StagOdin Meadows
6300 words The shot cracked through the air and impaled my target’s chest, releasing something between a grunt and a scream from the poor beast. Mere moments after the rifle kicked back into my shoulder, my dad’s hand thudded against my back as he howled in celebration. He lifted the rifle from my fumbling hands. My arms fell limp to my side. I stood frozen while in one swift motion, he shucked his camo coat and slid down the ladder. “C’mon boy,” he said, boots hitting the ground. Shuffling my numb feet towards the ledge, I tried to rub my hands off on my orange safety vest, but my palms remained slick, clammy. Dad had almost caught up to the thing, the deer. I dug my fist into the tree bark to steady myself and watched as it staggered its last few steps, then collapsed to the ground. I kind of jumped, sort of stepped off the stand, crashed into a mound of crunchy leaves, then hustled to catch up to my father. Blood gurgled out the stag’s gaping mouth as I inched closer. My throat clenched. Dad cheered. “You got a fucking twelve-pointer kid.” He tussled my hair like when I was little. “Goddamn. Not bad. Not bad. He’s gonna look real good up in the basement.” My lips pulled into a smile. The deer stared at me through glossy eyes, wobbling its head in tiny circles as it lifted towards me. Dad was too busy sending pictures to his friend to notice, but my heartbeat raced as it inched closer to my hand. It looked so sad, seeking comfort in its final moments, straining towards me, its killer. My stomach sloshed, a mix of puppy chow and peanuts. My mouth went dry. Dad turned around, but I was already reaching, my fingers only inches from its velveteen fur. It bit me. It drew blood. Dad shot it through the skull. *** “Deer don’t seek retaliation,” Dad said on the way to the hospital. “They understand their role in the food chain and accept it. They may fear the wolf, but they do not blame him for his nature. It’s as God designed.” They took the deer to test it for rabies. Dad said it didn’t have rabies, but they wouldn’t let him keep the head. He didn’t say a word to me on the way home. As soon as we stepped inside, Dad made a beeline straight to the fridge. I tried to skirt the living room, but Mom spotted me halfway to the stairs. “What the hell happened?” She grabbed me by the wrist and brought my hand to her face for inspection. “He got bit by a deer.” Dad announced on his way out the front door, six-pack in hand. “A deer?” It came out more like an accusation than a question. “What the fuck happened Dan?” She let go of me, and I took the opportunity to slink upstairs. Dad’s truck was already chewing gravel by the time I hit my mattress. He returned hours later, reeking of beer. He and Mom argued for a while but, muffled under my bedroom’s floorboards, I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. I tried to go back to bed, but the downstairs grumbles buzzed in my ear like a fly, prodding me awake anytime I approached sleep. With a sigh, I flung the blanket off my body, stood up, and stretched. It was late, the room only illuminated by thin strands of moonlight. Resting my elbows on the bare-wood of the window sill, I stared out at our backyard. A white-tailed deer, an eight-pointer, stood at the edge of the woods, just on the other side of the treeline. A pang of guilt tainted my stomach as I watched it bow its head and graze, its pale antlers almost glowing against the dark foliage that surrounded it. A door slammed. I jumped, but the arguing dissolved into a heavy silence. The stag’s ears perked up. It’s head shot toward me. For a second, its eyes looked like deep, miserable wells. Then it stood up on its hind legs. *** When I came home from school the next day, the twelve-point rack was laying on my bed, mounted to a lump of cloth vaguely in the shape of a deer skull. I asked Mom, and found out that the deer tested negative for rabies. I asked her where Dad was. “Where do you think?” She said without looking up from her magazine. Not having any nails to hang it and getting the message that Dad didn’t want to be bothered, I left the mount on top of my dresser. I tossed and turned throughout the night, haunted by the sound of the gunshot, the rack of antlers taunting me like a ghost. Giving up on sleep, I went back to my window, watched as the tops of trees rustled and billowed in waves. I’d almost forgotten about the eight-pointer until, through drooping eyelids, I saw it approach the treeline. The hair on the back of my neck rose. It had to be the same deer. I’d convinced myself that I had imagined the whole ordeal, that it was a trick of the eye but again, it stood up. Then it started walking. I could only sit, paralyzed, as it crossed the yard. It felt like I was witnessing a miracle—or a crime. I felt like I needed to scream