Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

“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.