This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/WordNerd1983 on 2024-10-09 07:33:30+00:00.
We live in Appalachia, my husband, daughter, and I, near to where Helene hit hardest, but far enough that we were spared any permanent damage. Still, a weather event of that proportion leaves a weal.
The morning after the sky stopped falling, Jay put on his work boots and hardhat, then took himself and his chainsaw on a saunter around our twenty acres of forested mountainside, focusing mostly on our mile-long driveway. He got back early that afternoon, mud-spattered and sweating.
“I got the driveway clear. There were thirteen trees across it – thirteen. I also saw where some trees fell on the power lines. I didn't touch those,” he hastened, seeing my concern. “I left those for the power company. They're better equipped.”
The work on our property was done. Eleven-year-old Alice and I had spent the morning clearing the debris from our porch and the clearing around our house. At least, the work my family could do was done.
The only road out was blocked by that downed power line, and cell service was spotty at best.
We thought about checking on our neighbors, but the only one we knew by name was visiting her mother in Ohio, and walking onto someone else's property without an invitation could be dangerous in our area. Stories of hillbillies with their dogs and rifles have their origins in these mountains.
So, helpless until the power company could finally reach us, one customer among millions, we went inside, grateful to be safe, grateful this outage wasn't like the one our first year here that had left us stranded in a snowstorm with no heat and no well water for two weeks. That one had nearly cost my husband his sanity. But we'd learned, and we now kept plenty of portable chargers, and ample cans in the pantry, and gallons of drinking water in the closet, and buckets of rainwater in the shed for flushing the toilet.
I checked my phone. A trickle of data let me check in on the tragedy of Western N.C. A murmured prayer, a sign of the cross. I tried to scroll down to see more, but the trickle had dried up. With a small sigh, I set down my phone and started setting up candles for sundown.
* * *
The evening breeze, pleasantly cool, danced the curtains into the kitchen and made the candles frolic.
“Natural 20!’ Alice cried, peering into the dice tray.
“Yes!” was Jay's enthusiastic response. “Your arrow hits the ogre straight in the eye. Aaarrgppplbt! And with that,” quickly rolling some D6’s and checking his scratch pad, “the last of the ogres is dead.”
We both smiled at Alice, but she did not smile back, her eyes instead focused outside our glass front door.
“Sweetie, are you okay?” I asked.
“I think I saw something. Outside. It was big.”
Jay and I both stood immediately. I moved beside Alice; Jay checked that both the lock and the deadbolt were in place. Black bears had become more common since COVID, so we knew the drill. When Jay started closing the windows, I hurried to help. Alice remained in the kitchen, peering past the reflection of the candles, into the darkness.
Suddenly, she screamed and stumbled back. “It's not a bear. It's a big deer. Only– only it doesn't look like a deer.”
My throat constricted, my heart raced. I'd read stories about the cryptids of Appalachia, about the Not-a-Deer. Only those weren't true. The stories on scp-wiki.wikidot.com are made up. Hell, the whole SCP Foundation is made up!
And then it was on the porch.
Ploddingly, it drew closer, its legs seeming backward, seeming as though they should creak and groan, though the world outside had gone deadly silent. Its eyes, too far forward, made contact with mine, then shifted to Alice. It tilted its head, its neck appearing to break in the process.
And then its mouth – its hideous, predator-toothed mouth – opened, and an impossible voice ground out, “Let me in.”
The spell broke. I shrieked, grabbed Alice, ran from the kitchen – where was Jay? “Jay!” I screamed, then saw him at our bedroom window, transfixed.
Outside the bedroom window stared another Not-a-Deer.
“Mommy!” wailed Alice – she hadn't called me that in ages – pointing through her bedroom window across the hall. This one seemed to be smiling a horrifying, hideous leer.
I grabbed Jay by the wrist, I physically hoisted Alice by the waist, and I dragged my family into the bathroom.
That's where we are now, Jay perched on the toilet, Alice and I cowering together in the tub, all of us praying harder than we ever have before. Two five-gallon buckets of rainwater are against the door, feeble insulation to aid a flimsy lock.
We can hear them inside. There was no sound of breaking glass, so they must have figured a way past the locks. They're taking their time to get to us. What are they doing? Examining our family pictures on the wall? Puzzling over Alice's stuffed animal collection?
I seem to have a little data. I don't know how long we can last. I don't know if any help could even get here. I'll try to let you know if