When I was 20, I went on a road trip with my friends to see a comet that hasn’t passed by earth in the past 2,000 years called the Mephistopheles’ Comet. It was going to be visible from most of Maine where we live, but to get the best view of it, my friend Matt wanted to go out into a remote part of the woods to see it unobscured by others, or the light pollution in the area. Going out to the woods was nothing new for us, Matt and I would always head out there to hunt, or hike, or just go for the hell of it. I was excited to see it, especially since I was taking an astronomy class, and would be writing my term paper about the comet, and its history, seeing it for myself would be a good piece to add to it. I was working on the paper with our friend Keller, so we invited him along as well. The three of us would leave town about an hour before the comet was set to arrive, and camp out near a place called Oyster River to get a good view of it.
Once we got to the river, we set up camp, and the telescope needed to see the comet. The comet was going to be bright enough to see with the naked eye, but I wanted to see it as clearly as possible. We sat there for about half an hour, just drinking, and joking around with each other, when Keller finally said, “Look! There it is!” And pointed to the sky. Matt, and Keller got out their phones to take pictures of the comet, and I put my eye up to the telescope to see it in all of its glory, and Keller got his notepad out to record all our own observations on it. The comet was breathtaking as it glided across the sky, leaving a dark red streak that followed it. It was beautiful, but also ominous. The comet looked as though it was tearing the sky in half, the trail behind it wasn’t fading away, and it was turning the sky from the pitch black, to a burning crimson. The stars surrounding it seemed to distort as it passed as well, as if they were pushed out of the path of the comet.
Suddenly, it started to glow brighter in the sky, making it impossible to directly stare at from the telescope anymore. I stepped back, and stared at it in the sky. “What’s going on?” I asked, “This isn’t how com-” A deafening blow was shot from the sky, it sounded almost like a horn, before I could finish my thought. The sound reverberated from the trees in the woods that surrounded us. I jumped from the sudden explosion of sound, and fell to the ground in shock, I had no idea what just happened. As soon as I was able to get back up I looked around for Matt, and Keller, hoping both of them were ok, and eager to figure out what caused the eruption of noise. A wave of relief washed over me when I saw both of them rising to their feet as well, they appeared to be ok, but just as shocked, and confused as I was with a look of, “what the fuck just happened” on their faces.
I ran over to them, and tried to scream, “Are you guys ok?” when I realized nothing came out when I yelled. Not only that, all the sounds of the woods had vanished. The birds, the wind blowing, even the sounds of rushing water in the lake had all just disappeared. All replaced by the sound of silence, not our ears ringing, but complete, and utter silence. The temperature outside had suddenly dropped as well. It was the middle of June, at least 70 degrees out, but now it felt like we were standing in the middle of a freezer. Matt and I ran towards each other, screaming in each other’s ears to attempt to get any sort of message across, but all falling on deaf ears. All of that didn’t matter however when we realized just how cold we were getting, luckily, Keller was quick at work getting a fire started so we could
Once the fire had been lit, we all gathered around it, taking in the warmth that radiated from it. It seemed as though the warmer we got, the sounds slowly started to return to the woods. We were all trying to rationalize what had happened, and were eager to get back to town. “Maybe it was just how this comet behaves,” I said, trying to reassure everyone. “Hey, is anyone’s else’s phone working?” Matt said. I reached into my own pocket, and pulled out my phone. The pitch black screen reflected my own face back onto me, and I saw that my fake composure was quickly cracking as the phone refused to start up. “M-maybe the comet’s energy is messing with it or something. I-it should turn on soon,” I said, quickly and shakily, trying to convince my friends it would be ok, but I think I was really only trying to convince myself.
