Speaking of Henry Karr

 that doesn't seem to fit well. Its like you weren't intending on talking about him in the first place, and it was just an afterthought.

“Great, wonderful, isn't that why we are up here in the first place; to survey and record anything we happen to find in this God forsaken ice waste? No need to get over excited when we do happen to find something and wake up innocent people when they are trying to get their shut eye.” “Henry is right J.J., we aren't due to be up and around for another hour and a half, We will check out the cave when we head out first thing alright?”

these two quotations can be seperated. they're two close and kind of clash. it took me a moment to realize you switched speakers. You do this multiple times in the story. it gets hard to keep track of who's speaking.

they dont seem very worried about losing thier dogs. For a team so under-equiped for such an expedition, those dogs would be extremely valuable. Also, no artic explorer in thier right mind would use dynamite on a mountain. that would surely cause an avalanche. But then, you really dont have much of a choice, do you? Gotta get that cave open somehow, right? i guess some things can slide.

when they are trapped in the cave, J.J. starts panicking about how they have no food and water. Its true they dont have food, but with the ice, they certianly have water. A person can go up to two weeks without food so long as they have enough water. thier main concern is freezing to death. JJ may not know this, but one of the other two, obviously more seasoned, would.

“Like I said, we're explorers, let the scientists deal with the how and why.”

 

okay, in your comment you said you wanted to stretch the story? well here it is. You have a three-man team of explorers trudging through one of the most dangerous terrains known to man. they are under-equipped, and apparently have no level of scientific expertise except the rudimentary. This leads me to believe they are adventurers-for-hire. So...who hired them, and why? this would make some good backstory.

J.J. made a slashing movement towards George's neck, George moved just in time but still got nicked. Blood quickly started to run down his neck and into his clothes,

 

the most protruding part of the neck is the asophogus. Unless he turned his head while making the dodge, the blade would have pierced this instead of any major artery. breathing and talking will become more laborsome and raspy, assuming it didn't hit the actual vocal cords, but bleeding would be just as much as any normal cut. i do like the flip out scene. nice touch with the language.

George managed to stop the bleeding after tearing up some of J.J.'s clothing and making a bandage. George slept for a few hours to regain his strength and then set out in hope that he would find some sort of exit.

 

kind of jumped scenes there. you could definitly add something there.

okay, i was editing while i read, and im sure you're tired of me picking apart your story. great write. very well written, though it could use some refining. there is a lot of back story that could be added into here, but i'll leave that up to you. You wanted to know if the characters came out in the dialogue. JJ came through very well, but i think there needs to be more distinction between George's and Henry's. They sort of share the same voice. looking forward to seeing the remake if you do it.

P.S. The dogs sure are acting agitated tonight, I can't for the life of me figure out why. -From the journal of George Conklin

I'm very intrigued by the opening of the journal entry. Not just this excerpt, but the whole thing.

He made a beeline straight for a cave, it's just beyond that outcropping over there.”

Put a period at "cave." and begin a new sentence at "It's"

“What in the hell is going on?!” came the exclamation from somewhere within Henry's sleeping bag. “J.J. says he found a cave.” “Great, wonderful, isn't that why we are up here in the first place; to survey and record anything we happen to find in this God forsaken ice waste? No need to get over excited when we do happen to find something and wake up innocent people when they are trying to get their shut eye.” “Henry is right J.J., we aren't due to be up and around for another hour and a half, We will check out the cave when we head out first thing alright?”

I had a really tough time following who was saying what. Can you put in d-tags?

“I dunno, I got preoccupied looking around the cave. I assumed it made it's way back here.” “Oh well, maybe it ran off. We had too many dogs to begin with, at least now it'll pad our dog rations a bit.” And with that the group slid back into sleep.

That sounded kinda awkward and rambling to end the scene.

went about their usual morning routine

This isn't needed if you're going to say "packing... and dogs...harnessed" right after it.

George surveyed the outcropping, it was quite peculiar.

"...outcropping." "It was quite peculiar." two sentences.

It was sitting staring at the back of the cave, as George entered it turned it's head and gave him a glance then continued to stare at the back of the cave.

Two sentences again. "...cave." "As George entered..."

Also "it's" is its

”How the hell could something like this form naturally?” inquired J.J.

This seemed kind of weird because I don't know what it really looks like, other than that you say it was "unnatural" and "flat." What did it resemble? How can I know that it's obvious that it didn't form naturally?

