CHAPTER TEN
I woke up with the feeling that something was wrong, that horrible feeling of extreme uneasiness. I was on my back looking up at the ceiling of the tent. It was dark but I could see my breath rise in the air like a frozen cloud. The tent was moving slightly, like the wind was rocking it back and forth. I strained my ears but couldn’t hear any wind at all.
I did hear Dex’s breath in a sharp withdrawal next to me. I slowly rolled my head to the side and looked at him. His eyes were open which gave me a terrible fright. He had been looking over my head at the opposite side of the tent. Something in his eyes, the way they seemed stuck in an unblinking, concentrating position, told me that I shouldn’t follow his gaze. That it was safer to stare at him instead.
So I did, until he looked at me. His eyes seemed to be asking, “Do you hear that too?” I listened hard. There still wasn’t any sign of a breeze yet the tent was ruffling and flapping lightly. That was producing one sound. The other sound was coming from the area where Dex had been looking, where our bags and gear were. It was a scratching, shuffling noise. My first thought was that there were rodents in the tent with us, going through our bags. Rats that were waiting until we fell asleep before they chewed our fingers off.
I had to look. If it was rats I would be out of the tent like a shot. I gave Dex a weak nod and eased my head over to the other side.
In the dark I couldn’t make out what was going on with our bags, they just looked like dark lumps. But the bags weren’t the issue. The side of the tent was being raked from the outside. That was the easiest way to describe it. Something was outside of the tent and pushing inwards, in many places. It was almost as if a dozen fingers were running down the outsides.
My body went cold, colder than the air that nipped at my nose and cheeks. I watched in fear, unable to move myself, unable to decipher what was going on and what to do next. Something was out there, and as frightening as the idea that it was people (or aliens!) outside running their fingers up and down our tent, the strange scratching noise and the even placement of the trails said otherwise.
I felt Dex shift beside me, propping himself up slowly, as silently as the nylon sleeping bag would allow. He reached down for my face and gently turned it his way. He looked frightened, for sure, but determined. I knew he wouldn’t stay in the tent and wait to see what happened next. He would make what happened next happen. He was making sure I knew that. He was also telling me, somehow, without saying a word, that he had my back. At least, I hoped that’s what he was trying to get across.
He raised his finger to lips and then pointed at the video camera closest to us. It was the one with night vision and it was no coincidence that it was out. He had been prepared for something just like this. I wondered if he knew something about the island that I didn’t.
I moved as quietly as I could and leaned over to pick it up. As I did, I looked up at the side of the tent. I couldn’t make out what was out there, but I was right in thinking they weren’t fingers. They were too pointy for that. It was almost like a couple of trees had come alive in the night and were prodding at us with their branches, their scaly bark creating this raspy noise that was getting louder by the minute.
Feeling too close to it, I pulled back and gave Dex the video camera. He flicked it on and started filming. I sat up and moved further back so I was out of the way, and for a minute we watched the trails do their vertical dance. Each second that we filmed, I felt more calm and relaxed. There was something, at least this time, about having it all on film that made me feel like nothing bad could really happen. If I was looking through the lens like Dex was, I would be even more removed. No wonder he wasn’t as scared as me half the time.
At that thought, the camera pointed in my direction. I gave up on vanity and just gave the camera the most incredulous look. No acting needed. I had no fucking idea what was going on either.
Dex handed me the camera and motioned for me to keep it on the tent wall while he squirmed out of his sleeping bag and stood up. He was ready to go outside. And as I handed the camera back to him, I could see he expected me to go as well. Going outside to where those…things were was a horrifying prospect but the idea of him leaving me alone in the tent wasn’t any better.
I got up and stood beside him, our eyes shifting between the tent flap and the phantom raking motion that was still going on. I could barely see him in the shadows but I knew he was trying to plan an ambush. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. His reassurance before shit got crazy.
In one stealthy motion he reached over and unzipped the tent flap and leaped awkwardly outside. I did the same, following right behind him, the flap smacking me in the face.
I barely noticed the cold damp air or the rough pebbles beneath my socks. I grabbed onto Dex’s arm and we looked over at five large deer that were poking and prodding our tent with mechanical simplicity, as if in a trance. Their antlers scraped up the sides and didn’t stop when even we had emerged. Any other deer would have gone bounding skittishly into the forest but these ones…they didn’t move an inch. They didn’t even look at us.
“What the hell,” I whispered, my voice higher than I hoped. The deer didn’t seem too bothered. I gripped Dex’s arm harder while he aimed the camera at them.
