Down with the Fallen: A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

The Other ^{Garrett Kirby}

The hunter and his apprentice were walking along one of the few clear paths leading out of the Broken City when they heard the sound. Doc Holland, with his long duster coat, wide-brimmed hat, and rifle slung over his shoulder, had been humming a merry tune under his breath. Marcus, Doc Holland’s young apprentice, trailed just a few paces behind, gripping his canteen tightly as he slowed to take a long draw of black, sludgy water, which he almost choked on upon hearing the low, unearthly noise in one of the ruins to their left.

It was the sound of a low, feral growl.

Doc Holland came to a sudden halt, his cheerful tune cutting to a spontaneous silence. His right arm stretched out, hand completely flat to tell Marcus, Stop.

Marcus obeyed, and gradually lowered his canteen, trying desperately not to slosh the water around with his trembling hands. His heart was beating like a drum in his chest, so much so that he could practically feel it in his ears. Doc Holland was undoubtedly disturbed as well, though he was doing an exceptional job of hiding it. His hand remained completely still, refusing to shake even the slightest. Regardless, they were both thinking the same thing: Others, this close to the Broken City?

The city was a desolate place populated by ruins from a time long past; all of it caked in ash and dust from—what was called by the holy men—the Great Rapture; a time when the Lord himself reclaimed His world through holy flames that took both the people who once lived on the Earth, and nearly all that they had built, with them. It was a place only visited by the inhabitants of the land if they were traveling from one settlement to the next, though sightings of the Others were scarce, and practically unheard of here.

This was thought to be due to the ever-watchful eyes of the Shades—shadows left behind by the Rapture; shadows of the ancient people who once had lived in the great cities of old. Doc Holland had once assured Marcus that they were not to be feared, that they were simply the remnants of a time long past; nothing more than scorch marks amidst the ash, burned forever into the ground by the holy flames. Nevertheless, Marcus always felt an eerie, creeping fear every time they passed through the Broken City.

Thankfully, the Others were thought to fear the Shades as well, if not for their constant, ever watchful presence, then for some holy—or unholy—reason that was unknown to the people of the land. Either way, questions were scarcely raised on the matter. The Others were dangerous, so any place free of the inhuman things was considered safe passage.

Though the hunter and his apprentice were now wondering just how safe this place truly was.

The silence persisted on as the two of them waited for signs of movement. Two minutes passed, perhaps three.

Not a sound.

Marcus could feel an almost involuntary sigh of relief building within him, pushing its way out. He thought of how they would chuckle about this later; they would laugh at how easily they had both been spooked by the wind, as if it were some ghostly apparition. Doc would say, “Next, we’ll be jumping at our own shadows,” with his warm smile showing beneath his black, bushy beard, before releasing a long and hearty laugh.

But Marcus forced the sigh back to wherever it had manifested from, because Doc remained unmoving before him, and Marcus knew just by looking at his frozen mentor that there would be no celebratory laughter. They’d both heard the sound, and if anyone knew the difference between the wind and an Other’s growl, it was undoubtedly Doc Holland, who had many stories to tell about his previous encounters with the Others.

Marcus suddenly found himself wishing that he had some sort of weapon besides his bowie knife, though he’d lost his pistol in a fierce dust storm two days prior. He’d missed the weapon dearly, but he longed for it now more than ever.

More time passed, and the two remained unmoving.

Silence.

Doc Holland was sure now that the creature had heard their approach. Between his humming, and Marcus’s water sloshing in the canteen, there was no doubt that the Other had taken notice of them. In fact, it was just as likely that it’s growl was released on some pure, animalistic instinct upon hearing its prey advance toward it. Perhaps it had been hiding in the shadows of the Broken City for some time, waiting for an unsuspecting traveler to pass so it could feast. Whatever the case, it mattered little now.

The silence persisted, until finally a ghostly, whistling wind washed over them. The current kicked up ash and dust as it went, and Doc Holland’s leather coat began to flap audibly in the wind when it reached them. The sound of leather being manipulated by the wind was their only warning before the thing revealed itself.

