Another groan, then a sharp snapping sound as the door lost the battle. A final loud snap, and the top half of the door tipped forward.
It still blocked the stairway, but there was a big enough opening at the top that Kane could hoist himself up and crawl into the other side. But before he did that, he noticed that the stairway was dark. Again, another failure of Mars City’s emergency lighting.
A nice narrow dark stairway.
Maybe there’s another way? he thought. Fuck it….
He reached up, gun slung to his back, muzzle down, and as if he were in Quantico again, running through the rookie training ground, he climbed up the sheer piece of metal in front of the stairway and whatever awaited him.
23
“SHIT. I SEE SOMETHING,” SAID ANDY KIM.
Maria felt his fear as though it were a living thing standing next to them. She was about to say something when she noticed a shape down at the other end of the hallway she had her eyes locked on.
“More goddamn zombies,” Kim said.
But Maria, seeing the shape of what was coming toward her, knew it was no zombie. It was way too tall, too broad. What we have here, she thought, is something completely different entirely. Some new friends coming out to play.
Then the thing became more visible, and it looked like something out of some boys’ superhero vid. A head shaped like a bullet, skin catching the light like gray armor, and no eyes.
“What the—”
Then the creature at Maria’s end disappeared.
“Wait a sec—” Maria said. “Mine just vanished.”
“Mine too. Was it even real? Did we—” Andy laughed, the sound forced. “Did we scare them away?”
The thing appeared right in front of her, not all at once, but slowly, as if being squeezed out of one place and into this foul corridor. And even before it was fully there, she began firing. She used the same pattern as before, but the shells seem to disappear into the armorlike skin, not ricochet.
As if the creature could just absorb them.
And only feet away.
She kept thinking: It has no eyes. Then: But it does have a mouth, everything here gets a mouth. Mouths must not be optional.
Andy Kim’s voice passed hysterical and he yelled out his words. “Nothing’s happening! It just keeps coming!”
“Target the mouth. Just aim there!”
Maria had already stopped trying to kill the creature with shots where a heart should be but probably wasn’t. Her shots arced up from the chest to the mouth cavity already opening, teeth a dark brown, shimmering with something viscous. But now her bullets blasted into that mouth. The creature stopped, then took a step back.
As if filling a bucket, Maria kept pouring in the bullets, until the thing attempted to vanish.
Only this time it was halfway gone when the upper torso, now unsupported by legs that already had been sucked back to wherever the hell they came from, fell to the floor.
The half-creature tried to use its arms to scurry after Maria—a last-ditch attempt to get at her. Instead, what was left of it fell at her feet.
She heard Andy gag, and spun around to see a tall creature suspending him in the air with one hand, its brown teeth close to his skull as if getting ready to bite a juicy apple. The other hand was in motion, heading right toward Andy’s midsection.
Maria didn’t waste any shots on the thing’s body, and she could only hope that her aim in close quarters would be good enough.
Andy’s eyes met hers, and the emptiness she saw there, as opposed to wild panic, showed that he had already submitted to the death that was come. Probably only begging that it be fast.
Maria fired a long blast at the thing’s head, some of the shots actually entering the mouth cavity from her side angle.
Then she jammed her gun in front of her, trying to knock the creature’s other hand from hitting Andy’s middle and—in all likelihood—ripping it open.
As soon as the gunmetal hit the creature’s claw in motion, she felt how much power was behind it. Still, her strong hold caused the claw to deflect. The other claw could still close like a pincer around Andy’s neck. Maybe—a stray thought suggested—there was some reason they wanted their prey alive and kicking before being devoured. If that was what it intended to do.
The creature’s free claw closed around the muzzle of the gun. And though Maria didn’t know she was going to do this, she let the gun go free.
Some tiny bit of consciousness she hadn’t even been aware of noticed that Andy’s gun had fallen to the floor after he was grabbed.
She fell to her knees, as if performing a strange, violent religious ritual; she looked and aimed upward, now with an even better angle at the creature’s mouth. Andy’s eyes were closed. Blacked out, or…?
She just kept the trigger pulled as a seemingly endless stream of bullets flew into the creature’s maw. Then—like a bear trap springing free—the claw released Andy’s neck. Andy fell hard to the floor and didn’t move. The creature turned, slowly, stuff now erupting out of its mouth.
She noticed that it wasn’t just fluid. There were things embedded in the stream, chunks of things. All she could do was stay on her knees before this monster god and keep firing until there wasn’t a single bullet left.
And when that happened, it corresponded to the moment the creature’s stream of bile stopped. Then—an amazing moment—it too buckled at the knees and came to an almost mirror-duplicate position of Maria’s.
They faced each other, one dead, one alive.
And to finish the ceremony, Maria used the butt-end of her gun to push the creature backward, ending the services…for now.
Kane shut off his light. How long could it work if he left it on all the time? Two hours, three? Even here, in the fabled Mars City, a battery was a battery. He’d need to find some more flashlights, more ammo, and—
Better weapons…
If his instinct was right, he didn’t know what was ahead. And not knowing put him, the marines, and the entire UAC at a distinct disadvantage.
