Doom
By Damo Gill

A shower of blood shot forth from his chest. He looked down in time to see the claws receding back through his chest. An overwhelming dizziness washed over him. He gasped for air, but nothing reached his punctured lungs. His eyes began to glaze over and he slumped to the floor.

A recorded message blared over the intercom.

“Hull Breech. Safety shutters closing”

“God dammit, now we gotta do this piece of shit job in the dark” Mitch grumbled as the large metal shutters slowly closed down over the windows, blocking out the bright orange glow from harsh surface of Mars. They had arrived at Mars City only an hour before, and already things were looking bad. There were strange sounds, almost like moans, echoing down the desolate corridors, and the skittering sound of something moving in the shadows. Something serious was going on.

It was pretty obvious something was wrong when they had walked into the arrival lobby and found blood, spattered up the walls, desks and the computer screens. Room after room after that were covered in blood, bullet shells, a sliced piece of flesh and sometimes even a limb or two. No whole bodies were ever found. They had been sent to Mars City to enquire as to why they had not made their weekly report, but never had they expected this. The power was out all through the structure, and only essential machines were running on the back-up generator. Some idiot in engineering obviously must have thought that lights weren’t essential.

“Come on, let’s keep moving” They walked down the corridor, their .45mm standard issue fully automatic assault rifles cocked up against their shoulders, one eye always peering down the aim, finger always ready to pull the trigger.

“Be careful Greg”, Mitch warned. They walked into the scientists living quarters. More blood, more shells, more limbs. By the amount of shells on the ground, it was obvious the Marines stationed here were overrun quickly. There were no more then 20 shells lying on the floor. What ever had gotten to these marines wasn’t messing around.

“What could do this?” Mitch muttered as he picked his way through the blood-spattered carnage.

“Shut up, can you hear that?” Greg whispered. They listened. The sound was coming from an air duct on the other side of the room. It sounded like something wet was being teared. They walked slowly over to the vent. It was open. Mitch aimed his rifle while Greg carefully bent down to look.

“Holy Shit!” Greg screamed as he jumped away from the vent, “Shoot!” Mitch didn’t hesitate. He began to unleash a clip into the vent. A shrill, inhuman scream rang from the duct. The last bullet shot from the gun and slammed into the vent.

“What the hell was that?” Mitch yelled.

“I don’t know, but god dammit we’re getting the hell out of here”, Greg cried as he pulled himself off the floor.

As they made their way out of the living quarters and down the corridor, Greg couldn’t stop playing back what he had seen in the vent. The claws, the teeth, the blood. He had been so lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t realised that he had taken a wrong turn. He also hadn’t realised that Mitch was no longer running beside him.

“Greg, were the hell you gone!” Mitch called into the darkness. He had just realized that he was no longer running alongside Greg.

“Hey man, quite messing, I’m scared” He stuttered. There was a scrape to his left and he spun around, rifle at the ready. Nothing there.

“Weird” He continued to walk down the hall. He turned a corner. He had no idea where he was, or where he was going. There was a scuttling over the floor.

“Who’s there, I swear to god Greg, if that’s you, I’m going to blow your freaking brains out” he yelled. He had the odd feeling he was being followed. He felt inhuman eyes watching him. Mitch walked through a door to the left of the hall.

Computer screens gave out a faint glow over the room. He knew where he was. It was the observation lab. He walked in and looked at one of the computers. The screen read “Error: Malfunction in Stasis Lab 3”. He had no idea what that meant. There was a thud from the hall and he turned, thinking it might be Greg. It stood there, staring him straight in the eyes. Mitch’s mouth dropped open. He tried to walk backwards but tripped over a chair and fell against the floor. He looked back over. It hadn’t moved. It was still standing there, watching him. Grabbing the desk, he pulled himself up. Mitch tried to release his gun from the strap on his back, but was so scared, that he dropped it. He quickly turned around, bent down and picked it up spun back and pelted 10 bullets into the empty door way.

“What the fu…..” that’s all he had time to say as his left arm flew away from the rest of his body in a bloody arc and landed on the floor a few metres away from him. Everything went black.

What the hell am I supposed to do now, Greg thought to himself. He had been wandering around lost for 20 minutes and he still had not found Mitch. He kept jogging. After a while, he realised some things were looking kind of familiar. He took a left, and found himself outside the infirmary. Mitch probably made his way to the shuttle, Greg convinced himself. He retraced his steps and soon found himself at the check-in station. To his right was the observation lab, and to his left was the hangar, where his shuttle was held. He was about to turn left when he heard a clang of metal on metal. He turned, and realised it was coming from the observation lab.

He walked through into the observation lab, gun loaded and ready. The room was covered in blood. His mouth dropped. There was Mitch, lying propped up against the wall, using his shredded right arm to tap his rifle on the metal. He was messed up. Missing an arm and a leg and looked as though something had tried to take a bite out of his face.