Estimated reading time — 17 minutes

Growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was no stranger to roaming the woods. Ever since I can remember, I have been out in the woods building forts or terrorizing the small creek frogs I so desperately wanted to catch.

I lived right next to a thick collection of trees, where I spent countless years of my childhood playing pretend with the neighborhood kids or hide and seek in the forest.

My favorite part of it all was the animals. I would watch daily from my back porch, and deer, black bears, coyotes, and more roam the woods. Sometimes, I would bring out animal feed and place it in an opening. I stole it from my dad’s hunting gear. I could barely hold the giant yellow bag when I carried it out to the woods. So I would leave it there for the next time I came to look for the creature.

I hide under leaves or a log after spreading the feed over the woods to get up-close glimpses of the beautiful animals. I was inseparable from the nature that surrounded my home.

Eventually, the giant missing bag of animal feed was taken, presumably by my dad, who had been interrogating me thoroughly on my childhood antics.

The opposite could be said for my girlfriend, June. She was born and raised in the mountains, much like me, but her passion couldn’t be further from living in the woods. The classroom always called her, and nothing could stop her from learning as much as she could. She was top of the class throughout high school, and I was lucky enough to experience the last two years of it with her.

Since the day I got my license in junior year, I was a cocky hotshot at pickup lines. I talked to countless girls, all of whom I should apologize to for asking them to write their numbers down on my arm in the middle of the hallway.

Most of these attempts never went anywhere, of course. When I laid eyes on that beautiful, hazel-eyed, curly-haired June, I knew my attempt at talking was going to be like Sisyphus trying to push the boulder of another pick-up line up the back of my throat. It took me days to attempt, and when I finally did, I stuttered out the entire thing, making her fall over laughing hysterically. I knew she was the love of my life at that moment.

After she finally stopped laughing and wrote her number down on my forearm, ever since, we have been inseparable. I never knew what she saw in a hick like me, but I wish she were still around to ask her.

Things were great. We’d go see every home sports game that involved our poorly designed ram mascot, she’d help explain the basics of trigonometry to me, and I would take her to my favorite places on earth, national parks.

Of course, between the big events of hiking and sports games, we’d sit on the couch almost every night and watch TV. Sitting there, lying there in her arms, was the greatest feeling in the world. I could have grown old and fat with her right there, and my life would be content.

A few months into our nightly routine, a second feeling arose that most of the time was choked out by June’s skinny arms. The feeling was one of being watched. We would lie on my old, damaged couch right in front of a wide front window. Whenever the feeling came, I’d look out of it, trying to see if something was watching me back, but the reflection of the TV light always made the window cloudy.

Sometimes the feeling got so bad that even June’s presence couldn’t kill it. I’d always get up and close the front blinds, and whenever June asked why, I always said

“For some privacy,” before shooting her a smirk and launching a barrage of kisses towards her smooth face. Even during our make-out sessions, the feeling clung to the back of my brain like a parasite.

Being in high school, my parents still wanted us to get a reasonable amount of sleep before the next day of class, so our curfew was at 9:00 pm every night, no special treatment for the weekends, to my hormonal dismay.

So every night, we’d walk down the back steps to my house, around to the garage, warm up my dad’s old pickup, and I would drive June back to her house. Thankfully, I never had those feelings of being watched whenever we walked outside, that was until I first laid my eyes on it, even if I didn’t know it.

It was about a year into our relationship and 3 months until holiday break, when June and I would go on a skiing trip, something completely foreign to her, yet so exciting to me. I wrapped my jacket around June’s petite shoulders and walked her down to the garage. The feeling of being stalked had disappeared for a while, but when I was putting in the code for the garage door, it stabbed into the back of me like a knife.

I looked at June, who was scrolling on her phone, seemingly oblivious to the presence watching us, then I shot my head towards the tree line. The dim motion sensor above the door only illuminated maybe 20 feet in front of it, and the trees were about 250 feet out. The only light there was the light from the full moon ahead, which gave everything a sickly blue and gray cover through the cloudy night.

Thick oaks and pines had created a wall of bark, stopping any light that would break through the line. The few glimpses I could get past the trees only resulted in a darkness that filled in the background like a painting. I quickly pressed the code in and got June into the truck. I pulled out a little too fast and got her home quickly.