The Other lumbered out from under one of the larger concrete edifices with a roar that could have just as easily been the thunder of a great storm. The beast was a mountain of crimson flesh and muscle, and while Marcus was only able to get brief glimpses of the monstrosity, it was no doubt one of the largest Others he’d ever seen. It walked—if you could call it walking—primarily on its massive arms, with fists that were nearly three times as large as Marcus’s head. Its chest was a crooked mess of an exposed ribcage, which opened and closed with each heavy breath the thing took, like some gaping maw of meat. There was something else, too, protruding from the sides of its shoulders, though Marcus couldn’t quite make out what that was.

Doc Holland’s rifle responded to the roaring leviathan with a loud report of its own, as if to rival the behemoth in strength. Marcus and Doc both watched as, for just the slightest moment, the Other paused to look where the rifle’s bullet had impacted with its immense bicep. Something cried out then, like a high-pitched shrieking that could only be in response to a great deal of pain, though there was no way the Other’s low voice could have made a sound quite like that. However, their time to take this into consideration was short. The Other looked back to them as the shrieking sound rang out, and its face—though inhumanly warped with muscular growths and twisted flesh—showed a deep, irritated scowl.

The Other stood on its considerably short legs for a moment, and hammered its bony chest with heavy, tumor-ridden fists. It was at this point that both Marcus and Doc began to run.

“What do we do now?” Marcus asked as the loud, meaty thuds of the Other’s fists hitting pavement sounded off behind them. Bullets seemed to cause some form of damage to the Other, but they were low on ammunition from the previous stretch of their journey.

“Our best bet is looping around, and running to the nearest way station,” Doc Holland said. “With luck, we can lose the bastard in the thick of the ruins. It’s too large to fit through many of the smaller crevices.” He turned then, and paused for a brief moment, allowing Marcus to run a few paces ahead as he fired off another shot. That same horrible sound rang out behind them like a banshee out for their blood. Doc Holland turned back, and once more broke into a complete sprint, proving to be rather agile for his age. “Until then, I’ll slow it down.”

Marcus supposed the plan was as good as any at this point, though he was worried about the structural integrity of the ruins if the Other tried to follow after them. The beast was likely strong enough to smash through ancient concrete, but hopefully it was smart enough to know that doing so had a high risk of burying the three of them alive. However, Marcus didn’t voice his opinions on the matter, because anything was better than simply trying to outrun the beast.

They ran without speaking for the next five minutes, the only sounds being the continuous, low thump, thump, thump-ing of the Other’s fists propelling the monster after them. Each time the sounds came dangerously close, Doc Holland would make an abrupt turn to fire a round or two into the Other, slowing it just enough to keep them safely ahead. Marcus’s fear was growing ever stronger as they went, and his reasons for being afraid were now twofold. As if the Other wasn’t terrifying enough, the hundreds of silent Shades that they passed by almost seemed to be watching with anticipation. While the Shades kept true to their silent, immobile ways, Marcus swore he could feel their scorched eyes on the two of them as they ran, and in his mind he could practically hear them calling, “Don’t fret, you’ll be one of us soon,” in a hundred ghostly voices that were filled with a cold, lustful avidity.

Marcus did his best to push these thoughts aside, knowing that they were simply a part of his childhood paranoia coming back to haunt him. Still, the thought of ending up like one of the Shades frightened him beyond measure. Being a dark, motionless shadow with nothing to do but watch as the wasted lands further tore themselves apart year after year wasn’t how Marcus wished to spend his afterlife, yet he could imagine the Shades coming for him when he died; his spirit lifting up toward the heavens, when suddenly he would find himself being pulled back toward the ash by icy, black hands. “Join us, Marcus,” the entirety of the Broken City would seem to be whispering at once, ghoulish voices echoing around him in every direction. “Don’t leave in such a hurry, come stay with us. The dust is particularly nice this time of year.”

Images of Marcus’s apparitional body being pulled deeper and deeper into the ash played in quick succession in his mind—like a horrible picture book that was being flipped through at nauseating speed—until nothing was left but a white hand attempting to make purchase in the thick layers of ash. Finally, one last ebony hand would rise up from beneath the surface, and pull what remained of him down into the depths of this terrible, purgatorial place. He would never see the gates of heaven that he had heard so much about, would never stand before the Lord, and this instilled young Marcus with a cold fear that was so wretched it seemed to contend with his fear of the Other, which was the more immediate—and reasonable—thing to worry about.

