The elevator began to slow.

Jack swallowed and readjusted his grip on his pistol, shifting a little more to the right. He aimed towards the doors. Despite everything, despite all he had gone through up to this point, despite even having faced monsters within the past few hours here on Earth...he was still nervous. Maybe it was because he was alone.

He'd spent almost no time alone while on Phobos, Deimos, or in Mars City. Or even in Hell. But now he was on his own, unless he managed to find others. And who knew what amount of nightmarish fiends stood between him and them?

The elevator came to a halt. He prayed that it didn't make any noise, that it didn't chime or ding or anything as it opened.

The doors slid open.

No noise was forthcoming.

Which was a very good thing, because there were zombies dead ahead of him, and they were facing away from him. Jack stepped out swiftly while adjusting his aim, and capped the nearest one in the back of the head. It seemed to be a civilian, wearing ripped and bloodied clothing, and it went down like a sack of rocks. A pair of roars sounded as the other two zombies in the room immediately reacted to the sudden intrusion into their territory and began turning around to face him. He didn't give them a chance.

Jack shifted aim and popped off another shot, punching a hole in the second zombie's temple and dropping it fast, then repeated the action as the third and final undead horror faced him and began raising a pistol. The final zombie caught a bullet in its right eye and the pistol clattered across the floor as it was released and the monsters went down. Jack waited, holding his breath, and was rewarded for his patience and vigilance as another two zombies lumbered into the room via a doorway across the way, dead ahead of him.

He popped them both, spraying coagulated gore and rotted brains across the chromed walls, and watched them tumble down the little stairway that led into the room. He waited a bit longer, but no more forces of Hell showed up. He released his breath in a slow exhale. Well, as far as first contact with the enemy went, that had gone pretty well. Jack looked around the room he'd come to. It appeared to be a back maintenance area, dimly lit, not in great condition. He was standing on a slightly raised platform, a little like a loading dock. The room was roughly rectangular, and two support pillars were built into it, to his left and right.

The periphery of the room was plagued by shelves and tables and workbenches, and there were already a few corpses there. He saw a man in a technician's outfit, but he also saw a few civilians. No doubt people had fled back here to hide during the initial invasion. These zombie bastards must've come back in after them and gunned them down. Growling in frustration, Jack hopped down off the platform and quickly checked the more shadowy areas of the room. No more zombies lurking. He quickly started patting down the bodies of the five zombies he'd put down. They were all civilians, and only two of them had been armed.

One had a pistol that was not only empty, but also broken. The other had a pistol with a full magazine in it, but the sidearm itself was in pretty poor condition. The rest had nothing. He pocketed the spare mag and then made for the only exit in the room, through which the two undead had come to investigate the slaughter of their brethren. The door led to a hallway that extended for a bit and then turned sharply right. Jack paused as he stepped into it, waiting, listening. Somewhere nearby, something groaned.

He moved down the corridor until he reached the corner, listened for a few seconds longer, then peered cautiously around. The chromed passageway extended another ten meters or so, with just a single doorway in the left wall, about halfway down the way. It was closed. There were a few bodies in the corridor with him, and several looked like they'd been chewed on. Wonderful. And this was probably the tip of the iceberg.

Jack slipped around the corner as soon as he saw that the way was clear. He moved down the hall to the door and hit the access button. The door slid open and he looked inside. A larger maintenance bay awaited his inspection. He saw a big pair of blocky pieces of equipment directly ahead of him, with a little alcove between them, and-

Someone took a potshot at him.

The bullet ricocheted off the door frame and he cried out in surprise. There were some zombies on top of the bulky equipment! He snapped his pistol up and opened fire, emptying his current magazine and capping three zombies in rapid succession. They let out groans and collapsed. Something hissed off to his left.

Imp!

He barely had time to slap a fresh magazine in and step away from the door, deeper into the room, before it got a fireball off. The fireball sailed past him as he readjusted his aim and the Imp let out an alien growl as it began stalking towards him, gearing up for another toss. Jack didn't give it a chance. He shot it twice in the cranium, splattering its blood all over the equipment beside it, and watched it drop to the metal plating. Turning around sharply, in case anything else was sneaking up on him, he saw that he was still alone.

Jack let out his breath slowly and then took a moment to secure the room. He checked along the periphery, grateful that the lights at least worked here. Nothing but more tables and shelves packed with gear and tools and spare parts. There were a few little nooks and crannies someone could theoretically hide, but he cleared all of them and found nothing. Being honest with himself, he didn't think he was going to find anyone alive for awhile. This place had obviously been hit the hardest. He tossed another glance at the big blocky pieces of equipment, wondering how or even why the zombies had gotten atop it. They were probably heat exchanges or power junctions. Either way, it didn't matter, he supposed. Maybe the Imp had put them up there for surprise.

