The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 17: Phobos Anomaly

The tram rolled smoothly into its station.

Jack and the others had been preparing themselves for heavy resistance. He was imagining an army of Z-Secs, waves of Imps, a shifting, living wall of Demons. But as they played their lights out over the darkened tram receiving station, all the pale shafts of light revealed was dented, bullet-riddled, bloodstained walls. No bodies, though. Jack frowned as he continued hunting for something, anything, checking out the niches and shadows and alcoves and vents for signs of life. He couldn't see anything, then again, he was still inside the tram.

"Cover me," he said, stepping forward.

"Taylor, go with him," Blackmore replied.

Jennifer stepped up and joined him. Jack reached out and hit the doors. They slid open. The sound was terribly loud in the dead silence. The two of them carefully stepped out onto the platform. It creaked ominously beneath them. They spread out slowly, apprehension obvious in their tight movements. Three minutes ticked by with a painful lethargy as they checked the area. But there was nothing. No zombies lurked in the shadows, no Imps hid in the vents. Nothing. They finished their sweep.

"We're clear!" Jack called.

"Where the hell is everyone?" Jennifer muttered. "This should be heavily guarded."

"Maybe we got lucky," Jack replied as the others came out. "Maybe they're busy elsewhere or maybe they're pulling out. Either way, we need to take advantage while we still can, find a way to destroy that gateway."

"Couldn't agree more," Blackmore said as he joined them. "Let's go."

They crossed the platform, making their way over to the single door. It was huge, ominous, creepy as hell. The five of them gathered before it, guns ready, flashlights on. Thompson opened the door on Blackmore's command.

There was nothing living waiting for them.

Only the dead waited.

Jack spent a long moment trying to contemplate what he was seeing. It was like his brain simply wasn't processing it. He remembered a similar situation happening during one his first times seeing combat. He'd been in Peru, guarding a base from an assault by a local mercenary force. One of them had fired a rocket and it had hit somewhere nearby. Jack had been sprayed with blood and he'd turned and that same thing had happened. Something was wrong with the man who had been fighting beside him a moment before.

But he just couldn't tell what.

He remembered that he'd kept blinking, like he had something in his eye, and then finally it had kicked in, his brain had finally caught.

His head was missing.

It had been taken clean off by a flying piece of shrapnel.

Only this was worse. A lot worse.

They were standing at the beginning of a very long corridor that was cast in a broken, flickering light, though this light did not come from malfunctioning bulbs, but from candles. They were attached to the walls in pairs, stretching away from them. And the walls themselves, they were stonework, not metal, and not the kind of stone they'd seen so far, built from lunar regolith. This was the kind of heavy brickwork you might see in a castle.

But, worst of all, were the bodies.

There had to be dozens of them at least. They were crucified to the walls, stripped naked, spidery trails of blood emanating from their wrists and ankles, pooling on the floor. Their heads hung limply towards their chests and their faces were still caught in a rictus, a visage of pain and agony. The hallway seemed to go on for a while.