for help, but my mouth went dry and the words got stuck in my throat. It didn’t look quite like a deer anymore. The deer head shifted into a humanoid torso still covered in fur. As it got closer, I could see that it had hands and feet like a human. It closed the short distance between us in a few graceful bounds then jumped onto the side of the house, clinging to my window sill with its fingers. I stumbled backwards, flailing as I clambered into the corner of my room. I turned and my breath caught in my chest. It was staring at me. Through the window. I didn’t move. It tilted its head back, then its jaw jerked to the side. It released a slight groan as its skin rippled in chaotic spasms. Its snout retracted back into its skull like a sinking ship, morphing as it went to form the shape of human lips. Once the transformation was complete, it looked like a deer from the nose up, but with the mouth and chin of a human. “Hello,” it said. My heart nearly beat out of my chest, but I stayed silent. “I can see you, you know?” My eyes searched frantically in the dark for something to help but landed on the ghostly white antlers. I shuddered. “I’m not going to hurt you.” It waited for a moment, the silence nearly palpable but eventually, its shoulders heaved like it let out a sigh. “It’s fine. I get it. But when you’re ready, just meet me out in the woods. I’ll see you there.” It dropped from my window, landed on the ground below with a soft thud. I stayed in the corner for a good ten minutes before I worked up the courage to go back to the window but when I looked out, it was gone. *** The next night, I waited till Mom was sleeping and Dad had left with his hunting buddies, then snuck out of my room. I.e., I walked downstairs and out the backdoor. The air was dead silent and crisp, cold enough to sting your nose, but not enough to need gloves. The grass crinkled under my feet as I neared the teeline, my heart pounding against my chest. I should’ve brought the gun, I thought for a second, then dismissed it. Impossible to sneak through the leaves, I trudged through the withered underbrush to my usual hiking path. I circled this route often when I was younger: path down to creek, creek up to dam, down the treeline, back to path. It made a sort of lopsided triangle that could be comfortably hiked in about forty minutes, hopefully enough time for the deer-thing to make an appearance. The water was low, barely a stream as it glided down the middle of the creekbed, casting glints of light as it flowed over river stones and broken sticks. I walked alongside it, throwing the occasional pebble into the deeper pools. I approached what I called a cliff, though it was more like a steep hill cut in half by the creek, a nearly twenty foot gap to the other side, forty feet to the water’s surface. At the widest part of the stream, you could believe it was a river during heavy rains, but now it was little more than a foot deep. At the top, I looked across the gap and saw it. The eight-pointer stood at the ledge on the other side, staring at me like it was waiting. I held my breath as we met eyes. It’s head tilted to the side then bowed towards the ground. My tongue fumbled for something to say, but it turned around and started walking into the woods. I sighed, thinking maybe I was wrong, but then it came back, barrelling through the trees at full speed. It sprinted towards the ledge, then jumped. It soared over the creekbed. My jaw dropped. I stumbled backwards. Tripping over the underbrush, I fell to the ground, and the deer crashed into the leaves mere feet from me. I scrambled to my feet, held my hands out like I was trying to calm a rabid animal, but the deer just stared, watching me. It looked me up and down, then stood. Up close, I could see the muscles in its body shift as it morphed into a humanoid figure. Its skin rippled. Its bones cracked and lurched as it went but after a few minutes, it was almost human save for a blanket of fur that covered its entire body and antlers that protruded from the top of its skull. “Hello.” I squeaked, barely audible over the soft murmurs of the creek. “Well, he speaks.” It smiled, held out its hand. “My name’s Felix, nice to finally meet you.” “I’m Jack.” I reached out and with a firm grip, he shook my hand. “Are you a person?” I blurted out before I could think. Heat rose to my cheeks. I had to look away. “Yeah.” He laughed. “Well, I mean I like to think of myself as a person. I guess maybe by your definition what am I? A monster?” He leaned toward me and laughed when my eyes widened in fear. “Relax. I’m just kidding.” He walked around me, slowly, like he was evaluating me. “You’re acting like I’m a werewolf or something, but all I do is run around naked. It’s not that serious.” “You’re naked?” I chuckled, but it came out more like an awkward whine. “Do you see any clothes?” He motioned down his body and while fur covered mostly everything, he definitely wasn’t wearing clothes. