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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Due_Pin_9161 on 2024-11-25 18:08:19+00:00.
Hi all,
Carol here. Well, I don’t have much preamble in me today. I’ve had a few requests to hear the story of the deer incident of 2001. Despite my hesitation to share this, if y’all are so curious, here it is. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Read at your own discretion.
The day began like any other. We had a kid, a little girl, who broke her arm messing around on the toe rope lift. I had to scold the instructor who even let her on it, she was much too young, too small, and obviously terrified. An overzealous dad had shoved her onto a snowboard without any thought to her abilities. I had just finished up there, preparing to write an incident report, when I got the radio call from my coworker, Brixton, up the hill. His voice was shaking, something I’d never heard from him before. He’d been here longer than I had, seen much worse, so I knew whatever was up there waiting for me, it wasn’t anything good.
I took the lift up to the Gottlos run, a blue run down the far side of the mountain. What awaited me towards the top of the slope was a horror.
A woman, blonde hair, skin pale as a porcelain doll, lay sprawled out in the snow. Her chest cavity had been torn open, thick, dark blood soaking the snow around her. Muscle, fat, organs and blood gleamed in the sunlight, a sharp contrast to the pristine white all around us. I swallowed thickly and looked back to the growing crowd of my coworkers.
She looked like an oyster, ribs wrenched apart like the shell, exposing the delicate flesh. The remainder of her innards resembled ground beef more than any discernible structures. She had been gored, but not in a way I had ever seen before. This was…violent. It wasn’t a creature who was frightened, or threatened, this was total annihilation of the human form.
As I stood there, transfixed by the fight of the mutilated woman, the head ski patrol appeared from the top of the slope. Gardner, a man easily into his sixties, seemingly floated down the run, a grace in his movements I had never seen in any other member of our ranks. I will likely never see someone ski like that again. He unclipped his skis, trudging over to us in the snow. He had his fists tightly clenched in his gloves, a slight tremor evident in his left hand.
He stood over her in silence for a moment, bowing his head before murmuring what I think was a prayer. He inhaled sharply, his head snapping upright. He was military in some bygone era of his life, don’t know what branch, what he did, where he’d been. Gardner didn’t talk about personal matters, not that anyone was grabbing a beer with him. He had an air of impenetrable solitude about him, and no one cared to make the effort.
“Damn deers,” he muttered, his deep voice biting against the quiet winter air, “We’ll shut down the run for the day, get county over here to collect her, figure out how to keep the deer off the slopes. Send some bait out there, appease ‘em or something.”
Everyone nodded, but our eyes betrayed us. We glanced at each other, a silent question hovering in our shared gazes.
Appease them?
Before we had time to question further, he curtly nodded again, fumbling with his front pocket like he was seeking a cigarette. His hand trembled more aggressively for a moment, before he cleared his throat and nodded to the rest of us.
“Let’s get started then. I’ll see y’all at the bottom, keep your eyes peeled for any other possible DB’s or stragglers on the run. Gotta get this place cleared out before Teagen gets out here with the boys.”
Teagen was our current contact on the force in Blowing Rock. He was around Gardner’s age, and it seemed the two had history with these mountains. A torrid history they didn’t seem keen to share. Based on his flat affect at the gory scene before us, I’d say they’d seen this kind of bad before, perhaps many times.
We left her up there, posting signs at the lifts and bottom of the slope warning off any skiers who might chance a closed run. We said it was icy, snow was patchy, essentially that the terrain wasn’t safe for skiing. Before we completed the run, an image came to be unbidden. The woman’s wrists…they had been bruised. Almost as if she’d been tied up.
I just couldn’t shake the scene from my head. I mean, I’d seen a goring before, but never like that. Deer didn’t do that. She wasn’t in ski gear, or, what was left of her clothing didn’t resemble it. All I could think of were the woods that the mountain backs up to, and what in them might’ve torn that woman to shreds.
