The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 36: Mars City Outbound

It was unreal to be back here in Mars City, to be viewing the same level of devastation here as he'd witnessed on Phobos and Deimos. Jack was a pessimist, although really, given how shitty things had turned out, he'd call himself a realist, but somewhere, in the back of his head, he had somehow allowed himself to believe that Mars City was a safe zone, untouched by the horrors of hell. Why? Why had he believed that? Why had he let himself? Probably because he hadn't even realized it, because he'd gotten too good at thinking about 'right here, right now'. But no, here he was in a corridor of dented metal and smeared blood, with a pair of bullet-riddled bodies and a carpet of spent shell casings for company.

Well, that and some fellow Marines.

Despite everything, despite the deaths and the horror and the exhaustion, it did feel genuinely good to have some real backup. They must be as exhausted as he was, but McNeil, Pavel, and Sanders all moved with a solid military precision as they navigated the bloodied, chromium corridors of the city. McNeil was leading the way.

Jack moved up alongside him. "What's the quickest way to the armory?" he asked.

"There's a big transitional area up ahead, that's the most direct route. The only problem is that every time we've gone through there, it's attracted a lot of attention," McNeil replied.

"We can handle it," Jack said.

"I suppose so. So...you really made it through Hell?"

"Yep. Hell and back. Or whatever that other dimension is. It sure looks like Hell, bad enough to be it, but...I'm not so sure. I don't think you get a shotgun and a fighting chance in Hell, you know what I mean?" he replied.

"Yeah. Everyone calls these things demons, but...it does make me wonder."

"What they really are. I think they might be aliens. Or maybe even genetically engineered creatures." He shrugged. "In the end, I don't think we're ever going to find out, but does it really matter? They're obviously not friendly, and are going to engage us in a fight to the death, and we can kill them without too much trouble."

"You raise a good point," McNeil said. "The transitional area is up ahead."

"Get ready, Marines," Jack said, slipping his finger inside the trigger guard of his Raptor SMG. He missed his plasma gun.

They got up to the door that served as ingress into the next area. Jack and McNeil got up on either side of it and, once the others were in position, he hit the access button. Waited a second. Nothing happened. Waited a few more seconds. Nothing continued to happen. Jack poked his head and SMG out and saw nothing, just a big, empty, two-story room with lots of doors. "Clear," he said as he stepped out.

McNeil followed him, as did the others in a strung-out line. They split up, each covering different portions of the room. Jack came to stand near the center of it, scoping the area out, waiting for something to happen, but it seemed like they were actually in the clear. "Which door is it?" he asked to McNeil.

"That one, up there," he replied, pointing.

"All right, Marines, let's-"

He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as an Imp issued a hissing shriek and a fireball came at him from the ceiling. Jack jerked aside, looking up, wondering where the hell it had come from, and spotted it. The thing was hanging from inside a broken out vent shaft. He jerked his gun up and fired, spraying a burst of red-hot lead at the awful thing and splitting its head open. He sidestepped as it lost its grip when it died and fell out of the vent, slamming heavily into the deckplates in a spray of dark red blood.

That seemed to signal the attack.

Most of the doors in the area opened up to admit new horrors: zombies, Demons, more Imps. Everyone opened up on the living wave of horror as it attacked them. Muzzle flare lit up the area, monsters roared as gunfire sounded and blood sprayed across the chromed, UAC-stamped walls. He put a trio of shots into an Imp's screaming mouth, then adjusted aim and put a round through one eye of a decaying zombie that had once been a technician, switched targets again and emptied the rest of the magazine into a Demon.