The Thing Page #6

DR. COPPER

MacReady and I were listening to

some of these cassettes on the way

back.

(somberly)

Like you gentlemen to hear it.

A Norwegian voice drones on calmly, making verbal notes.

Norris shrugs.

BENNINGS:

What do you want from us?

MACREADY:

(flat)

Just listen.

Dr. Copper fast forwards. The calm voice continues. And

then a loud blast, followed by pounding. The sounds of

confusion. Voices. Loud. Frenetic. Men's feet running

up and down wooden floorboards. A gurgling. A hissing.

Screams. And then a screeching. More blasts mixed with

the din of wild, carnage-wrought cries. And then more

screeching. A screeching unlike anything these men have

ever heard.

The men look from one another in silence as they listen.

Dr. Copper turns it off.

DR. COPPER

Goes on like that quite awhile.

(beat)

What do you gentlemen make of it?

GARRY:

Could be anything... Men in

isolation... some beef that

snowballed... got out of hand...

NORRIS:

Maybe the whole camp got bent...

Something they ate. What about food

poisoning, Doc?

Dr. Copper taps the tape deck pensively.

DR. COPPER

Maybe.

He glances at MacReady, and then back to the others.

DR. COPPER

There's something else we want you

to see.

INT. INFIRMARY

Dr. Copper and MacReady begin dumping the heavy contents

of a large plastic trash bag onto the slab.

DR. COPPER

We found this.

Displayed on the slab is what appears to be the corpse of

a man. Badly charred. What is left of the trousers and

shoes of the bottom torso are ripped and split, as if his

legs and feet had burst from the inside. His upper body

is an almost undecipherable gnarled mass of protoplasmic

mush.

The head is strangely disfigured and looks larger than

normal. It is situated not on its shoulders but near the

abdomen. Tendon-like appendages are wrapped around the

carcass and sticking up and out in odd postures. One is

wrapped around the body's left leg.

The shirt has been ripped and lies shredded in the tar-

like mess.

The men grimace.

DR. COPPER

I know he's pretty badly burned...

but could fire have done this?

Blair, sickened but fascinated, pokes at the tendon-like

things and the tarry goo.

DR. COPPER

Blair, I'd like you and Fuchs to

help me with autopsies on this one

and the one Garry shot this morning.

INT. REC ROOM - LATER - CLOSE ON A TABLE HOCKEY GAME

Foosball. Nauls and Clark are going at it hot and heavy.

Sanchez sits off in a corner thumbing through an old issue

of Photoplay.

Bennings, Norris and Garry are engaged in a card game.

Bennings is about to play a card when he feels something

under the table. He looks. It is the dog.

BENNINGS:

Clark, will you put this mutt with

the others where he belong?!

INT. LAB

larger than most of the other rooms and well-equipped.

Dr. Copper is performing an autopsy on the Norwegian

intruder, killed early that morning.

Blair sits over his microscope, while Fuchs prepares

slides. The other body is draped with a sheet, waiting

its turn. Dr. Copper pulls off his gloves.

DR. COPPER

Nothing wrong with this one.

Physiologically, anyway.

(to Blair)

Find anything toxic?

BLAIR:

No drugs... alcohol. Nothing.

INT. TUNNEL

Clark leads the dog through the long, cold tunnel toward

the kennel. A new dressing has been placed on its hip.

He unlatches the door to the kennel and leads him in.

INT. KENNEL

About twenty feet long, five feet wide. Poorly lit.

Cramped with dogs. Some of them sleeping. Others pacing

around and curious, greet their new companion, sniffing,

panting and rubbing up against him. Clark pats the dog

and several others, then leaves, latching the door behind

him.

INT. SLEEPING CUBICLE

Childs lies in his cot watching a small television. The

show is a tape of an American TV game show. He has seen

this one too many times, extracts the cassette and injects

another game show.

Palmer is stretched out in the other cot, reading a comic

book and smoking a joint. Childs beckons for it and takes

a hit.

INT. PUB

A small area, just off the rec room. Set up like a bar.

MacReady is alone looking over the rest of the videotapes

from the Norwegian outpost. Mundane to esoteric chores of

Antarctic camp life. He looks bored.

INT. LAB

Blair, hovering over the microscope, lays in a slide,

focuses and motions for Dr. Copper to take a look.

Copper is confused as he examines. He shrugs.

DR. COPPER

I don't understand.

Fuchs takes the opportunity to look. Blair moves over to

the disfigured corpse and indicates one of the fibrous,

tendon-like appendages.

BLAIR:

It's tissue from one of these sinewy

rods.

Fuchs is befuddled as he examines.

FUCHS:

What in the world kind of cell

structure is this?

BLAIR:

That's the point.

DR. COPPER

(tired)

I don't get you, Blair.

BLAIR:

I'm not sure it is any kind of cell

structure. Biologically speaking.

DR. COPPER

(sighing)

This really isn't my field, Blair.

Let's wrap for the day.

Dr. Copper undoes his lab coat and lays it over a chair as

he exits. Blair stares down ominously at the mutilated

body.

EXT. COMPOUND - NIGHT

A steady stream of sleet pounds the compound and small

surrounding shacks.

INT. REC ROOM

Vacant. The wall clock reads four-thirty.

INT. HALLWAY

Sleeping cubicles on either side. The sound of snoring.

INT. PUB

Bleary-eyed, MacReady is in the process of blowing up some

strange inflatable object. As he puffs away, he still

keeps an eye on the Norwegian video tapes. His balloon

begins to take shape. It blossoms into a life-size

replica of a full-breasted woman. Something on the tape

catches his eye. He rewinds, then starts it forward

again.

The screen shows the Norwegians on the surface of what

appears to be an enormous, flat glacier. They are spread

out on the ice around a large odd oval shape; their arms

outstretched.

It fades to black and then a Norwegian comes on mugging

childishly in front of the camera, apparently quite

pleased with something.

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