The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 06: Into the Storm

The airlock went through its hissing cycle as it flooded with atmosphere.

Jack swallowed nervously, holding onto his pistol with both hands now. He made sure for the third time that the safety was off. Behind him, Stanmore was still and silent. Jack looked down at his hands. At least he wasn't trembling anymore. It was pretty fucking unbecoming of a Marine to tremble. But goddamn was this a scary situation. Here he was, heading into a completely unknown situation, facing completely unknown hostiles, armed with only a damned pistol and a terrified pilot who he basically had to coerce to be here as his backup.

Pretty high up there in terms of nightmare scenarios.

The airlock let out a clank that made him jerk and the hissing cut off. Jack cleared his mind, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was the time for focus more than anything else. He stepped up to the opposite end of the small airlock bay.

"Remember what I said," he murmured to Stanmore, glancing back.

The man nodded, his pistol in hand as well. He looked even paler than he had before. Jack turned back around. He looked down at the small control pad set into the door frame. The open button beckoned him.

It was time to face the unknown.

Jack hit the button and brought his hand back, gripping the pistol. The airlock doors split down the middle and slid slowly into their recessed niches within the walls. Slowly, bit by bit, a poorly lit, metallic corridor was revealed. The metal was a dark grayish color, lit only by a row of naked bulbs studding the ceiling overhead. The place had the feel of a maintenance access tunnel, some kind of behind-the-scenes area, the guts of the base where power and light and oxygen were routed. There was nothing in the stretch of corridor.

It was pretty simple, just about twenty feet of metal hallway, one door at the very end, big enough maybe to push some basic cargo through. This must be some kind of auxiliary access airlock. Jack stepped carefully out of the airlock and felt a chill shudder through him. He waited to see if anything would happen, expecting some kind of reaction, but there was nothing. Around him, the Hangar hummed mutely with power and whispered the quiet respiration of oxygen filtration. He didn't like how dim the lights were, though.

"Come on," he said quietly to Stanmore.

Slowly, he made his way down the corridor, checking for anything. But there was nowhere to hide. Well, that was nice at least. Jack reached the end of the corridor and opened the next door. Another stretch of corridor, but this one had more doors in it. They were all to the left, just two, neither open. Jack began to head towards the first one, but froze as a sound came to him. It sounded like...he wasn't sure. It was too indistinct, but it struck him as an organic sound, a noise a living thing would make. Stanmore tensed behind him.

"Did you hear-" he began.

"Shh!" Jack snapped.

Both men waited, frozen in silence. A few seconds later, the sound repeated. It was still too indistinct to make out, but he thought it might be a human being making the noise. It took a third time for it to be issued for him to determine where it was coming from: a vent to his right, stuck high up into the wall, near the ceiling.

There was something disturbing about the noise, something besides the obvious. After a few seconds, he had it: the sound was being repeated, almost like a recording on loop. As he was standing there, feeling the situation out, he heard it again, closer this time. Yeah, definitely a person. But what were they trying to convey? It didn't sound like pain, or anger, it sounded like...he didn't know what emotion was being displayed.

They'd deal with it later, for right now, he wanted to clear these other two rooms.

"Stay here and watch the doors, let me know immediately if anyone comes out," he said.