Marcus wasn’t entirely sure how far they had managed to run in the time it had taken him to think all of this. The jagged, taller ruins of the city rose up around them now, and in the distance Marcus could clearly see a section of the road that had been completely blocked off by fallen slabs of concrete and metal wiring, which had once run through these skyscrapers—that’s what Doc Holland called them—like arteries in the body of a human.

“There,” Doc Holland shouted, pointing toward a small opening in the warped barricade of metal and stone. “You go first, lad. I’ll keep the beast at bay!”

Despite the fact that his lungs were now painfully whistling with each breath he took, Marcus pushed himself forward and dove into the hole without the slightest bit of hesitation, only pausing a good twenty feet into the unnatural formation to wait for Doc Holland. Once inside, he heard several thundering blows from Doc’s rifle, followed by more of those ghastly screams. Then, Doc Holland appeared in the opening, scrambling frantically into the barbed, irregular tunnel as if he had absolutely no care for his own safety. As he crawled hastily into the concrete passage, a rusted metal wire tore through the left shoulder of his coat, thankfully not cutting deep enough to bite into his flesh.

Doc Holland pressed himself firmly against the inner wall of the tunnel, and for a moment the two said nothing as they waited for the Other to attack, knowing full well that their lives would be forfeit if it attempted to dig its way in.

Instead, a sound rolled in after them that was akin to the crunching of boots on loose gravel, and beneath that there was another sound, so deep that it’s very vibrations seemed similar to the rumblings of an earthquake. It was a throaty sound, not made by the vocal chords of a human being, but rather the throat of an active volcano just before it belched its molten innards about the land like some terrible, gutted beast.

It was the sound of the Other’s voice.

“A good show,” the Other said with some amusement. “However, you are only prolonging the inevitable, my juicy fleshlings! Why not come out of your burrow, and let nature run its course?”

Doc Holland began reloading his rifle at that, seemingly unperturbed by the monster’s words. “Perhaps I will, beast,” Doc called back, the flames of confidence burning deeply in his voice. “Perhaps I will, and maybe then I’ll show you more of what my rifle can do.”

The Other laughed a mighty, demonic laugh that rumbled into the concrete passage like the prelude to some great and powerful storm. Then it spoke once more, and its voice took on a far more serious tone.

“And perhaps I shall skewer you to one of these metal rods, and roast you over open flame until your yellow fat bubbles, and your eyeballs melt out of their sockets.” The Other paused and came closer to the entrance of the tunnel, blotting out the light. It lowered its voice ominously and said, “Do not waste our time on perhaps and perchance, my dear fleshling. We hunger, and you linger now without purpose. Run or fight, it matters little, though we would appreciate a bit of haste in your decision making.”

“We?” Doc Holland asked, but it was too late. The Other had already disappeared from sight, though it was undoubtedly hiding somewhere within pouncing range. Doc finished reloading his weapon and offered a long, haggard sigh. “Smart one, that creature,” he said simply. “Certainly well spoken for an Other.”

Unsurprisingly, the Other being more intelligent than most of its kind did little to boost Marcus’s confidence. “What do we do now?” he asked in a hushed voice, fearing that the creature was listening in on them.

“We head for the way station,” Doc replied, and then nodded as if to confirm the words to himself. “Aye, we head for the way station.”

And so, after a few minutes of rest, they did just that.

The tunnel provided them with only a quarter mile of cover, so they mostly made their way by going from structure to fallen structure, taking great care in remaining as silent as possible. While they rarely looked back, they could hear the Other following their scent—often much too close for comfort.

When they reached the halfway point, the two took a short moment to rest in one of the larger ruins. In their hurriedness to avoid the Other, both had gained a plethora of minor scrapes, cuts, and bruises. The Broken City was an unforgiving place, and one wrong move usually ended in some form of injury. With the sun quickly descending now, and the light of a lantern far too dangerous with the Other’s presence looming closely behind, they found themselves making a great deal of wrong moves.

“This is hell,” Marcus whispered as they hunkered closely together under a lopsided slab of stonework.

Doc Holland shook his head. “Nah, lad,” he breathed, almost inaudibly. “Hell is whatever hole that monstrosity crawled out of.”

As if in response, the Other snarled somewhere close by, and they heard the sound of moving rubble as the hulking monstrosity began to dig into one of the adjacent, dilapidated ruins. The two continued the rest of the way in a mutual silence, not daring even the slightest chance at revealing themselves to the horror that hunted them.