He swallowed hard and said, “Five against two.”
That wasn’t comforting at all. Those five deer could do more than enough damage to us. Where did they come from? What were they doing?
I looked over towards the picnic table and through the fuzzy haze of the barely lit sky I could make out strange shapes amongst the trees and bushes. I gasped. There was something there too.
Dex looked at me and then in the direction of my wide eyes. He brought the camera over and I peered over his shoulder at the lit night vision screen, which presented everything to us in a green wash of grain and blur.
There were at least a dozen deer waiting in the bushes. Some were on the path. Some were at the picnic table just feet away from us. They all waited, frozen on the spot, staring at us, eyes glowing like white/green orbs. Five against two? More like twenty against two.
I thought my nails were going to dig clear through Dex’s sweater. If he felt it, he didn’t show it. He switched the camera up between the two herds, between the creepy, ogling eyes and the robotic, thoughtless bucks. We didn’t know where to look.
“Should I turn on the lantern?” I whispered, my voice coming out in throaty rags. I knew it was just at the side of my feet. For better or for worse, maybe that would get their attention.
“Yeah,” he said through a sharp breath.
I quickly picked it up and turned the knob until it flashed on. The light was so bright I had to shield my eyes with my free hand. When they recovered enough, I looked back and saw… nothing.
Nothing at all but the trees, the bushes, the table and the tent. And Dex standing in front of me with a dumbfounded expression, the camera shakily pointing at nothing. No deer.
“What happened?” I cried out. How could they have just disappeared like that?
“I have no fucking idea,” he said, and anxiously started the playback on the screen. He stopped it after a few seconds and we watched together as the footage showed the bucks with their antlers against the tent. In one second they were there. Then a flash of light that overwhelmed the night vision. When that faded, the deer were gone. They just vanished. All of them.
“How is that even possible?” I asked, unable to grasp the reality of it.
He shook his head and walked around to the side of the tent where they had been poking and prodding.
“Bring the light over here,” he said, gesturing to it.
I raised the lantern and walked over beside him. The side of the tent was marked with dark trails.
“Dirt?” I asked.
Dex squatted and ran his finger over one of them. He sniffed it then held it out for me in the light.
“It’s blood.”
That was too much. I looked around me, scared, my heart thumping around irregularly. The forest and the shadows began to spin. I realized I still might have been drunk. What time was it anyway? I didn’t even have my phone to check.
“This is great. I’m not fucking sleeping tonight. What if they come back?”
“I don’t think they will,” he said absently, searching the ground around the area like a bloodhound picking up the scent.
“What if they do?”
“We will deal with it when it happens.”
He bent over and gently placed his fingers on the earth. He looked up at me. “They left hoof prints. We didn’t imagine them.”
“And we got them on film too. So, no we didn’t.”
“Just making sure. I think it’s good if we start questioning our sanity more often.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled under my breath. I was too tired, too cold and too woozy to deal with any of this. I knew that if I gave it an ounce more thought, I’d have to give it my all and I’d be up for the rest of the night. All I wanted now was that warm sleeping bag and that blissful oblivion of my rested head.
“Go back to sleep,” Dex said. “I’ll finish up here.”
“OK. Don’t be too long or I’ll worry,” I replied. I stepped back into the tent.
He called from behind me, “Just look on the bright side. We got all of that on film.”
I stuck my head out of the flap looked at him wryly. “Huzzah.”
I stuffed my shivering soul back into my comfy, slightly damp sleeping bag and attempted to drift off to sleep. It didn’t happen until the lantern’s light went off and Dex was safely back in bed beside me.
*
My sleep wasn’t as solid as I had hoped. Dex got up at dawn to go take a whiz and considering the circumstances of the hours before, I automatically woke up too. Luckily the light of day was creeping over the top of the tent. Dawn always brought a sense of comfort and relief, an end to the night and the horrors it hid. As he climbed back in, I glimpsed a bit of the sunrise and a hit of the cold wind that had picked up in the last few hours. Everything was outside was red. Blood red.
“Some sunrise,” he said through chattering teeth as he slipped back into his sleeping bag.
“Is it the apocalypse?” I croaked, half–joking. I leaned over and pushed the flap an inch to get a better look. The trees were swaying in the breeze, the sky was a textural mixture of thick, fast–moving clouds and a muddy red color.
“Red sky morning, sailors take warning,” he muttered, rolling over so his back was to me.
Red sky night, sailors delight, I thought.
“What does that mean for us?” I asked. But Dex was already asleep and I was left to answer that question on my own.