“What the fuck is that?” Keller whispered in fear. We all quickly turned to where he was looking, and saw dozens of deer standing still, and blocking the road we drove in on. Barely illuminated by the edges of the campfire, they were just staring at us. We watched them for what seemed like hours, unwilling to take our eyes off of them, as if we were in a life or death staring contest. The more we watched, the more we realized the deer weren’t doing anything other than staring. They weren’t moving at all, they weren’t blinking, they weren’t even breathing. We knew we couldn’t stand there forever, whatever was happening was freaking us all out, and we wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Once we all felt we had warmed up, I took the keys out of my pocket, and told everyone we were leaving, and we could come back, and pack up camp in the morning. There were no objections, as I’m sure they were just as, if not, more freaked out than I was. “W-what about the deer?” Matt whispered quietly. I knew the deer would have to be moved in order to get out, and that one of us would have to go over to get them out of the way. “Ok, who’s going to move them?” I asked, knowing no one was going to raise their hand to answer. “We could play for it,” Keller said, holding his right hand in a fist, over his left hand. I sighed, but put my own hands up to participate in the game. We each struck our fists on our open hands three times, and on shoot, released the symbol we chose to play with. Keller and Matt had both chosen rock, and I had chosen scissors
However, we quickly realized this game was played in vain as the car wouldn’t start. Frustrated, and terrified, we begrudgingly decided to stick together to make our way to the path before us, and call a tow truck in the morning. As we put out the fire Keller had started the cold slowly started to keep back in, shrouding us in cover of frost. We quickly grabbed our bags, and moved forwards, wanting to make our way back to town as quickly as possible. The closer we got to the deer at the end of the trail, the stranger the entire situation was getting. The deer hadn’t even blinked as we walked closer, even as we were within arms reach of it. I put up my arms in an attempt to scare off the deer, but they didn’t move at all, even when we started yelling at them.
We were quickly getting tired of trying to interact with them, so we decided to just go around them. As we started to walk around them, Keller bumped into one, and it instantly fell over, as if it were a mannequin of a deer. This new revelation horrified us, we had no idea what had happened to these deer, all of them were just positioned to be looking at us. We decided it would be best to keep moving, and move as quickly as we could to get back home. As I turned around to take one last look at the sky as if it would reveal all of the answers to our quickly growing pile of questions, I saw that all of the deer had turned around, and were now looking at us again.
We never expected it to get this cold, the drive here had only been 20 minutes at most, so we hoped to make it back on foot, in about 2 hours. The cold was getting to us however, we didn’t understand how it felt like 20 degrees in the middle of summer, but all we could hope was that we could make it back home before it could get any colder. I’ve never realized until then just how hard it is to see at night without the use of headlights. What little moonlight that was able to infiltrate through the thick cluster of tree branches was barely enough to illuminate the path ahead of us. It was a new growing fear that we may get lost, and have to spend the night out in this unexplainable cold. That is, if it were even possible for the sun to rise again.
The more we walked, the more I began to fear, not just for our safety, but for the safety of everyone back in town. Was it just as cold there? Did the power get cut off there too? Was the town infested by those fucked up deer we saw in the woods? Or maybe the town was completely fine, and everyone got to see the comet from a safe distance, and had no idea what was happening to us out here, and would have no idea to look for us. I don’t know why, but that last thought seemed to scare me the most, that we could be dead by the morning, and no one would start to think that to look for us until it was too late.
I was instantly snapped back into reality by Matt, and Keller stopping abruptly, suddenly bringing my train of thought to a screeching halt that threatened to derail it entirely. At the end of the new stretch of road we had just turned onto was a jet black car, one darker than the night that surrounded us. The headlights were a welcome sight as it cut through the oppressive darkness that laid ahead, even if it was blinding us. However, this vehicle that should have filled me with a new sense of hope, now filled me with an even deeper sense of dread. We had no idea who this was, we had never seen this car before, it looked too nice to be from the town all of us lived in. And who would be out here at this time of night? Even if he was here to see the comet like us, shouldn’t his car have been messed up by the comet too?
We stood there for what felt like forever, holding our hands out in front of our eyes to shield them from the assaulting beams of light, and waiting for the man inside to identify himself. After a few minutes the man exited the car. He stood tall, maybe around 6 feet tall, he was dressed in an elegant white suit, and had short curly blonde hair. He seemed like a normal, and even friendly face, save for the giant, ear to ear smile, that stuck something deep within us that something was terribly wrong with this person.
“Hello there,” he called to us in a voice that was warm, and inviting, yet somehow dripped with a drop of venom at the end of it. “Awfully cold for you boys to be out here on foot. Do you need a ride back to town?” he asked. “I think there’s a town nearby, Rockport I think. If that’s not your home, I’m sure they’ll be able to take you back there.” The man said all of this in a calm, yet booming voice, his smile not slipping for a second as he spoke. “I got the heater on in the car.” he added, somehow feeling a slight blessing of the warmth that beckoned to us from within the car as he said that. “N-no thank you,” I said, “I think we can make it the rest of the way back.” I didn’t want to be rude, and reject this seemingly nice man’s generous offer, but there was something seriously wrong with the way he was.
