Doom 3™: Worlds on Fire

35

THEO LEANED OUT TO LOOK BACK AT THE HALLWAY,back to his mother and the nice soldier who had been with them.

The soldier wasgone, and his mother stood there, her back to him.

Maybe,Theo thought,she’s looking for me. Can’t find me. She’s probably scared, worried; she always worries so much.

He crawled out a bit more from his hiding place.

“Mom?” he said. Then louder, “Mommy?”

And now she turned.

Slowly…

And in that slow movement Theo felt something was wrong. Something must have happened to his mom during that explosion. She was movingso slowly.

Until she turned and faced him. What had been her blouse was ripped in places. And he saw blood.

For a second, Theo felt worried about his mom. She had been hurt.

But that was before he looked up to her face.

Her eyes.

He remembered…

Their last week on Earth. Walking past a house. Toys in the yard, a plastic riding car, some soft darts, and there was this clown-head toy.

Not smiling. Almost looking mean, mad—and on top of its head, a hat, like an upside-down ice cream cone. With a hole on top—and you could shove things into the clown’s head.

Theo had looked at it as he walked past the house. The face, so scary. Thinking: maybe you could stuff things in the head and make the clown smile.

And now—

His mother’s face—

(Thinking,It’s not my mommy’s face. That’s not her, that’s not her, that’s not her—! )

He screamed as she walked to him, like a baby learning to walk, but then a bit faster. Her eyes all bulgy like melted marshmallows, the mouth sliding around, opening, shutting, maybe trying to speak.

He kept screaming, and now his mother was only steps away, and Theo couldn’t even move.

Kane dangled off the floor, held up by this huge chunk of muscle, gristle-like, tightening, closing his windpipe. Then the soldier holding him up started shaking Kane left and right, dragging him across the floor.

In seconds it would all be over.

If he didn’t get some damn oxygen into him in seconds, then this day on Mars was over.

His left hand still held a gun. But that arm was pinned by the two-armed grip of the twisted marine that held him.

But that hand still had a gun. He felt that the thing’s grip was weaker on his other arm. He might be able to work that arm free—

In those precious seconds…

He tried to stretch his right hand over and close on the gun stock, but he could barely graze the muzzle. A bit more grunting stretch, even as he felt that the thing might try ripping Kane’s neck in half, its forearm mutated into a constrictor-like coil.

His fingers closed on the muzzle. His left hand let go. And now, holding the muzzle as tight as he could, he tensed, and then he used all his right arm strength to break that arm free.

Nothing happened.

Another grunt. And then the sweat, and some sticky slime oozing from the marine’s skin must have made it a bit more slippery, and his right arm wasfree.

At the same time his right foot touched the ground.

He had to move fast. An option that he hoped that thing holding him didn’t have.

Kane now had to shift the hold on the handgun by making his fingers crab-crawl over its surface, turning the muzzle to face out, then grabbing the handle.

Then, with the thing about to reapply its death grip, he brought the freed arm up.

The gun muzzle jabbed instantaneously under the chin of the thing, and then three quick blasts.

It took a second for the marine’s body to react.

But then Kane’s two feet were once again on the ground, the viselike grip released and, like a boa uncurling, the flesh noose around his neck unwound.

The thing tumbled back. Kane noticed that he had been sprayed with whatever came out of the thing’s head—a sick slimy purple.

He hurried to the elevator, and the way back up.

MacDonald held his arms tight across his chest, as if holding his arms that way might somehow make him safe.

Not that the things coming into the lab, the creatures now pouring out of the ever widening opening that used to be Pod One showed any interest in him at all. He noticed that a few tall things, nearly human-looking with legs and heads, would take a few steps and…

Disappear.But to where?

He noticed that he mumbled, sitting there, curled tight. Talking to himself as a lifeline to sanity.

Got to keep talking to myself,he thought.

Simple words and phrase—No, what’s that, have to watch, have to tell people, have to, have to—

Betruger, carrying something, had vanished into the pulsating opening, now glowing with a dozen shades of fiery crimson.

(Into it!)

MacDonald looked down at his PDA.

But the screen said very calmly, very matter-of-factly, “Local failure: all communication links currently disabled.”

So for now, there was no one to tell, and nothing to do but sit and watch.

First the walls glowed, the network of circuitlike spirals and connections suddenly…now on.

And Axelle became momentarily distracted from the fact that she couldn’t see a way out of this subterranean trap back to the surface. Only a few air tanks lay cached down here.

And after that?

But then the colors began changing, the walls pulsing with color. She heard a low rumbling sound.

(Sounds from below. Deeper into this hole…)

What’s happening? What is this?she asked herself. But nothing in her work on Earth or Mars came even close to suggesting an answer.

Then—a horrible moment—she felt the ground below hermove. Initially the ground rumbled a bit, the red dirt and rocks that sealed whatever this tunnel was, began to shift. The rocky cover, the cap to the tunnel, broke up into shards as if mere ice floes, and all this heat, and light, and noise could simply make it break up.

The shards blew back, some flying several feet into the air. And Axelle now ran from side to side, ducking the flying shards, dodging the jagged pieces.

Until she could quite clearly see a pattern.

The rocks, the dirt—all that sealed what was below—started getting piled to the side. Until the center of the floor became clear of rubble.

And that floor…

Not rock. Not dirt. More like a viscous membrane. She clung close to the terrible wall with the glistening circuits. But she knew nothing would stay the same here.

No. This was about to change. Things moving, shifting, opening…

Yes, something was opening.

And then the membrane began to pull away from itself, actually rip and tear, working its way slowly from the center, then to the outer edges, ever closer to her.

Axelle tried to dig a handhold into the wall, the clanging made by her spare air tank pinging painfully in her ears.

But the smooth wall had also grown slick, covered with a shiny sweaty liquid.

Her nails, her hands were useless as the opening hole of the membrane finally pulled away completely in one finalsnap.

And with that, Axelle’s feet gave way, joining the chunks of Martian ground and rock, now sliding down, slowly at first, but then gathering speed, tumbling like a funhouse attraction, sliding down, curving around until her fall finally slowed.

Then she stopped.

She knew that—like it or not—there was no way back up. The only way for her to go was forward, to follow the glowing metallic veins leading ahead, and down.