"Trust is a tough thing to come by these days."
MacReady, The Thing (1982)

The door shuddered as whoever, whatever, was on the other side hammered on it again.

"Come on, guys, it's cold out here and I think something's after me," The Staff Sergeant said. Frost was spreading at the bottom of my door.

"Don't. Open. The door," I said quietly, looking at the two living men in my room. The Private shook his head, cradling his arm. The Specialist had backed up against my bunk beds, his face gone even paler.

"I know you're in there. Open the door," The Staff Sergeant commanded. The tendrils reached further, hit the edge of the grease-paint on the floor, and began reaching out to the left and right of it, looking for any gap in the paint.

A glance at both men showed them staring, wide eyed, at the opening to the hallway that led to my door. Neither one of them looked interested in opening the door for whatever was out there.

"Sergeant, open this door! That's a direct order!" The Staff Sergeant bellowed.

"GET FUCKED!" I yelled back.

Frost glimmered on my door, but evaporated away without thickening up.

"LET ME IN!" The voice roared.

It lacked the power of the previous years and I glanced at the runes I'd drawn on the wall lockers, the door, the floor, and the ceiling.

Footsteps moved away from my door and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I moved over to the Private, dragging the chair behind me. I sat down, opened up the medical kit, and stared at his face. His cheeks had black, dead skin, surrounded by waxy looking gray skin, before going to the rich brown of his normal skin. The tip of his nose was black, the flesh peeling off it toward the rest of his nose. His earlobes were finished, black and shriveled looking, his ears gray. More thank likely he'd lose his earlobes, be like me and have scars on his cheeks. If the skin at the end of his nose split to reveal the cartilage I'd need to excise it away like Nancy and Cromwell had done for me.

"Let me see your arm," I told him. He lifted it up and I saw that the cloth looked like rotted cheesecloth, abraded through in places. I sliced through his sleeve with my Gerber, the razor honed steel parting the cloth with a whisper.

The skin was damaged, like he'd been grazed by a sand blaster. Some places it was swollen, others the first few layers were skinned away, but the bad part was where there had been little flesh between his skin and the bone of his forearm.

it was warming up, blood starting to ooze from the blackened skin. I could see yellow fat deposits, the striations in the muscle tissue.

"You want we learned in basic or you want..."

"The moss," The Private interrupted me. "Whatever white people voodoo shit those markings are, I'll fucking take it."

"Moss it is," I told him, pulling off a chunk and stretching it out. Blood was starting to coat the wound. I scooped out the salve and smeared it on the wound.

"What is that?" He asked me.

"I don't know. A witch made it for me," I told him honestly.

"Tingles," He said. "A witch, seriously?"

"The big girl, with the purple eyes, your crew's medic, right?" The Specialist asked, slurring slightly as he tried to keep from moving his mouth too much.

"Yeah," I told him. I stuck the moss to the Private's arm, then started winding the runed gauze around his arm.

"She's a witch?" The Specialist asked.

I just shrugged. "I've learned, over the years, not to look too deeply into the abyss."

"Lest it stare back," The Specialist finished.

I wrapped a cravat on top of the gauze, tying it off.

"Best I can do," I told him, picking up the bottle of Wild Turkey and taking a long drink off of it.

"Are we just going to stay in this room till spring?" The Specialist asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe. We might get forced out, barracks might go back to normal, we might be declared overdue and Colonel Henry might send a relief force."

"That was a horror show," The Specialist said.

"Yeah," I said, moving over to the desk. I pulled open the middle drawer on the side and began bringing out candles and candle holders. I examined four of each of them, then set them down, putting the rest away. I used my Zippo to soften the bottoms of the candles and put them into the candle holders, pushing the spike all the way into the wax.

"You didn't get those at the PX, did you?" the Specialist said.

I shook my head, putting one on the top of the fridge, one on the desk, and one of the dresser. I carried the last one into the bathroom, staring at the mirror.

I'd chosen the rune I'd painted on the mirror carefully, choosing one that looked the same even if it was backwards.

I set the candle on the narrow shelf in front of the mirror, and checked behind the shower curtain real quick. The runes on the shower wall, done in greasepaint, were still there.

When I walked back in, both men were staring at each other.

I could feel the mistrust in the room.

"All right, that's enough of that," I snapped. Both looked at me. "Both of you had bled, were bleeding, so you aren't The Thing. Stop wondering if the other is going to suddenly turn into some kind of undead monster."

"What about you?" The Specialist asked.

I picked the Gerber up off the desk, poking the muscle between my thumb and forefinger with the needle tip. A drop of red blood welled up and I made sure they could see it. They both looked relieved at it. I set the blade down and licked the drop off my hand.

"If it had taken me, you would all already be dead," I told them, matter of factly. I picked up the red greasestick from the shelf beside the desk and uncapped it. I stuck it in my mouth, then grabbed the rubbing alcohol and a cloth that normally I used to strip my boots.

The Specialist was looking around the room, at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. After a second the Private started doing the same thing.

I stumped back into the hallway, looking at the runes I'd drawn on the floor days before. Our hurried entrance had smeared one rune. I moistened the cloth with rubbing alcohol, wiped away the rune, then set the bottle and cloth to the side. I carefully redrew the rune, then picked back up the bottle and cloth.

When I came back in both men stared at me.

"If I had seen this yesterday I'd have thought you were a crazy person," The Specialist said. "How long did it take you to do all this?"

"Two days," I told him honestly.

"Why?" The Specialist asked.

"Does it matter?" The Private asked him.