When I pulled back in, I didn’t dare attempt to look back out at the woods. I closed the garage door and quickly ran up the back steps.

The feeling came back the next night. This time, June felt it too. Again, as I was putting in the code to the door when I felt it. It was like a cold breath down the back of my spine. I turned to see June staring into the woods.

“You alright?” I asked, trying not to show any sense of fear in my voice.

“Yeah. I just thought I heard a noise.” She replied, without breaking her gaze towards the trees. I never heard anything; I only felt the sensation I had the night previous. I stared at her for a moment, studying the tree line. No movement, not even any wind blowing the leaves of the trees. Like clockwork, I quickly put in the code, and we both got in the car.

The ride was silent at first. Only the ambiance of a fall night could be heard. I quickly thought up some school drama she might be interested in so that we could both get our minds off the presence plaguing us. It worked, and soon enough, we were talking about how the math teacher, Mr. Teague, was selling pot to students in the bathrooms. The notion of being watched slowly drained away.

The next night, I heard the noise too. The feeling was absent until the sound of a branch snapping. It rang out in the quiet night and echoed in my brain as I jumped around. June was already holding her phone flashlight up to attempt to see if she could see anything, but its light was too small to make an impact.

The moon was still relatively full, giving the treeline an ample amount of light. I squinted, and a new shape had appeared across the tapestry of the forest’s edge. I started laughing the second I saw it. The laugh was one of relief and astonishment at my stupidity. June started to nervously chuckle, but was confused about what I had found so funny.

“Look right there,” I said as I lowered and pointed towards the outline of a small group of 3–4 deer. June let out a loud, infectious “awww” as she laid eyes on a mother deer and her baby. We stood and watched the deer for a few minutes as they grazed on the grass right before the forest. I had felt so silly, worrying over nothing. My feeling of anxiety was caused by a few dumb deer.

As we watched the deer dinner party, another deer with large antlers walked out from the woods behind the group. I saw him out of the corner of my eye while I was turning around to finish putting in the garage door code. At first, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the buck, but when I turned around to get a better look, he immediately brought back feelings of eyes being glued to me.

Even in the dark, I could tell something about this deer was ever so slightly off. It was a little chunkier than the rest, or more muscular; it was hard to tell from the distance we were at. Its lower legs were just a bit thicker than normal, and its head seemed to move on a swivel. Its back half looked like it dropped a bit further than the rest of the deer that surrounded this new one. The back looked like it slinked back and forth, like the hide was swaying on the bones, absent of flesh.

It walked like it took a few moments to think about each step it took, and when it did take the step, it walked with a limp.

June threw her hands over her mouth and gasped.

“Oh, Greg, was that one hit by a car?” she got out through her hands. June never spent as much time outside and around wild animals as I had, so she didn’t get the same sense of uneasiness that I had gained from viewing the animals.

I took a second to think about what she said. The other deer didn’t react with fear or uneasiness to this new one, and it did walk with a limp, so June’s conclusion seemed a good enough band-aid for the small gash of uncertainty.

“I think so,” I murmured. The pack started walking away, and the strange one took up the rear as they walked back into the forest. My answer to her question made her start to tear up, so I took her home and let her know that the deer would be okay and that we would see him again. How I wish I were wrong.

On the ride to June’s house, we named the buck Argus, which we thought was a fittingly masculine name for the muscular guy. We didn’t see Argus for another month. However, every time I walked June down the back steps in the following month, the feeling of being stalked never went away.

I had grown used to the foreboding stalking. We spent so much time at my house that the feeling almost became associated with home and June’s warm embrace in my mind. Whenever I visited June’s house or anywhere, for that matter, I felt out of place.

The next time we saw Argus was right before a full moon. This time, the night sky was clear, and the bright moonlight highlighted the land so much that it gave the illusion that day had broken.

We saw his mishappened outline while we were walking down the back steps. He didn’t move for what seemed like an hour, even though it couldn’t be more than a minute or two. Argus was alone that night, still with all of his weird features. Looking at his outline in the moonlight almost put me into a trance. I was staring straight at him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He was staring straight back at me, it seemed.

