I can still remember what life used to be like. It’s crazy to make a statement like about something that just transpired a little under a year ago as though it happened in a bygone era of the past. The reality though is that nothing is the same.. nothing.
The story that’s been passed along through those of us that remain is that it all started in the state of Georgia last fall.
It seems that a young man in his 20’s was deer hunting on his family farm when he witnessed a large-antlered buck stand and walk on two legs for just a few moments as though he was humanoid before resetting back to 4 legs and carrying on with chasing does. He even claimed that the entire muscle structure of the deer had changed, but he also reasoned that all the beers from the night before might have altered his coherency.
Nonetheless, that didn’t stop him from pulling the trigger on his grandpa’s old .264 win mag and dropping the animal in its tracks from 150 yds away.
Everything appeared to be business as usual for the young hunter as he proceeded to load the buck into his Chevy pickup and haul it back to the family barn to hang for a few days to allow the meat to age and tenderize. Normally a hunter would have gutted the deer in the field, but this young man reasoned that He’d just take care of that once it was hoisted up high in the barn.
No sooner had he accomplished getting the deer hung and winched before he grabbed his weathered pocket knife and proceeded to make the first incision into the bucks abdomen.
What occurred at that moment is what would change life as we know it. You see, as soon as that blade pierced hide, the antlers to the buck began to sprawl out longer and longer until finally the they formed a 4 digit appendage. Next thing the young man knew, his own knife was drawn across his neck and he fell to the ground gasping for air as his jugular had been severed.
The father of this young man rounded the corner just in time to see the being standing on two legs over his struggling son. He had just enough time to grab his own lever-action rifle propped against the doorway and cycle a shell into the chamber before it turned around to face him. In what seemed like a mirage, the being hazily transformed into the very likeness of his son.
Being obviously conflicted, he found himself unable to pull the trigger as he aimed on it chest. The scenario became even more bizarre when from under scalp of this human-like being began to sprout antlers. Not just spikes, a full 5x5 rack!
The farmer snapped out of it just in time to begin pulling the trigger again, but humanoid took notice and was immediately on him, goring his torso with its rack.
Supposing the old man to be dead, the being proceeded waltz out of the barn and into the house, where it murdered his wife.
As best as anyone can configure from this entire situation, these beings have the ability to communicate worldwide. The reasoning behind this hypothesis is that “they” overtook the entire world that very night. And by “they” I mean the deer.
Not just one variety or subspecies of deer by the way. All of the antlered creatures of the planet. The elk, moose, stags, mule deer, blacktail, coues, whitetail, fallow, axis, and so on and so on.
They marched the neighborhoods of mankind that night and proceeded to slaughter every human they came across and steal their physical identity, with a set of antlers being added to the new look.
I was only spared that evening because my, honestly, quite privileged family was flying on a private jet that evening. The news caught us just in time to keep us from landing at our runway in Los Angeles. My father directed the pilot to take us to our family’s private island in pacific.
My dad’s theory was that, given the lack of wildlife on the island, we’d be safe. His theory proved wrong..
As we sat in the great room with my grandfather’s, and great grandfather’s trophy game heads on the wall and watched the live stream of the news, I heard a ripping sound.
Before I had time to react, a seemingly malleable appendage burst through my father’s chest and then withdrew as it took on the outline of my father and, you guessed it, sprouted antlers. It was then that I noticed the game heads were all missing their antlers.. the antlers were a living entity for all of these years and had escaped the mounts!
I won’t bore you with the entirety of my trauma and survival of that evening. I’ll simply tell you that I was the only member of 7 person household (plus our pilot) that escaped to the yacht that night traversed into the wide open ocean.
I eventually dared to anchor towards land 6 days later to retrieve supplies. I soon learned, that, much like everyone figured deer behaved, these entities rest during the day. So then, the chance of sneaking through a town to retrieve non perishable goods and fuel were better around noon.
I only went when absolutely necessary, and took as much as I could at each excursion. You see, the sad reality is that the existing foods on the shelves out there will likely out live me. What I found to be true was that they killed almost all of humanity that evening. The food is abundant, the fuel will eventually be a challenge, but with only a year having passed, that’s not my first concern.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen signs of other survivors in my travels up and down the west coast, but I’ve never met anyone in person after that fateful night.
It’s the good old Ham radios that have facilitated my human interactions. We are a small community worldwide of about 300 from what we’ve estimated but we stay in constant connection and accountability with each other.
