The following story is a work of fiction. Apart from being based on Doom 3,
the work itself has no ties to id Software whatsoever.
No parts of the story should be used without consent.

by Nick P.

Special thanks to Tim Corwin for helping with the story and of course, Paul!

MRE: Meal Ready to Eat. I don’t know if ‘Meal’ is a suitable word. And it may be ready to eat, but certainly not tasty. Still, though it may not please a 5-star French gourmet chef, it was way, way better than the cafeteria food I had been forced to rely on for months upon months. I felt that all these years I had missed out.

            We found a whole room of them, among other things and emergency supplies. Unfortunately, there was no ammo, but there was a rack of light armour. Also, the room was easy to lock from the inside and had plenty of flashlights. Tim and I sat among the boxes, preparing our meals. Due to their abundance, we had turned 6 flashlights on and scattered them about the room. I felt safe under all the light and behind a locked door. I still however kept my gun at my side, ready to be used if some imp wanted to join our party. Or if Tim tried to get it.

            ‘Just Add Water’. I followed the instructions and took a bite. Could I just add ketchup?

            “Way better than the cafeteria food, eh?” said Tim, reading my thoughts.

            “Yeah,” I agreed as I popped another noodle in my mouth.

            Tim spoke again. “So Corporal, those fireworks were your doing?”

            “Yes.”

            “Well, I must say, though they did not go along with protocol and broke about a dozen rules, they were still impressive.”

            “Yeah.”

            Another pause, this time I broke it.

            “You know Tim, you’re not that bad of a guy. Why were you such an asshole all these years?”

            “Me?” asked Tim quite suddenly, as if he was offended. “You were the one who stuck his nose up high in the air and left every time I entered the room. How was I an asshole?”

            I thought about this for a second. “So all these years of torture was a misunderstanding?”

            “Maybe not,” he replied thoughtfully. “But times change, and now we’re stuck together. Maybe that’s why. I mean, you brake the rules and as I strain for my perfect record,” he threw in a grin at this point, “I can’t afford to be around people like you.”

            “Yeah.”

Me, a troublemaker? Nah…

            Don’t get me wrong. I am actually a pretty good marine. When protocol goes to hell and lead starts flying, I am one damn good marksman. Guns, all kinds of them, work flawlessly under my control, each bullet landing where I intend. I am a team player, flawless in many ways, and always keep up. It’s just all of the discipline that pisses me off. I mean, discipline is not bad, but they give us way too much of it when we should be working on our accuracy or something of that sort.

            “Let me guess,” I said. “You’ve been wanting to join the Marines since you were 5, right?”

            “2, that’s when my dad told me all about them. He was a Marine too, see, and I am walking in his footsteps.”

            “I see. Well, all these years of learning how to shoot stuff should come in handy now,” I said, motioning to some vague area outside our room. “Zombies and demons, man! I wish I knew what was going on.”

            Tim nodded. “You know what? I think it’s a good thing you set off those fireworks.”

            Hmmm, sudden change in the subject? Well, ok.

            “You do?”

            “Yes. See, otherwise you would’ve been along with the others when they were attacked or zombified or whatever.”

            Well, I think he had a point. “Go on,” I said.

            “And the reason I’m here is because I was practising after-hours as usual. We were away from the rest and wave of evil stuff or whatever missed us, it rolled by us.”

            Thank you Black Flowers 4500, and thank you Tyler for the idea! Uh, and I guess Mexican guy too for cheering me on.

            Hmm, I had forgotten about Mexican guy. I wondered if he would look for some tortilla MREs at this point. 

            “So,” I spoke again. “We restore power, fly the hell out of here, tell our pals on Earth what happened, and that’s it! No more military, we can retire!”

            A rather grave look crossed Tim’s face.

            I laughed.

            “What are you into, staff sergeant? You can’t be an obsessive marine 25 hours a day, 687 days a year, right?”

            “Well yes, I guess you’ve never really caught me off-duty. I don’t know, I just keep up with the stuff that’s going on back on Earth, family and friends, stuff like that, you know?”

            I thought about my family and friends. Close as I was to them (close meaning 75,146,021 kilometres) I only got depressed when I talked to them. Why? Simply listening to how they were enjoying their time, to how they went to the park or some party… It was as if they were rubbing it in my face, all of the fun I was missing, all because of Briggs…

            I cleared my head and asked a question.

            “You listen to any kind of music?”

            Perhaps I haven’t mentioned this because of all these damn zombies: I love music. It’s what helps me get by. If it wasn’t for some soothing Pink Floyd after 500 sit-ups and a face-full of spit from the drill sergeant, I’d be sitting in solitary confinement.

            “Uh, not really. I do sometimes listen to MC Hammer.”

            I cocked an eyebrow.