George rushed in followed by Henry. “What happened?!” “I dunno, the damn idiot started throwin' fit and bit me, you saw it take off.” “Well let's get your hand bandaged up and get ready to blow the ice wall.” “You mean we're gonna do it!” “Yeah, I think this trip could use a little excitement, don't you?”

This didn't feel necessary as an end to the scene either. It's exciting enough when the dog flips out and runs off. Saying the "trip could use a little excitement" doesn't sound appropriate, because it is exciting. It even sounds contradictory.

The preparations were complete, they were going to blow the ice wall. They didn't even know if there was anything behind it, or whether the cave would hold up to the explosion. Thus is the price of human curiosity, we often destroy what we try to investigate. Unfortunately for this trio of explorers in the far North, their inquisitiveness would cost them much more than the opportunity to do some arctic cave spelunking.

For me, this was a little preachy. The repetition of "they" took me out of the action and made me feel like we were hearing a lecture from a professor years later telling us about this expedition. I think it'd work better if you just kept us in the moment.

Also, why are there titles to each scene? That seems unorthodox.

“What the hell?!” was the last thing George heard before the very ground beneath his feet gave out and he plunged into an icy blue gloom.

This is a really good scene ending. I guess that's what I mean, in comparison to the other ones I complained about earlier

He began to dig his legs out, he glanced to the walls as he did, he noticed slits in the walls that allowed what little light the penetrated the ice and snow above him to slightly illuminate the tunnel with a deep blue glow.

Run on. "He began... legs out." "He glanced to the walls as he did, and he noticed...."

He stood up and saw J.J. laying face down, he walked over and checked his pulse, still alive.

"...down." "He walked over..."

wake up on his own and sat down taking in more and more of the tunnel.

"sat down taking in" felt like weak verbs to me

“Henry is a smart guy, he knows how to take care of himself. He'll be doing the same thing we are gonna do and that is look for a different way out.” “How can you be so matter of fact about this, we have no food, no water and we don't even know if there IS another way out of this damn place!” “Now just calm down J.J.! The more we panick and start wasting time and energy the quicker we will die, got it? Now just relax and follow me.”

It's kind of frightening how George totally disregards Henry. Maybe that's the point. If so, I think you could describe George being calm and almost scary in his confidence, while JJ is panicky like a kid. That would make me feel a lot more tense about what's to come, and what George might know about what's to come!

The pair had been wandering for hours in the blue gloom

"wandering for hours" seemed too much of a jump

“Well we are explorers aren't we, exploring uncharted territory to boot.”

I didn't believe an explorer would say this

“Like I said, we're explorers, let the scientists deal with the how and why.”

Explorers usually are scientists

On the pedestal was the statue of a sow, with an abnormal amount of teats laying on her side.

I think there needs to be more tension upon seeing this statue. It's pretty unusual and if I were there, I'd be going WTF! Who the hell built this thing? What is this doing here? But the way it's written, it just feels like it's told to us like in a textbook

He took cover behind one of the corners and peered out, in the blue gloom he saw...fully armored warriors.

I think it needs more tension again. Maybe tap into the emotional experience of George. What is he feeling? I want to be more scared by this.

The ghastly procession was 28 “people” long.

Just the fact that he's not sure these are "people" should be scary enough. I think you could describe his thoughts even further, like "what the hell are these things?" and so forth. And I think you could describe them even more specifically.

Suddenly George was in the room with the Sow statue.

Did he just get "transported"? For me, this stuff always feels hokey to me, when people are warped into another location.

On the whole, I thought your story was interesting and the plot was fun to follow. It wasn't tough to read either, and I think the ending was good because I realized that those ghoul creatures are just other humans who got sucked in by the sow to live eternally. This might be a good prologue to a larger novel. I think your dialogue could use a little work, to be honest, because a lot of it sounded forced. It all depends because if you're not planning on developing this into a novel, you don't really have time to really delve into characterizations, but characterization is what brings dialogue to life, not their actual lines. If you're mostly worried about the ending, I guess it all depends what you want to do with the story. Since it's a short story and we don't really get into the characters, I think the ending is kind of fun, because we don't expect any kind of redemption since we don't get a chance to care about any of them. But I did wonder how all those other 28 guys got to Antarctica, because not a lot of people explore down there!