I looked back to my friends, and saw they had the same worries as me, but I could tell they were wrestling with the options in their heads. The cold was getting to all of us, and even though we didn’t say it, we were all worried we might not even make it all the way home. This man might be our only way out of this alive, and I could be throwing away our one shot at making it out. Keller suddenly spoke up. “I-I’ll go i-if there’s enough room…that is,” I could tell by his voice how terrified he was, I know he was scared to ask, but that he thought this might be better than what could happen if he didn’t accept. “Of course,” the man said, his smile widening even greater than I thought that human anatomy could allow. “There’s plenty of room, and warmth for everyone who needs it.”
Matt and I said nothing, even knowing this could be our only way out, every fiber of our being, and every instinct that we had screamed at us to not enter that car, that if we did, we would never make it back home alive. We knew Keller felt this too, but the cold had taken so much of his energy and hope, that he was willing to accept whatever fate may lie before him. I gripped his shoulder tightly as he took a step towards the car, saying nothing with my words, but my tightening grip on him saying everything. He looked back at me with a look in his eyes that said everything, a look in his eyes that I could never forget. “I’ll be back before you, and I’ll be back with my car to pick you guys up,” he said in an obviously fake attempt to look calm. My grip on his shoulder loosened, and eventually dropped as he walked into the car as I realized I would never see my friend again.
I stood there in a stunned silence, wondering how I could let him do that, and what would happen to him. I felt like I stood there for a lifetime, and even now, I still feel like I’m standing there, being blinded by the headlights of the car I saw that night, and unable to see what would become of Keller after he walked into that vehicle. A few moments after the car had driven off, I truly grasped the reality of what just happened. I fell to my knees, and looked back at Matt, realizing he had already fallen to his knees weeping a long time ago. What was supposed to be a fun night for us to be mesmerized by the beauty of the natural world, had turned into our own little slice of hell.
Matt and I just sat there, sobbing for a bit, the pain of losing our friend had dulled us to the fact that the cold was receding, and warmth had slowly started to work its way back into the woods. We slowly realized this warmth was coming from the sun, which was finally making its way back to save us from the night, but had been much too late for Keller. Slowly rising to our feet, we said nothing as we walked back to town for the next hour, having nothing more to say about the night we had just survived, so why say anything? Making it to the next morning didn’t feel like succeeding, not without Keller. The only thing I could think of as we walked back to town was what I could possibly tell his family.
We walked back into town as shadowed husks of the men who had driven off in excitement of seeing a once in a millennium natural phenomenon. Neither of us replied to the worried questions of the members of our community. The first time I spoke again was when I walked into the police station to report Keller missing, knowing full well he was already dead. The police mounted a search for him immediately, and found him very quickly. He was mangled beyond recognition, like he had been left in a bear’s den for weeks on end. He was holding a pen and paper in his hands that he brought with him to write about the comet, as if he was attempting to leave a final message to us, and his family. His body was already going through decomposition when they found him, as if he was dead out there for weeks in the summer sun. Despite all of these injuries to him, and the state of decay he was found in, his death was ruled as hypothermia.
After interviewing us the police searched for weeks in the car, but were never able to find him. Neither Matt nor I were able to see the license plate, or what brand of car he was driving. The police suspected us when we told them what happened that night, but we were immediately ruled out as the police had no explanation as to how someone dies of hypothermia, and decays overnight when the town never noticed anything weird that happened in the woods. As we sat there in the woods, Keller’s family was brought in to identify his body. I’ll never forget the way his parents screamed when they saw the state he had been left in.
His funeral was held a week later, not much preparation had to be done to it as it was a small town, and the funeral was a closed casket. I’m not a very religious person, but I went in honor of my friend, maybe I could offer some sort of apology he could hear if he was in fact in a better place. Even though I went to honor my friend, I couldn’t bear to look his parents in the eyes. Every time I had since then, I saw the same look Keller gave me that night before he walked into that car. To avoid looking at anyone I sat in the back as the priest gave his sermon about how Keller was with God now. I grabbed a bible off of the seat in front of me, and started to read to avoid looking into anyone’s eyes, when I saw this line in Revelations 9:1. “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.”