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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LatchKeyLore on 2024-11-12 03:16:57+00:00.
2:00 Pm
“Hey guys welcome back to Buck Busters I’ve got a special one for you today I am currently on the way to hunt what I hope to be one of the biggest bucks this channel has ever seen. So, stay tuned buck nation, you don’t want to miss this one” I dropped the smile from my face, put down the camera and stepped out of my truck.
Why now I thought? I hadn’t spoken to my brother in six years and now out of the blue he’s calling me, inviting me to come hunt on the family land. I walked toward the family home; this would be my first time back since dad had passed. My brother was waiting for me on the porch rocking back and forth in dad’s old chair. “Mikey!” he shouted, “Mister big time finally comes home”, “Good to see you too, Rick” I retorted already regretting coming back here.
“You sure that’ll be enough to bring that beast down” Rick scoffed “Remind me which one of us is a famous hunter again?” I said tossing 3 shells up and down in my hand. He just glared back at me. His eyes were just like dad’s. I couldn’t stand it. Without a word I grabbed my pack, my rifle and set off down the path.
5:15Pm
“I’m about halfway to the stand and let me just say Buck Nation I’ve never felt better about a hunt, just you wait guys this one is going to make the history books, and as tradition my three shells one to miss, one to wound, and one to finish em off, but as you all should know by now I’ll only need that last one. And don’t forget next Tuesday the new three shell rule and deer o’clock merch drops so be sure to get em while you can”. Reaching the end of the trail I looked up to see the deer stand. I knew Rick wasn’t much of a hunter these days, but I at least thought he would bother to maintain dad’s old stands.
Originally the stand was a simple ladder leading up to what was basically a bench seat, just big enough to squeeze two people with a thin bar to pull down for safety. The ladder, now short a few rungs, had become home to a variety of spider webs, tree branches, and even a bird nest. As for the seat itself, it looked intact save for the luxurious cushioning of leaves.
Walking around the back of the tree, checking the straps supporting the ladder, I noticed a deep groove in the ground. “Check this out Buck Nation, looks like someone’s been digging out here, maybe I’m not alone”. I pointed the camera at the groove, I had to walk alongside it to even capture the full length of it. “I know I said I would be hunting a monster this time, but this looks a like a real monster has been here”
I made it up into the stand at around 5:30 pm, it was already almost dark. My plan was to sleep in the stand that night to give myself all the time I needed to get my deer. “Alright Buck Nation, day one is in the books and come tomorrow morning I’ll have a new rack to hang on my wall.”
2:27 Am. the numbers on my phone burned into my eyes as I read them. Leaves were raining down on me, but I felt no wind. Listening, I heard what sounded like a small army right beneath my stand. “squirrels” I muttered. Cursing the existence of my sleep disrupting visitors, I readied my rifle. “This’ll shut em up” I said pointing the rifle to the ground and firing off a shot.
The forest erupted with thousands of footsteps all darting in different directions from my tree. The silence that followed was overwhelming, what was once a bustling cityscape of commuters going about their day, was a now ghost town. In the silence a new sound found my ears “ktckktcktc”. The sound stopped me as I began to lay my head back down. “What the fuck” I whispered. The sound had begun to grow louder, it had started from behind me and began to grow closer to my left side. The sound was like someone rummaging through a bag of bones.
“Oh, shit game time” the words left my mouth almost as quickly as I could pull my camera up. “What’s going on Buck nation, it is currently 2:40 Am and I believe I may have found my buck”. The sound had now reached my left side. I craned the camera out into the darkness to capture the source of the noise. “No luck looks like I’m going to have to wait till sunup for this one Buck Nation” I said reluctantly placing the camera back into my pack after thirty minutes of the sounds growing increasingly further away.
5:30 Am. “Todays the day guys a new Buck Busters record is going to be set”. The day brought with it a thick sea of fog coating the sprawling forest. My phone went off, a text from Rick. “Was that you last night?” the text read. “Yeah, had some wildlife screwing with me thought I’d scare em away” I responded. “Hope you got enough shells now” I began to read his response, but my attention was ripped away as something breaking the fog caught my eyes.
