Doom - Evil Unleashed 1.3

Knee-deep in the Dead – Part 3

****

Captain Howard could see that the situation was hopeless.
Inhuman creatures had suddenly attacked the marines from everywhere and taken the Captain's men by surprise. They attacked in a bloodlust that he had never seen before, and they would soon overrun the position. They had to get out of there.

He had tried to contact Mars H.Q. in order to request evacuation, but strangely enough there was no reply.
The Captain sprayed bullets from his assault chain gun into a hallway, mowing down a few of the brown bastards with controlled burst fire.
"Head for the Research Facility!" he shouted in his radio, while shooting steadily at nearby monsters.
"Follow me!"
He waved at those of his men who were facing him and ran into the hallway with some of his soldiers right behind him.

*

Colonel Hauser stared at the screen.
This was unlike anything he had even experienced in his dreams or nightmares. Nightmarish creatures were everywhere to be seen on his monitors and the screams of the dying soldiers reached his ears. He saw a panicking soldier shoot wildly at a group of terrible monsters storming at him. One of the monsters went down with a deep growl, but the others pounded into the unfortunate soldier and his terrible scream filled Hauser's ears the next instant.
They were eating the soldier alive.

Despite the disturbing situation, Colonel Hauser was quite happy.
The troops had been able to repair the communication systems enough to allow visual monitoring of the base thus making it possible for Hauser to watch the chaotic battle. And they didn't even know that they were being watched as Hauser had neglected to tell Captain Howard that there were hidden security cameras inside the buildings, which would automatically activate when the basic systems went on-line.

The Colonel was satisfied, because he realized that these creatures could prove to be a powerful weapon, if only they found means to control them. He had decided to let his men die on Phobos, not wanting to take the risk of losing expensive dropships, trying to evacuate them. The troops were expendable, but the dropships were fairly new and enormously expensive. Besides, this was an excellent opportunity to see how effective these killers were. Hauser believed that he would learn more about these creatures from watching the battle on the screens, than by pulling the troops out and study the reports which the officers would write about these monstrosities.

The Colonel was already planning his next move.
He would find means to capture one of the creatures and conduct experiments on it. He had not responded to Captain Howard's request for evac, as he wanted the Captain to believe that the comm. systems were failing. Hauser didn't want the troops on Phobos to realize that they had been betrayed, so if any of them actually did find means to escape Phobos, which Hauser highly doubted, then he could just tell them that Mars H.Q. never received any calls for help.

There was another matter, which pleased Hauser more than the news of those killer-monsters.

Among the troops on Phobos was a single soldier, who was not just an ordinary marine. Hauser had known about this soldier since the man was born. The Colonel had ensured that he would be separated from his buddies, by ordering that he be positioned outside the base to secure the perimeter. He was convinced that 'subject TX056' would die there as he was alone and had little equipment to aid him.
"That's the best way to get rid of him" he thought to himself with a broad smile. And he was right. If the soldier died in combat the Colonel wouldn't be held responsible if he could hide the fact that he had made it harder for the soldier to survive. It shouldn't be a problem to hide this fact.

The soldier had injured Hauser's nephew as well as disobeying the nephew's orders. This was the reason why the Colonel held a lot of grudges towards him, but there was another, more valid reason as well.
Hauser smiled, as he knew that the time of his revenge had come and that an old problem, which had constantly been nagging him since 'subject TX056' began to show lack of obedience towards his superiors during his basic marine training, would now be solved.

****

The lift reached surface level.
I had encountered several former human troops as well as more of those brown demon-like bastards on my way, but I still hadn't found a single clue as to where these creatures came from. Hopefully, I would find more information if I reached the Command Control station.
For now, having made my way from the Hangar & Shipping installation through the Nuclear Plant, I needed to get through the refinery, as none of the sub monorails led directly to the Command Control building.
I knew that I had to go through very hazardous environment within this particular building. Corporal O'Brien had told us a bit about some of the facilities here during our trip to the moon.
The Refinery was a facility, where the UAC sent their special chemicals through a "purification" process, during which the chemicals were rendered quite dangerous, so it was likely that there were pools of dangerous liquids scattered around inside as well as hazardous waste materials.

I opened the door in front of me and stepped back with my shotgun in firing position.

There was nothing hostile behind the door, at least not in the immediate vicinity.
The room I was looking at was dimly lit like most of the rest of the base. A few feet ahead of me I saw a basin filled with a disgusting green liquid. Metal fencing surrounded the pool, except for a hole in the fencing in front of me. It looked like someone had been hammered through the fencing with great force. The brown, metallic floor was filthy and the hexagonal-tiled walls were damp-covered.

A deep grunting sound suddenly came from somewhere on the left. I carefully peeked around the corner to be met with a horrible sight.