"He wants to know what spurred me to spend hours marking runes on everything in sight," I said gently. I took another swig off the bottle and offered it to the other two men. The Specialist took it as I looked around.

"I've survived up here repeatedly. One thing I learned to do was trust my instincts." I reached behind my head and tapped the base of my skull. "The lizard, right here, he's got his shit together. I learned to trust him over the years."

"The R-Complex," The Specialist said. "Really? It's like the size of a nickle. It controls your heartbeat and breathing. That sounds dumb as fuck. How the hell does it help you?"

I took the bottle back, taking another swig off of it before getting up and lurching over to the desk to grab the cork. I stuffed it back in and set the bottle on the desk, turning around so I could lean against it.

"That little chunk of gray matter is the survival instinct of every small reptile and lemur since the dinosaurs that survived long enough to successfully pass on his DNA to a mate that survived long enough to successfully give birth," I told him, grinning. "They had instincts like a motherfucker, and it's all. Right. Here."

I tapped the back of my head.

"Two days ago, that little lizard that lives at the base of the most savage tool using land dwelling predator to walk the face of the earth, that killed Neanderthal man, who was made of tasty tasty meat, and ate him, who bred with his big assed big titted women till they were all gone, that working together drove the saber tooth cat to extinction and ate them, told me I was in a shitload of trouble," I grinned. "I listened. I prepared."

I staggered over and grabbed three bottles of beer out of the fridge. I opened each one, the marked tops dropping into the band-aid tin, and passed them out, sitting back in the chair.

"That little lizard told me to get my lair, my nest, ready to hold off an attack," I told them, taking a long drink off my beer. "I listened. I drew the runes, I prepped my medical kit, I secured food, water, alcohol, everything I need to make it through the winter."

I stared at him. "How about you, champ?"

That made the Private bark out a laugh.

"Why didn't you tell us? We could have gotten ready," The Specialist tried.

"Yeah..." I said slowly. "No."

"Why not?" The Specialist sounded as outraged as he could with the entire side of his face sandblasted off.

"Because he doesn't trust us," The Private said, his voice soft.

"Why the fuck not?" The Specialist snarled. He winced, putting a hand to his cheek.

"Because I don't," I shrugged.

"Fuck you," The Specialist groaned.

"You don't like it, the door is right there. Don't mess up any of my art projects on your fucking way out," I told him. I stood up, rolling my shoulders. "Let's get this straight right now. I'm highest ranking. Even if I wasn't, I'm tougher, meaner, better prepared, and a bigger hard ass than both of you put together," I told them. "Get this through your thick heads, both of you, in this room, in these barracks, from here until further notice, I'm in fucking charge."

The Specialist opened his mouth and I chopped my hand in the air to cut him off.

"Yeah yeah yeah, you were a Staff Sergeant before you stuck your dick in some slope teeny bopper and got caught," I snapped. "All of that means jack and shit up here."

"Can we really survive up here till spring?" The Private asked, looking at the stacked MRE boxes, the runes I'd drawn on the walls. "Will this white voodoo and the supplies make it to spring?"

I shook my head. "No. Not for the three of us."

"Shit," The Private looked around. "Is it still going to end like the The Thing?"

I nodded, leaning on the desk enough to take the pressure off my bad leg. "Yeah, it is, sorry."

"What the fuck does that mean?" The Specialist growled.

The Private just looked away instead of answering. When the Specialist looked at me I just grinned.

"We're going to have to sleep sometime," I said, still grinning. "Now, some of you, who don't believe what's going on, who don't believe that I know how to survive, might try to do something stupid."

I pointed at the chair sitting in the middle of room. "Every year, members of 2/19th Special Weapons Group undergo anti-interrogation training," I said.

"So fucking what?" The Specialist snarled.

I could see the light dawn in the Private's eyes.

"During that time those members are exposed to rigorous interrogation, to include chemical and physical inducements," I told them. "We learn to resist interrogation."

"Like I asked: so fucking what?" The Specialist asked.

I shrugged. "Earlier this year, at the beginning of REFORGER, I was held for two weeks by the East German Stasi," I told him. "They couldn't break me. They would have never broken me."

I pointed at the chair. "Last winter I was tied to that chair and had my face smashed in. They  didn't break me then either."

I shrugged, staring at the Private then at the Specialist. "So, before either of you get any dumbass ideas, you need to know straight out that you can't break me. I won't tell you how to get off the mountain, I won't tell you where my other bolt-holes are that I've set up, and I won't tell you jack or shit."

The Specialist opened his mouth but I kept speaking. "To top it off, eventually, I will get free."

I took a long drink off my beer.

"Then what? You'll beat our asses?" The Specialist sneered.

The Private's hand went to his nose that I had flattened in the generator room.

I reached behind my back, slowly drawing one of the throwing knives from the flat pack at the small of my back. I held it up, letting the light gleam off the ceramic honed edge. I could see the runes and scrollwork acid-etched into the carbon steel, the pattern in the steel.

They weren't bought at some cheap ass shop. They were hand made. The six of them had cost me a half month's pay. Forged by a man in Ireland who had followed my specific directions regarding the creation of the throwing knives.

"There's two of us, what do you think we'll do if we decide to force you to tell us?" the Specialist asked, his tone nasty and his eyes full of arrogance.

Looking into their eyes, I could see that the Specialist doubted what I was about to say. He was a tough guy, who was convinced that he was smarter, tougher, and better than anyone else. He didn't believe what I'd said now that the pain in his face had eased up and he felt safe.

He believed he could take me.

The Private, he knew the truth.

He knew what I was going to say before I said it. He was nodding as I spoke.

"I'll kill you."