Antlers. Huge Antlers. They were like tree branches and impossibly large. Then I noticed a second pair then a third. The three rows of antlers were all I could see cutting through the fog’s endless sea, like mighty oars propelling an unknowably large vessel atop it.
I pulled down the safety bar using it to steady my camera as I focused on the antlers. “Chink” that was the only sound I heard as the rusted bolts supporting the safety bar and most of my body weight gave way. The generous coating of leaves broke my fall. I scrambled onto my feet noticing that I had landed inside a new trench. Alarm bells sounded in my head but down here with that thing, was not the time to investigate. I flew back up the deer stand skipping at least a few rungs.
“For fucks sake” I muttered seeing the absence of antlers. Just as I began to put my camera away a doe began to cross into my small pocket of visible ground. “The hell” the words left my lips before I could even grasp what I was looking at. What I was looking at was a doe, but it was missing its entire back half. The poor creature was pulling itself across the dirt with its two front legs, leaving a trail of blood and intestines.
I watched in sheer bewilderment for what felt like hours but must have only been a few seconds when I was quickly pulled back to reality. The antlers were back. Six separate shafts of antlers extended through the fog, moving almost consciously towards the dome. In an instant they wrapped around the body of the doe and pulled it back into the fog.
I continued filming through the entire encounter. At this point it was about my channel anymore; I had begun to believe I was either going to film one of the greatest discoveries of this century or my own demise.
Buzz. Rick had left me another message “Hey man I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot, it’s really good to have you back, let me know when you get that thing and I’ll help you drag it out, then we can catch up it’ll be just like old times, with dad”. I smiled. “Right” I said, I was going to kill whatever this was, then I would get out of these woods and back to Rick. I ejected my spent shell from last night and tucked it into my pocket. I readied another round and prepared to truly begin my hunt.
4:00pm. The hunt had gone on for longer than it should have, I was beginning to worry it wouldn’t show and I didn’t know if I could take another night in the stand and there was no chance in hell I was walking out of here at night with that thing out here.
“It’s go time Buck Nation, 6:00pm you know what that means deer o’clock, let’s hope that applies to whatever it is that’s out here”. I began to pan the camera in an attempt to capture the sheer scale of the forest now free of its foggy coverings.
A lone bird flew overhead, then three, then hundreds. Something was coming. I stood up in the stand, turned around pointing the camera behind me into the woods. “The hell is that” were all I could get before with a meaty thunk as bird smashed into my camera sending it plummeting into the ground.
Hastily I flew down the ladder after it, I knew how big of a risk this was, but I knew without it no one would believe the things I had seen. “Please be okay” I said examining the camera for damages. “Click” I started the playback on the camera to ensure it was still in working order. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw on that recording. In the camera’s brief fall, it had captured something in the woods. A tree taller than any other in the woods stretching high enough to scrape the clouds. I looked up from the camera, there was no such tree. My heart sank, I couldn’t kill this, whatever this wasn’t like anything I could imagine, and I had to get out of this forest.
7:30 Pm. Darkness brought a new feeling to the forest. The life that had once surrounded me had all seemingly died off. I always felt the deer’s eyes on me, I had begun to fear that at any moment an antler would break through the trees. The thoughts bogged my steps down, but I had to keep going, I was going to get out of the woods and see Rick again. “Stupid, stupid, stupid” I cursed myself. I was the one that left when Dad died. I was the one that had cut Rick off. I started making these videos to distract myself from what hunting really meant to me. What it really meant to my family.
9:00pm. As I climbed the final hill I could see the lights from the house shining, like a lighthouse breaking through the fog calling me to port. With each step I felt the deer’s presence draw closer, it was as if just as quickly I left its line of sight it would grow just tall enough to shadow me again. I had begun to run but I stifled my breathing, I feared the thing would hear me and attack at any moment.
9:15...
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