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t think of a response. My cheeks burned. He stared me down. “I’m just fucking with you. You can breathe, you know?” I exhaled, not even realizing I’d been holding my breath. “I’m not like a weird streaker, it's just like impossible to morph without tearing through all your shit. It's kind of annoying, but like, it's whatever. Anyways… by your reaction, I’m assuming you haven’t morphed yet.” “Morphed?” I looked around, but we were surrounded by nothing but trees. I couldn’t even see the light from my house. “Yeah,” Felix sighed, “Like from a human to a deer, and vice versa?” “I can’t do that.” He rolled his eyes. “No, you don’t know how to do it.” He tapped his nose. “I can tell that you’re one of us. I can smell it on you.” He winked, laughed, but my hands started shaking. “What do you mean?” “God.” He groaned and rolled his eyes again. “Yeah, like we can smell each other, the other morphs, not really when we’re human, but when we’re deer, it’s pretty easy to tell. I was just passing through the other night when… I caught a whiff so to speak.” “Right…” I took a step backwards. “Okay. Okay.” He put his arms up like he was under arrest. “Do you have a phone or something?” I nodded. “Can I see it?” I hesitated for a second, then unlocked my phone and handed it to him. “I’m going to text myself. Obviously you’re still skeptical even though…” He motioned up and down his body. “I mean, if it's harder to believe that I’m a normal guy, I get it, but either text me back if you want to know more or block my number. It's up to you.” “Why would I block you?” He rolled his eyes, shoved the phone back into my hand, and jumped away from me, morphing back into a deer before his feet hit the ground. Within seconds he was gone. *** I didn’t text Felix that night, or even in the morning. It gnawed at me. Throughout the day. It was hard to pay attention in class. When I got home, I texted him just a simple, “hey”. After a grueling hour of biting at the skin around my fingers, he responded. It started slow. Awkward. But eventually, it was like we hit a water main, and the conversation just started flowing. He was from a small town too, about thirty miles south. We were both in high school. He didn’t have many friends either. I’d almost forgotten about the deer stuff until he asked if I wanted to meet in the woods. My chest buzzed. I held my breath, texted back. He said he’d be there in twenty minutes. By the time I made it to the cliff, Felix was already standing at the top, halfway between a deer and a human like a midwest satyr, antlers glowing bright under the moon. “You haven’t had any questions about morphing.” He said it kind of like a question, but more like he was teasing. “It didn’t seem like something to text about.” I put my hands in my pockets to warm them up, shifted from one foot to the other. “Awe.” Felix rolled his eyes and sauntered over to a large log where he sat down with his legs crossed. “You scared momma’s gonna find out?” “No.” My cheeks burned. “Daddy?” He chuckled. I glared at him. “It’s okay. I mean, I can’t judge. I keep it a secret too. Don’t want to end up as venison, if you know what I mean.” “Does it scare you?” “What?” “Being… I mean like turning into a prey animal?” The words came out in almost a whisper. “God, that’s so fucking stupid.” Felix groaned, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry,” I squeaked, but he shook his head. “No. Sorry. It’s not you… it’s just a pet peeve of mine.” He stood up and started pacing back and forth. “Like yeah I get it that a deer is a quote unquote prey animal, but prey for who? Like we don’t get wolves or really bears down here, and who the fuck is scared of a coyote, let alone a bobcat? I mean, yeah, deer are hunted by people, but so are wolves.” “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I just bit the inside of my cheek. “It’s okay. It’s just a touchy subject.” He sighed, slid down to the dirt, then leaned back on the log like a recliner while I plopped down into the leaves next to him. “Some of the others make fun of us deer-morphs, but it’s just toxic-masculinity bullshit. They act like you have to turn into something tough for it to be cool, but why? I don’t want to be a killing machine. I just want to run through the woods and frolic and shit. If they didn’t already have an expectation in their heads, they’d think it was cool as fuck.” “I think it’s cool.” “You know,” Felix stopped for a second, then smiled. “I met a wolf-morph once.” “Really?” “He insisted that I call him a werewolf even though he’s nowhere near one.” “That’s… weird.” I laughed. “Right? He was like really insistent on it too. He even howled at the moon and shit but like, that was all him. He was just into it, I guess.” Looking into his smile was like staring at the creekbed, my attention swirling around his eyes and drifting downwards till it settled on his lips. I tried to come up with something witty to say, but I just found myself smiling back. “Are you ready to try it?” “What?” He jumped to his feet, breaking me out of my daze. “No. I don’t. I told you, I can’t do that.” “Ugh,” Felix put his hand on his hip and rolled his eyes.