It almost worked.

He searched the bodies and when that turned up nothing, hauled a stepladder over between the pieces of equipment and took a quick opportunity to search the zombies up there. Between them, they only had a single magazine and a single functional sidearm. He took both, loading up the sidearm, and slipped it into his holster. Never knew when he might lose this one, or need to arm someone. At this point, he was damn near willing to arm anyone he came across. They needed every last person to fight against these monsters.

Jack left the maintenance bay behind and kept moving down the hallway. Another door awaited him at its end, as did another sharp turn in the corridor, this one to the right. He repeated his actions, checking around the corner and finding that the hall ended in another five meters or so, opening out into a larger area. It seemed clear for now, so he checked the door and found only a storage room with nothing of any real value inside. He left it behind and moved over to the next area. This section looked like it was a little more well-traveled, though more by Haydenfield personnel as opposed to the general public.

It also had more corpses in it.

He spied a door to the right, one farther along the back wall to this left, another in the left-hand wall, and what was probably the exit up ahead. Overhead, one of the lights flickered, giving the already awful, corpse-strewn room an extra edge of menace. There had to be a good two dozen bodies here, spread out in random poses of death, most of them civilians. How many had fled back here? How many were still alive, somewhere out there in the forsaken starport? With that hanging on his mind, Jack quickly set to work.

He didn't bother checking all the bodies, given he just didn't have time, and instead moved over to the nearest door. The one on the right led to a bathroom. He checked each of the stalls, finding one of them absolutely painted in blood. It looked like maybe an Imp had gotten in here with someone, maybe even two someones or three, who had been hiding. He left the blood-painted bathroom and shifted towards the door in the left wall. Opening it up led to a break area that was equally miserable and wrecked by the forces of Hell.

Jack sighed and, after making sure it was clear, shifted to the door in the back wall.

That finally yielded something.

He found a little security booth. Nothing serious, but he did at least manage to find a handful of magazines for his pistol scattered across the way. Apparently the zombies hadn't been all that thorough. The security system itself was shot, and he almost cursed his bad luck, but suddenly remembered his map of the starport. He'd gotten so used to scrounging for maps and wandering around aimlessly that he was still having to relearn that he had a damned map this time around. He checked it over and saw that a big thoroughfare lay beyond. In fact, it wrapped around damn near all of Haydenfield, serving as the outermost layer.

He needed to get deeper in. Part of the problem with this map though was that it wasn't real-time. No doubt sections would be locked down, sealed off, or otherwise inaccessible. And right now, he needed a bigger, more important security center, something a little more than a checkpoint. Jack kept searching and finally found one. Out the door across from him was the thoroughfare, and down a few hundred meters was a food court. And on the other side of it was a security center. That would be a great place to start.

Although the way there was pretty simple, he had his doubts that it was going to be a simple matter to actually get there. God alone knew what was out there right now, and this security booth was dead, none of the camera feeds working. He wasn't sure he'd want to see anything they had to show him anyway. With a soft sigh, Jack deactivated the map and checked over his pistol once more, then left the security area and moved slowly across the open room, towards the door that would take him to the main thoroughfare.

He had an idea that it was going to be pretty bad.

Jack stepped up to the door and reached out. He stopped, his finger hovering over the access button, and he listened.

Distantly, he could hear the telltale groans of zombies, that weird clicking-gurgle sound that the Imps made for some reason, and other, stranger sounds. Nothing friendly out there. Jack forced himself to press the button.

The door slid up into the ceiling with a whooshing sound.

He stepped out, pistol at ready, and swept the area.

And realized that he was in no way prepared for what lay beyond.

It was a fucking slaughterhouse.

For several seconds, Jack simply stood there, staring. He'd seen death. He'd seen destruction. He'd seen all manner of hellish nightmare fuel across two forsaken lunar bases, Mars City, and Hell itself. He'd seen people crucified to walls with nail guns and zombies feasting on the foamy, ropy intestines of dead men and women and people flayed alive. He'd seen worse things. He'd seen dozens of corpses in the aftermath of particularly brutal firefights, and there had to be at least a thousand dead between Phobos, Deimos, and Mars.

He thought he'd seen the worst this war had to offer.

He was wrong.