            “Sergeant, I didn’t ask you what your favourite instrument was. Just music.”

            Tim laughed and began to explain. “No, see it’s a 20^th century—”

“I know very well who he is,” I interrupted. “He’s a 20^th century cab-driver.”

Tim laughed again, and I did too until a noodle landed in my eye.

I tried to bring some common ground forth. “What do you think of military action at this point?”

“I don’t know. When I joined, I thought I’d be shooting some deranged fanatics and Afghani extremists. But bloody zombies, it’s… it’s not quite what I bargained for.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Not the kind of stories you’ll want to tell your kids before bedtime, eh? Hey, where’s the water?”

Tim handed me a bottle.

“Thanks.”

After eating several MREs that I hoped I wouldn’t loose later, we decided to spend the night in the room. I felt full, with food and energy. I felt as if I could take on a dozen zombies with a knife. Of course, a little nap beforehand wouldn’t hurt. That, and also there’d be sunlight during daytime, filtering through the windows.

            I had forgotten what a beautiful thing sunlight is.

*          *          *

We took turns sleeping, even though we felt pretty safe. However, I didn’t want to become an indistinct blob of red around some demon’s mouth, and neither did Tim. Having my body disfigured into nothing more than spineless mush is not my idea of fun. I slept until early morning, when a refreshing kick to the stomach alerted me that it was time to switch.

            I inquired as to why he had kicked me to wake me up.

            “Well, tapping you on the shoulder and a glass of cold water didn’t do the trick. So, I took the next logical step,” he answered. I nodded. I can sleep though just about anything, whether it be a zombie revving a chainsaw or a parade of Black Flower 4500s.

            I glanced around but couldn’t find the shotgun. Damn it! Tim must’ve taken it while I was sleeping, the dirty bastard. Still, I had been hugging the weapon as if it was a cuddly teddy bear. And you know, it might as well have had two round years and warm fur. I loved it, and it loved me. And now, Tim had taken it.

            But where could he have put it?

            With a sigh, I gave up, leaned against a crate filled with MREs, and sat there, thinking. And then I fumbled with my pistol. I ran my fingers along its metallic surface. I had done the same thing weeks ago at lectures drawn on by Briggs. How could I’ve known that I’d be doing the exact same thing a week later in a supplies closet with Tim. Tim Davis, of all people.

            My feelings toward Tim had gotten considerably colder since he ‘stole’ my shotgun. So, when it was time for me to wake him up, I decided to do so with a nice kick to the stomach as well.

            “Ow,” he groaned. “Damn it, I’m not a football.”

            I scratched my head. Ok?

            “Wake up Timmy, time to go to school.”

            “Wa- What?” He slowly got up. “Oh, it’s you.”

            “Yeah, it’s me. So tell me, where’d you sneak the shotgun? Just curious, you know. I mean, it’s ok…”

            This seemed to piss Tim off. “What do you mean? I didn’t touch your damn shotgun!”

            “Ok, then where is it?”

            He shrugged.

            “Come on, Tim. We’re stuck here, no point in doing things like this. Tell me: where is it?”

            “I don’t have it!”

            “You’re full of bull—”

            His voice rose higher. “I don’t have it! What do I have to do to prove it? Huh? We’re being attacked by god-knows-what, do you think I’d play silly games like some little 5-year-old on the playground… I… What the—”

            Well, Tim was just beginning to convince me, when there was a loud explosion. From within our tiny room, that is, and that’s the scary part. Tim and I looked around nervously, forgetting all about our argument. Pistols at hand, we moved with our backs against the wall.

            And then, the boxes filled with MREs exploded outwards, flying in all directions, the ready-to-eat meals smashing against the walls and other crates, hurling at us as well. From behind the splinters and torn carton jumped out a vicious-looking zombie, its blood-covered mouth flexing its needle-like fangs that I think were a new addition. It roared wildly, and then we saw that it was the proud new owner of our shotgun.

            The zombie seemed confused at seeing two of us; it didn’t know whom to shoot first. Tim took advantage at this and began emptying his pistol into the zombie’s chest. However, this didn’t do anything, and soon, Tim’s pistol began to click; he had run out of ammunition.

            “Tim,” I said. “You see, you never, ever shoot a zombie in the chest,” I explained calmly as a teacher would to his students. I shot the zombie in the chest. “See, no good. You always go for the head. Like this.” I stopped my calm dictation, raised my pistol, and landed two shots in the poor confused zombie’s cranium.

            The grotesque headless zombie wandered about for a few seconds, then fell to the ground.

            “See?”

            “Yeah.” Tim said, still staring at the dead monster. “I need some ammo. There must be more ammunition somewhere.”

            “Yes, and more firepower, too.”

