Doom Story Update

2k words. Sorry about no upload yesterday I had a long weekend.

***

“See? I’m not just a pretty voice. Marking the location now.”

A transparent ping flashed on his HUD, Andreas detouring west to follow it. It was almost nighttime, the streets plunged into darkness as the sun receded behind the skyscrapers coring the city. Night vision was built into his visor, Andreas using his wrist-computer to dial it on, the world plastered with flickering shades of green. Without the power grid, it would soon be impossible to see by eye.

The safehouse wasn’t very far, a pack or two of demons barring the way, Andreas dispatching them with relative ease. Ironically, it was his encounters with the demonic that put him more at ease than the walking. He’d lived in a city most of his childhood, and seeing a hub of civilisation so utterly empty was eery, off-putting. There weren’t even any bodies, Hell’s endless hunger had seen to cleaning up the biomatter, leaving only rusted metal and broken glass behind.

After passing the next block, he was on the same street as the marker, feeling like he was being watched as he moved down the footpath. A hundred windows and more loomed over the street, the apartment complexes eroded to the point they were tilting on their foundations.

Eva’s mark was hidden behind a post fence, and adjacent to that was an interesting building. Sitting flush between two complexes was a whitewashed structure with an angular roof, a line of pillars supporting an extruded entryway, made accessible by a small flight of steps. The sign above the doors was scratched and faded, leaving only the letters L and B still legible. Perhaps it was a theatre of some kind, but Andreas wasn’t in the mood for exploring, his marker fading as he approached the neighbouring building.

Andreas tore a hole through the fence posts with a shoulder-check, stepping through the gap into the world’s smallest backyard. There was a small garden of withered flowers in one corner, and a dog house in another, an overturned feeding bowl laying between. A brick wall lined the far side of the square patch of dead grass, two doors built into the façade. One led inside, the other leading underground.

Andreas moved to the latter, tugging the handle, but finding the sloped entrance was barred by a padlock with a number combination.

“They forgot to mention a code,” Eva mused. “Hold on while I get back to them.

Andreas smashed the butt of his rifle against the lock, the clang of metal followed by a quiet clink as the padlock fell to the grass.

“Andreas,” Eva scolded.

“What?” he replied innocently. “It’s not like anyone’s coming to use it anymore.”

He stepped down into the musty interior, ducking his head beneath the concrete roof as he moved into the cellar. After descending a short way, he emerged into a cramped cube, every inch of concrete taken up by shelving units and storage boxes, each one stacked with ammunition boxes, sidearms, and all manner of rifles.

A small stool centred the space, and sitting upon it was a portable radio, plugged into a battery sitting between the wooden legs. Andreas moved around it and started searching the place.

He found spare ammo for his sidearm and plasma rifle, sitting down on the bunk bed stuffed into the corner as he filled his pockets. Further searching revealed a box full of preserved goods, a deck of cards, and a working microwave. One could live down here for a good while if they didn’t mind the cramped space.

The thought got him wondering how many poor sods had tried to hide out the invasion, only to have cornered themselves in places like this. The Rallypoint wasn’t big enough to hold everybody in the country, how many had been lost during the evacuation? Thousands? Millions?

Not another soul, he told himself. One way or the other, he’d get these shards to the Rallypoint. ARC and the human race were counting on it.

“Are you alright, Seargent?” Eva asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Just taking five. Let’s see about these guns you mentioned…”

He moved over to the weapon racks, shifting through their contents. There was a cleaver among a pile of improvised weapons, which made as good a replacement for his bowie knife as anything. Next he browsed the rifle racks, most of them of the caseless variety, along with a few looted plasma guns similar to his own, nothing of note. That was, until he reached the last weapon in the lineup.

Leaning against the cabinet was an elongated barrel, topped off with a foregrip and trigger guard, before Eva could put a word in, Andreas snagged the rocket launcher and turned it over in his hands, glancing around the room for canisters.

“It’s not exactly discreet,” Eva said as he searched. “but then again neither are you. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“You did good, Eva,” he replied, at last finding a canister. It was cylindrical in shape, with four holes drilled around a rotating mechanism, a little like something one might find in a revolver, only scaled up to fit rockets.

His ransacking uncovered over a dozen warheads the size of pepper shakers, Andreas filling the cylinder, then smacking it home inside the launcher, thumbing the safety. He attached the rest of the rockets to his rigging. On top of his Argent shards, he was basically a walking bomb at this point.

“All done?” Eva asked. “Good. Picking up a lot of traffic in the surrounding area. Don’t linger.”

Using a spare sling, he clipped it to the stock of the launcher, then slung the bulky weapon over his shoulder. With a satisfied nod, he turned back for the exit, each step followed by clinking noises as his new rockets jostled around.

Putrid air greeted him as he stepped back out into the yard, closing the cellar behind him as he returned to the street. He watched his footing as he stepped through the ruined fence, and when he looked up, his heart skipped a beat.

There was the Baroness, louning on the hood of a car just a short distance to his right, one meaty leg crossed over the other. She was posing like a model on the cover of a swimsuit mag, her profile all curves and streamlined muscles, the way her wide hip rose like an ocean wave drawing his eyes.

“Well well well,” Sharraya purred, putting on an air of pleasant surprise. “if it isn’t the slippery, milk drinking mortal with a temper! What were you doing in that dank basement just now?”

“I’ll show you,” Andreas replied.