He hoped that—with the light off—his eyes might adjust to the gloom, using whatever bits of scant light that seeped in, but there didn’t seem to be any glimmers anywhere.
The darkness was near total, like a coffin interior six feet under.
He had both hands extended at his sides to feel the wall as he tentatively took the stairs step by step, feeling each step edge with his boot, then climbing up. It was so dark he thought that the only way he’d know he reached the top of the stairs would be when he either bumped into the door ahead (and there had to be a door, no?) or tried to find the next step and felt only a flat metal obstruction.
No magic night vision appeared to his eyes.
That was another tool he could use. Night goggles, some explosives, a few thermite grenades. A few? A dozen maybe. A chain gun, but he didn’t even know whether they had them up here. A rocket launcher wouldn’t be bad either.
Of course, there was no way to carry all that unless he found a nice cart to pull somewhere, making him look like a small-time weapons peddler. That image made him grin.
Maria cradled Andy’s head. Amazingly, he was still breathing. But she couldn’t get his eyes open. He needed a stim injection. Maybe more than one. Did she have any?
Maria gently lay his head down on the metal floor and turned to her side pack. She hadn’t planned for combat when this day started. A stim pack wasn’t something you usually patrolled Mars with, not when they could get a full infirmary team to you within five minutes. Every rookie removed the needles to make room for other stuff. Gum, pictures from home, a bit of hard-wired tech to watch vids or listen to music on the side.
She was sure that she had removed hers. But she dug through her pack, coming up empty-handed, then through Andy’s. She found a few pics in his. Another space marine she had seen, a cute guy who worked the transport run. Interesting—Kim had never said a word.
But no stim needles.
“D
amn,” she thought. She’d have to leave Andy and go find them. Won’t that be fun.
But just as she was about to get up and use her PDA to find where the nearest military storeroom was, she heard something. A bang. Then another. Something…down there. Christ, she thought, doesn’t this ever let up?
She clicked a new cartridge into place in Andy’s gun. She took a breath, stood up, and waited.
The twin banging noises were followed by a groaning sound, metal protesting against being moved. Maria gave her shoulders a shake—a boxer’s move, getting loose and ready for the assault. Only now, all alone, ready was one thing she didn’t feel at all.
24
THEO RAN TOWARD THE LIGHTS AHEAD. Maybe there will be real people there, he thought. He had dodged some of the others, the ones who looked all twisted, as if something had melted them. Now as he ran he heard noises behind him.
Not the heavy steps of the things that used to be soldiers, but a light tapping against the metal floor. He kept pumping, but he decided to risk glancing back…and he saw what was running after him so fast.
Bugs. At least, they looked like bugs, or spiders of some kind. A lot of them, right on his heels.
He started to pump his arms harder, as if somehow that could make his legs move faster. He told himself—warned himself—Don’t slip. One slip, and in seconds they would be on him.
(And what would they do, what would they do to him?)
Don’t think of that either, he thought. And so he kept looking at the light, now not so far away, not knowing where he was or where the light led to or even if it was a good or bad thing. He just kept sprinting as fast as he could.
Maria looked down at Andy. One good thing about his being out cold—if it ends here, he’ll miss it.
And she had to wonder: Is it something I should miss too? Instead of letting them get me? It could all be over so fast…. No, screw that, she thought. She hadn’t come this far—literally—to take her own life.
The thing at the end of the hall was a dark, hulking shape. A solitary figure now moving toward her.
She raised her weapon, ready for the next attack, finger tight on the trigger.
The bright lights seemed to be at the end of the hallway. Theo thought that he was trapped, like when he’d play hide-and-seek with the kids from school, and somehow you ended up in an alleyway where there was no place to go. No place to run.
But as he hit the corner, he saw that the hallway turned left, then went straight a bit more, where he saw…
A train. No—what were they called? A monorail! Like at the theme park they went to. He saw it sitting there, the door open. Was it broken? Did somebody need to come and get it running again?
He could still hear the chatter of the legs on metal closer now.
He ran into the open monorail car and pressed against the wall. Only when he was inside did he notice the big red smears that went from the floor to the wall. He stepped away from the splotches to the front of the monorail car. His hands felt behind him as he did.
Then Theo saw the spider things hit the same corner he had just come from. In only seconds they’d be there, ready to climb into the car and trap him.
A voice from above, over the internal speaker system. “Monorail D2 is preparing to depart.”
A chance for escape…but would it leave in time? From his angle, Theo could see outside, waiting for the first spider-creature to reach the open door.
Then the soothing voice again. “Attention: Monorail now departing for Delta Labs. Please hold on.”
He saw the first spider arrive. It didn’t see the monorail, the open door. He forced himself to be still while he waited for the door to shut, so horribly slowly creeping to a closed position.
Another spider…Theo saw the narrow heads on top of the insectile body.
The two of them outside finally turned, seeing the monorail and the opening, shifting, rearing back, and Theo knew they were going to leap in. But the door had only inches left to close. In that moment when they pulled back to leap into the car, the door finally shut.
