The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 24: Butcher's Abattoir

The storm was about the same as it had been when she'd gone in.

Kyra was hoping it would cut down sometime soon, but this was freaking Antarctica. She began kicking her way hurried through the snow, or as hurriedly as she could manage, bearing roughly westbound, where the Military HQ should be. She tried to raise Linaweaver, (or anyone really), several more times over the radio as she marched on, keeping a sharp eye out for demons. Unfortunately, the burst of clarity she'd enjoyed seemed to be proving the exception, not the rule, down here. Was it the weather? She didn't think so.

Comms always seemed to be spotty around UAC facilities infested with demons, and she remembered how much Jack and Jennifer had emphasized that in their own tales. What she wouldn't give for one of them down here right now. Their time together was brief, but the two were shockingly competent and although now millions more knew what it was to fight demons, Kyra imagined that there were still only a few who knew the truth that was hell itself. Actually going there. She hoped it never happened again, but doubted that reality.

After several long moments, the dark gray metal exterior of the Security HQ abruptly loomed up out of the snow.

"There it is, get ready," she said, readjusting her grip on the pistol and checking to the sides. Still no signs of hostiles, though she thought she had seen a dark figure lurking among the shifting snowstorm more than once.

"Check," North replied tightly.

They marched up to the side of the structure and quickly located a door that had been torn through with what looked like claws, brute force, and determination. It had been peeled outward like someone had taken a canopener-chainsaw to it. Even as they approached it, she could hear sounds of conflict coming from within: shotgun blasts, someone shouting, and the squealing of the pinky demons. Shit. Switching back to her shotgun, Kyra burst onto the scene, rushing through the ripped open door and looking for trouble.

She found herself in a training area, the place scattered with both corpses and weightlifting equipment. A single, solitary figure in battered security armor was fighting for his life among a sea of pale pink flesh. There had to be a dozen of the things stomping around.

"North! Help!" Kyra shouted as she unloaded a shell directly into the back of one of the thick-skulled bastards. The shot was good and it dropped the pinky, but that just caught the attention of a quartet that immediately began to beeline for her and North. For a second, she thought the man in question must be Linaweaver, but she quickly realized that the voice didn't belong to him, though it was familiar. Someone else from the squad then, and she wasn't sure they could save him. Honestly, she was surprised he was still alive.

As she thought that, one of the pinkies knocked his shotgun out of his hands with one burly arm and reached for him with the other.

"Help!" he screamed.

Kyra fired off another shell in between two of the advancing demons while North plinked away at them with her pistol. She actually managed to hit the one that had a hold of him, and it lost its grip. He stumbled away...

Right into the waiting grasp of another that had circled around behind him. Kyra screamed in rage and empathetic pain as the pinky clamped its jaws around his bicep and bit his arm clean off. A tremendous spray of blood splashed its pig-like face as it swallowed the severed arm in one gulp. The Marine was screaming wildly now, an unending noise of agony that was abruptly silenced as another pinky grabbed him, yanked him down, and bit his head, helmet and all, right off. Even more blood splashed the thing, this time like someone had just thrown a bucket of the stuff onto it. Letting out a string of curses, Kyra quickly emptied her shotgun and, together with North's pistol, managed to clear a space around them and drop four of the big bastards.