The DOOM Chronicles

Chapter 42: The Chasm

"Here, I hear gunfire!" Jack said, racing off down the darkened corridor, flashlights bobbing wildly in the gloom. Jennifer followed after him.

Past the bleacher room was a maze of dark, narrow corridors that, mercifully, had only contained a handful of tired zombies that weren't all that interested in putting up a fight. If anything, they seemed grateful each time Jack put a round between their eyes.

Hollenshead hadn't provided any further transmissions since his initial one and the tension had grown to an ache in Jack's chest as they raced around, both terrified of what each next turn might bring, and that something had happened to the man. If there was ever a time when they needed the help of the big guy, it was now.

The sound of a chaingun chattering away wildly grew louder.

"Hollenshead, can you hear me?!" Jack snapped.

"Hell yeah, I hear you!" he replied, finally coming in over the radio.

"We're coming out of a door somewhere near your position now so check your fire!"

"Consider it checked! Oh you want some motherfucker!?" he screamed and a new burst of gunfire sounded.

There was the door! The hallway finally terminated in a simple steel door and as they opened it up, they found the man himself standing on a platform of dull brown rock, firing away at a flotilla of Cacodemons and Lost Souls with a chaingun. The pair rushed out, joining him in opening fire, and wiped out the incoming demons. As the last Cacodemon popped, Hollenshead let out a warcry. "That's right motherfuckers! Drown in it!"

"You okay?" Jack asked, looking the man over. His armor looked about as chewed up and bloodied as the rest of theirs did, maybe even more so.

"Fine," Hollenshead replied. "Got a bitch of a headache but whatever. How about you two?"

"The initial trip into Hell fucked me up," Jack replied, rolling his shoulders and wincing. "I'm all ache-y, like recovering from a brutal workout. And yeah, I've got a headache too."

"Same," Jennifer said. "I don't think we were supposed to go through that one."

"Well, we survived," Hollenshead said.

"We did...now what?" Jack asked, looking around.

They had come to an enormous room that gave him the impression of a vast underground cavern. They stood along not a platform, exactly, but a pathway that extended to the left and the right, curving out of sight in both directions, though it came back into view before long to the left. The edge of this path, a few feet ahead of him, terminated in a huge drop, easily seventy or eighty feet down, letting into what appeared to be bubbling toxic acid. Overhead, he could just make out a rocky ceiling. Ahead of them, with seemingly no way to get to it, was an island that looked important. He could see a metal door in the front of the structure built onto it stamped with the UAC logo.

"I was trying to figure out how to get over there," Hollenshead replied, indicating the island.

"You checked any of this place out yet?" Jennifer asked.

"No. I was in another place and took one of those teleport pads, appeared in those dark halls back there, stumbled out here into this mess," he replied. "Haven't seen anyone else."

"Us either," Jack said. He heaved a sigh. "Well...let's investigate."

He picked the right pathway at random and the three of them began moving down it.

"So this is Hell, huh?" Hollenshead asked.

"Apparently," Jack replied. "Place sucks."

"Yeah. I guess I'm glad we got a taste of it back in Haydenfield. Shit, though, this whole place just feels wrong. Like everything. The vibe is all fucked. I wanna go home. I'm all for a good fight, and I'll stomp any demon into the mud that we find, but like...I thought I'd like it here."