Doom: Hell on Earth 1.8

Into the Dark – Part 8

I turned and ran trying to get around the engine and behind cover. I heard a familiar screech and something hot whizzed past me. A lost soul! The damn abomination had fired a lost soul at me!

I rounded the engine just as I heard other screeches followed by gunfire.
At least I’ve got backup to help me I thought tightening my grip on my combat shotgun. I leapt into view founding myself face to face with the ugly cacodemon cousin. It opened its mouth and I could feel an enormous heat welling at me from within. I blasted the terror right in its mouth and it flew backwards with a distorted yelp.
As I had expected, the monster was still alive. I retreated behind the engine, breaking the barrels of my weapon. I could feel the adrenaline rush and an odd satisfaction from hearing the sharp clicking sounds as I broke the barrels open and shut.

I gathered that this creature was about as tough as the regular caco. I peeked around the corner to see the monster approach me again. Unlike the cacodemon, this terror didn’t even seem to bleed, but I could clearly see holes in it’s hideous hide where the orange light of heat glowed through.

I fired again and the monster seemed to explode from the inside as its ruined remains was thrown backwards from the blast. Much to my surprise, three screeching lost souls flew out of the fiery explosion.
Before I could recover from my surprise, one of the skulls hit me in the chest plating of my armour, knocking me backwards. I grunted, angrily gritting my teeth in pain as I felt the burning heat of the skull and leapt aside, while quickly breaking the barrels of the combat shotgun.
The lost soul charged again, but flew straight into the side of the machine in the center of the hall with a dull, bony crack. The skull swung around in the air, facing the two barrels of my weapon.

The double-barreled gun roared and the monster went down in flames, bony remains flying in all directions.

I quickly ejected the empty drum and inserted two shell clips into it before re-attaching it to the combat shotgun and break-barrel-reloading it, before I ran around the engine to help my comrades.
There was only one of these floating brown creatures left and it was getting thoroughly hammered by my comrades.
It blew up like a balloon just as I raised my shotgun.
Like with the one I had killed, three fiery skulls flew out from the flaming remains of the monster, which evaporated into thin air. I managed to hit one of the lost souls with a part of the spray from my combat shotgun, which sent it completely off-course. I saw that Goliath finished it off with a few stray bullets from his chain gun, while chewing away another of the skulls with the same burst.

“Holy crap, what were these things? They weren’t in our intel!” Stevenson hissed.
“Well Sir, then they’re monsters that weren’t in our intel – quite simple Sir” I replied straightforwardly.
“Don’t try to be funny with me soldier!” Stevenson growled. “Number one, I don’t need no jokes and number two, you’ll never become a comedian!”
I shrugged.
“Whatever those things were, we now know what they can do – be prepared, there are probably more of these bastards within! Let’s go you sorry dirt bags!”
My hero! I thought sarcastically as I went ahead again. What a brilliant tactician, of course we’ll come across more of these things!

-

We checked the whole of the surrounding area. Watching our automaps from time to time, we could follow which rooms were secure and which weren’t. We found more traces of battle – scores upon scores of demon corpses, mutilated remains of human marines that each had met one of a thousand horrid fates, walls and pipes blown to pieces, walls and floors with bullet holes and marks from other, more destructive weapons.

-

A door slid open in front of me revealing darkness. I could vaguely feel the stench of death from within.

I gave the others the lowdown on the situation and Stevenson decided to send Cauldry and Nash with me inside the dark room. Nash had a chain gun and Cauldry was armed with a single-barreled shotgun, so they would provide a decent backup for me.
I stepped inside the darkness, closely followed by the two other marines. I could hear their nervous breathing in the radio.
Once inside, I realized that the room wasn’t entirely dark. There were a few lights on. Some of them were smashed and others were blinking, likely because the electrical systems were malfunctioning.

We spread out, all three of us with the weapons raised and close to the face, letting the gun follow our line of sight.

I suddenly noticed a prostrate shape on a ground. A corpse no doubt, but which corpse? Friend or foe?
I took a step closer with my combat shotgun aimed at whatever it was on the floor when several walls opened up around us and former humans snarled all around us. Light shone from the opened areas. A trap!

Nash and Cauldry were caught by surprise, only I reacted immediately, firing into a crowd of possessed soldiers, sending four of them flying through the air before their ruined corpses crashed onto the metallic floor. I ran into one of these side chambers, quickly reloading the shotgun. Out of the side of my eye, I caught a glimpse of one of my comrades getting thrown into a wall by the blasts from several shotguns. I head him yell out in pain. My other buddy, it must have been Nash, opened fire with his chain gun, cutting a large group of former humans apart.
A possessed shotgun soldier took aim at me, but I fired at him first and his torso disappeared in a cloud of blood.
Quickly throwing aside the combat shotgun, I grabbed a single barreled shotgun lying next to the ruined remains of one of my victims, and attacked the other zombie mutants, shooting left and right.

“TX056, what the Hell is going on?” Stevenson barked in the radio. I subdued my desire to yell “Whaddya think asshole!?” and instead roared “Ambush!”

The wave of attackers was soon wiped out, but I could hear the wheezing sound of former humans breathing somewhere.

