The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 09: Underhalls

"Fuck ladders," Jack muttered as he descended yet again into the bowels of Haydenfield.

He'd found a way down into the underground, but it required getting into a narrow concrete shaft that was just barely big enough for him and his damned suit of armor. Occasionally he scraped against the sides and it made him jump each damn time. He couldn't even properly look down to see if there was anything coming up after him. Could they climb? Mainly he was worried about zombies and Imps. Also Lost Souls. Fuck, if one of those got in here with him he might very well be straight up fucked in the face.

However, Jack managed to reach the bottom of the narrow shaft without running into anything deadly or dangerous. Unfortunately, as he stepped off the ladder and began turning as fast as he could manage, drawing his pistol, he nearly got terminated right then and there. He'd come into a roughly rectangular room and across a simple divide where shallow water ran through the center of the room, a trio of zombies had gathered, each holding a pistol. They roared and began popping off shots at him. They were horrendous shots, at least, and gave him the necessary time to raise his own sidearm and return fire.

The first shot took the middle zombie right in its big, pale forehead, opening up an ugly hole and ejecting brain matter and bone fragments out the back, spraying the door behind it. It fell, but he didn't have time to appreciate that fact as he sidestepped and shifted aim simultaneously, opting for the right zombie because it seemed to be drawing a bead on him more efficiently than the other one. He squeezed off another two shots. One just clipped the bastard's ear, but the second one turned its right eye into a bloody socket erupting a geyser of old gore. It went down with a roar. Jack shifted to the final target and they fired at the same time.

The zombie, with its awful, dead eyes and leathery, pale skin, managed to wing his armor right as he shot it in the mouth. The back of its neck blew out in a spray of decayed gore, and Jack's armor managed to take the shot without a problem. He let out a relieved sigh after a moment passed and nothing else came running. Now that he was alone again, he took a moment to study his environment. The room wasn't very big. The walls were metal, the floor concrete. There was a little moat cutting the room in half from side to side, and the water that ran through it looked clear. What was it? Was this normal? Or the result of some kind of accident? It didn't look like sewage, maybe it wasn't water. Maybe it was some kind of coolant?

He didn't have time for it. There was nothing on his side of the little room, and although the moat provided two exits in the form of passageways to the left and right, (the left one open, the right sealed, save for a little space beneath it to let the water through), there was a door directly across from him. Cautiously, Jack tested the water, put his boot in it. The water went up to just past his boot and there was no bad reaction, so he just shrugged and splashed across to the zombie side. There, he policed up a trio of magazines, (and reloaded his pistol), then moved over to the door and opened it up. It slid into the ceiling and revealed a little work area beyond.

Stepping in, he quickly cleared the room, finding it empty, and then he closed the door behind him and checked over his map. Of course, the way he wanted to go was that locked down entrance on the right side of the room. He took a moment to move back outside and splashed over to it, but after checking it over for a good, long minute, he determined that it was some kind of floodgate and not a traditional door. With a sigh, he returned to the work area and moved over to a console built into the wall that looked the most promising.

Around him, he could hear the occasional groan and the distant gurgle-clicking of Imps. He'd gotten exceptionally good at picking those sounds out. Thoughts came and went as he searched through the functions of the console, but he was glad (sort of) to see that he could put them out of his head with more ease than before. His anger had settled into a sort of cold steel, and he knew that he had at least gotten good at taking the raw fury of rage and beat it quickly into a blade that could be wielded against his foes.