Trail of the Not-Deer

The following days were spent cruising along the mountain highways of West Virginia, stopping at every small town along the way before ending at some simple yet pleasant motel, wherever there were two vacancies. They didn't need the tents that Siobhan had expected and somewhat feared, barely even touched the toolbox that had come with the truck and its seemingly comprehensive contents.

In those days, it seemed like Professor Anders was a legitimate professional, but more of a folklorist than a biologist. He effortlessly found the watering holes and gathering sites of old-timers and backwoods hunters, ingratiated himself into conversations, and steered them onto the trail of the Not-Deer.

Shockingly for Siobhan, once he got into the conversation, it seems like most of the folk in the region were familiar with the concept if not the name. Everyone, it seemed, had a friend of a friend who had seen one. Its legs were wrong, its neck was wrong, its face was wrong, it was eating carrion rather than grazing; those were the traits of the Not-Deer that seemed to make it not a deer. At least one of those, sometimes several. It was a deer, and then it wasn't.

Siobhan's role in all this was mission control. She made notes of the conversations, especially whenever the professor asked, as he always did, where roughly the sighting had been made. She poured over maps, the professor insisting on local print editions to supplement what the internet knew and the times they were out of signal range, the latter of which became more and more frequent as they went on. Always, they tried to move closer to the center of the logged sightings, homing in on the Not-Deer's territory.

As the days went by, the tenor changed. They struck out far less often, and the reports became more precise. Tales from a friend of a friend became instead tales from a friend, and then the reports of friends became personal reports, people who had seen something, on the edge of their light. One time when they were young. A few times back when they went into the woods more often. A few years ago. A few months ago.

It never felt near, and the reports were always of fleeting visions that the grizzled men who told them spoke of as ghost stories until, close to a week after beginning the search, in a pub with no name where venison hamburgers were served with moonshine, a particularly haunted old hunter said that if anyone could say anything about the Not-Deer, the one to talk to lived on the Thompson Stead.

The Thompson Stead had no address. It was a squat yet stately house of indeterminate antiquity that waited up a winding dirt road from the turnpike. It seemed well-built and well-kept, but to the sensibilities of a Los Angeles urbanite like Siobhan it was almost impossibly rustic, every piece custom-built with all the imperfections of work done by hand, subtle and harmless but strangely offputting. There were two other cars parked out front, and the professor stopped and asked Siobhan to come with him.

They came to the door, which was open, and knocked on the wall beside it. It was answered by two people, a fairly large man and a younger woman. The man was like most of the hillfolk stock that Siobhan had seen over the last week, twenty something late or thirty something early, bearded, and burly if with a little more weight than was entirely healthy, dressed in denim overalls and a plaid shirt.

The girl was, to Siobhan's eye, what she might have been had she spent her life out in nature and under the sun rather than enjoying the great indoors - some eighteen or twenty years, maybe an inch or two taller, with hair like straw rather than Siobhan's red and skin that had a faint sun-kissed tan rather than burning. She wore a crop-top that barely extended past her breasts, leaving her toned midriff free, and her jeans were dusty and worn in just the way that someone who actually worked would wear them down, not the “distressed” style of the cities.

“Thompson, I presume?” the professor asked.

“That's me,” the girl replied, “Amberly Thompson. This is my cousin, Bart. How can I help ya?”

“This may sound strange,” the professor said, “but my name is Charles Anders, and I heard that you were the person to talk to if the subject was... something that wasn't exactly a deer.”

“The Not-Deer,” Amberly replied, her tone growing dire cold.

“That's right.” the professor said.

“You've come at a good time,” Amberly said, “cousin Bart was there that night, too. He saw more than I did.”

“That night?”

“The night it killed my pappy,” Amberly replied. “So, what's your interest in that devil?”

“I want to prove it's real,” the professor said, “and to that end, I want to capture one of them.”

“Capture?”

“Things like that don't mount well as trophies,” professor Anders replied, “So if science is going to stop scoffing at stories like yours, they'll need hard evidence to poke and prod.”

Amberly looked away.

“You don't have to, Amberly,” Cousin Bart said, slow and kindly.

“I want to help 'em.” Amberly said.

“I'll take it,” Bart replied, “That's okay, mister Anders?”

“Of course. Say, Amberly, are you much of a shot?”

“They called me deadeye in school,” she replied,

“My assistant, Siobhan, is more of a novice. Do you think you have somewhere you could teach her the right way around a shotgun while I discuss the particulars with your cousin?”

“Sounds like fun,” Amberly said. She stepped up and patted Siobhan on the shoulder, “Okay, show me your partner and I'll show ya how to treat her.”

Siobhan went out to the truck, and retrieved the shotgun and a few boxes of ammunition, and Amberly led her out behind the house to a back yard that might have been a field, pointing out targets along the tree line, instructing Siobhan on her grip and posture, and for much of the time just chattering along in harmless and welcome how-do-you-do small talk.

By the time the professor and Cousin Bart emerged to find them, Siobhan would say that she and Amberly were fast friends.

The professor presented their plan – this was the night, the first night if necessary, that they'd go into the woods, looking for the Not-Deer, following the place where the Thompson family had seen more than one, more than once before the fatal, fateful encounter that Amberly had alluded to.

Cousin Bart was all set to return to his own home, evidently living some hours away while Amberly lived on her own at Thompson stead. When he was gone, Siobhan and the professor began to make their excuses, but Amberly spoke up.

“Take me with you,” she said.

“Excuse me?” the professor said

“I want to help ya,” Amberly said, “for my pappy, and for me. I want to be there when ya make this thing real, the way the cops said it couldn't be.”

“I understand,” the professor said, “but what did you have in mind?”

“I may be wrong,” Amberly said, “but I don't take you for much of a rifleman, mister. The lil' lady's a natural, but an afternoon won't make do for years of practice. So which one of ya is meant to hold the tranq gun?”

“I see your meaning,” the professor replied, “and you surely know better than most just how dangerous this thing is. There's just one problem.”

“What's that?”

“At least one of us will have to ride in the back of the truck.”

Siobhan looked to the professor, who had driven the whole way and seemed to be more comfortable behind the wheel than your average stunt driver, then to Amberly who was set to be the volunteer and guest of the expedition. Sheepishly, she raised her hand.