A Deer in Headlights
A Flash Fiction Short Story by Ryan Thomas LaBee
(988 words)“Ain’t seen anything like it in all my seventy-two years,” Oldman said.
“Reckon we scared it to death?” Elliot asked his grandfather, gesturing to the deer frozen in the middle of the road.
Oldman released a huff of breath into the chilled November night, examining the fog rolling past his lips, “Reckon, or it froze to death.”
Elliot wondered how it could possibly be cold enough for a deer to freeze to death. And hadn’t the deer already been on the road when they crossed the hill? Why would a deer stand in the middle of an old country road until it froze to death? He tried to recall back to before Oldman slammed on the brakes, but everything happened so fast he couldn’t be sure of anything he remembered.
“Grab some gloves from my toolbox,” Oldman said, motioning towards the idling farm truck at the edge of the dirt road. “Might have rabies or something. Gonna have to move it off the road. We was lucky to stop in time, but someone else might not be so fortunate.”
Elliot nodded before spinning on his feet so fast his boots flew out from under him, sending him reeling down to his hands and knees into the dirt and rock. White-hot pain painted his palms.
“You alright, boy?” Oldman said.
“I’ll be fine,” Elliot said, masking he was moments from crying.
As Elliot forced himself to his feet, his attention was drawn to a noise that started low and far away but was growing in intensity. The sound was simultaneously familiar but alien. It reminded the boy of thousands of rattlesnakes shaking their tails in unison.
“You hear that?” Elliot asked, whirling to see Oldman with his hand up the same way he did whenever he took Elliot hunting and wanted him to stop, be quiet, and be still. Oldman crouched down close to the deer carcass. In the glow of the headlights, Elliot thought he saw the deer moving. No, not moving. Bloating was a better way to describe it.
“I think,” Oldman’s voice was like Elliot had never heard, “the sound is coming from inside the damn deer.”
Elliot was sure of it now. The deer was growing like a water balloon when left on the faucet too long and was nearing its limit.
“Grandpa,” he never called Oldman Grandpa, “I think you should—”
Pop.
The deer’s body split longways down the middle as if pulled apart at invisible seams. The animal was hollow inside except for a dark swirling mass escaping its confines and ascending into the air, conjuring images in Elliont’s mind of a school of minnows fleeing his summer hands.
“The fuck?” Elliot said.
“Language,” Oldman said. He must have slipped in the chaos because he was now sitting on his ass, staring wide-eyed into the night sky.
“Aliens?” Elliot asked.
“Get off it!” Oldman said, fumbling to his feet. “Everything unexplained is aliens these days.”
A faint buzzing sound followed a rustling in the distant woods. Soft at first, but within moments the sound was all around. Whatever had been inside the deer was returning.
“Get in the truck!” Oldman said as the dark mass erupted from the shadows of the woods and converged on him. The mysterious horde swam across Oldman’s body, covering his flesh.
Elliot spun on his heels and raced towards the truck. He jumped into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him and locking it. Elliot watched as an unknowable army assaulted every inch of his grandfather’s body. The creatures glistened like diamonds as they crawled across Oldman. If the sight wasn’t so horrific, it might have been beautiful.
It hadn’t been the sound of rattlesnakes, Elliot thought, but wings.
Elliot dove to the floorboard, covering his head. The boy didn’t want to witness the horror befalling the Oldman, so he began to hum an old church hymn his Gran had taught him.
After what felt like a lifetime, Elliot stopped humming, and the night became disturbingly silent. He thrust himself onto the seat and peered out the driver’s side window, where he was met by the Oldman, standing icy still outside his window and peering in on him.
The shock drove Elliot back, “You scared the shit out of me!” Elliot said, crashing into the passenger side door.
“...language,” Oldman’s voice was distant and cold, but Elliot figured this made sense, given the circumstances.
Elliot opened the door for Oldman, who slithered behind the wheel and fired up the truck.
“What was…” Elliot asked.
“... rabies… or…something,” Oldman muttered, steering the truck back onto the dirt road.
“Rabies?” Elliot said, but Oldman didn’t respond; he only drove.
The whole way home, Elliot heard a distant buzzing.
*
The boy spilled out of the truck and darted toward his grandparent’s farmhouse.
I have to wake Gran. Something is off with Oldman.
Elliot barreled up the stairs into his grandparent’s room and began barricading the door with a dresser, waking his grandmother, who was now clambering with her bedside lamp.
“Christ on a cracker!” she said, finding the lamp switch and washing the room in a fiery glow.
Elliot’s heart was slamming in his ears. The boy stood at the foot of the bed, trying to get his breathing under control. He began to explain the deer and what had happened to Oldman, but he was cut short by the unmistakable sound of boots descending the hallway.
“Spit it out already,” his grandmother said.
“There were … bugs... I think,” was all Elliot could muster before the door exploded inward, sending the dresser careening toward the middle of the room.
Oldman stepped into the light; his body had bloated into the shape of a monstrous pumpkin. All the blood in Elliot’s body drained to his feet. The elderly man’s eyes had twisted in his skull, and his mouth hung cavernous.
Elliot thought back to the deer on the road, but before he could do or say anything, an all too familiar sound came. It was a sound he had heard once already that night.
Pop.
