The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 39: Fortress of Mystery

As he came through the teleporter, snapping out of existence in one hellish room and back into it in another hellish room, Jack thought that he would never get used to teleportation. And, to be completely honest, he didn't intend to, because he didn't intend to do this any more than necessary. Shotgun firmly in hand, he stepped off the rusted red pad of ancient metal, (briefly wondering what the hell it was that made them function like that), and quickly scoped out this latest slice of Hell he found himself coming into.

As he expected, it was ugly, though not nearly as much as it could be. He stood in a roughly octagonal room, and there were broad openings in each section of wall surrounding him. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of the same pockmarked, dirty gray stonework. It actually reminded him of a cave, despite being artificial. Or maybe it had grown this way. Who the fuck knew in a place like this? He saw a door dead ahead of him.

And then he saw movement.

Ahead to the left and to the right, in two of the shadowy niches surrounding him. He heard a growl, no, more than one growl. And they were deep. And horribly familiar. Jack looked slowly around himself.

"No..." he whispered, paralyzing terror stealing over him.

The shadowy niches were beginning to light up with a flickering hellish yellow-orange light. To his left, his right, behind him...

"No..." he groaned, trembling violently now.

Six Barons of Hell stepped forward into the light, and roared.

"No! No! No!" Jack screamed, turning and firing almost blindly at the nearest Baron of Hell. The slug shell hit it in the chest, drawing blood, ultimately being about as meaningful as a bug bite on an elephant.

There was a green flash behind him.

"Jack, what's-OH MY FUCKING GOD! WHAT THE FUCK!?" Jennifer screamed.

Jack's eyes locked onto the wooden door dead ahead of him. He had to get to it. "Move!" he screamed, jerking to the right to avoid a ball of green energy. He nearly walked right into another one. He began running towards the door, dodging and ducking and weaving, screaming the whole way, his brain operating almost purely on autopilot. It helped that he'd just taken that damned injection because if there was ever a time he needed a pickup, it was right the fuck now. He ran smack into the door and nearly fell onto his back.

He punched the open button, too terrified to even feel the pain of having run into the door. There was another flash of green light (nearly indistinguishable from the green glow of the half-dozen Baron's attacks, only discernible by its brightness) and then he heard Miller issue a terrified scream. No time to worry about that now, he had to get this damned door open and find some kind of fallback because holy shit there were so many of these fuckers!

"Here!" he screamed, ducking to get under the slow-moving door. Why, out of all the fucking doors they'd run into, was this one moving so slow?!

He began to call to the others again, but his words died on his lips as he started in stark horror at the room beyond. It was a large, open room, octagonal like the previous room, although this whole area was bathed in some strange white light. The floor had grooves cut into it, each one leading into the center. They were all filled with blood.

Easily the worst feature of this room was that there was a small fleet of something like ten Cacodemons floating in the air. All of them were slowly turning to regard him with their huge yellow eyes. All at once, they began to issue a strange hissing sound and started coming towards him. Jack turned back around and saw Jennifer and Miller still rushing towards him, and behind them Pavel snapped into existence, looked around, and screamed.