I felt like we were in a staring contest, even though I couldn’t detect a single feature of his. Eventually, Argus put his head down to eat whatever was below him, but his head didn’t move in any sort of normal way. His head moved down like one of those drinking birds toys that puts its head down just a little too fast. There was a distinct bounce when it came to a stop, just like those toys. It was much the same when he raised his head. Even June thought this looked off and asked me,

“Maybe we should go check on him.” She didn’t particularly like animals, but she hated to see them in pain. My gut screamed at me to not get an inch closer.

“Well, if he survived this long, I bet he’ll be fine,” I said in a very hesitant voice as I put in the number code to the garage door.

No deer could have lived that long after being hit by a car was the only thought in my mind.

The door made a deep grumble and, with a long screech, slowly opened. The noise was loud and always hurt my ears. Time for some lubrication, I guess. I’m sure Argus heard it and ran like most deer. When I went to open the passenger’s side door for June, I looked back to see if he was still there. He was, but I couldn’t feel that he was slightly closer, as if the door had given him a call.

After that night, we saw Argus every evening up until the last time I ever saw June happy again. Even when the moonlight was absent, his frame was unmistakable.

Sometimes Argus would have a pack of deer with him, other times only a handful; most commonly, he’d be alone.

Every time I saw him, some new feature or realization would ring the alarm bells in my head. Argus never unconsciously flicked his ears or heels like I’d seen countless deer do. Argus’s neck looked fine from the front, but on rare occasions when he turned his head, it looked like he had a thick mane at the base of his neck. I only observed Argus walk the first time we saw him; he put his head down and moved a little at a time, but I never saw him move for any extended period.

Every time we saw Argus, he was slightly closer, a few feet at most, but still closer. The feeling of comfort I once had now dissipated a little more every time we saw him.

Every night, I didn’t bother looking towards the trees. Argus’s presence made me sick to my stomach. June, on the other hand, would always point him out, and we’d end up looking at him for minutes.

I started staying over at June’s house more often despite her wishes to not be surrounded by her younger brothers, but I didn’t want to feel the eyes of nature rubbing on me every chance they had.

It didn’t matter, though. June’s once warm embrace had now brought the presence of eyes. And whenever I came home from her house, I could always tell from the rearview mirror that Argus stood studying me.

Two months passed, and it was the first day of holiday break. A thick coating of snow had covered the ground. June and I were at my house, packing our skiing equipment and clothes for the trip we would embark on the next day.

After finishing packing, we fell prey to our nightly routine and sat on the couch for hours, eventually slipping into a deep sleep. I only realized this last fact when waking up at one in the morning.

June had her head on my chest. I always expected her head to weigh more, because of all the knowledge crammed packed into it. She was moving a little, maybe having a dream or a nightmare. I gently shook her awake and let her know I should probably get her home. She told me she was having a wonderful dream, and I told her that she could tell me all about it in the truck.

I knew my dad was going to be pissed about me taking the truck out so late, but he was going to be blinded by rage if he knew June stayed the night. I thought dads were supposed to be wingmen to their sons, show them the ropes, not act as tyrannical dictators.

Whatever, I thought as we crunched the snow below our shoes on the back steps. We got down to the driveway, where no snow lay at all. Dad must have shoveled some salt from the street into our tiny driveway. Cheapskate, I thought as my angst-riddled brain fueled on ahead.

The hate for authority drowned out every other thought until the motion light came on, bouncing its light across the driveway into the snow that lay across the field in front of the tree line. The light had been amplified by the snow, and instead of its usual meager 20-foot range, it shot out just before the treeline.

I continued towards the garage door, but June hadn’t followed me from the base of the steps. I only noticed when she let out a quiet breath.

“Greg?” She whispered.

“Yeah?” I let out in a normal speaking voice. As soon as I did, I heard snow crunch rapidly. I fired my eyes towards the direction of the woods and laid my eyes on at least 50 deer. Some were running, Others had shot a similar look in my direction, but most were unbothered, eating something on top of the snow. I couldn’t tell the real number; all I could view was a sea of skinny legs and brown fur. I rubbed my tired eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Greg! What the hell?” June hissed out. I guessed I scared the closer ones away.

“I didn’t know! I’m sorry, okay?” I whispered back.

While June was wide-eyed and “oohing” and “awing,” I was scanning the crowd for one buck in particular. Argus wasn’t hard to find, for he still had his antlers, proudly standing tall above his head and all the other deer. The light of the lamp didn’t seem to want to illuminate him; he was as far away as he could be, hugging the treeline.

