The Thing 2: Infection✔️

Afterword

If anyone is curious about the song of choice for this particular chapter, it's because this is the song that plays over the credits for the video game. I thought it'd be fitting.

Well, it's done! Yes! I'm so happy.

First, a little history, because, why not?

I first encountered John Carpenter's The Thing when I was eight years old, flipping through the channels one October night, and bore witness to the shock-paddles scene, (you fans know what I'm talking about). I became fascinated with the movie immediately. I've probably watched it twenty or thirty times since then and to this day, I still love the hell out of it.

Of course, when they released a video game in 2002, I had to have it. I snagged a copy for my PS2...but I got stuck. For a long time, I had a broken copy, and I could never get past first boss at the end of the Warehouse level with Collins. It'd just freeze up. So that part in particular always stuck out to me. I finally grabbed a fresh copy when I could afford it and beat the game after...well, quite a while. It's a shockingly difficult game to beat. (The end, right about the time Cohen shows up, is REALLY difficult. Though, oddly, the final boss is notoriously easy.)

I've been writing The Thing fan fiction for a while, most of it either a rip off of the game or a crossover (usually with Halo, because hey, why not?) In fact, my first official fan fiction was a crossover of Unreal Tournament and The Thing.

I tried tackling this task of novelizing the game once in 2007, I think. I got about to the warehouse level and then my interest kind of waned and I gave up. (Perhaps because I was still psychologically stuck at that level?) I tackled it once more in 2012, and actually succeeded in finishing, but what I ended up with was a bit pale and uninspired, because I was very distracted (yet again).

I feel that this one is better, as my prose has gotten a lot less crappy over the years, though my interest waned again for this one. I'm fairly satisfied with how it turned out, however.

There are a few differences from the game. Some of them are obvious, like the intro chapter, because this was a written story and needed a bit of an intro. There's other stuff that was hinted at, like a past between Blake and Pierce, that I tried to develop. But, honestly, there was a lot that was left to the imagination. The story of The Thing (2002) was very bare-bones.

Gen Inc. is part of the story...but they're never explained or expanded on in the slightest. They're just referenced vaguely in reports and their logo is stamped on stuff. Whitley's reasoning for doing any of this is never explained. The reason for Blake being called down is never explained or even referenced beyond the initial investigation of Outpost 31. MacReady does show up at the end, but what happened to him is never explained.

I tried to lay the groundwork in for a sequel, because there was, in fact, at one time, a sequel, titled The Thing 2, in production. They got something like a year into the making of the game...then they were shut down. Some concept art and test footage exists, but nothing else. It's pretty depressing, actually.

Fun Fact: John Carpenter not only officially endorses this as a canonincal sequel to his film, but he actually appears in the game, having his likeness used for and providing the voice of Dr. Faraday.

You should go check out The Thing 3: Assimilation next!

Thanks for reading!