"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!