Doom - Evil Unleashed 1.2

Knee-deep in the Dead – Part 2

-

"What do you mean that there is no reply!?"
"Sir, I've been calling them up repeatedly, but there's only static!" McDowell explained quetly.
The Captain thought out loud for a while before he spoke.
"Seems like whatever killed off the personnel up here got them, we'd better stay frosty and keep the troops assembled!" The Captain turned to his radioman.
"Any luck with that thing, soldier?"
"The damn thing is a bit troublesome, Sir, but it doesn't look as bad now as it did when I started with this thing. I'm recovering data now, but it's a slow process"
"Good! Carry on"
"Sir, Wait!" the radioman cried.
"What is it private?"
"Some text is appearing on the screen, Sir. It looks like a list of projects"

*

Adams and Lewis were looking down a narrow, shadowy hallway that made a bend before leading into the crew quarters. The squad was positioned in a large hall with dark green walls and tan, hexagonal-tiled floor. Adams and Lewis were guarding the gloomy entry to the crew quarters. The two soldiers were both pretty freaked out, due to the awful discoveries that their squad had made as well as the complete absence of an enemy, so they were both very alert.

All of a sudden, Adams noticed movement in the shadows of the adjacent hallway. He felt his heart pound. Was this an enemy?
He decided to alert the others and whispered into his radio that he had seen something.
The form suddenly moved towards Adams and he could see that it was a human, wearing a military combat uniform.
Adams lowered his rifle and took a step forward. Light fell upon the lower part of the marine in the hallway, revealing that his camouflage pants were bloodstained.
"Jeezus, you ok?" Adams asked when he saw the blood. The shape moved into the light.
Adams' eyes widened.

****

I heard a single gunshot ring out on my radio. A number of firearms began firing and then all Hell broke loose.
I heard panicked squad leaders yell orders to their men, incoherent yells of rage or fear, numerous weapons firing, screams of pain and calls for help. The radio also picked up some strange distorted sounds that reminded me of animals howling or roaring, but this could be screams, which were distorted when transmitted - such things occurred.

My buddies needed help and I just stood inside the landing craft, doing nothing to help them in their hour of need. I decided to forget about my orders and enter the base, even though I knew that my pistol wouldn't be sufficient. At least it would be better to die in combat than to just remain behind, without lifting a finger to help one's colleagues.

Corporal O'Brien had followed his orders and had done nothing wrong, I, however, had decided that the best I could do now was to not give a damn about my orders and go inside to help my buddies.
I checked my pockets and was relieved to find that I had remembered my knuckle-duster, as I figured that it might come in handy. The knuckle-duster had a tiny energy-gathering unit, which could draw energy from any power source, including sunlight, and use it to shock the victim once the spikes were rammed into whatever my victim might be. The knuckle-duster was a "souvenir" from a close encounter I had with one of the violent "rioters" on my last mission on Earth – he had suddenly attacked me with it while my men were busy disarming the rest – but he wasn't particularly successful.

I set my radio to "directed transmissions", so that the radio could only pick up signals directed at me, shutting out the sounds of the raging battle. This meant that I might miss some valuable information, but on the other hand, the noise of combat would only ruin my concentration. I ensured that my helmet was secured, peeked outside of the pod to check if the coast was clear and ran over to the wall of the hangar installation.
It bothered me that I didn't have a FUTD to help me track down my buddies if some had survived. Finding at least one of my buddies alive was imperative as I couldn't pilot the APLP alone – it took two men to pilot that thing, not to mention that a third guy was normally needed for navigation.
It was also necessary to find extra fuel for the APLP, as the craft only had fuel enough to return to a troop carrier in orbit around Phobos and I knew that our troop carrier wouldn’t return until at least ten hours had passed, which was too long.
I felt my heart pound as I approached the entryway to the installation. I recalled what my SSDU drill instructor used to yell at us: "SSDU marines don't know the word 'fear' – remember that ladies, you don't understand the word I just used!" Of course it was bullshit – all humans fear, but as a highly trained combat soldier, it was important to learn to control one's fears. The ability to control one's fear usually separated good soldiers from bad soldiers.
One of the reasons why I had become the best marine in my SSDU Company was that I was extremely capable of keeping my fears under control – I simply wasn't afraid of Death.
But now I felt a sting of fear. Not because I knew that there was something extremely dangerous in there, but because I was suddenly isolated from the rest of my platoon, not knowing if they would survive. I did not want to be stuck on a remote spot, without anyone to accompany me.

Entering the building, I suddenly heard a number of strange, wheezing sounds from within. The sound reminded me of hoarse, ragged breathing, but there was something strange about it. And then I heard another sound.
Like the growling sound of some flesh eating animal.
I held the pistol firmly out in front of me. I was good at handling pistols no matter which hand I used, but I preferred to hold my sidearm with my left hand - it somehow felt better.

I reached a shiny, gray steel door. Occasionally, I heard the strange wheezing sound again.
My gloved hand pulled the handle and the door slid open.

The hall I had entered was very clean but dimly lit – some of the lights apparently didn't work. The floor was covered with a pleasant, blue UAC carpet. To the right was a glass pane. Looking through it, I saw an open courtyard. Ahead I saw a bending hallway and to the left was another hallway. I heard the wheezing sound again. It came from the hallway on the left.

I peeked around the corner and looked into the room. I had decided to try and find out what that strange ragged sound was.
Stairs led up to what looked like an observation post with windows on every side. This would probably be the control tower. I saw a marine with his back turned on me, busy operating the panels. But there was something strange about him. His combat suit and armor was all filthy and covered in blood, he wasn't wearing a helmet and his hair had a strange greenish color – coloring one's hair was strictly prohibited in the US Marine Corps. I took a step forward to look closer at him.
The marine suddenly turned around and froze as it saw me. I stared at it for a long second – there was definitely something wrong. He had pure, white eyes and his skin seemed to be in a state of rot.

