady. He was given a sedative and left locked with Cara, Gumball, and Darwin for an undetermined amount of time.

            “So what’re you in for?”

            “Gumball,” Cara reprimanded.

            “I’m guilty for knowing the truth,” Blair told them. He set his sight squarely on Cara and added, “You were right. That thing is a parasite that can assimilate the entire population of the Earth within a few years. And, as much as Mac wants to disagree, I believe it’s gotten to Clark.”

            “The kennel dude?” A disbelieving Gumball remarked.

            “But he’s such a nice guy,” Darwin discredited.

            “It can take on all of the characteristics of its host, sweetie,” Cara told Darwin. “But what I don’t get, Blair, is why you’re specifically ruling out Clark.”

            “Because he was the one with the dogs!” Blair roared in a terrifying tone that startled Cara, Gumball, and Darwin. “He was with the dog that started this whole mess in the first place!”

            “But I was with the dogs, too!” Darwin alarmingly noted. “Does that mean I’m going to be assimilated soon, too?!”

            “No, dude,” Gumball comforted. “You would know you were assimilated by now.” He then questioned to Cara with the utmost uncertainty, “Wouldn’t he?”

            Cara could only shrug. “From what we’ve seen, the levels of what this thing can do are ambiguous.”

            “In that case…” Gumball said, taking a step back from Darwin. “Better keep your distance, buddy.”

            Offended, Darwin folded his flippers, giving his brother a cold glare.

--------------------

            The next night felt colder than the previous.

            Gumball and Darwin were basically huddled close to Cara, fighting to generate whatever heat their shivering bodies could.

            They were forced to dine on the food storage supplied to them.

            “I wonder how MacReady and his crew are dealing with the thing,” Gumball pondered aloud.

            “Oh, I’d say about now they’d be gettin’ about as paranoid as I was earlier,” Blair nonchalantly depicted. “That’s the thing’s best defense. It feeds on human delusions. It’s how it survives. Mac thinks he’s got the situation entirely under control, but the reality is that he doesn’t. By now, those boys are tearin’ each other apart, one-by-one. It’s in the nature of humans.”

            Gumball shoved his half-eaten plate away in disgust. “O.K., I’ve lost my appetite.”

            “Me, too,” Darwin followed in his brother’s gesture.

            “Hey, Blair, how ‘bout you stop with the crazy talk,” Cara suggested.

            “Oh, we won’t stop – we’ll never stop ‘til every single one of you is consumed,” Blair threateningly declared.

            Cara’s focus on him hardened, realization setting in on what the man sitting before her was. “Oh, no…”

            “You ready to call Ripley’s?” He jeered.

            She shot up from her seat, forcing Gumball and Darwin out of theirs to shield them behind her.

            With an unnerving grin, Blair imposed to attack the Time Lady and her companions…until a knock came over the door.

            “Blair!” MacReady’s voice called on the other side.

            Opening the door’s peephole, he peeked in find the stilled group of people in the shed looking his way.

            “Have you seen Fuchs?” MacReady asked.

            “I don’t wanna stay out here anymore,” Blair calmly told MacReady. “I wanna come back inside. I’m not gonna harm anybody. There’s nothing wrong with me. And if there was, I’m all better now. I’d like to come back inside. Now you’ve got my promise.”

            “Don’t believe him, MacReady!” Cara warned. “It’s that thing talking, not Blair!”

            “Yeah, you should’ve heard him a second ago,” Gumball said. “He said they won’t stop ‘til every single one of us is consumed!”

            Blair scoffed at their accusations. “You see what I’m talking about, Mac? These freezing temperatures are messin’ with these kids’ minds. Now you’ve gotta let us come back inside.”

            For a moment, MacReady considered.

            “We’ll see,” he finally decided, closing the peephole.

            His plan foiled, “Blair” viciously snarled.

            He swiftly turned, clasping Cara by the face.

            She could feel his fingers beginning to mesh with her skin, stretching it.

            Gumball was quick to act, coming to her rescue by clocking “Blair” over the head with a wrench he found in a nearby toolbox.

            Cara was freed, her face seemingly undamaged from the attack.

            She grabbed hold of a container filled with gasoline and doused “Blair.”

            With a single flare, she set the assimilation on fire.

            As it flailed around the room in agony, Cara manipulated the shed door open with her trans-temporal sonic screwdriver, releasing her, Gumball, and Darwin from their prison. They stumbled out across the snow into the cold night.

            “We have to warn MacReady and the others,” Gumball insisted.

            “No,” Cara refused. “If Blair’s copy was right about one thing, it’s that paranoia has already outweighed their judgment. We step one foot inside that station, MacReady would shoot us dead on sight!”

            She aimed her sonic in one direction.

            Its whirring was shortly drowned out by the familiar humming and grinding of the T.A.R.D.I.S. as it materialized right where Cara pointed the sonic.

            “We’re leaving?!” Gumball shouted in surprise, trailing Cara and Darwin inside the Gallifreyan ship. “We can’t just leave! Not with that thing causing all kinds of havoc in the station! Since when have we turned into cowards?!”