It wasn’t long before the sun had left them completely, and their only source of light became the distant glow of the half-moon above. For this reason, they almost missed the entrance to the way station.

Marcus had seen many way stations on their travels, though none of them were quite like this. The entrance was built into the ground itself, and instead of a keyhole, the door held a series of buttons that went from zero to nine. Fortunately, Doc Holland knew the code. This wasn’t much of a surprise, though, as Doc seemed to have keys for every way station and supply cache littered around the land. Being one of the few travelling doctors, and Other hunters, made Doc Holland a very treasured individual this side of the Dusted Lands.

“Coast seems clear,” Doc Holland muttered as he entered the code.

Now that Marcus thought about it, the Other had been silent for most of the latter half of their cautious trek through the Broken City. Was it possible that they’d actually been able to escape the beast?

Despite the silence, Marcus still found himself looking about cautiously in every direction, the ends of every nerve in his body pulsing with electricity. As Doc finished entering the code, he peeled back the metal door. It opened with a high wail, which echoed off into the distance. Marcus jumped at the sound, and Doc paused halfway to listen for signs of movement. Nothing seemed to respond to their inadvertent call, and so Doc finished the job.

The opening where the door had once been revealed only a deep, black hole. A rusted ladder dived down into the grim dark below, and Marcus felt inexplicably as though they were trading the giant, gaping maw of the Other for some new, more mysterious beast. However, he knew that they had no choice in their descent. With the sun gone, the Other would likely have the advantage, as its kind were often better suited to seeing in the dark.

“You go first,” Doc whispered. “Once you’ve reached the bottom, light up your lantern. I’ll climb down and close the door behind us.”

“Yeah, all right,” Marcus agreed. He mounted the ladder cautiously, not entirely trusting the ancient metal’s durability. Thankfully, despite a few minor groans in protest, the ladder held his weight without much difficulty. He counted fifteen steps to the bottom, which was something of a relief considering that, from the top of the ladder, the pit looked as though it could have gone on forever.

As Marcus stepped away from the ladder he fumbled around the pouches on his belt, until he found his book of matches. His hands were shaking with a slight, residual fear, but he was able to get his lantern lit easily enough.

Doc Holland began climbing down the ladder. Marcus watched as the moon disappeared behind the metal door, and suddenly felt strangely as though they were locking themselves in a cage. Still, he was comforted by the thought that they would no longer have to hide from the Other—at least for the remainder of the night.

“All right, then,” Doc Holland said in his normal speaking voice, which sounded almost alien after their hours of silence. He went to lighting his own lantern, and Marcus noted that his hands were surprisingly steady. They were the hands of a man who had seen his share of monsters; the hands of a man who survived each close encounter to tell the tale time and time again.

Once both their lanterns were glowing—almost protectively, Marcus felt—Doc began to walk deeper into the way station. While Marcus could see only long, black corridors with no end in sight, Doc seemed to know exactly where he was going, and before long they came to a series of hallways that split off from the main passageway. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the placement of these passages, with no signs to mark where they led. In spite of this, Doc Holland pointed to one of these new passages, and said, “Head down the left hall, here, and see if you can find us any food.” He then took a few steps forward and glanced down the other hallways as if he was trying to remember where he needed to go. Then, to validate whatever thoughts were running through his mind, he nodded in silence.

“Where are you going?” Marcus asked in a voice that was almost pleading, as if to say, Don’t leave me already!

“To look for supplies,” Doc replied. “Might be ammo around here, if they’ve stocked the place recently.” He started down one of the corridors on the right, but paused briefly to look back at Marcus. “If you need anything, just give a holler. These tunnels are bound to carry your voice to me.”

And then Doc Holland was gone, the faint glow of his lantern disappearing along with him.

Marcus sighed softly, and began his hunt for food, the embers of anticipation slowly beginning to burn within him at the prospect of eating something other than dried meat, which had been their only source of sustenance on the road. It was the first happy thought he’d had in hours, but even that little bit of happiness was enough to make their encounter with the Other seem like a simple, harmless memory.

After a reasonable stroll down the hallway Doc Holland had pointed to, Marcus came across an open doorway. This door had a sign next to it, which simply read: Food and Water. Marcus allowed himself a triumphant smile at this. Things actually were starting to look up.