The light streaming from the side chambers revealed an object lying next to a corpse. Getting closer, I realized that the corpse must have been the same corpse that we saw in the dark before the wave of former humans attacked us.
The object was a light ampflication visor.
Without hesitating, I attached it onto my faceplate and activated the visor. Everything became clear and, but what was revealed was not a pretty sight.
Scores of ruined corpses of the possessed soldiers we had killed. I turned to Nash and noticed that he was staring motionlessly at a marine on the floor, sitting upright up at a wall.

It was Cauldry.

His entire torso was nothing but a gory mess. A large pool of blood had formed underneath him and remnants of his ruined armor vest were still visible on his shoulders and a few places amidst the bloody mess.
His armor had not saved him, but that was no wonder. He had basically drawn all the enemy fire away from us, but had paid with his life.

“Nash” I whispered in my radio. He didn’t respond. “Nash, goddammit respond!”
Nash at last replied with a whimpering “Yes?”
“You can’t do anything else for him, but you can still try and keep yourself alive. There are still a few assholes within these hallways, so watch it!”
Nash appeared to understand and raised his chain gun, looking around.
“Cover me” I whispered and began to gather what ammo I could get off of Cauldry’s corpse.

When I was done, I started to move down the hallways with Nash behind me. “Sir? With all due respect, where the Hell were you?” I asked in the radio.
The radio sizzled and Stevenson replied sourly. “The door was blocked, we couldn’t get inside to cover you”
An angry roar sounded to my left and I heard the sound of whirring barrels starting to spin.
I quickly stepped back to avoid the hail of bullets that sprayed out from a side corridor, ricocheting off a shiny metal wall.
The burst stopped and I leapt around the corner, caught a glimpse of the large commando and blew it away with my combat shotgun.
Another chain gun opened fire, but this time it wasn’t an enemy. I caught a glimpse of another commando getting sawed in half by a rain of bullets.

I was pleased to see that Nash hadn’t lost his head over the loss of Cauldry and that he could cover me effectively.

Searching the area, we came across a computer console. “It’s the security system” Nash told me, his voice still marked by the recent event. He didn’t quite seem to have got over the shock yet. I figured that he and Cauldry had been close friends, because one would think that he had become used to losing his buddies in this damn war.
“Lemme take care of it” he continued and with that, Nash punched in a few commands. The light turned on and we heard several doors open up. I spun around with my weapon at the ready, but no hostiles showed up. Instead, our buddies hooked up with us a few moments later and we continued down the hallways.

-

“Sir, I’ve found a monorail station” I reported in the radio.
The others soon came up to me and checked it out. Stevenson took a look at a train map hanging on a wall.
“It’ll take us to the underground installations” He told us, before looking around.
“Might be a good idea to take that train, get your asses on board” He finally snarled.

-

The train came to a halt.

“All right you sorry bags of filth, journey’s over, get out. You’ve rested more than enough.” Stevenson snarled hoarsely in his radio.
“TX056, get your ass up ahead!”

I moved ahead. The monorail station was even more foreboding than the one we came from. I could hear dripping water echo throughout the gloomy hall and the walls had large cracks in them.
My eyes searched the area as I moved ahead and my gun followed my line of sight.

I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.

“What the... Hell...?” I whispered.
“What is it soldier?” Stevenson asked in the other end of the radio.
“Sir, you’ll have to see this for yourself...” I mumbled in reply, swallowed hard and then said:
“I’ll check if the coast is clear first Sir”

I was looking at a wall covered in slimy tentacles. It stank horribly and the tentacles wormed around on the wall with a disgusting, sticky sound.

...

Nice work dsm!

Btw, I think that "tactician" might be better than "strategian", but that's just my opinion.

Livo said:

Btw, I think that "tactician" might be better than "strategian", but that's just my opinion.

You know what? That's a GREAT opinion to have. Thanks for the tip mate :-)

/Me alters word.

“all right you sorry bags of filth, journey’s over, get out. You’ve rested more than enough.”

:-) Nice work BTW.

cool. you actually made the pain elemental seem more of a danger than annoying. can't wait to see whats up with the gross tentacle thingies.

I'm waiting for when they encounter the Arch-Vile in the next map. The fear that they experienced when they saw a monster that they never knew existed will pale in comparison to when they run into one of these.

The darkness trap somewhat reminded me of Aliens. (the searching in the dark part)

Anything that makes me think of Alien or Aliens has GOT to be good. Keep it up DSM.

Ichor said:

I'm waiting for when they encounter the Arch-Vile in the next map. The fear that they experienced when they saw a monster that they never knew existed will pale in comparison to when they run into one of these.

Be reminded that I'm not specifically using the Doom 2 maps in my story - I put in a few elements from map10 in this chapter, but it doesn't mean that the next area will be the "Circle of Destruction". Oh yeah, and the Archvile will come, but not in the next part.

I can already reveal that those tentacles are just "textures" to make the place look evil and disgusting. But there will be some kind of explanation to why they're there.

Is it just me, or are these being made faster?

Epyo said:

Is it just me, or are these being made faster?

But better.

Epyo said:

Is it just me, or are these being made faster?

Not really - it happens sometimes every blue moon (i.e. not very often) that I go into a writing spree where I just sit and write for up to three hours straight.

The result is that I manage to release a couple chapters in rapid succession.

But next week may turn out to be a slow week - you'll never know.

Epyo said:

Is it just me, or are these being made faster?

I don't think the quality is suffering