We’ve managed to figure a few things out about our enemy:
On of our survivors is an archeologist and he believes that these hooved species hadn’t originated with antlers on their male counterparts. Ancient cave drawings depict deer as antlerless going way back. This has given us the theory that the entity took residence in these creatures in the form of antlers atop their scalps ages ago. Of course, are most significant finding in this department was ability to survive indefinitely so long as the antlers retain their structure. This is why game head mounts across the world killed many people in a seeming covert-like strike. It’s as though they hoped they would be hunted and displayed as part of their plan.
Their intelligence has proved tricky to decipher. In personal confrontations, we’ve found them to be simply tyrannical in their ferocity and insanely quick in their reflexes, but not altogether cunning. I myself have narrowly escaped death a few times in my supple runs, I believe, only because I dealt with individuals and not herds.
That being said, their true strength lies in their communication with one another. It’s an almost eerie, hive-like system in which they are receiving orders and acting in unison. This is how they managed to conquer the world we believe.
As far as killing them, we have found that gun shots aimed to shatter the antlers themselves, especially more at the bases of the rack, do kill the being permanently. Before you get too excited though, we’ve found that very rarely does a bullet strike its target given their reflexes, unless you manage to catch one resting. Which, they rest in herds.. of course.
You might think killing the host form first and then smashing the antlers would be plausible, but it’s not. The reality now is that they are now on the offense, so anyone who kills the host form soon finds themselves One of my radio pals, Alec from Australia, claims he shattered one with a baseball bat, but who could prove or disprove that claim.
To say the least, life is not.., well, life anymore. I’ve lived in isolation for going on 372 days now. I’ve spent many moments pondering the very purpose for the struggle of it all; to just exist in general, but I came to a conclusion a couple of months ago and it just might change everything.
I would rather know that my life had some impact on the world, so I decided to declare war on them/it whatever this is.
It’s funny how the fear of death being taken out of the equation can change literally everything. But, sure enough, that what it took to get my creative juices flowing.
I knew getting close was never a safe option, so I had to think distance.
I started to observe them and I soon discovered that they still retained their herbivore tendencies, even in human form. They actually ate like animals in a very primitive and glutinous way as though it’s their last meal with no caution to their soundings.
So, I began to poison their various food sources with anything I could find; antifreeze, drain cleaners, it didn’t matter. I just needed it to make them sick.
Since they travel mostly in large herds, I was finding myself unloading boxes of ammo each day from large scale rooftops at the antlers of herds that lay lethargic and despondent in the streets.
The fascinating part of it all was that, just like a hive, a new member will appear to take the place of a missing position in the herd. You might think this depressing to feel like you aren’t accomplishing anything when you return day by day to the same numbers. The merit of it all came together though when I found myself only picking off stragglers in the streets of Los Angeles and realizing that I had finally killed everything in the area.
So, my journey took me all over the state, and within a month I had refined my methods to the point that I cleared most of the large cities in California.
Even better though, was that my friends across the world started doing the same thing. We did lose a few of us in the worldwide battle, but in the last two months we’ve accomplished taking back many of major cities of the world. In fact, some of my friends began to rendezvous in person and recolonize areas. They even began fortifying them.
We found that the safest method of surviving though was to remain out at sea a few miles in the evening until we were certain our newly reclaimed territories could be made impenetrable.
I myself had been talking to a woman named Gabriella along the western coasts of Mexico throughout this entire catastrophe and we finally decided to meet in person and perhaps starts something in our part of the world.
We agreed to meet today along the coast of Acapulco. It was near sunset when I caught sight of her boat. I climbed aboard and called for her with no answer to be heard. Fearing the worst I entered the cabin and found her there, her face marred beyond human recognition and her hands clutching a shotgun. There were empty shells littering the room and pellet holes all over the walls.
That’s when I heard a thud out on deck. As I peaked a through the windows, my heart fell to my stomach. It was a whole flock of seagulls.. with antlers.
I’ve barricaded and boarded up the cabin as best as I can, but I know my chances are not great at surviving this. I warned the others over the radio and told them that I thought underground might be the next best hope of saving our race.
I had plans to attempt steering this rig towards shore and making a run for cover on land, but the splashes and bumps I felt earlier removed my ambition as I felt the boat begin to sink.
You see, I just pried a board open and peaked over the balcony into the waters. As I write this, my boat is being bombarded on all sides by a school of dolphins,… and they all have antlers.