In his field of vision alone, which stretched a good three hundred meters dead ahead, he saw probably enough corpses to equal Phobos and Deimos. There were hundreds of dead bodies. He saw Marines and technicians and civilians, he saw men, women, and children. He saw skin of all colors, the tattered remains of uniforms to expensive dresses to low-budget utilitarian outfits to jumpsuits. He saw heads, torsos, limbs.

And blood.

There was so much blood.

An an ocean of blood.

The sheer scale of the slaughter staggered him. They were spread out along the floors, bunched up in piles along the walls, caught in between doors, snared on the industrial-strength shards of broken glass in the windows. Some hung from the ceiling, strung up by lengths of cable or thick bundles of wiring. Some were crucified to the walls with rivets. In his mind, he saw the demons pouring in by the dozens, the hundreds, a living wave of sheer, mindless, sadistic torment writhing over the panicked masses as they were ripped apart screaming.

It was like seeing the end of the world.

Something groaned, and Jack realized that he'd been hearing footsteps. He snapped out of it as he saw a handful of zombies staggering around. Two of them were armed. Almost like an automatic reaction, he snapped his pistol up and fired off a shot, taking the nearest undead bastard in its mouth as it came for him, reaching for him with bloody, broken fingernails and murder in its inhuman eyes. The back of its head burst like a ripe melon and it went down like bricks on Jupiter. That got the attention of the others, of course, and they started coming at him with more purpose. Farther on down the way, he could see the brown hide of an Imp.

As he shifted aim, Jack found himself slowly becoming overwhelmed by the sheer force of the reek of death. The iron stench of blood and the godawful scent of spilled bowels and ripped open human meat. The aromas of death. He popped off another shot and turned the next nearest zombie's right eye socket into a bloody crater. Dropping it, he shifted aim once more and fired off another two rounds. They scorched through the air, one missing, the next catching another zombie in the throat. No points there.

He fired again and capped the fucker in the forehead, killing it.

Frustration and disgust mounting, Jack finally activated the vents on his suit, hitting the filters and cranking them up as much as he could. Immediately the reek began to dissipate down to tolerable levels. He wouldn't say he'd ever get used to the stench of death, but he'd gotten so that he could handle it when it was at manageable levels. Three more zombies, one armed with a pistol, and now two Imps were coming at him. He emptied the magazine and put down another pair of zombies, then reloaded and kept firing, stepping forward.

His reactions were smooth and almost machine-like now. He'd probably had more practice at murder over the past few days than he had for most of his career. Or at least it felt that way. He put down the final zombie and then shifted focus to the Imps, which were coming at him faster now. They began throwing fireballs the second they were in range. The fireballs were easy enough to dodge. He sidestepped, keeping a bead on the nearest Imp, and put two shots into its misshapen dome. Half of its skull was torn away in a spray of blood and it screamed as it went down. The other came at him even faster and threw another fireball.

Jack strafed again and kept firing. He lined up a shot and-

"Fuck!" he screamed as something hit him from the back. He stumbled and tripped over a severed arm, going down hard. Rolling with the fall, he landed on his back and found himself staring up at another zombie that he'd somehow missed. He aimed up and put a shot into its forehead. It collapsed onto him and he grunted, thrashing, trying to get it off. That Imp was getting closer. Another fireball sailed overhead. With an explosive grunt of effort, he shoved the corpse off of him and rolled over, then got up into a crouch.

The Imp was practically in spitting distance now.

He aimed and fired, emptying the magazine into its chest. It died screaming, spraying its ruby blood across him. The fireball it meant for him instead sailed up where it smacked into the ceiling. It fell and Jack quickly rose to his feet. He did a three-sixty, hunting fervently for anything else, but there were no more hostiles in the immediate area.

How had that fucker snuck up on him!?

This was getting to him and that was very bad. He honestly thought he'd left all this 'being overwhelmed' shit behind when he'd survived literally going to Hell and back. But apparently not. Jack forced himself to get a grip. He had to, or he was going to get straight-up fucking murdered. And now he had a lot more to live for. As he set off, making his way through the thoroughfare, past dozens, hundreds of ripped-up corpses and rivers of blood, he thought back to how he had felt when he'd first landed on Mars last…

Week?

It seemed flat-out impossible that it could have been just over a week or so since he'd been landing on Mars, and yet it was true. It felt like another life. A half-remembered dream. But when he'd landed on the red planet, it had felt like a death sentence. Like the end of days. It felt so hopelessly, bleakly despairing. When the shit had hit the fan and the call to arms had sounded on Phobos, he'd had purpose again, even if only to save his own ass and keep out of the demons' claws. But he had more now. He had humanity to fight for, a war he actually believed in and cared about to battle in, and a woman that he loved to stay alive for.

