Doom: Hell on Earth 2.2

Sign of Evil – Part 2

I plummeted straight into a pool of water in some dark cave. I hit the water rather hard and I felt a sharp pain in my feet. If it hadn’t been for my well-designed combat boots, my ankles could have been broken now. But my situation wasn’t too good. I had lost my chain gun, had no ammo for the combat shotgun, which I was lucky enough to find somewhere in the filthy water, and Stevenson had my BFG 9000 and to make matters really great, I could hear specters close in on me.
The shaft had fortunately been far shorter than Stevenson had probably hoped. I hadn’t fallen too far. But the landing had been very painful nonetheless.

Trying my hardest to ignore the pain, I slowly got out of the water. I saw blurry, near invisible shapes move towards me at great speed.

One of the specters came up to me as I pulled on my electrified metal knuckles – an old souvenir I had gotten off of a thug a couple years ago – and lunged at me.
I stepped aside and slammed my metal knuckled fist into its side. It grunted with pain as blue sparks leapt from the spot I had hit it, but was only briefly stopped. It was enough time for me to run past it. A group of specters narrowly missed me as I managed to worm my way past them.

It was all very confusing. Blurry shapes were all around me and I wondered how the Hell I was going to make it out from this pit alive when I suddenly came face to face with the half-eaten remains of a marine.
It had been a female, judging by her broad hip, or rather, what was left of it and the shape of the shredded armor. One half of her face had been brutally ripped off and that side of her skull was broken, revealing that powerful jaws had crushed her face. The other part of her face stared horrified at me, her eyeball close to falling out of its socket. But being such a hardened soldier as I was, I could ignore the horrific sight of the corpse itself and focus on what she was still wearing - a utility belt full of bags that seemed to be filled that was slung over her shoulder. I grabbed it and instantly felt the satisfying weight of ammo inside it. I quickly hurled the belt over my own shoulder, tore open a bag and dug my hand into it.
Pistol clips! No use! I thought leaping aside as a specter charged me with an icy howl. I tried another bag, ignoring that some of the clips in the first bag fell out on the ground.

Bingo!

I retrieved two shotgun clips from another bag, opened the drum on my combat shotgun which I had pulled out from my back with the other hand and inserted the clips, before I slammed the drum shut again.
Just than a specter ran into me, throwing me to the ground. I still managed to hold on to the combat shotgun, but some of the shotgun clips in the open ammo bag fell onto the floor. Kicking the floor to get away from the advancing specters, I cracked the two barrels of my combat shotgun open and shut. The shotgun was ready to rock, but before I could bring it to bear on the specters, the one that had knocked me to the ground bit me in my side. I could hear an unpleasant sound as the advanced titanium-kevlar compound material of the armor gave way to the powerfully strong jaws of the cloaked monster. I gritted my teeth hard, preventing myself from yelling out in pain. I could feel the stench of its horrible breath. Despite the pain, I rolled sideways, swung my combat shotgun around and fired just as the creature charged again. Blood splattered out from seemingly nowhere, staining the other specters behind it and the blurry shape crashed to the floor with a heavy thud.

I managed to leap to my feet while snapping the barrels open and shut. Another specter rushed at me from the side, but I turned around fast and blew it away, dodging another specter. I noticed a low wall and quickly leapt over it, while the dumb demons slammed right into it. I heard how the wall creaked under the weight of the many specters.

One specter rounded the wall only to be blown to oblivion.

With a loud rumble of shattering concrete the other specters broke down the wall and rushed at me. My shotgun roared in response, reverberating throughout the dank pit taking down yet another creature. The amount of ghostly monsters was somewhat diminished, but when I fired again, I needed two more shell clips. I opened another clip bag, because there was only one left in the first bag with shells and slammed two clips into the shotgun’s drum, while running further backwards. My back came against the muddy wall of earth. In front of me the specters were spreading out, advancing on me to prevent me from escaping. They may be dumb I thought doggedly snapping the barrels open and shut, bringing two shells into the firing chamber.

But the bastards have good instincts!

With a roaring battle cry I suddenly rushed at the ghostly creatures and blew the one in the middle away and then leapt over its falling body. Its sticky blood stained my combat uniform and armor, but I ignored it completely and kept moving.

Soon the remaining specters were dead. I went around in the gloomy room, picking up the clips that had fallen out of the bags during the battle, before I went over to the corpse of the lone female marine. I emptied the utility belt that she was wearing around her waist and gained a lot of ammunition from that too.

Checking my computer map, I saw that I still had a chance at catching up with my buddies, there seemed to be alternate routes to the center of the star base, which was still not displayed on my map view.

“Stevenson!” I mumbled to myself, frowning angrily.

“YOU are in deep shit when I find you again!”

-

The place looked like an inside barracks, except that ugly demon faces with glowing red eyes and reptilian pupils adorned the walls and I had seen some switches that had turned into the type of skull buttons I had seen before on Deimos and in Hell.

There was a lone zombie trooper in a sleeping hall for soldiers. I capped the bastard with a single well-placed shot from my sidearm and watched as its brains spurted out from its head and how it slumped to the floor.
I grabbed its assault rifle when I heard angry roars from the adjacent hallways. Possessed soldiers!

They appeared in the doorway only to be picked down by well-aimed bursts from the assault rifle. Firing from secure cover, kneeling behind a metallic set of lockers and with a great deal of experience in handling weapons, taking them down was as a piece of cake.

Incredible so stupid those zombs are I thought and grinned while a shotgun soldier fell into the growing pile of reanimated troops with its armor and chest torn open by my bullets.
Then I realized that I was running low on ammo for the rifle. I waited until I had emptied it and then hurled it aside with an oath, whipping out the combat shotgun.