His speed blinding, he unslung his launcher, peering down the sights and lining up the pins with the Baroness’ head. He pulled the trigger, a rocket whistling from the barrel, its rear end igniting with jet flame. Sharrya’s eyes bugged out of their sockets, her relaxed muscles now tensing as she rolled off the car, clutching her horns as the warhead flew over her head and blasted the wall behind her, sending bricks in all directions.

“Woah, nice shot!” Sharrya said, looking over her shoulder at the vapourising smoke cloud. “Really showed that building who is boss. Can we not have a civilised discussion for once, Andreas?”

“Unless you’re offering your surrender, we have nothing to talk about,” he replied, raising a brow as the Baroness dusted herself off, then leaned on a hip, as if he hadn’t just tried to blow her to kingdom come just now.

“On the contrary, I have all sorts of questions you’re going to answer,” she replied, raising a claw. “The locations of your comrades in arms, for one. Assuming you’re not all by your lonesome, of course.”

Andreas considered just shooting her again, but the pressure he put on the trigger was only faint. She wasn’t making any move to attack him, and she was bothering to exchange words rather than blows with him this time around. Perhaps he should humour her while he figured out a way to give her the slip.

“I’ve got a whole section of men just round the corner, actually, maybe you can come along and I’ll introduce you?”

She chuckled, her husky voice oddly soothing. He would have called the noise pleasant under more mortal circumstances.

“So you are alone,” she mused, reading him like a book. “A lonesome gnat, biting the toes of Hell’s most accomplished Baron? What were you thinking?”

“Ask that to yourself,” he shot back. “Should have brought down one of the other dropships. Their seargents are way less thorough than I am.”

“Dropships? Whatever are you on about, you blithering….”

She stopped herself, taking a moment to turn the gears in her head. “Oh,” she added. “Oh you poor, poor thing. You were on that aircraft? It seems I am, indeed, partially to blame for this mess you’ve made, Andreas.”

“Seargent,” he corrected.

“Oh, forgive me!” she said, placing a hand on her endowed chest and feigning shock. “Are we not on a first name basis yet? Maybe we should get better acquainted – with you chained in a cell, perhaps?”

“Kinky,” Andreas replied. “But I don’t do prisoner, especially to pretentious bints with horns.” 

“Oh, you are feisty for such a little thing.”

“And your ego’s as big as you are. Now are we about done? I’ve got places to be.”

“Have it your way, we can continue our banter somewhere else. The dungeons of my cathedral are rather sparse as of late.”

From over her shoulder, through the cracked windows and side streets, a dozen imps took up positions by her flank, teeth and claws bared. Overwatching this new force was a cacodemon, its cyclopean features grinning down at Andreas as it floated over the procession.

Andreas slotted a fresh rocket into the expended cylinder his chest tightening as a scuffle behind him drew his attention. He turned, spotting another dozen imps moving in from the opposite side of the street, maybe a hundred meters off but sprinting over on knuckles and knees. He was boxed in.

“Turn and run, Seargent,” Eva said. “You can’t fight this one.”

Not needed to be told twice, Andreas turned on his heel, bolting up the steps towards the ornate building, the one with the pillars.

“You’re not escaping this time!” Sharrya teased from behind him. “Seize him, you limp-wristed runts. Don’t feast on him too much, I want him alive.”

Bolts of inferno criss-crossed above him as he dove behind the closest pillar, slinging his launcher back in favour of his rifle. Exhaling, he leaned out of cover, spotting a pair of imps crawling up the steps after him. He sent them tumbling back with a burst of plasma, the bolts turning flesh to goop.

The rest of the pack retaliated with a barrage of inferno, scorching that entire side of the pillar, the demons keeping him pinned as their braver ilk tried advanced. He dashed for the building, spraying bolts from the hip as he withdrew inside.

A cursory glance confirmed the building was a library, and a fairly grand one at that, the lobby flanked on all sides by bookshelves, the units arranged in concentric rings that bloomed out the further they went. The floor cratered in places with chunks of debris fallen from the ceiling, the shelves were empty, and the aroma of burning paper hung thick in the air. The place was a state, much like everything else in this city.

The reception counter was mostly intact, Andreas vaulting over the varnished surface, the air growing hotter as fireballs streaked through the air. He turned out to return fire, catching an imp making to dash through the entryway, his head popping like a melon.

“What now, Eva?” he demanded. “Got me an exit strategy?”

“Working on it,” she replied. “Hold them off for one, two Mississippi’s.”

Andreas sprayed down the entryway, forcing the imps behind the pillars or below the stairs, the demons popping up to hurl fireballs. Most of them were clustering around the flanks to the entrance, too hesitant to make a break through his killing zone.

Holding out his new toy, Andreas hoisted his launcher over his shoulder, sending a rocket downrange. The whistling pitch of the flying rocket was almost serene, which was broken as the explosion hit one of the pillars, catching a handful of imps and sending stone and blood chunks everywhere in a spray.

The launcher made a satisfying clunk, the cylinder rotating like a giant revolver, the next ordnance sliding into the barrel.

“Eva…” he muttered, the explosion muffled by his helmet.

“Got it!” she replied after a pause. “Satellite imagery shows an exit up on the roof. Fire escape, maybe. It’s on the other end of the library. You can jump to the next roof over and get some high ground.”

“Who am I, Faith Conners? I’m not jumping off buildings.”