If I don't know their name
I don't have to care
And maybe, just maybe
They won't haunt me
When they die

Primary Generator Room
Sub-Level One
Barracks Area
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area
Alfenwehr, West Germany
23 November, 1988
0030

The room had warmed up. One of the 5KW generators was shuddering, shivering, already dying. The bearing was screaming as the square block of life giving mechanicals started to fail, filling the cinderblock room with a metallic banshee howl even with the sound suppression that had been layered over the cinderblock.

The first of three lights had come on in the cabinet.

I'd pulled the filters, swapping out any of them with gelled fuel on them. Ran extreme cold weather primer into the fuel lines of the massive beasts. Made sure all the grounding points were properly secured. Going through each and every step of the checklist twice.

Now I was sitting on a dead 5KW generator that had caught on fire within ninety seconds, that the Private and I had put out with one of the twenty massive CO2 powder extinquishers. I had my hand held out, the Private wrapping a cravat over the gauze that was covering my left hand. I wanted the OD green to cover the white gauze.

"How can you move it, man? I could see the meat. Hell, I think I could see the finger tendons," The Private said, tying off the cravat back by the top of my wrist.

"Twisted steel and sex appeal," I told him, flexing my fingers. He made a scoffing sound, but got up anyway, moving away.

He was in his leather gloves with woolen liners, field jacket with liner, insulated field pants with liner, long johns, and winter BDU's with his cold weather cap on top.

I was wearing my long john pants and my field jacket, liner and leather glove on my right hand.

I flexed my left hand again then picked up my left glove. I tugged it on, ignoring the burning pain in my fingers and hand as I  flexed my fingers again.

The Private just shook his head, moving away.

I glanced over, saw a second red light had come on in the cabinet.

"How long will this take?" The Private asked, staring at the three 5KW generators.

The one with the bad bearing made a horrible whanging sound, full of grinding metal, and slowly wound down.

"Longer, now," I told him, flicking my ashes on the floor and rubbing it in with my toe.

Yeah, there was another way, using the hand crank system, all analog, as few moving parts as possible, but I wanted to save that just in case. An idea I'd been toying with was that the mountain couldn't destroy something it didn't know was there.

"How long?" He asked.

"In a hurry to get killed by the Thing?" I asked him, shaking my head. I reached over and picked up my chocolate covered brownie that I'd smeared my peanut butter on.

"No," the Private said. He sounded a little sulky about it. I just nodded, eating my treat. After a moment he spoke again. "How can you just sit there and eat? What about the other two guys?"

I chewed up and swallowed the last of my brownie, wiped my mouth, and stared at him.

"Well?" He asked.

Christ, this was why nobody liked privates.

"Either the Thing has gotten one of them and the other is at risk and will be killed soon, or it hasn't gotten either of them yet," I told him. "Rule of Four is in play, but we're missing a key event that needs to happen."

"Like the lights going out?" He asked sarcastically. "You got some other superstitious bullshit rule?"

I raised an eyebrow and looked at him. "Want a punch in your fucking mouth?" I snapped. "Three fucking years. You're eighteen. I was fighting to survive up here while you were figuring out what your goddamn dick was for."

He stepped back at that. I'd stood up, balling my fists with the crunch of knuckles that had been broken once too often. He glanced down at my heavy leg brace, a slight smile on his dark face.

When he looked up I moved into his face, looking down at him, letting the nerve damage yank the left side of my mouth up.

"You couldn't take me if I was blackout drunk and passed out on the floor," I snarled at him. He stepped backwards and I kept stepping into him. Thump. Step. Drag. "I survived three goddamn winters here, and not by hiding in the fucking generator room. I've hiked off this mountain twice, been shot, stabbed, had my goddamn skull broken and still fought."

He stepped back and I stepped up on him again. Thump. Step. Drag.

"Man, get off me," He said, reaching his hands up to shove on my chest.

