THE DEER

Part I: The Collision

That particular morning was uneventful, even for an upstanding citizen of what could be the quietest small town in the entire world. The place, which was mostly occupied with huge pieces of lands that the people use for farming different crops (they dabbled in pretty much everything, but their corn is remarkably superior), had a close and tight-knit community whose connections and bonds go way back.

To understand it, and to be given a clearer picture, imagine living in a place where you are surrounded by distant family  -  hell, even those that did not share any familial bonds are family in that place. It was one of the things that pissed off Paul Mitchell about Grisburg, but in a strange kind of way, it was also one of the things he liked most about it.
Being pretty much connected to every, living soul there ensured that almost none of them ever got into any kind of huge fights against one another, and because of that, the town was as peaceful as the garden of Eden itself.

There were, of course, your occasional misunderstandings that sometimes end up getting physical (if you’re lucky, you can catch a ringside view to a thirty second fist fight between two, old timers); and there were a pretty healthy serving of troublemakers that commit minor acts of inconveniences like vandalism, shop-lifting, and if the police department that consisted of about five people were very lucky, they’d be able to bust teenagers who are either selling or using marijuana. Grisburg was a pretty good place to retire in, alright  -  and why more people aren’t coming in to buy vacant lots there? Paul wasn’t exactly sure.

What he did know was that there could not be any surprises that life could throw his way which he wouldn’t be able to handle… or so he thought. He didn’t know it yet, but there were exactly two things headed his way which was about to change the course of the town’s history forever. It would not only alter the people’s way of living, and their complete confidence in the place, it would also bring forth the most terrifying storm that they’d ever witness  -  a catastrophic event that would forever be etched into the minds of any who would survive.

The sun glared at him from above with a rather scorning look. Paul’s daily walk towards a path that led to the outskirts of town and then back usually ended at about a few hours before ten in the morning, but for some reason, he wanted to take it slow and take his time. He reckoned that his mother would have some chore waiting for him the moment he comes back, so why not spend a little more time outside? The sole of his white, beaten sneakers kissed the solid concrete of the sidewalk that was only about a couple of feet from the road which all vehicles take to enter and to leave Grisburg. He looked down at his clock to see that it was past eleven in the morning  -  a split second that would be enough for his mind to float off somewhere else… just enough for him to not be able to immediately process the shape of the creature that jumped emerged from the woods just a couple of feet ahead of him.

His gaze first brushed past the animal and looked towards the path ahead of him, but almost as if it was a magnet and he was a mere loose change, his line of sight fixed itself and was directed once more to the massive deer that was staring at him with its head tilted.
It’s truly seeing me, he thought  -  and not just in a way that an animal would be wary of another creature’s presence; it seemed to regard him in the same way he was doing… with a fascination that was too overwhelming, it left both of them immobile and unable to think of anything else but what was in front of them.

One of his feet shifted unconsciously and that seemed to have taken him out of his trance; but the deer, with its sparkling, intelligent eyes remained determined in examining him.

However, the knowing look in the creature’s eyes was not what caused his fascination to completely evaporate and be replaced with discomfort  -  it was what it did a few seconds after it blinked.

The deer smirked.

At first, he thought exhaustion and the hot, dry weather was getting to his head, making him imagine things that were complete impossibility anywhere in the world; but the image of that horned anomaly smiling with its set of white teeth revealed for him to see was still there the moment he closed his eyes shut and opened them.

His first instinct was to run  -  to get out of there and to never even dare to venture in that part of town alone again, but he found that along with his inability to swallow his thick saliva, taking even a single step forward was also out of the question.

He was nailed in place; glued like a rat caught in a trap. There was no escaping the horror that seemingly harmless creature.

He was convinced that it knew him  -  that it could speak his name if it wanted to; that it knew every, single mistake he’d ever committed in his life… he knew it just from that single, knowing stare, and from that unsettling grin. His eyelids fell shut, a prayer he’d been taught as a kid ran like a train in his head with his brain as its tracks, and slowly, as the curtains that held back his irises were peeled away, he saw that the deer was gone.

It was no longer in front of him, but was instead behind him…
whispering in his left ear.

“I’m sorry,” it said.

And somehow, the voice that came out was not at all disturbing. It was soothing, like the voice of a loving mother that tells you everything is going to be alright after you got into trouble.

He didn’t know why he did it, but the moment those words were uttered in his ear, his muscles that had been previously stiff moved more swiftly than ever before, almost as if he floated towards the middle of the road; and once there, he simply walked… just as he’d done a thousand times before, he moved forward, but this time while bearing a single thought in his mind: he had a purpose, and he'd be the first to go.

Within seconds of reaching the place where two roads merged and overlooked the entrance of the town he’d spent all his life in, there was an ear-piercing screech that momentarily rendered him deaf, then there was the sight of two vehicles converging towards him from different paths, pinning his body in between the steely, scathed frames of the automobiles.

Only Paul knew it then, but two dark clouds had chosen to hover above Grisburg that day, and they bring only thunderstorms with them.

Their bodies twitched in their seats as they fell unconscious, but just minutes after the first casualty of the bloodbath that would begin lost his life, a deputy named Grace Miller would cruise by the road and discover the incident  -  setting in motion the plan that was laid out by a mysterious entity that was still watching from within the woods.