Marcus passed through the doorway with the thought of canned peaches and pears on his mind. This thought was quickly erased, however, when he found himself kicking something hard into the room with him. The hard object skittered across the floor with a clackity-clack. Curiously, Marcus approached where the thing had landed. What he saw gave him pause.

The item in question was a bone.

To make matters worse, Marcus also noticed that many of the shelves containing jars of food had been knocked over carelessly. Broken glass, fruits, vegetables, and pickled meat all polluted the floor. And there was something else, too, a strong, sour scent that rose even above the smell of vinegar from the pickled meat. It was a familiar scent that Marcus had experienced only once before in his travels with Doc Holland, and it was one that immediately extinguished the small flames of hope that had been building within him—it was the smell of old sewers.

“Oh God,” Marcus whispered as he walked further into the room. The light of his lantern illuminated the wall on the opposite side of the storeroom, and there, in the center of the wall, was a large, gaping hole. Marcus stopped momentarily, then took a few more hesitant steps forward.

More bones littered the floor near the wide aperture. Some of them were snapped in places, others seemed to have been chewed on by sharp, uneven teeth.

Why don’t we travel the sewers unless absolutely necessary? Doc Holland’s voice asked in Marcus’s head, coming through some old memory.

“Because the Others claimed them first,” Marcus whispered in response, speaking to nobody other than himself.

Everything began to click as he finished approaching that big, open cavity in the wall. He and Doc hadn’t been this way in weeks, but Marcus was willing to bet that if they’d made it to town, someone would have asked them to come out here to investigate some strange and sudden disappearances.

It never stopped chasing us, Marcus thought frantically to himself. It just noticed which direction we were heading, and decided to beat us here.

He held the lantern through the crevice with unsteady hands and peered only briefly into the vast darkness of the sewer before seeing his lantern’s glow reflect in two yellow, feral eyes.

The rumbling voice of the Other came to greet him from the darkness. “Hello, meat,” it said with an evil purr.

And then the monster came at him, heavy arms crashing against the concrete surface of the tunnel with a great and terrible ferocity. Though he felt paralyzed by fear, Marcus’s legs began to work automatically. He turned without thought, and sprinted out of the storeroom.

“Doc!” Marcus screamed into the dark tunnels ahead. “Doc, help!”

The Other pursued its prey easily enough in the corridors of the way station, though they were terribly narrow for a beast of its size. Marcus could hear the monstrosity thumping into the walls behind him as it gave chase, breathing subtle growls from a mouth that thirsted for the copper taste of blood. Marcus could feel its warm breath on his back as it drew closer, and could smell the wretched rot and decay of the bits of flesh that still lingered amidst its jagged jaw. Then the Other groped for him with a massive hand, and while he was just out of grabbing distance, its razor-sharp nails still sliced through the back of Marcus’s shirt. They trailed long, thin gashes through the flesh of his back as though it were nothing more than paper.

Marcus’s lantern just barely illuminated the walls of the main corridor when Doc Holland stepped into view. He was holding a red container, which sloshed with liquid. He dropped the container at his feet and shouldered his rifle. On instinct, Marcus dropped out of the rifle’s sight and slid across the smooth surface of the floor toward Doc, whose rifle rang out in a deafening defense. One, two, three rounds Doc Holland fired into the leviathan, and when Marcus turned to glance at the damage that was done, he saw that in these close quarters each of Doc’s bullets had found their marks. The Other stood ten feet away, now blinded with ebony sludge spilling from its eye sockets.

Doc kicked the red canister toward Marcus. “Drench this bastard,” he commanded.

Marcus, still on the ground, hastily uncapped the container. He turned back toward the Other and began to toss its contents onto the beast. The scent of gasoline filled the air as the Other thrashed violently about. It moved steadily toward them, enraged by its blindness. The walls spider-webbed outward in places as the Other threw its heavy arms wildly about, smashing the brick into dusty clouds.

Marcus took a few steps back and watched as Doc Holland took the lantern from his belt. “Get behind me, lad,” he said calmly. Marcus obeyed without question, and observed with a wicked fascination as his mentor smashed the lantern onto the monster.

Flames instantaneously covered the Other’s crimson flesh, making a brilliant show of light in the darkness of the tunnels. In its rage the Other lunged for the hunters, but the two were able to avoid its mass by dodging into another corridor.