I grabbed his wrist, yanking his arm around, kicking his right foot with my left, despite the brace, putting him down on his knee with my holding his arm out, one hand on his wrist, one on his elbow, pushing it backwards.

"No," was all I said. "Let's do this right now."

The Private looked up at me, sweat on his dark face, his eyes wide.

"Yeah. Now you see the real me," I told him. I smiled wider. "All those rumors you've heard?"

He licked his lips. "Yeah?"

"They aren't lies," I told him. I pushed harder on his elbow, knowing I'd leave it sore. "Now, you want to live?" He nodded, licking his lips again. "Then you'll follow my superstitious bullshit rules that have let me survive three goddamn times. Copy?"

He nodded. "Copy, Sergeant."

I thumped back, knowing what he was going to do.

He lunged up at me, holding his hands out to grab me.

I punched him, right the nose, driving him back onto his knees. His eyes watered but I could still see defiance in them despite the trickle of blood starting out of his nose and onto his shitty caterpillar mustache.

Another hard right into his nose. That one threw him back, his eyes crossing, blood spurting from his nose.

I knelt down, the brace taking the shock, grabbing the front of his field jacket with my right hand and driving my fist twice more into his nose with quick jabs.

hit it more than twice you're trying to break it off

His eyes weren't rolled back so I brought my fist back and gave him a hard line drive into his nose, splattering it. His eyes rolled back and his hands came up, his arms bending at the elbows, his wrists limp  but his fingers curled into claws.

He was out of it.

I let him go, standing up, my knee brace creaking, the assist whining as the gears meshed and the cables wound.

"All the ladies love a killer," I told him.

He moaned, right on schedule, rolling onto his side and coughing out a spray of blood onto the pavement.

"Bastard, broke my nose," he said. He rolled onto his stomach to push himself up and I stepped on the back of his neck.

"Three. Fucking. Years," I growled. "Understand?"

"Understand," he said.

"Understand, what?" I pressed down on the back of his neck.

"Understand, Sergeant," he said, coughing up more blood.

I stepped back. "Get up. Slowly. First one is free, second one will cost you."

"Understood, Sergeant," he coughed again. He slowly got up to his feet as I sat back down on top of the now defunct howler 5KW.

"What did you learn?" I asked when he turned to face me. I tossed him another cravat. "Put that on your nose. Now, what did you learn?"

He just looked at me and I sighed.

"You learned that you can't take me," I said. "Now, say it."

He glared and shook his head.

"I told you, first one is free," I put my hand on my knife and drew it partway from the sheathe. "Three. Goddamn. Winters. Say it."

"I can't take you," he said, his eyes full of fear.

"How many winters?" I asked him, sliding the knife slightly further out.

"Three. Three winters," he said, taking a step back.

"Do you want to survive this with me?" I asked him. He nodded. "Right now, you're worried I'm the Thing," He nodded again. "I'm not. Neither are you."

He checked the bleeding from his nose. "How do you know?"

I lit a new cigarette. "You bleed."

"What?" He said.

"You bleed. That means it didn't take you prior to the lights going out," I told him.

The next light came on. Three reds. The yellows would be next.

I had to wait for the green to fill.

"Did you really think I might already be the Thing?" he asked.

"Distinct possibility," I shrugged, taking a drag. "Sometimes someone gets taken before the first warning sign."

"So where does that put us?" He asked. I held out my smokes and he took one. He lit it, gave my back my lighter. His fingertips hit his nose and he  flinched. "Bastard," he snarled. He looked up at me, flinching slightly.

I waved my hand. "Don't worry. No offense taken," I exhaled smoke. "Means that either right now one of the other two is being taken or is stalking the other."

The Private nodded.

I held out my left hand to him after tugging my glove off with my teeth. "You saw the blood. You know I'm still human."

He nodded.

"You wanna survive?" I asked him. The second yellow light came on. The three 5KW generators were laboring, chugging along. A glance at the gauges showed that the middle one was starting to overheat.