Jack shook his head. Best not to think of Jennifer.

He made it through the thoroughfare and expended another two magazines of ammo putting down the zombies and Imps that showed up in his path, trying to kill him. They didn't stand a chance. Jack found the door that led to the food court, finding it nestled in between a novelty shop and a check-in station. He peered around the corner, into the open area beyond, and felt his stomach turn over. It was just as bad in there, but something about it seemed almost worse. He found himself imagining these people, these poor people. Families, friends, co-workers, lovers, ordering food, sitting together, sharing meals and laughter and stories.

And the unutterable mind-breaking horror of the demons as they had ripped into this area with certainly no warning, no hesitation, no mercy. And had slaughtered every last one of them. That was probably one of the worst parts of the demonic invasion: they would literally not differentiate between an armed and armored soldier and a goddamned infant. Fuck, if anything they probably got off on brutally slaughtering the elderly and the infirm and the children. He wasn't sure completely of their motivations, but they did seem like they were intentionally evil. It seemed like they reveled in the slaughter and the torture.

As Jack forced himself into the food court and towards a door at the back, set in between a Taco Bell and a Burger Town, he found his stomach-churning horror and disgust was rapidly being replaced by something.

Anger.

Fury.

White hot livid rage.

Even during the worst of the atrocities he'd seen on Earth, he still didn't condone genocide, because he knew that not everyone from any given nation was a fucking monster. Not even a big percentage of them were. There were always going to be monsters among the men and women of any country. Hell, he knew lots of Americams had committed war crimes over the past century. He hated armies and he hated governments and he hated individuals sometimes, but never had he wanted to wipe out an entire group.

Until now.

He would personally murder every last fucking Imp, every last Demon, every Baron of Hell, and do it gladly. He would erase them from this world and the next if at all possible. He would be completely cool with all-out, absolute, nonstop genocide of the demon hordes. With this in mind, Jack hit the door at the back and passed through it, securing the chromed corridor beyond. It was painted in blood, and he had to step over several corpses to get to the door that led to the security center at the end, which had been forced open.

Jack stepped in and surveyed the area with a quick sweep of his gaze. The anger was boiling through him, but he knew how to utilize it by now. It was fuel in the tank, not burning gasoline consuming his flesh. There were no survivors from either side of the conflict in the security center. This one was larger, more than a kiosk or a checkpoint, though still short of being a full-blown security control zone. It would serve its purpose, though. Or, at least, he hoped so. Jack spent the next five minutes hunting through the gun lockers, but they were all cleaned out of anything useful. Either by the personnel or the zombies.

With a sigh, he moved over to the main security console, which sat against the back wall beneath a bank of monitors. Unlike the previous security area, several of these still functioned, and they all showed him things he'd rather not see. The dead, the demons, and the deranged shit that was going on all over Haydenfield.

Although…

Jack shifted his focus to a screen in the upper right corner, ignoring the ones that were actively bleeding. That was way too common nowadays and it still freaked him out. There was gunfire. He saw men in suits of yellow armor. They had to be local forces. They were shooting it out with a pack of Imps, and there was even a Marine among them. He took a moment to call up the location of that particular monitor, and then frowned when he saw it was a good quarter mile away. Shit. This place was way too big.

He turned away from the monitors and opened his map back up. The first thing he needed to do was to set a destination, a meaningful one. He needed a security node. That's what they called the sheltered areas in Haydenfield where personnel and civilians were meant to go in the event of an emergency. Or one of the areas, anyway. And there one was. He checked it against his present location and sighed softly. It was almost a full klik from him. Jesus fucking shit. It was going to be a hell of a journey to get there, but getting access to one of these nodes and bringing it online would give him a huge boost in his capacity to actually do shit. Like having a place to send civilians, having a (hopefully) functioning security network, being able to contact people…

Speaking of which. Jack activated his radio. "This is Sergeant Jack Ward to anyone, do you copy? Over." He waited, listening intently, but all he got was a faint buzzing noise. He tried the message once more, but nothing came.

Withholding his frustration, Jack instead focused on figuring out a route there. The first thing he determined was that he could cut through a lot of bullshit if he got to a nearby maintenance hatch and went back down into the underground. Navigating a few underground sewage management passageways and service tunnels would let him cover half the distance without having to pass through dozens upon dozens of doors and rooms. Although ultimately he'd have to come up for air and pass through a utilities area, a big one, to get to where he wanted to go. But after that, he just had to cross a landing zone and then he'd be within a stone's throw of that node.

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then he set off.

He had a goal, and he intended to do it while murdering as many demons as possible.