            Tim nodded. “Keep an eye out for ammo bunkers and weapons…”

            I nodded, and looked down at the zombie. Its blood was pooling around my feet. “Hmmm,” I said thoughtfully, rubbing my chin to increase the visual intelligence that I radiated. “How did it get in here? The door is still locked…”

            Tim and I simultaneously looked up. One of the ceiling panels had been removed. It appears that the zombie had snuck in, taken my shotgun, and then simply waited.

            “Tim, you didn’t fall asleep while you were on watch, did you?”

            “I, uh, might’ve drifted off,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

            “Yeah, and I’m sorry for blaming the whole shotgun thing on you. Now we’re even, ok?”

            “Right,” he said.

            We both looked at the dead zombie that was clutching the shotgun.

            “Damn, now who gets it?”

            We stared at each other, and then back at the shotgun… Now what?

            “I’m afraid I lost my coin,” I said. I paused, though for a while, then thought: what the hell! “You can have it,” I said. “You just ran out of ammo, you need something to shoot with.”

            Tim looked somewhat dubious, but conceded. “Ok,” he said.

            With a look of disgust stretched across his face, Tim plucked the bloodied shotgun from the zombie’s dead hands. He then wiped his hands on his shirt. “Takes the fun out of it,” he said as he stepped over the dead body to the door. He unlocked it, and I followed.

            I readied my pistol and checked the ammunition. 14 shots left.

            “How much ammo do you have?” I asked Tim.

            He examined the shotgun. “8.”

            Crap. “Well, use it wisely or we’ll have to resort to fists.”

            Tim nodded, and we continued walking down the corridor. Our flashlight was not needed; a row of windows ran along the left side of the hall and Martian sunlight filtered through them, lending enough light to let us find our way.

            We continued onward, dodging about the endless hallways and catwalks, ducking beneath whistling pipes and dark machinery. Tim and I knew the way, we had studied maps of the human complex on Mars extensively prior to this new… development.

            And as we walked around, we ran into two more zombies and an imp. We came out unscathed, but with nearly empty weapons. Tim had 2 shots, I had 5.

            As we rounded another corner, we ran into another gang of zombies. They were a colourful assortment, 2 of them armed with pistols, one with a chainsaw.

            Tim and I backed away, unsure of whether we should use our ammo. The zombies, however, were more confident and began firing with their pistols while the zombie with the chainsaw tried to get the motor running.

            Tim backed away and fired a single shot as he did. His shot would’ve made our drill sergeant proud; one of the pistol zombies was down on the ground, twitching, while its head was… elsewhere. Meanwhile, I fired three shots at the other zombie. This kept it busy, but did virtually no damage, for I was too far to accurately hit what I wanted.

            I glanced at the chainsaw zombie. Well, I really wouldn’t like to be killed by a chainsaw. I mean, a shotgun blast would be better. Hell, I’d rather die at the hand of a granade then a chainsaw… it would be messy, but at least it’d be quick. Meanwhile, death by chainsaw would be… painful, slow, and very colourful… I’d rather be crushed by a rampaging elephant.

            BOOM! Another shotgun blast and the chainsaw zombie fell to the ground just as its chainsaw began to work.

            I fired my last 2 shots at the remaining pistol zombie with no effect.

            Our ammo was out.

            And as if that wasn’t bad enough, 2 more zombies, accompanied by one of those imps crawling along the roof, rounded the corner and saw us.

            As this happened, the pistol zombie was rushing towards me, firing wildly. Thankfully, the dead aren’t too good at shooting. Still, I would’ve been a goner. That’s when Tim came in the picture.

            Tim had picked up the dead zombie’s chainsaw and jumped in front of me. The chainsaw strained as its teeth cut into dead flesh. The pistol zombie screamed in rage.

            “Go for the head,” I advised loudly over all of the commotion. Tim swung back and the zombie was finished. Meanwhile, the imp and 2 zombies from up ahead were charging at us. Tim ran forward and cut into them wildly.

            All of this was a blur, indistinct sounds and screams, blood flying everywhere…

            As I mentioned, death by chainsaw: not fun.

            Soon, the imp’s severed body was lying on the ground at the feet of a panting Tim. I ran up to him.

            “You ok?”

            He nodded.

            “Thanks, you saved my neck, and the rest of me, too.”

            Tim was too out of breath to speak. He looked at the bloodied chainsaw. “Now what?” He finally managed to ask.

            “Well, check the zombies’ pistols for ammo, and then move on.” I looked at the chainsaw. “I think we should bring this along, until we finally find some ammunition.”

            Tim continued looking down at the chainsaw. “This thing scares me.”

            “Yeah,” I agreed. “I wouldn’t want to be killed with a chainsaw.” There, I put in my 2 cents.

            Tim put in a dollar. “I’d rather be beat to death with a stick by a rampaging cardiologist.”

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