“Shut up. I know you can do it. My morph-dar is never wrong.” He held his hand out and pulled me to my feet. “Morph-dar?” “Like gaydar but… with morphs.” He rolled his eyes again. “Oh.” The air was cold, but my cheeks were hot. My mouth hung open as I searched for a response. “You’re going to have to get naked.” “No.” “Did you bring any spares?” Felix looked me up and down, and raised an eyebrow. I shook my head. “Unless you want to say bye-bye to your clothes. You’re going to have to get naked.” “Okay. If– I guess. Yes, that will have to happen.” I bit my lip, fumbled with the zipper to my jacket. Felix was staring at me, smirking. “Just look away.” “If that’s what you want.” He rolled his eyes and turned around to face the woods. “Alright, strip.” “Fuck off,” I mumbled under my breath. Felix laughed and my cheeks burned hotter. I shirked off my coat and shirt, kicked off my shoes, wiggled out of my jeans and after pausing for a second, slipped off my boxers. I wadded them together and held it in front of me in a ball. The cold bled through my skin, sank straight to my bones. I shivered for a few moments, then everything kind of went numb. “Are you ready?” “Yeah.” My eyes fell to the ground. I felt like I was back in the PE locker room, exposed, clutching my dignity. I expected Felix to make another joke, but he just looked at me and smiled. “It’s okay to be nervous.” “I’m not nervous. I’m just… cold. It’s fucking cold.” As if to prove my point, a shiver tore through my body. “Alright, well let's get some hair on ya.” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Okay, so you’re going to jump, right? But like picture a deer. Well, not like a deer, but imagine the concept of a deer. So you’re like a human now where you’re standing, but imagine you as a deer and put that at the end of your jump. Like, put it in your head almost like a portal or a hoop and then just… do it. Does that make sense?” “No.” Suddenly, I felt ridiculous standing naked, shivering in the cold in front of this deer-man that I didn’t know too well. “Uhhh.” He scratched his head. “You’re going to just have to try it. It’s not like an exact science, at least I don’t think. It’s all about mental states and like feeling like the deer. Try. And if it doesn't work, you’ll just land on your ass. All at once. Jump. Deer. It’s easy.” Anxiety bubbled in my stomach, but I nodded. Felix took a step back. I tried to keep a hold of my clothes, but it was too awkward. I dropped them into the leaves and turned so I wasn’t as exposed. “Any day now.” “I’m working on it.” He laughed. The cold was starting to become painful, seeping deep into my joints. My body ached in the wind. I crouched, imagined myself as a deer, and tried projecting the image in front of me. My feet felt stuck to the earth, embedded into the ground. I tried to brace myself to jump, but my body retracted. I stared at my balled up fist, imagining what it would look like as a hoof. Then it happened. The tips of my fingers punctured the inside of my palm. The bones crashed into each other, then merged. For a second, my hand was a fleshy mound, then it solidified into a hoof. My wrist lurched to the side. The muscles in my arm seized as it stretched and contorted into a deer’s, hair sprouting from the skin in a wave. The muscles tugged on the tendons in my neck. My arm twisted back, ripping out my shoulder with an audible pop. I screamed. Pain surged through my upper torso. My muscles spasmed as they undulated between human and deer. My arm flailed in the cold air, nearly tearing itself from my body. I fell to my knees. My body lurched one more time, and my shoulder popped back into its socket. I clutched my arm, and it was normal. “Are you okay?” The ordeal wiped the smile from his face but after I nodded, it quickly returned. “I told you to do it all at once.” “Oh, fuck off,” I mumbled, sort-of grunted. He laughed. I couldn’t help but smile back. My shoulder throbbed but otherwise, I felt fine. Felix handed me my clothes and I scrambled to put them back on. “Hybrid forms are an advanced technique…” He was still smiling, but his eyes looked concerned. Finally dressed, I held my hand out and he lifted me to my feet. “It hurt like hell.” “Yeah… our anatomies aren’t exactly compatible. Doing the inbetween stuff can take some