The antlers should have fallen off by now. They usually do at least. I always walk in the forest around the new year to find some. However, Argus didn’t seem to understand the memo the other bucks had gotten. Not now, not before. Never had he once in all the time I had seen him.

“Can I get an up-close photo of Argus?” June muttered out. I fell silent for some time. I didn’t know how to respond. Argus had been torturing me for months, maybe longer, and now June, the smartest person I knew, wanted to get close to that facade.

“You stay here. We could spook the big guy into being aggressive.” I’ll get the photo.” The truth was, I wanted to get close, too. From the second I saw him, I knew something was off, and now I had the chance to see what it was.

June was giddy with excitement, and she wrapped her arms around me. For a second, I thought about how stupid I was. My dad taught me that if your gut tells you something is off, you should listen. Blood cells fueled by hormonal hate with the message ‘Fuck whatever my dad thought’ engraved on the side ran through my body, as I grabbed June’s phone and started walking.

As I came to the edge of the driveway, I looked back to see June sending me a quick wave before rubbing her sides in an attempt to warm herself. I trudged on.

No deer were willing to stay close now. It was as if I were Moses, parting the ocean of Cervidae before me with just the sound of crunching snow. Every step I took, a few deer ran. They all ran in random directions, some towards the neighbor’s house, to either side of me, some back towards where June was standing, and some to the altar that was Argus.

Argus didn’t move at all. His Stoic presence only grew stronger as his body grew in size, the closer I drew. None of his fleeing family could change his mind and make him turn and run into the dark forest.

The sea of deer slowly dried up, and all that was left were hoof tracks, Argus, and 50 feet of unclosed distance. My eyes had slowly been adjusting to the darkness while on my trek, so I could decipher Argus’s features.

At that moment, I could see what caused Argus’ unique attributes. Argus’s head wasn’t a deer’s head; it was an elk’s. It had a thick brown coat of fur around its neck and towering, sweeping horns. It looked like a hunter’s prized possession, an achievement worth bragging about.

And that’s because it was. At the base of the elk’s neck was a circular wooden plaque with a shiny golden rectangle engraved with some important date or weight.

One of the glass eyes in the trophy head looked like it was about 5 sizes too big for the socket. It bulged out of the head, with a black cylinder that held it to the eye socket. There was no pupil; it was a deep, empty black, with a shimmer of a greenish blue filter over it. I was now within a stone’s throw of the faulty animal. My head spun on a swivel, and my stomach contents slowly rose.

Silence filled the air. As I observed further, Argus’s deformities became even clearer. Argus’s fur folded on top of itself all over his body, like there was empty space inside the fabric that couldn’t fill. His belly drooped too far to be a normal elk or deer; the tail wasn’t the usual white puff of fur, and instead resembled a brown mop head. Snow piled up on top of his back, making it fall inwards.

Argus’s legs were too thick; they had the width of a black bear’s legs. The snow built up right above the ankles. I only then realized there were no marks in the snow around Argus. No hoof prints, no indents in the snow, nothing.

I was so transfixed on finding each and every imperfect detail that I didn’t even register that I was still walking towards Argus. I was close enough to touch him.

He was made of cheap fabric, one would find in a Spirit Halloween store. White dots had been painted on him to make him appear more like the real thing.

One last detail stood out. It was his breathing. I could see that Argus’ chest wasn’t rising and falling. No visible air came from his long, mummified mouth. Something about the eye caught my attention again. From farther away, I thought it was snow falling, but a small white vapor dissipated from around the bulging black eye. The hot breath rose past the previously unseen distance markers on the zoom wheel that was his eye.

My body took a step backwards. Bile rushed up the back of my throat. I took another step backwards. Argus’s body didn’t react. I tried to take another step backwards, but I tripped on something and barreled backwards into the snow.

I don’t remember much in my anxiety-driven frenzy. The second I tripped, the calm demeanor I put on flashed away in an instant. My arms flailed widely as I tried to catch myself before I hit the ground. I don’t know if I shouted. I rolled over and immediately started crawling into a stubble, then to a run. I ran as fast as the deer that bolted out of here from my own presence. I took another stumble, landing face-first into the snow. It zapped the heat out of my warm, blood-fueled face. As I climbed the embankment I made with my own body, a new warmth grew upon my face: fresh tears.