I waited, listening to the sound of running feet, waiting until a small group of soldiers were inside before I leapt out and sent a loose spread of shells at the group of possessed soldiers. Two went down, a third howled in agony, but two more fired back at me. I ducked back into hiding as shells pounded into the locker in front of me, quickly bringing two shells into the weapon’s firing chamber.

A possessed soldier leapt into view with its shotgun trained on me, but I fired long before it got the chance to properly focus on its target and the blast turned the possessed soldier’s ribcage into bone dust and reduced everything else to tiny chunks of meat. I saw its head fly into the air and its severed limbs fall to the floor with wet thuds. The ruined remains of the soldier’s torso splattered onto a wall several feet away.
I wasn’t given time to reload the shotgun, when the last zombie trooper leapt into view. Instead I whacked it across its face with the butt of the weapon, broke the barrels of the shotgun open and shut and put it out of its misery with a point blank shot before it could recover from the hit.

I collected as much ammunition as I could carry and went into the corridors of the star port barracks. I could hear that not all the former humans had been accounted for as the unmistakable snarling breathing of the once human soldiers reached my ears. I was sure that those were former human commandos as Special Forces troops were usually trained in more devious combat tactics.

I noticed movement down a gloomy hallway and swiftly turned. Nothing. More cautious than before, I continued down the larger hallway. I heard the sound of running feet somewhere, but couldn’t place it. I strengthened my grip on the assault rifle and moved closer to the wall.

The whirring noise of a chain gun’s barrels that were beginning to spin around suddenly sounded somewhere behind me. I leapt into a nearby hallway, barely avoiding the burst of bullets that tore through the hallway. I came face to face with another commando that was trying to ambush me from this narrow hallway. It snarled, angry that I had discovered it before it had had the chance to ambush me, revealing the sharp teeth in its blood-dripping mouth.

I quickly filled it with lead and rushed inside an adjacent room, just as the other commando jumped into the hallway opening behind me with its chain gun blazing.
I gritted my teeth and waited until it had stopped firing, then I leapt back out of the room and fired at the commando, which wasn’t quick enough to get back into cover.

I waited, listening with all senses as alert as they could be. When I couldn’t hear the typical raspy breathing of the possessed freaks, I assumed that I had killed the last ones in this area and picked up one of the chain guns that a commando had been carrying and grabbed as much ammunition for it as I could.

Checking the map in my helmet computer, I noticed a hole in a wall located not far from where I was now. I went over to the location, still alert with the combat shotgun ready for action.

-

It turned out to be some sort of garbage shaft. I activated my map view again, and placed a destination marker where I assumed that my buddies where heading. I knew that they were heading for the center of Omega’s underground complex, because that was where I had suggested that the root of the evil, the device that maintained the flame barrier over the base, was. My helmet computer suggested that I took this route. I scowled at the grating blocking the garbage lid, then I pressed the switch nearby and the grating swung open.

Well, here goes nothing I thought and took a deep breath, before crawling into the hole with my legs first.

I had barely gotten inside when I fell. The garbage tunnel was a steep chute and I was sliding down that chute at a nauseating speed. I gritted my teeth fighting the desire to yell out loud and waited for the end of the line, which could turn out fatal.

...

Nice work - the scenes are discriptive, but have a scan thru a theasaurus for different words to use ; some phrases are repeated on occasion and look a bit off :

"I could hear that not all the former humans had been accounted for as I could hear the unmistakable snarling breathing of former humans"

instead...

"I could hear that not all the former humans had been accounted for - the unmistakable snarled breathing of our posessed comrades carried through the halls"

Just a suggestion. The "I could hear that..." may sound better as "It became obvious that..."

Hope you don't think i'm being too nitpicky, dude :)

I agree. Variation of phrasing helps keep people interested. Shouldn't be a problem for those of us who have been reading these from the beginning...
Can't wait to see what's on the other end of the shaft, though...

Spike said:

"I could hear that not all the former humans had been accounted for as I could hear the unmistakable snarling breathing of former humans"

Gah, that's what happens when I don't take the time to look through the story properly before posting it.

Don't worry about it, i do it all the time (take a look at the end of 'The Underworld Chapter VI' to see what i mean - i still haven't edited that).

great one. very descriptive in this one. keep em coming.

I like the "electrified metal knuckles" bit, but how would Doomguy be able to hold on to those while going through hell?

With his hand?

Insomniac said:

I like the "electrified metal knuckles" bit, but how would Doomguy be able to hold on to those while going through hell?

In his pocket or something - brass knuckles don't take up much space and these electrified knuckles are as small as regular brass knuckles.

I see, but you mention that he got them off the thug "a few years ago". After being transfered to mars, I doubt the UAC would let him take electrified metal knuckles with him.

Sorry about the nitpicking.

P.S. now that i've done a reveiw for your latest story, how about you do one for me? Doom Squared's latest chapter hasn't gotten a single reveiw.

Insomniac said:

I see, but you mention that he got them off the thug "a few years ago". After being transfered to mars, I doubt the UAC would let him take electrified metal knuckles with him.

Sorry about the nitpicking.

You've got a point there, but I like to see the doomguy as a guy who doesn't quite follow the rules and I like to think that he managed to hide them from his superiours despite they careful inspections of his quarters.

Oh, nitpicking can be a bit annoying, but in the end, it can be beneficial for me because it makes me more cautious about those small things.

P.S. now that i've done a reveiw for your latest story, how about you do one for me? Doom Squared's latest chapter hasn't gotten a single reveiw. [/B]

I did read it, but I really hadn't anything to say to it, it was a decent, avarage fan fic, with no "holes" really (that I saw anyway), and I usually don't have much to say to these.

real great! A total inspiration to myself.