finesse.” He stood with his arms crossed, not exactly looking at me, but not looking away either. I was beginning to warm up, but my nose and ears still burned in the night air. “Well, maybe next time?” “Yeah, next time.” *** It turned out to not be that hard. Once I got the hang of it, it was kind of like flipping a switch or popping a bubble. I think, in my first transformation, I was clinging too hard to my human self. Like diving into cold water, you have to embrace it all at once. My antlers were still covered in velvet. Felix said it was because I was new to morphing, and it’d fall off soon. Running through the woods, as a deer, is something else. Whooshing past trees, jumping over logs, it was like my body took over and avoided the obstacles for me. I could just enjoy the scenery as it blurred like watercolor streaks, the wind sluicing over my body. I was free. It was freeing. Being with Felix. We’d race, or sometimes just frolic late at night after everyone was asleep, run up to the dam and watch the moonlight shimmer across the reservoir. We couldn’t meet everyday. Real life would intervene. I’d have to help Dad in the shed or Felix would be grounded. Still, we enjoyed what time we had. One Saturday, he said he was bringing a pint of Fireball that he snuck from his dad’s freezer. He asked if I could bring anything and before thinking, I said sure. Standing at the top of the basement stairs was like looking down into a desolate cave. Dad was out drinking. No one was allowed in the basement when he wasn’t there. I couldn’t help but hold my breath as I descended into the dark. At the bottom, it was nearly pitch black. I rubbed my hand along the wood paneling until I found the lightswitch. With a flick, the lightbulb chirred to life. I’d never been down there long enough to count, but at least thirty deer heads were mounted to the walls, surrounding his recliner that sat square in the middle of the room. Some looked in different directions, but most of them were staring directly at me with their cold balls of glass that used to be eyes. I shuddered. Dad kept the liquor on a shelf behind his La-Z-Boy. I snatched a bottle of Crown and darted out of the room, slapping the lightswitch off on my way upstairs. *** I’d never really drank before. Sure, I snuck a couple sips of beer when I was younger, but Felix took swigs of whisky like an expert. He didn’t even flinch. He’d down a gulp and pass the bottle to me, and I’d take a tiny sip. It didn’t take long for us to end up laying in a bed of leaves, staring up at the stars, plastered off our asses. “You want to go on a run?” He asked. “Okay,” I whispered through a smile. I sat up and the world swooned around me. By the time I had shucked off my hoodie, Felix was already running in deer-form. I kicked off my shoes, wiggled out of my pants, and jumped. Morphing into a deer as I landed, I chased Felix through the trees. He always remained at least a few feet ahead until I rounded a corner, and he was standing in his half-human form. I stopped. “You should try morphing into a hybrid again,” he whispered into my ear. I shook my deer head. “Come on… it's actually a little easier when you’re drunk. It smooths out the edges, takes you out of your head a bit.” He laughed, leaned against a tree, and waited. I had enough liquid courage to cut through the nerves and convince myself. I stared into Felix’s eyes, trying to imagine myself as a hybrid. Slowly, I felt my body shift into a bipedal form. I stopped the transformation before it could complete. Holding the form was kind of like holding your breath. It didn’t feel stable, but I knew I could hold it for a while. “Hell yeah!” Felix cheered. I smiled, stumbled towards him, but he caught me by my arms. “I feel… mythical.” I laughed. I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the transformation, but everything looked sparkly, magical. “I believe it.” Felix was only inches from my face. His hands were warm on my shoulders. I fell into him, and our lips met. We kissed for a moment—one that could’ve lasted forever but didn’t. He pulled away and his face was warm, smiling, before his eyes became sad, and the smile fell from his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then bounded away, morphing into a deer as he disappeared into the distance. “Felix!” I yelled after him, but he was gone. I collapsed onto the cold ground. I could still feel the warmth of his lips against mine, lingering like a phantom pain. I tried to hold in it, but some cries cracked through my ribs and escaped my mouth, creaking out in high pitched whines as I tried to collect myself. I was surrounded by trees, nothing but trees. I didn’t know where I was. I knew I had to be close to home, but I couldn’t recognize any landmarks. I’d always relied on Felix or deer instincts to find