Doom - Evil Unleashed 2.3

[dsm]

The Shores of Hell – Part 3

****

I stepped into a place filled with crates.
Ah, this place looks normal was my first thought as I looked around, happy to at least see something which looked like a modern man-made environment instead of that spooky occult surroundings I had seen in what was once the Deimos Research Facility. "This place" was the containment area of the Deimos base's Warehouse.
Hm, one could get lost here
The place was stacked with several crates of all sizes with the typical triangle-shaped UAC logo and other signs on them. It looked like a maze of crates. I could hear the brown freaks growl somewhere. There were quite a lot of them.
My HDD readout informed me that I didn't have too much ammunition.
Hopefully, this place contained storage for ammo as well, because I needed it.

I went over to a stack of crates and boxes and peeked around it to see one of the brown things standing next to the corpse of a marine.
So, at least one of the guys made it this far I thought, clutching my shotgun firmly.

The creature never knew what hit it.
Several aggressive growls, hisses and other guttural sounds echoed throughout the containment area in response to the roar of my shotgun, warning me that I got company ahead. I looked at the dead marine – it was Corporal O'Brien. The whole left side of his chest beneath the ruined, scorched armor was torn out, revealing his blood-covered ribs. His right leg was torn off above his knee. The bastard had toyed with him before it killed him off. I looked grimly at the body. The "Detective" was a good comrade; we could have become good friends if we had known each other longer. A few feet away lay his shotgun. I quickly emptied its clip and searched the body for more. Nothing. It was his last clip.

A growl made me turn around to see another of the brown "imps". It lifted its rough, clawed hand and hurled fire at me, but I quickly leapt aside, pumping a shell into its corpse, but the shot wasn't accurate enough and the thing staggered backwards with a howl, but survived. I whipped out one of my pistols and blew its brains out before it could come back at me.

Four more of them rounded the corner and I took them down one by one, dodging their attacks. As I blew the third away, the fourth creature leapt up next to me. I reacted quickly, and hammered the butt of my shotgun into its face and kicked it in the belly, before pumping the shotgun and blowing it away.

I looked down the Hallway, where the four "imps" had come from and saw more coming. My display told me that I had only 12 shells left including the remaining three shells in my current clip. I quickly looked around and saw a potential escape route through an opening in the wall of crates. Without hesitation I ran through the opening.

-

"What in the nine Hells...!?" I exclaimed with a hoarse whisper.
I had been able to shake off my pursuers and had just found the containment area's exit, leading out of the labyrinth of crates.
The walls of the hallways ahead of me consisted of green marble, like the marble walls I had seen at the Anomaly, but these weren't tiled. Seemed like this place actually had been affected by the creature's presence after all.
Behind me, I could hear the brown bastards growl. They were gaining on me!
I went into the green hallway, but after taking a few steps, a "bull" suddenly rounded a corner. It grunted as it saw me and its eyes began to glow yellow with Hellish rage. I spun around, intending to go back, but froze in my tracks as I saw one of the brown things approach me. It had apparently just snuck up behind me. I was trapped.
Behind me the "bull" charged and ahead of me I could see the brown thing prepare to throw a fireball at me. I hurled myself aside as the fireball flew past. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the flaming ball collide with the pink monster's face in a cloud of flames. It roared with rage and to my surprise, I saw it leap on top of the brown freak, hurling it to the ground. The brown humanoid hissed in surprise and clawed the assaulting monster in its face. The pink horror reacted quickly. Its face snapped forward before its enemy on the floor could react, and dug its teeth into the brown chest, tearing out a large chunk of disgusting monster flesh. The wounded monster screeched in agony, but the next instant the "pinkie" bit its head off.

I pumped a shell into the "bull's" back, finishing it off, and ran past the corpses. I realized that I would only find ammo in the containment area, so I hurried back to the maze of crates, knowing full well that I might run into more critters.

-

I managed to break up a crate, with the words "Do not smoke" on it. I smiled broadly as I saw several ammo boxes containing shotgun shells inside the crate. I quickly grabbed as many clips as I could carry and started filling my half-empty clip with shells.
I had just slammed the full clip into the weapon when another "imp" came out of nowhere. I dodged its fireball and blew its head off, sending the head several meters through the air, before it landed on the floor and bounced a few extra feet. I activated my field map and marked this spot on the map electronically, so that I could remember the place when I needed more shells later. I also needed to find a crate containing bullets for the assault chain gun and clips for the pistol.

****

The camouflaged, army-green landing pods approached the hangar bay on Mars. A team of techs wearing environment suits was waiting with equipment to seal the doors on each pod as well as two transportation vehicles to move the pod to the sterilized disinfections chamber.

Major Jefferson stood in the watchtower, watching as the APLP landed on the landing platform and the team went up to it to seal the door. His mind was busy finding a method to dispose of the witnesses, but something else preoccupied his thoughts as well.
How did these troops manage to escape? There was no doubt that they had found fuel for the crafts on the Phobos base, but were any of them educated to perform a safe refueling procedure? It seemed that they had managed somehow.

He watched as the transportation vehicles lifted the two pods from the ground with their powerful cranes and drove off to their destination.

-

"WHAT? You can't get in contact with the people inside the pods?" Colonel Hauser bellowed into the phone in his hand.
"Sir, we've tried all means of communication, but there is no reply, I repeat, there is no..."
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you!" The Colonel replied irritably. "The personnel inside might be dead"
"Uhhh, that's a negative Sir, our sensors detect lots of movement in there, so they are definitely alive" came the reply. Hauser thought out loud for a moment. This was definitely getting weird.
"Can you see anything in the cockpit?"
"Negative Sir, the heat shield is still on, covering the cockpit windows"
"And you're saying the sensors pick up movement?"
"Lots of it Sir, it seems like they are eager as Hell to get out"
"All right, unseal the pod doors, but keep the disinfections chamber's door locked. Remember, they're under quarantine!"
"Acknowledged Sir!"
The Colonel signed off and sat down behind his desk. These people must be so crazed with fear that they forget standard landing procedures He thought to himself, scratching his head as usual.

*

Captain Pendleton hung up after his conversation with the Colonel. What a damn sourhead! he thought. He turned to the technicians with the laser torches. "All right, we've got go from the Colonel!" He told them.
The techs began to cut through the doorframe of the APLP, while the Captain watched with his shaded goggles on I wonder what the Colonel's up to he thought to himself while looking at the APLP. Those landing pods are insanely expensive and now we're ruining the door of two of 'em after having sealed it off first!
The Captain also found his orders strange. Why would they seal in those people in the first place?

The techs had almost cut through the door, when something heavy rammed against the door from the inside. The door shook.
Pendleton stared wide-eyed at the door. "Hold it!" He yelled, his voice trembling with fear.

The "something" rammed into the door again and this time the door piece fell with a loud metallic crash.
Pendleton gasped as did several of the technicians. "Mother of God!" one of the techs whispered. A terrifying creature filled the opening where the door had been. Its skin was a grayish pink, and the thing looked like a cross between a bull and a shaved gorilla. Its glassy, dark eyes looked around in the room, observing. Pendleton noticed several terrible shapes and even glowing eyes in the darkness behind the bull thing. The pink monster took a step into the light. It moved on four legs and it seemed frightfully powerful. Its eyes suddenly began to glow bright yellow.
It let out a deep growl.

...

[JavaGuy]

They keep getting better an' better is all I can really say. A lot of stories I read don't have good detail during the battles (I'm trying to work on that), but you have it down perfectly.