The next night, as the resort was closing down, myself and two other newer ski patrols, Brixton and Waters, decided to go up and investigate ourselves. In hindsight, that was one of the worst mistakes we could’ve made, but as it often does, youth and arrogance begets tragedy.
When we got to the top of the run, we popped off our skis and traded them out for snow boots we had stashed in our backpacks. We told the lift controller at the base of the run we just wanted a final go at Gottless for the night, and he allowed it despite the warnings we’d posted the day before. He knew they weren’t accurate, and we were the pros. We had two flashlights, three radios, and one pistol between the three of us. I advised Waters to bring her gun since there could be some violent wildlife up here, especially after dark. We started our path into the woods, unsure what exactly to look for, but oh, we found it.
After fifteen minutes of walking in the heavily wooded forest, I had a realization. It was silent. Quieter than a crypt. I couldn’t even hear our footfalls in the snow. Even my breath seemed silent, as did my heart. I looked to Brixton and Waters and they seemed to have the same realization I had. We all stopped, looking at one another and wondering what in the hell could be causing this. As we stood there, eyeing each other with a fix of confusion and fear, we saw the first light.
A single candle flickered among the trees, then more, drifting in a way I can only describe as dreamlike. We ducked down, creeping closer to the path the candles were taking, and saw the bearers of the flames. A group cloaked figures, all in black, with a sort of crown on their heads. Each differed in size, color and shape, but all bore some form of antlers, shaved down and reformed. The figure at the head of the parade wore full antlers like a stag, held together by twine or string of some kind, placed upon his head like the crown of thorns I’d once seen on a statue of Christ. My body felt cold, and when I placed a hand over my mouth to hold in the rush of shock the sight gave me, I felt frigid, salty tears stinging my face. I had begun to cry, unconsciously, I was no longer in control of my body in this onslaught of horror.
At the back of the parade was a woman, bound tightly on a gurney of twigs. She was blindfolded, thorny brambles twisted around her like some kind of barbed wire. She twisted and wailed, trying in vain to break free of her captors. I broke out of my trance, turning to my coworkers to see the same kind of primal fear etched into their faces as I knew was reflected in my own. We had no choice but to follow the dark river of candles and cloaks.
They ended their march at a small clearing, framed by tall withered beaches and thick foliage. The snow on the ground was thin there, trampled by many feet over the past few nights. There was a singed spot on the ground that was replenished with tinder and set alight with the flames of their candles. A bonfire. They gathered around it while a single cloaked figure separated from the group. I watched him as he knelt beside a large rock on the ground, and slowly pushed it back. The entire flock froze, save for the terrified woman who’s sobbing continued despite the silence. Eventually, even she grew quiet, trembling like a leaf. Beneath the rock was a hole, like a well.
The smell hit us like a wall. It was a smell of rot, decay, death, sorrow and deep malice. Like a body left to rot and be feasted on by crows. The smell of rage and murderous intent. Whatever was in that hole, it was not of this world, nor should it have ever been found. The group began to chant and sing, a deep rhythmic pulse to their collective voices. It was Gregorian, though the language was something I’d never heard before, nor do I wish to ever again. Among their chants came another voice, perforating the air in a way that was godlike. It was deep, so deep it felt like the voice came from below the earth itself. Below hell, beyond time, beyond comprehension.
The woman began to wail again, her cries becoming frantic shrieks. We stayed frozen in our hiding spots, unsure what to make of what we saw, our bodies powerless to move us into this scene, to help her in any way. Then, it began in earnest.
The cloak with the full crown of antlers knelt beside the hole, as if paying reverence to whatever being was residing within, before removing the crown from his head. He stood after a moment of prayer, and raised his hands up, bellowing out what sounded like a revelation.
The crowd of cloaks rejoiced. The woman screamed. I wept.
The man stood before the woman, crown in his hands, the antlers pointed towards the exposed skin of her abdomen. As if it were nothing, he plunged the points of the antlers into her flesh. The woman’s cries became a guttural howl, blood bursting forth from her mouth like shaken soda from a bottle. The members each removed their crowns,...
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