The marine let out an animal-like growl and then I knew that he wasn't friendly.
I quickly fired four bullets at the creature – two struck him in the chest of his armor, one made a wound in the side of its neck and the last bullet hammered right through its forehead, spilling brains on the consoles behind it.
Two growls told me that there was two more of them in the room and they rushed out of their hiding place behind two pillars on each side of the stairs.
The first one barely saw me before three bullets from my pistol hammered through his unprotected chest. The thing fell with a howl, its blood spilling out on the floor, while the other creature, which wore a ruined armor vest, raised its assault rifle, but got its brains blown out before its finger even touched the trigger.

I ejected the almost spent clip and inserted a fresh one, saving the nearly empty clip for later use. I went over to inspect the corpses of my enemies, pointing my pistol at the nearest one in case it got back up at me.
They were almost definitely humans who had somehow been turned into mindless killers. All three had gray-greenish hair. It wasn't colored. Their mouths were filthy, covered with a disgusting, yellow saliva.
I relieved the bodies of their ammunition, grabbed the assault rifle that one of them had been using, checking the firing chamber of the weapon.
The M16AX3 assault rifle was a dark gray, magazine-fed weapon, which fired caliber 5.56 rounds. This ammunition was compatible with the fast-firing assault chain guns. I wished I had such a chain gun now. I wished it badly.

So far, I had to be satisfied with the assault rifle. I checked whether the scope worked by pressing a button above the safety catch. A small, narrow, box-shaped scope popped up with a muffled click. This allowed for long-range shooting, but I clapped the scope back into the rifle, as I didn't think that it would be necessary inside the base. I needed close-combat weapons like shotguns.

I also picked up an extra pistol from one of the corpses, knowing that two pistols wielded simultaneously would be much better than one.

I had almost collected what I needed, when I heard a growling sound in the larger hall, which I had entered first – it drew nearer and I realized that I had heard the sound before. A sound like the snarling of some sort of flesh-eating animal. I peeked around the corner, trying not to be seen, and saw a humanoid shape moving in the shadows towards my location. As it moved into the light I saw what it looked like – a brown, thorny thing with a few larger spikes protruding from its ugly hide around its shoulders. It walked upright like a human being and had many things in common with a human being, but its behavior seemed to be that of an animal. Its head moved from side to side, searching the area. Its wrinkled skin looked strangely leather-like and its eyes glowed like fire.
The thing reminded me of a mythical demon from Hell, which I had read myths and other fairy-tales about and the thing somehow seemed to be formed of pure evil.
It suddenly turned its ugly face towards me. I didn't duck back into hiding in time and the monster let out a loud hiss, but before it could attack me I opened fire at the thing with my assault rifle, firing in short bursts.
It howled with pain as the bullets hit it and staggered backwards. I fired three bursts at the creature before it went down with a guttural sound, while its red blood splashed out of the holes in its brown hide.
I stared at the thing for a moment. The corpse stank horribly. The monster had no nose or any holes to breathe through and its mouth was lined with tiny, sharp teeth.
"What the Hell is this thing?" I thought to myself, feeling confused.
"Where did these bastards come from?"
It was like a nightmare. I was alone and my enemies seemed to be straight from Hell or somewhere like Hell.

I steeled myself to keep moving instead of gawking at the dead monster and went up to the bending hallway. It led to an armored door, which was as clean as the first two rooms I had visited.

As the door slid open, revealing another big room with lots of computer consoles and other equipment, I noticed three former humans with their backs turned on me. I fired at them and one of them fell screaming to the floor, where it jerked around, while screaming in pain. The sound was unlike any scream a known animal would make. The other two turned around, but I shot another one before I leapt back behind cover.
A swarm of shotgun pellets ricocheted off the wall behind me, but luckily, I wasn't hit. I retrieved one of my pistols, pointed it around the corner and fired at the last enemy, killing it.

I emptied a bullet into the wounded former human soldier on the floor, spilling its brains onto the blue carpet. I traded my assault rifle for the shotgun that the last soldier had used, and checked if the weapon wasn't damaged.

The weapon was a standard single barreled, pump-action shotgun using clips, which the weapon could automatically eject when the clip was emptied. Each clip held eight shotgun shells. The shotgun had a sophisticated firing system, which made the shotgun able to use a variety of shells. The standard shells fired projectile-shaped pellets, which the weapon's special firing system made spin like rifle projectiles, causing the pellets to "drill" into their victims, which did tremendous damage. There were only seven pellets in one shell, but the effects were spectacular nonetheless.

The distinct hissing noise from one of the brown fiends made me turn around. The creature stood next to me, glaring evilly at me with its hellish eyes. I hadn't finished reloading the shotgun in my hands, so I was defenseless for the moment. The monster wound its right claw back as if it was preparing to throw something at me and I noticed that its hand began to glow with an orange light.

I hurled myself aside as a ball of flame whizzed past me, while I quickly pumped a shell into the firing chamber of the shotgun. Before the thing could attempt another attack, I aimed at it and pulled the trigger.
The swarm of pellets sent the monster flying through the air and it crashed against a wall, its blood painting the dark metal wall red. It gave me a strange, joyous satisfaction to blow the thing away as I knew that it and its peers were responsible for the slaughtering of a lot of innocent people.
The ragged breathing sound of the once human soldiers told me that I got company...

...

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Hope my writing didn't seem too repetitive this time.