The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 41: Penultimate

He appeared in a short, narrow alcove, the walls, floor, and ceiling made of patterned slate-gray octagons. Shotgun locked in a death grip, Jack moved forward, marching off the pad of rusted red metal, out of the alcove and into the room beyond. Secure the area, always the first order of business. He conned the room with a quick swivel of his head. Walls of white and black stone, looking created by more natural means, (inasmuch as anything could be natural in this godforsaken hellscape), comprised the small area. There were two pillars tattooed with skulls that had glowing red eyes, and a pair of doors.

Almost immediately as he crossed the threshold into that area, a pair of Demons stormed out from behind the pillars, coming for him with murder on their minds. He could see it, plain as sunshine, in their glowing, golden eyes. He snapped the shotgun towards the left one and pounded out a shell, putting it right down the monster's gullet and killing it. The other stomped closer, faster, and he swiveled and fired again. The shell took it in the chest, opening up a hole and staggering it briefly, but not deterring it.

He fired again as the beast came within arm's length of him, reaching for him, intent on consuming his body. This shot hit it dead in its eye, blowing the golden orb into a bloody socket of ruined flesh. As it sank to the ground, Jack kept a vigil, seeing if anything else would come running at the sounds. But the two exits, one just an opening in the wall, the other a more artificial looking rectangle cut into the rock leading to a manufactured hallway, remained vacant.

In the distance, he could hear growls, moans, and shouts.

Alone for now, but that wouldn't last.

The others appeared in thirty second intervals and joined him in the main room. "What now?" McNeil asked. "Split up?"

"No, not any longer," Jack replied. "We need to stay together." He looked at the two entrances and finally decided on the left one for a reason he couldn't be sure of. It might have been that the manufactured appearance of what little corridor he could see beyond it appealed to him. It offered some small comfort, no matter how false, in this hellish maelstrom of bloody chaos. He led the way, shotgun in hand, the others falling in step behind him, intent on pushing on, pushing through. Digging to the end of this horror.

However far that might be.

It occurred to Jack, as he stepped into the area beyond, that this might go on for ages. Who knew how big Hell was? How would they realistically find their way to this beast? How would they find their way back? He shook off the black terror those thoughts brought to the best of his ability, studying the corridor he'd come to. It extended immediately away to the left, made of a tan kind of metal with artificial lights built into the ceiling.

Fielding said that the UAC hadn't really been this far out, or at least had given the impression that they hadn't spent enough time in this region to get any serious work done. And these lights weren't just strung up or slapped on, they were built into the ceiling. What did that mean? Had the demons done it? If so, how? Why?

His questions only grew as they reached the end of the corridor and came to a series of rooms that seemed to be a haphazard collection of stone walls studded with big sections of silver steel embedded with screens, switchboards, and workstations that had clearly come from a UAC facility. It didn't look natural though. How had it gotten here? Imps roamed these rooms, hissing and shrieking as they noticed the human interlopers, and the two groups began to exchange fire. He wondered, as he emptied his shotgun and hastily reloaded, if maybe some kind of teleportation event might have occurred. What if portions of either Phobos or Deimos Base had been snatched out of reality and slammed in here? Or even swapped.

He remembered seeing hellish architecture on Deimos.

And if that was the case, why? Was it an accident? Some natural side effect of the process? Or was it intentional? What was their goal, beyond death and destruction? Did they even have one? He finished off the last Imp and they all took a few moments to more thoroughly check out the area. The sense of dislocation, of unreality, only heightened as they explored the side rooms. The walls were made of stone, but they were covered in some strange blue material that resembled circuitry, blown up to ridiculous proportions.