my way back. I was lost. I stood up. The alcohol churned in my stomach, threatening to spew out of my mouth. I leaned against the tree until I regained composure. I staggered forward a couple steps, then tried to morph into a deer. My head morphed first, then it tore through my upper body. My chest ballooned into the size of a deer and my arms flailed in the air, but the transformation stopped at the waist. My hips gave out and the top half of my body crashed backwards into the ground, landing on my spine. I screamed, but it came out as a strange grunt. Again, I tried to complete the transformation, but my body lurched in strange angles until I gave up and returned to the hybrid form. Laying against the freezing earth, body full of pain, I cried until the tears ran dry and my throat begged for water. Sobered enough to not crash to the ground, I stood up. I had to go home, so I started walking, wandering aimlessly until I finally found the creek and followed it back to my clothes. I morphed back to my human form and instantly, the cold assaulted my skin. I rushed to get my pants on, but when I tried to slip the hoodie over my head, I found that the antlers were still attached to my skull. I tried to retract them. I imagined that they were gone, that they were growing smaller, that they’d fall off, but they stayed. A gust of wind burned across my chest. I panicked. Stretching the neckhole, I shoved one side of the antlers through. I tried to stretch it across the other one, but the fabric pulled against the antler and tugged against my skull, hurting more than I expected. I had to tear the neckline a bit. Then I was able to pull it over my head. When I made it home, Dad’s truck was in the driveway. The lights were on. My hands went numb. I reached up to check. The antlers were still there, coated in warm, velvet fuzz. There was no hiding it. I just knew Dad was waiting, right in the living room as I walked in. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the fear, but I went on autopilot. Dad couldn’t know about this—he just couldn’t. I stuck to the shadows, snuck through the yard to Dad’s shed, and found the hacksaw. I knew enough to know there’d be blood so I hung my head over the sink. I pushed my hair out of the way the best I could, then put the blade up to the base of the antler and in one motion, I pushed it through the velvet and dragged it across the bone. It hurt. Like hell. I had to stop after the first cut and collect myself. The blood splattered into the sink basin. I clenched my teeth as hard as I could to stifle any cries. My hands were shaky, but I brought the blade back to the antler and continued sawing. Eventually, I got them both off. The antlers sat in the bottom of the rusty sink, the blood trickling over them in a steady stream. Trying not to make a mess, I held my head over the sink and fumbled blindly through his drawers until I found a roll of electrical tape. I used a few shop towels to wipe away as much of the blood as I could, then wrapped the antler nubs. It didn’t have to be permanent, it just had to stop the bleeding long enough to make it to my room. I rinsed off in the sink, used my phone to check my appearance. I looked a mess, but my curls hid the base of the antlers. When I walked through the front door, I held my breath. Dad was in his recliner. I’d expected him to be angry, but he looked almost sad, kind of surprised to see me more than anything. “Out late?” He asked. “Yeah.” I squeaked. “Just go clean up. Sleep it off.” He returned to the tv, took a sip of his beer. I nodded, and walked upstairs. Somehow, tears once again welled in my eyes. Every muscle in my body ached, but I collapsed into bed and fell asleep. *** When I woke up, the antler nubs had disappeared. I pulled the wads of tape out of my hair and went downstairs. Curled up on the couch, I watched TV until late afternoon. Dad never said anything. I texted Felix, but he didn’t respond. I wasn’t even really paying attention to what was happening on screen. All the shows just kind of melted together, but it passed the time. “Is something wrong?” Mom asked, sitting next to me. I looked at her, and something broke. Tears sputtered out of my face. I hyperventilated. “What’s wrong?” She asked. “I don’t know,” was all I could say, and it was the truth. *** Felix texted back three days later, asking to meet in the woods. I almost blocked him. He said he’d be here in an hour. When I made it out to the woods, he was in his human form. Fully human, he looked like a normal teenager. He had short black hair, brown eyes, the beginnings of stubble, wearing a camo hoodie and baggy sweatpants. “I’m sorry.” He fumbled his fingers, and wouldn't look me in the eyes. “I shouldn’t have ran.” “Right.” “It’s not easy.” His voice broke. Tears welled in my eyes. “I