Man-portable weapons for post-disaster Arkansan troll hunters

Question

I have a short story in the making where two young men go hunt a troll for an old widow. I have some ideas for what they could be carrying, but am aware that messing up something as fundamental as their hunting gear would invalidate the whole narrative, so I'd thought should check the logic of the situation.

The biggest factor in weapon choice is the trolls. In this setting, a troll is a result of a fungal infection. Once a creature gets infected, the fungus warps their body to make it more aggressive and give it various anatomic augmentations to better acquire easy protein (meat). Not only that, but the fungus just wants the troll to gorge itself until it is killed or drops dead so it can turn the corpse into a spore factory, so fear is basically not a factor in a troll's mind.

The biggest problem with killing a troll, however, is regeneration. All trolls can heal from wounds at an incredible rate, so fast that vital organs might as well be unessential. Acts like the destruction of the heart or removable of the head is no more imminently fatal to a troll than cutting off its arm.

That being said, there is a way to kill a troll: starvation. Even with their moderately-physics-breaking metabolism, trolls need calories to survive and regenerating burns a ton of them. In short: keep it regrowing bits until it essentially eats itself to death trying to make repairs. Only real problem with this method is that trolls get more and more aggressive the hungrier they get, so it doesn't take long for them to charge whoever is damaging them and try to eat them.

So far my only idea has been shotguns loaded for bear, since shells are better at quickly removing chunks that bullets are. That being said, the fact that trolls are very prone to charging makes me think these alone wouldn't be good enough. Ammo is finite, reloading is tedious, and trolls don't mind sprinting though gunfire to get at the source of it.

What man-portable weapons would be effective at killing these regenerating trolls? While I am sure that Arkansas has machine guns and rocket launchers laying around somewhere, assume these hunters don't have access to military hardware. Also, while shotgun alternatives and emergency weapons are what I am concerned about, you're welcome to point out any flaws with my shotgun-over-rifle assumption.

Some other information:

• Cutting a quarter of a troll's body mass off will cause it to stave to death pretty quickly. It's still very dangerous, but can be considered killed at this point. Just back away and let it die.
• Burning a troll is done after it gets killed to prevent spores from spawning.
• Trolls are not harder than the creature they were, but might be stronger and faster due to not caring about overtaxing their muscles.
• Sudden blood loss will slow a troll down. Not only that, but they have high enough blood pressure that they can lose a good amount of mass in this fashion (provided the would is big enough to not instantly regenerate).
• While calling one or two more friends isn't out of the question, the police, rangers, wildlife control, and army are either out of the picture entirely or busy doing something else. This is a local matter between neighbors.

Answer 1

The Ideal Plan

The optimal strategy for this is fairly obvious: if you have guns, get 10 - 20 guys together and pelt it from range and kill it before it closes the distance. You would want shot-gunners using slugs, and rifleman using hollowpoints for maximum damage. Given modern day, this would be the most straightforward and logistically sound way to do it. Granted, this all depends on how post-disaster-y you want your story to be. If you limit the amount of stuff they have available to them, the answer becomes much more interesting. With less tech available, and with fewer people, I imagine a troll hunt would look something like this:

The Actual Plan

A group of at least five hunters would spend several days tracking the Troll to it's lair/area. They would then set up camp just out of earshot of it. Three of the hunters would take out their hatchets and begin working, while the other two would post up near the Troll to keep an eye on it. The hatcheteers would create several thick, sharp spears to deal with the troll, and a large stack of firewood for what comes after. The spears themselves are essentially siege weapons. Too heavy and bulky to be practical for taking all that way into the field, but just small enough that they could be maneuvered by a strong man or two. They would be entirely wood, optionally with spear heads the hunters could have brought with them fitted onto the shafts.

Once the weapons and firewood were done, they would all prepare to engage the troll. The two keeping tabs on the Troll are the only ones of the group with guns. If the Troll began to wander off or worse - towards the camp - their job would be to open fire and draw its attention, kiteing it around and keeping it busy. Any shots fired would be close enough to be heard by the camp, so they would have advance warning that something was up, without the need for radios or cellphones. With the weapons done, the gunners would lure it back to the camp. The hatcheteers would set up a 'front line' with the three of them holding spears out or having partially driven them into the earth. The gunners would position themselves behind them, and shoot the Troll enough for it to pick up sufficient speed. The Troll's nature in mind, would run directly onto one or more of the sharp spears, impaling itself. The gunners would then aim for the Troll's eyes, not trying to kill it but to limit its ability to fight back. Once blinded, they would try to bring it to the ground, using nets and chains. One of the men would try to maintain the spear, keeping the Troll impaled, with the other four trying to pin the Troll down. Once they were reasonably sure it wasn't going anywhere, they would start going to town on it with their hatchets, doing as much damage as possible. With point blank rifle shots, and axe wounds, the Troll would soon begin to starve. Once it died, the hunters would don their crude masks to limit exposure to spores, and start shifting firewood to its corpse to set it ablaze. With a tiny bit of fuel or gas, they could get the fire started fairly quickly before the spores got out of hand, retreating upwind and waiting for the Troll to be completely destroyed by the flames. They would then leave the wooden shafts behind, and return back home a job well done.

Answer 2

Flame thrower.

As mentioned in another answer, fire is the best way to go here. Considering you want to destroy the spores at the same time, it really is the best way. Strength doesn't really matter when you're burning; the troll's muscles are going to stop working really quickly. Military ones use a flammable liquid which is what you're going to need. Shoot it at the troll and use something that burns really hot. Forget regeneration, the troll is going to fall apart quickly enough.