The Other crashed harshly to the floor and began to thrash around. As it did so, Marcus noticed odd deformities on each of its arms, but as he watched the beast he noticed that these were unlike the rest of the muscular growths that had covered its surface. Indeed, these grotesque shapes were much more unnerving.

Just under each of its shoulders, the beast had the form of a baby just barely protruding from the surface of its skin. They were almost engraved there, as if their forms were carved, or perhaps even melded, into the flesh. As Marcus stared at one of them, horrified by the sight, he saw that the infant’s eyes looked back at him. They were beady and black, and appeared almost hateful beneath the glowing flames. The face was twisted in horrible pain, and Marcus realized suddenly that it was screaming a long, high-pitched shriek as the flames continued to work at the Other’s skin.

Marcus recalled seeing children who were joined together at the waist in one of the towns. Conjoined twins, they were called. Doc Holland had once said that it was one of the many birth defects left behind by the holy flames. Marcus also remembered that some of the older Others were born in the wombs of human mothers after the radiation of the holy flames twisted them into strange, inhuman beings. The holy men always said that this was the devil’s work, as with most of God’s children gone, Lucifer’s demonic legion could walk the land unopposed. Marcus was never sure why holy flames cleansing the land would have such horrible repercussions, but it was deemed unwise to question his elders, and so he simply accepted this as fact.

Watching the mounds of burning flesh, Marcus imagined two conjoined twins in their mother’s womb. He pictured a tumor rising up in the flesh that bound them together, and saw in his mind that tumor slowly grow in the radiated stomach; saw it overtake the two until it was the dominant form. The thought made him sick to his stomach, but just as he was about to turn away, the Other began to speak once more, rising to its feet.

“Fools,” it said. “I was born in the holy flames! Do you truly think a little fire will kill me?”

“Perhaps not, demon,” Doc Holland replied coldly. He placed the barrel of his rifle to the creature’s temple as it rose. “Regardless, I think it’s past time someone sent you back to the hell from which you came.”

Doc Holland unloaded the rest of his ammo into the Other, one bullet after the next, until bone and brain matter began to fly in every direction. As the Other crashed limply to the floor, black fluids began to flow out of its head in a steady, metal-smelling stream. The childlike cries of the Other’s meaty arms died off weakly as the monster took one ragged, final breath.

At last, the Other was dead.

Marcus and Doc Holland were both silent for a moment as they watched the flames continue to lick at the Other’s remains. A thick, putrid smell began to fill the air as the Other’s flesh began to bubble.

After allowing his poor, tired heart a few minutes of rest, Marcus thought it best to tell Doc Holland about the opening in the storeroom wall.

“Better go see about barricading it, then,” Doc Holland said at once. “No way we’re traversing the Broken City at this time of night, and I’m not about to let any more monsters find their way in here.”

The two took great care in maneuvering around the flaming corpse, and when they had bypassed the flames without lighting themselves on fire, they walked down the long passageway to the storeroom, both feeling tired, though happily victorious. Doc Holland began humming a merry little tune as they went. Marcus found the sound to be quite calming.

Marcus led the way into the storeroom, lantern held steadily before him to light their way. As he walked to the opposite end of the room, Doc Holland paused behind him to survey the damaged goods.

Marcus approached the gap, carefully stepping over the shards of broken glass that surrounded the floor. He then stopped abruptly, and listened.

There was a sound in the distance. It was a low, hissing sort of noise that Marcus couldn’t quite make out. “Do you hear that?” he whispered over his shoulder to Doc Holland.

Doc stepped up beside him and cocked his head toward the opening. “I do,” he said in a voice that was extremely grave.

The sound drew closer, and Marcus held the lantern deeper into the hole. To the left, he was beginning to make out a slender silhouette shambling toward them on all fours. As it drew closer, the glow of the lantern reflected off of its sunken, gray eyes. It had skin the color of ash, with long, almost crooked limbs that made it move awkwardly. Its face was elongated, giving it a sorrowful appearance, though it appeared to be grinning all the same. As it crawled closer, the two noticed long, curved claws on both its hands and feet, where its fingers and toes were fused together by protruding bones.

“Feast,” the Other was whispering. “Feast, feast, feast.”

Doc Holland aimed his rifle at the creature, and pulled the trigger.

The rifle responded with a simple, click.