I don’t remember the rest of the run, just the cries I made as my eyes welled with water. As June came back into blurry-eyed view, June’s face turned from excitement to horrified concern. She came running towards me with open arms, but I was running too fast to slow down. I rammed into June, and we both tumbled to the ground.

“Greg! What the hell?” She shouted as she lifted her upper body from the cold concrete. She was still in the snow, and I was inputting the code into the garage door. Once the door was rising, I ran back to help her up. It was more of a drag and pull, trying to get her away from Argus’s direction. Her own eyes welled up with tears.

“Greg, please tell me what is happening! What happened? Is everything okay?” She stammered out.

“June, just come and get in the car!” She was fighting my pull. I know she was scared and didn’t understand what was happening, but I couldn’t let her stand out here within the view of that facade. The one still standing all that distance behind June.

“June, get the fuck in the car! Get in the fucking car!” I screamed at her. I immediately regretted it. She stood still, staring at me for a second. Her face scrunched up as she threw her hands over her face and ran towards the garage. I followed suit. We opened the doors, climbed in, and cried in unison. My shaking hands struggled to put in the keys, but once I did, I threw the car in reverse and peeled out, heading for June’s house.

I tried to go slow on the icy roads, but I just wanted to get away as fast as I could. It’s a miracle I didn’t crash, given the conditions outside and inside the car. June and I cried most of the way to her house, for very different reasons. As I was pulling into her driveway, it seemed everything went quiet.

“What got into you tonight, Greg?” She said, breaking the oppressive silence. I said nothing back. I couldn’t.

“Greg. Please tell me and I’ll understand. Please.” Her voice broke as she fought back tears. That’s the issue, she’d understand what I saw. She’d know what Argus really was.

“Greg… please…” I stared out the front window, but could tell the car ride here wasn’t the last of the tears.

“I love you, Greg. I’m so confused. I’m scared. Please, just anything.” Another plea, my hands started to shake. I wanted so badly to tell her, but wouldn’t that scar her? Wouldn’t she remember this for the rest of her life?

She tried to say something else, but emotion finally exploded out of her body as she curled up in the seat and cried. My heart wanted to shout out everything I saw, but my teenage brain thought I was being righteous.

After what felt like an eternity of listening to the love of my teenage life weeping, I got out of the truck, walked around to the passenger side door, and led June back inside her home. I didn’t say goodbye or goodnight. I never said I loved her back.

I didn’t drive home after that. I parked in a Walmart parking lot and stayed awake all night. I tried to go to bed, but so much was rushing through my head. How mad would my Dad be when I pulled in the next morning? Would June ever trust me again? Love me again?

I could have slept, asking those questions to myself, but one of the questions kept my eyes peeled in every direction. Was Argus following me?

I pondered that question for a few hours before the light of day broke through the snow on the windshield. I figured it was time to go and face the wrath of my father. I had to build up the courage to even drive in the direction of my once perceptibly safe home. I was probably in the car for another hour, telling myself that Argus would be gone.

He was waiting in the driveway for me, pacing back and forth, trying to calm himself. I parked and got out. The barge of words slammed against me instantly.

“Where the hell were you, son!?” He boomed. “I thought you might have been dead! If that truck is damaged at all, may God help you, son.”

I didn’t look at my father’s face; I was too busy staring out to where Argus stood. Like before, I unconsciously started walking towards where he was the previous night.

As I walked, I could see all the trails from the previous night, embedded in the snow. Small brown dots lay on top of the snow. Ones that looked familiar to my childhood antics in the woods. My dad’s voice slowly got quieter, maybe it was from the distance or his confusion, maybe both. I finally made it to where Argus stood.

A few empty bags of chips and hand warmers littered the ground. An empty energy drink can was half-submerged in the snow. A yellow bag of feed lay out in the open among all the trash.

I sat down in the cold snow. All capacity to show emotions was zapped out of me the night prior. My mind had gone blank, unsure of what to do, what to say, where to go, who to tell.

I was sure of one thing. I could never tell June what I saw. It would be better to break her heart than taint her beautiful mind with whatever was in that crudely made costume.

Maybe it would have been better to tell her. As I write this, that’s all I could think about. Maybe she could live with it. Maybe I would have known what she was dreaming about that night.

Credit: Bradegan_um

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