Once it is dead, the fire will destroy the spores anyway, sterilising the corpse. It's worth noting that fear of fire is hard coded into all land animals too. If there's anything left of that in the troll, it isn't going to run into a swathe of liquid fire. Even if they do, not caring about pain isn't the problem. They might overtax their muscles but if they're close, they won't have muscles to tax. Not to mention they'll have no oxygen and massive internal burns in their lungs. That'll damage performance.

If flamethrower isn't an option, still use fire. Get something that burns hot and trap the troll in a confined place. A pit would work, or inside a building. Bonus points if it's a wooden building that will collapse on the troll. Extra entrapment and it'll prevent any surviving spores from spreading easily. Plus the resulting fire will burn for a while and incinerate the body completely.

Answer 3

It depends a little on what kind of animal it used to be, of course... But here are some additional ideas that come to mind.

A boar spear. It's cheaper, low-tech, and requires little to no planning (although this route would be a little more dangerous than setting a trap). These cross-shaped spears were designed to kill enraged boars, as you could set them in the ground against a charging boar and let it impale itself, and the cross-guard would keep it from running down the length of the spear, protecting the hunter. In theory, this should work perfectly against a troll. You described them as hyperagressive and lacking self-preservation instincts, so they would be even more susceptible to this attack than a boar. And the troll can't exactly heal a wound if the spear is still stuck in the wound, meaning it eventually bleeds out.

Improvised explosives. We are assuming these troll hunters don't have access to proper military gear, but improvised explosives are still quite possible. Furthermore, explosions are probably the fastest way to remove biomass, and that seems to be the main weakness of these trolls' healing factor.

Poison. Accelerated healing is not the same thing as accelerated toxin filtration, and poison could continually harm the organism in a way that is very hard to heal from. Some possible approaches: Your characters would probably have access to potassium chloride, which rapidly causes cardiac arrest when in the bloodstream, denying the troll's hyper-metabolism the oxygen it needs. Alternately, an overdose of a strong narcotic would primarily harm the troll's nervous system (which is notoriously difficult to heal), and might prevent a berserk phase before death. Something like chloroform or ether has the added advantage that they readily form a vapor. Alternately, you could combine the poison approach with the boar spear...

Fungicide. Similar to poison, but specifically geared at killing the fungus, instead of killing the host organism (although I'm guessing the host organism would probably die along with the fungus). If your fungus can be repelled by the immune system, it is probably also susceptible to the right fungicide, and the creature conveniently has a circulatory system that can pump any fungicide you have throughout it's system, potentially wreaking havoc on the fungus.

Answer 4

What the hunters need is a trap. Get a backhoe, dig a pit that a troll cannot climb out of quickly, camouflage the pit and place bait in the centre of the camouflage. Lure the troll into the vicinity and let it go for the bait and fall into the pit. If you can get it close to the pit then knock it in with the backhoe. Once it is in the pit, dowse it in whatever accelerants are available and set it on fire. Keep it burning until dead and the spores are incinerated. If it tries to get out of the pit then knock it back in with the backhoe or long spears.

The tricky part of the operation is locating the troll and luring it to the trap. However, given that the wording suggests that this is set in contemporary times, use a drone to do the location, then lure the troll in by dropping a trail of bait from a trail bike or pickup truck - the hunters should not do this on foot. The only real purpose of firearms is to slow it down if it is catching up too quickly or to annoy it into following the hunters from a long way away.

I realise that a backhoe is not man-portable, but it seems to fit the spirit of the question (resources available to civilians in a contemporary rural setting). The point is that whatever is used needs to fix the troll in place so it can be burnt/exhausted to death. If a backhoe to dig a pit is not available (and shovels are very slow) then a snare made of steel wire rope would be second choice as an immobilisation agent.

Answer 5

Trap it in a confined space

Hyper-charged aerobic metabolism is going to require hyper-charged oxygen input, which means that if a troll gets stuck in a confined space (such as a manure pit or a well) they're going to be going through whatever oxygen's there in a big fat hurry relative to a human. Never mind the potential for asphyxiants (CH₄) or even toxic gasses (H2S) to be present already, as well as drowning hazards...

Answer 6

The first thing that springs to mind is fire- molotov cocktails, to be precise. Simple to use, easy to make, and low tech.

Answer 7

I'm going to be assuming that working pre-disaster technology is rare, so hunting trolls will have to be done with what can be made by a blacksmith and carpenter. In other words, just wood and metal.

First, crossbows using bolts with heads designed to carve flesh. Relatively easy to make and extremely powerful.

Once the troll comes into range, boar spears. And you want the head and cross-piece reinforced by metal. Once you've got the troll held by spears from all sides, then you can toss explosives or fire at him. Or you can carve the troll up with polearms designed for the task.

Explosives. Improvised explosives are relatively easy to make. Put some on the end of a stick with a "shield" behind the explosive for two reasons: one, it will deflect more explosion towards the troll, and two, it will save the person holding the stick.

Traps. Primitive man hunted mammoths by either running them into pits or running them off a cliff.

After the troll is helpless, make sure that you burn it.

I find it odd that the authorities, such as they are, wouldn't help. One troll loose could grow faster than exponential. Quite frankly, I don't see why they haven't killed everybody already. You've made them extremely powerful and fast-breeding. My suggestion would be to make it extremely difficult for them to spore.