On the floor near the pool lay the dead body of a technician. He was already torn to shreds.

Over the mutilated body stood a big, burly, pinkish-gray creature and plucked at the corpse's belly with its sharp, misshaped teeth. It suddenly jerked its head backwards, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh from the corpse. The thing was apparently four-legged, its hind legs somewhat smaller than its powerful front limbs, but still immensely muscular. Its deformed head sat on its chest. The monster had sharp, bull-like horns protruding from the side of the ugly head and I could see its eyes, which were glassy and lifeless.

I felt a chill down my back once again. These creatures were pure evil – I was convinced of it. The realization that I was up against purely evil beings suddenly make me feel incredibly angry. It was Anger unlike anything I had ever felt towards any human person.

"Try eating some lead instead, fiendface!" I thought, grinding my teeth, tightening my grip on the shotgun.

I leapt out of hiding and sent a shell into the thing's flank, giving it a large wound in its side. It let out a roar of pain, but remained on its feet, and the next instant it roared at me in rage and charged me.

The surprise from seeing that the monster wasn't killed by the blast dulled my reflexes and I reacted far too late.
The monster rammed right into me, sending me crashing to the floor. The thing was much faster than I had first anticipated.
My armor vest kept me from getting any ribs broken, but the shotgun flew out of my grasp. I heard it clatter on the filthy floor not far from me.
The creature made a short leap and landed just in front of where I lay.
I could feel the weight of its body as it landed. The thing was immensely powerful and the way it moved gave the impression of an enormously strong and surprisingly agile creature. It stared at me with glowing yellow eyes, which had been but dark and glassy before and it opened its bloodstained mouth. Its teeth were a dirty, yellow color and were covered in the blood of the corpse, which it had been chewing on. Its breath stank of decay.

Before it could react any further, I whipped out both of my pistols and fired at it, gritting my teeth while emptying both pistols into its ugly face and backing away from it as best as I could. The thing fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Dead. I had blown half of its mug away, revealing a small area inside its thick skull, with a disgusting, grayish substance, mixed with red blood – the perforated remains of its small brain.

I quickly got up, holstered the two pistols, picked up my shotgun and took a closer look at the dead abomination. Touching its skin, I could feel that its skin was rubbery, but its muscles were also so hard that they seemed to be made of steel.
I left the dead thing and walked over to a bulky metal door on the right side of the pool. I tried to open the door, but it would not open, so I flipped down my visor and activated my helmet computer, hoping for an explanation.

Printed in red letters, the words "Door locked by security – security code required" appeared in front of my eyes. I swore. This meant that I needed to bypass the security system somehow, or...? While wondering about what to do, my computer printed the words: "Suggestion: Shutting down toxic purification process may deactivate security locks"

I stared thoughtfully at the letters in front of my eyes for a brief moment
Lucky thing that I had a helmet computer to analyze the situation for me – I might have searched the other areas for means of shutting down the security measures, but I had probably never figured out what to do without the computer.

There was another door on the left side of the bubbling slime pool, which thankfully wasn't locked. But there were a lot of ugly monsters inside the gloomy room behind it.
I let out a loud battlecry and opened fire, while retreating backwards, avoiding the gunfire from the former humans.

Positioning myself behind a metal block holding up the fencing, I systematically picked off the advancing monsters one by one. There was a varied mix of former human troops and the smaller, brown aliens. I was a bit surprised at the former humans' stupidity. Even though they used standard combat tactics typically seen with trained infantrymen, which consisting of providing covering fire for each other, they just ran mindlessly out of the door, only to get their bodies blown apart by my shotgun's shells. My position did not allow them to bring their weapons to bear on me and I simply slaughtered them.
The aliens, however, seemed somewhat smarter. After killing two of them, the others kept away from the door. I could hear them snarl with frustration in there.

The flow of monsters stopped, but I could still hear the brown bastards growl inside. I moved towards the door, with my eyes on it, pointing my weapon at the center of the opening. A monster popped out behind its hiding spot behind the door and raised its clawed hand. Seven pellets made a big, ugly hole in its stomach, before it could throw the scorching mass at me, and it flew backwards with an agonizing howl, crashing limply onto the floor. Another brown thing leapt out from the other side of the door and hurled a flaming missile at me. Feeling the adrenaline rush in my veins, I rolled sideways, dodging the fireball, which scorched the floor a few feet away from me, and I blew the creature's head off.

I got up and carried on, still feeling anger coursing through my veins.

...

If this is your work, good job! Otherwise, why are you ripping off other people's work?

Eh?
Who am I ripping off?

Excellent work my good fellow!!
It makes all my stories look like a joke!
DIE!

It makes all my stories look like a joke!

You've written some stories?
Where are they!?