The Build-Up to Disaster
Behind my house, there is a drop-off that leads to a valley with a creek in it. It’s very steep on both sides. The valley fills up the space between the neighborhoods with dense forest. I only let my dog out to do her business in the backyard while leashed because she tries to escape from time to time.
At night, it has always been creepy to walk out to the edge of the woods, even with my dog. Last summer, my sister and I kept hearing something over the hill and felt like we were being watched. The motion sensor light in our yard was always on as well.
We both thought we were being paranoid, so we didn’t tell each other our thoughts. Eventually, I broke and told her how I felt someone was eyeing us from over the hill and she said she felt the same way.
We both agreed that the presence felt negative and angry. We started taking the dog out with bats, knives, and pepper spray. We could not figure out what was watching us. Whatever it was got bolder and bolder. We started to hear it more frequently.
By the way it sounded, we both estimated its size to be at least that of a large dog. Sometimes we heard a grunt or two, and this only happened at night. My dog would silently whip her head towards the sounds and just stare. Normally, she barks at that kind of stuff.
Still, my dog is a chihuahua mix, so if she started a fight, she would lose. This went on for weeks. Eventually, we felt like we were being watched during the daytime too.
We never once thought this presence felt human. There are coyotes in the area. There are bears too, but they are so rare that they make the news when they are sighted. Mountain lions are extinct in my area, so while it was possible that some found their way back, but it was unlikely.
One day, I let the dog out, but I was not too on guard as daytime “visits” were still much rarer. Then, all of a sudden, I heard something large moving through the brush, grunting. My stomach dropped as that was the closest I’d ever heard it.
I picked up my dog as slowly as possible and started to turn towards the house to evacuate—that’s when I caught sight of a herd of deer on the cliff staring me down. They looked downright horrifying.
I had seen deer before, but these ones looked so angry. It had been in the news a year before that a single deer killed someone nearby (they were dumb and didn’t respect the deer’s space), so I kept that in mind. Turns out, my house was stalked by a herd of deer for weeks.
See, my family throws expired produce out of the backdoor over the cliff to avoid compostable materials sitting in a landfill. That’s probably why the deer were hanging out—we had a buffet for them.
When we stopped doing that, they only hung around for a few more days. The end result was pretty funny, but the build-up was creepy.
Story credit: Reddit / jxuxhwh