And the calm, soothing voice came back as the monorail left this place.
“Please hold on during our journey to Delta Labs. Thank you, and have a nice day in Mars City.”
Theo’s heart pumped. Had he touched something to make it go, or did it just go, back and forth between the place he had been and the place he was going to?
And what would be waiting for him at the other end of this trip?
Maria licked her lips. Time to start blasting—fill the thing with holes and see what stops it. And do that to the next one, and the one after that, on and on. My new job. Until I’m the last one left, until here is no more ammo. My own private little Alamo.
Her finger tightened. Then a bit of light from her end caught the front of the body walking to her. She noticed again how its gait wasn’t like the others’, that confused step of something mastering a new skill.
It walked like a human.
She hesitated, and then as more light came into the hallway, she saw that it was indeed human. A space marine who hadn’t been put through the meat grinder of whatever happened here. Then a few more steps, and she recognized the face.
She whispered the word to herself at first: “Kane.” Then louder, coming out of her crouch: “Kane!”
And Maria couldn’t remember feeling quite as good in a very long time.
Theo looked out the window as the monorail went into a stone tunnel. Lights made the surrounding redbrick glow. Then the track quickly curved up, climbing a bit, before leveling off.
Where did it say it was going? Delta Labs? Was that a good place to be going?
He pressed his face against the glass. Maybe there would be people there to take care of him.
The stone tunnel changed to all metal. “Approaching Delta Labs. Please make sure to take all your belongings with you and have your Security IDs ready.”
No belongings, no ID. So Theo just waited.
25
KANE AND MARIA STOOD LOOKING AT EACH other without saying a word for what seemed like a long time. Then she took a step closer to him, and he knew that the silence was born of the awareness that—standing here in this corridor filled with death—they both had seen and done things that could never be erased from their minds, things that they both might never be able to talk about.
And perhaps the idea that this was far from over.
And with that awareness, Kane watched Maria do something so unexpected but at the same time something that felt perfectly natural.
She leaned forward and kissed him.
It had been so long. Kane stood still, unsure about what to do. But then his arms, bruised and battered as they were, went around Maria and pulled her tight. And after that kiss, they just stood there, holding each other tight, the human contact so good.
But even as Kane hugged her back hard, his eyes kept peering past her, down one end of the corridor, and he hoped that she was doing the same.
Until finally, reluctantly, they let their clinch go, and Maria moved away from him.
Kane smiled. “So where did that come from?”
And Maria smiled back. “Maybe I’m just glad you’re not one of them.”
“Me too.”
“Hm?”
“I’m glad you’re not one of them also.”
Slowly, even more reluctantly, they let the moment pass. There were things to do if they were to stay alive.
Maria started: “Look, Andy here had a run-in with this big thing. No eyes that I could see. Armor skin.”
“Yeah, one of them nearly got me.”
“What the hell is it?”
Kane held up his PDA. “No communication from the front office on that question. No—what’s the word?—‘memo’ on what to call them.”
“They seem to be able to appear, and vanish.”
“Noticed that too.”
“I had a book once where something did that…called an imp.”
�
�Bet it wasn’t that big.”
She laughed. “Or that ugly. Still—”
“‘Imp’ it is, then. Good to name these things. I also ran into something new.” A breath. “Actually more than one. Spiderlike things, or like a giant mite, the size of a dog. They had this head emerging from the top. Not actually a head, almost a small torso—like two creatures in one.”
“How about ‘trite’?”
Kane smiled. “‘Trites.’ Good. So when you find yourself in a room full of them, you can say, ‘Got a lot of goddamn trites here.’” He looked down at the man on the floor. “Is he…dead? Or one of them now?”
“No. That’s Andy Kim. Stood by me when things just kept coming. The imp had him, and he’s unconscious. I don’t have my stim packs. Everyone dumps them.”
Kane started digging around in his small side pack. “Not a newbie. I’ve used one myself.” He pulled out the small wrapped syringe. “You want to do the honors?”
Maria took the pack, ripped open the top, and took out the needle. “Don’t know much about first aid, so this might not even be good for him.”
“Probably better than lying on the floor here, waiting.”
“Right.”
Maria removed the cap that covered the needle end and brought the needle close to Andy’s carotid artery. She had heard that the best thing to do was shoot it right into the artery. She looked up at Kane.
“Sure you don’t want to do this? You must have seen the training vid more recently than me.”
Kane held out his hands, bloody, bruised, and banged—probably clumsy things even when not all messed up.
“I think you best proceed, Doctor.”
She pressed the needle into a spot below the line made by the vein. The chemical cocktail of the stim hypo should hit Andy fast, and he’d either be able to get up or not.
The needle pushed the skin in—she could see it stretch a bit. Then more pressure, and the needle punctured. A small bloom of blood surrounded the thin stem of the needle. Maria kept her hands as steady as she could, her thumb on the small plunger, and then slowly began to press down.
Doom 3™: Maelstrom Page 11