"Yes, Sergeant," He said, looking nervous.

I pointed at the middle generator. "Turn the load dial down another ten percent. It's starting to overheat."

"I thought these things couldn't fail," He told me, moving over to the generator. He twisted the dial down and the generator's chugging eased up. It started to shiver though, more than the normal vibration.

"They can," I told him. "They will. They always fail. Open up the drop down side panels, ease the heat off of it. Bearings are overheating. For some reason, every winter, bearings are the usual failure point."

"That why you hit them with WD-40?" He asked, undoing the hasps to let the sound baffle sides down.

"Yeah. Notice that the oil isn't running out the pan. The oil pressure's bottomed out. Keeps going up then dropping," I said. He nodded. "The dark and the cold are our two biggest enemies, aside from the things in the dark that will try to rip out guts out or worse."

"I want to survive," The Private said quietly.

"I'm going to try to make sure you survive, but, no offense, I'm not dying for you. This ain't a World War Two movie where the grizzled sergeant dies for the baby-faced private so he learns the true cost of war," I told him. He looked startled at that.

The bearings started to howl and I could smell scorched metal.

All three yellow lights were shining and as I watched the first green one flickered to life.

"Might want to move away, high speed," I told him, making a flicking motion with my hand.

He frowned at me.

"Bearings are about to blow," I told him. "Poom! Lots of shrapnel, right into your stupid private face."

"You don't like privates much, do you, Sergeant?" he asked. Well, at least he moved away.

"Got nothing to do with liking you," I told him, watching him sit down on one of the other blown out generators.

Second green one.

almost...

"It has to do with the fact that this is going to be ugly," I told him. I took a deep drag and let it out in a cloud of smoke. "Kid," I started.

"Don't call me kid," he said.

"Survive the night," I promised, then laughed. "You know what? Make it with me upstairs, and I won't call you kid."

"I've got a name,"  the Private told me, tapping on the nametag on his chest.

"So do other people's pet rocks," I told The Private, shrugging.

The third green light started flickering. I pushed off the generator and staggered up to the breaker box. The third green light was steady as I unlocked the heavy handle.

"Here, pull it up and push it down three times. It'll lock on the third one and we'll fire up the generators," I told him.

"Why do we have to crank it if those generators are running?" He asked.

I shrugged. "How do I know, man? I just know how to fire this system up from a cold start."

I tapped the book. "We follow these directions, fire up the generators, and then we do the hard part."

"What's that?" The Private grunted, lifting it up. I could hear the flywheel whining. The telltale above the lever flickered on to red. He did it again and the LED went to yellow. The third time and it went green.

"Move over," I told him. "Go stand by the door."

He was frowning, but he did it.

I followed the sequence carefully, stopping at the last part, which was simple.

Throw the heavy duty breaker bar.

"Open the door, right now," I told him.

The Private frowned, but did it. There was only darkness beyond.

"I throw this breaker, then comes the hard part," I told him.

"What's that, Sergeant?" He asked me.

"No matter what, stick with me. Rule of Four," I told him.

"Rule of Four," He answered.

"Get ready," I told him.

I threw the breaker. The lights came on.

"There's nothing out here, Sergeant," He said.

"That's what worries me," I told him, staggering toward him. I grabbed his arm. "From here on out, we go through doors together."

"So we don't get separated," he nodded.

"Let's go. CQ Area," I said, scooping up my ruck. I moved up next to him, slinging my ruck onto my shoulders. "Let's move out, Private."

We left the Generator Room, locking it after us, went through the War Stocks Room, locking that after us. The barracks was still cold, but the ice wasn't spreading. We headed down toward the CQ Area, moving through Titty Territory.

When we pushed open the doors to the CQ Area the Staff Sergeant and the Specialist were sitting at the desk. We both stopped, staring at the two other men.

"And it starts, Private," I said softly.

"I have a name," he said as I stumped forward toward the desk.

yeah