            Cara fiddled with the console, taking them back into the dimensional corridor.

            “It’s not cowardice to regroup when things are at their worst,” Cara told Gumball. “We need to figure a way to beat this thing.”

            Repelled at her stubborn determination, Gumball snapped at her, “Is this another Time Lady thing?! You got the irresistible urge to show off again?!”

            “You wanna go home?!”

            “I think I’m about ready to!”

            “Good! Because I’d be more than happy to get rid of—”

            “CARA!”

            She looked to Darwin, whose face registered intense, sweat-induced horror, gazing directly at her right hand.

            Following his gaze, she learnt the source of the fish-boy’s terror…

            A human eye formed into her palm!

"Thing From Another World" - Part Four

Part Four

            “What do you think you’re doing?!”

            The flamethrower was lit. All MacReady had to do was topple over the fuel barrels and let the gasoline flow in the direction of the “Bennings” duplicate.

            All that stood in his way was Cara.

            “Just…let me talk to it,” she pleaded.

            “Talk to it?! Are you crazy?!” Gumball exclaimed. “It’s not a person; it’s a thing…a thing from another world!”

            “Trust me,” said Cara. “I’m just doing what the Doctor would do in these situations.” She slowly and carefully edged towards Bennings’ doppelgänger, addressing the extraterrestrial lifeform that maintained his human appearance. “You’re a parasitic species – I get that now. But what is your purpose here? Why do you want to take over the planet?”

            The mimic, barely capable of speech, only rasped one word: “Live.”

            Faster than she could comprehend, Cara fell back as it began to lunge for her.

            Had MacReady not intervened by incinerating the creature, Cara would have certainly been a goner.

            “Thanks, man,” she graciously told him.

            “Forget your thanks!” MacReady barked. “You nearly got us killed just now! What were you thinking with that act?!”

            “I was thinking we could’ve gotten answers,” Cara defended.

            “What kind of a human being reasons with something not of this Earth?!” A mortified Childs questioned.

            “Because she’s not of this Earth herself,” MacReady exposed. “She’s not even Norwegian, in case none of you noticed how her accent’s vanished all of the sudden.”

            Gumball groaned. “Oh, man…”

            Cara heard how disgruntled he was, suspecting him and his brother having something to do with MacReady discovering the truth.

            “Look, MacReady…”

            She attempted to reason with him, but his developing paranoia got the best of him.

            “The second we met you and your ‘boys’ is when this all started,” he judged. “I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you’re the cause of these things being on our planet!”

            Cara scoffed. “Oh, please! You seriously think I…?”

            She stopped cold as soon as she heard the click of MacReady’s revolver, which he had trained right for her head.

            “Lock her and the kids in the tool shed,” he ordered his men.

-----------------

            The crewmen carried out the order without the slightest hint of hesitation; they had just as much reason to doubt Cara, Gumball, and Darwin as MacReady did.

            “Wait,” Gumball said as they were placed inside the bitter shed. “Why are Darwin and I being locked up? All we did was tell you the truth about Cara, who’s the only one of us that’s the real alien here.”

            Cara glowered his way. “Seriously?!”

            “Sorry, kid,” MacReady said. “We can’t trust any of you until we get to the bottom of this situation.”

            And with that, he and his men locked them in.

            Minutes later, they returned to board up all the shed’s windows and the door.

            “Why are Darwin and I being locked up? All we did was tell the truth about Cara.” The Time Lady furiously mocked Gumball’s earlier words. “I seriously can’t believe you guys would sell me out like that, after all we’ve been through! It’s not cool to rat on your friends!”

            “Could you please refrain from using any phrase with ‘cool’ in it while we’re locked up in this freezing shed?!” The shivering Gumball demanded. “Those guys could’ve at least loaned us more of their coats.”

            Cara herself tried to keep her teeth from involuntarily chattering, even as she spoke. “The funny thing is the alien organism terrorizing their precious research station is the most vulnerable one to these zero-below temperatures. If anything, MacReady’s got the right idea, just the wrong people.”

            “You see that, Darwin?” Gumball cynically indicated towards Cara. “That show-off-y Time Lady intellect is the exact reason we’re freezing to death right now.”

            “Hey, can I help it if I’m a genius?” Cara retorted.

            “We wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, if we hadn’t stumbled right into your bigger-on-the-inside spaceship thing,” Gumball argued.

            “And who’s fault is that?” Cara roared.

            “Tina Rex! But, since she isn’t here for me to yell at, I’m blaming you!”

            “Gumball, let’s be real – you’d blame Cara even if Tina was here,” Darwin stated. “Miss Cara, can’t you just use your awesome alien tool to get us out of the shed?”

            “My sonic screwdriver!” Cara joyously cheered. “Darwin, I could kiss those lil’ puffy cheeks of yours! The trans-temporal functions enable it to work against wooden structures just like that shed door. Boys, I’ll have us outta here before you can say—”

            BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

            The three interdimensional travelers froze, but not in the way they had been since confined to their ice-box of a prison.

            Gunshots erupted from inside the research station.