understand.” “Okay.” His eyes were red and watery. He bit his lip, then cleared his throat. “I guess I should probably tell you. My real name isn’t Felix, it's Fulton.” “Fulton?” I let out a chuckle. “That’s…” “What?” “It’s just… I don’t know. I think Felix suits you better.” He smiled wide, put his hand on my shoulder. “So… we can talk and stuff later, but you want to go on a run?” Almost forgetting that I was angry at him, we stripped our clothes and took off, dashing through the underbrush, weaving between the trees. We stopped by the creek to catch our breath. He turned to face me. I closed my eyes. Our heads fell towards each other, antlers interlocking like a gentle embrace, another one of those moments that could have lasted forever. A shot cracked through the air. Something between a grunt and a scream escaped Felix’s throat. Instincts took over. I was already running before I realized what was happening. A patch of red bloomed across Felix’s chest as we barrelled through the trees. We were moving so fast. I couldn’t tell where the blood was coming from. I darted towards our clothes, but Felix kept running. I morphed back into a human as I crashed into the leaves. Felix disappeared into the distance, but I could hear murmurs as the hunters approached. I shoved my legs into my pants, scrambled to throw my hoodie on. I’d just barely got dressed, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Jack?” I turned around. Dad was with one of his hunting buddies. “Phil, go on. I got to deal with this.” His friend continued tracking the deer. Felix. “What the hell are you doing out here, boy? You could’ve gotten your ass shot.” “I was just…” I was shaking. Dad’s face was red, stern. “I was just frolicing.” I cringed as the word came out of my mouth. Dad’s eyes narrowed. He looked over to Felix’s clothes lying about six feet away and shook his head. “Zip up your fucking pants.” He mumbled, then led me back to his truck. He didn’t say a word to me on the way home. Phil called him as we pulled into the driveway. Apparently he couldn’t find the deer. He tracked it down to the dam, but then the tracks disappeared. My blood ran cold. As soon as we made it through the front door, I went straight to the stairs. “What happened?” Mom asked. “The kid was in the fucking woods doing God knows what. He didn’t even have on a fucking vest.” “You said you wouldn’t hunt on our property anymore, Dan. He could’ve gotten hurt.” I covered my ears. Ran upstairs. I slammed my door shut. It was all too much. It felt like my throat was closing. My head was pounding. Mom and Dad screamed at each other downstairs. I started walking towards my bed, but my legs wobbled. I took a deep breath, tried to hold in a sob, but my chest ballooned and a grunt escaped my lips. My foot slid along the floor as it transformed into a hoof, scratching the hardwood as I tried to stop it. My body swelled, stretching the fabric of my clothes until they tore. I flailed, knocking over my dresser, sending the rack of antlers tumbling to the ground. The solid clunks of Dad’s boots came running up the stairs. I should jump out the window, I thought, but there was no time. I wouldn’t fit. He flung open the door. His eyes widened in fear. I stood in front of him—a lanky eight-pointer wearing tatters of clothes. We stared at each other for a moment, then he pulled his gun off his back. We stood. I stood, staring at the end of the barrel. Dad’s fingers hovered over the trigger. I held my breath for as long as I could, waiting for the gun to go off, but it didn’t. Dad didn’t lower the gun either. Not sure what to do, I took a single step forward. Dad jumped, tightened his grip on the handle. But nothing happened. He let me walk past him, through the doorway. My hooves slipped across the hardwood as I awkwardly climbed down the stairs. Dad trailed behind, holding me at gunpoint. “Dan!” Mom screamed from the couch. I looked her in the eyes, but she looked away to the floor. Dad walked around to the front door and threw it open. The sky was dark. The air was cold. The trees were still, but somewhere, Felix was out there. He could be. He could be okay. Maybe he was still waiting by the reservoir, waiting for me. There was only one way to know. I looked at Dad. Tears welled in his eyes above a set of clenched teeth. He stomped his foot. And I ran. |
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Odin Meadows
Odin Meadows is a first-generation graduate with a BA in English from Yale University currently living in the midwest with his husband and two dogs, not too far from the rural town where he grew up. His work has appeared in ergot., Frost Zone Stories, Fraidy Cat Quarterly, and more. Website: odinmeadows.com Bluesky: @odinmeadows.bsky.social Instagram: @odin.meadows
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