Week 2 Storytelling: The Golden Deer of Death

The Golden Deer by ClappingEagle on DeviantArt

No one knows when exactly the story began circulating our town and frightening our children. It was almost as though it had always been there, waiting for the right time to attack. Of course, the creature has not been seen nor heard of since I was a child, and many of us, myself included, thought the creature was gone forever. We were wrong.

It all began about a month ago when a few people started disappearing, and then showing up about a week later, in a million pieces. None of us suspected the creature because we had long since rid our minds of that nightmare. But, alas, eventually we could not turn a blind eye to what was so clearly occurring again in our small town.

There was always one person that the creature really wanted, and everyone else it killed were the ones blocking the creature from their true goal. Story goes that the creature had been searching since the dawn of time for the perfect mate for its master. They never took the person they wanted to give their master first, though. No, they had to slowly kill all those surrounding and protecting the person they wanted before finally luring them away into the night.

When we finally realized that we were dealing with the old creature of our childhood nightmares, it was too late. The vast majority of the town was dead, and I was no closer to figuring out who the real target was. It was frustrating, and eventually the town locked down. This is a good thing for a cop trying to find answers and save lives. The heinous murders continued, until one night when the creature came to me in the night.

Now, nobody has ever seen the creature and lived to tell the tale. Our stories never even gave us a clear picture of what the creature looked like. We had only had our imagination to guide us before. Then, it the middle of the night, I saw the creature.

The creature was horrible, worse than anything that used to keep me up at night. Of course, at first glance the creature was merely a golden deer. Odd, but not wholly frightening, but then the creature stepped into the light coming in through my window and I saw missing patches of golden fur. What lay beneath that fur was blackness. So black I could almost see my reflection. I only realize now that the skin color was merely a reflection of the creature’s soul.

That was not even the worst part because when I looked into the eyes of the creature I saw death and destruction. I saw that no one would ever be able to destroy the creature, and that it would carry on its task until his master finally found his mate to rule Hell with.

Looking into those eyes, scared for my life that I was the next one to be found in a million pieces, I figured it all out. The vast majority of my town had been murdered, and I only realized in that moment that I was the target. I was the one the creature wanted to bring back to its master.

That was the moment when the creature smiled. Its lips stretched back impossibly far, and deadly sharp teeth, too large for such a mouth, glinted in the moonlight. And the creature laughed, cackled really. Like a hyena. The creature had me right in it’s maw, and the laughter made my heart sink to the ground and my blood run cold.

Still heckling like a wild animal, the creature crept forward and spoke to me in the voices of all the people it had taken and killed so far to get to me.

“Come with us. It is time to meet our Master.”

I quickly snapped out of it, though, and reached to me nightstand where I keep my spare pistol. I grabbed it and cocked it. The creature vanished from in front of my bed and reappeared in my lap, jaws open like that of a cobra about to eat its dinner. I shot a full clip into the creature, and then you all showed up.

The FBI agent sits at the cool metal table, across from the crazed cop with an even crazier story.  They’d gotten a call that morning about a mass murder in some small town. When the FBI agent and his partner had reached the town, they found chaos and a cop covered in blood in the center of town square.

By the looks of the town, the cop had slowly gone crazy, killing people off one by one in the town until one night the cop snapped and killed her daughter in bed before going into town and killing every last town member.

“You’re a psychopath!” the FBI agent said calmly. “There was no golden deer that killed everybody in your town. It was you, and there will be no saving you during the court hearing tomorrow. You will go to prison for life. Hell, I hope they send you straight to death row for what you’ve done.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The cop looks into the FBI agents’ eyes and the FBI agent sees a crazed look of fear and acceptance. “The creature will be back for me. It won’t stop until it takes me back to its master.”

“That creature doesn’t exist! It’s a figment of your imagination!” the FBI agent yells.

“If it is not real, then why is it right behind you?”

The hyena cackles fill the room and the FBI agent slowly turns around, and looks death right down the maw.

THE END.

Author's Note: For this retelling, I took the character of Maricha from when he turns into the golden deer to lure Rama and Lakshmana away from Sita so that Ravana can take her, and put him into a modern setting. He's still the golden deer, but he's a dark image from childhood nightmares and stories. The cop is kind of Sita, and all the townspeople are Rama and Lakshmana. Maricha's goal in this retelling is to find the perfect mate for his master (Ravana) and take them. I used the storytelling method I did, because I wanted it to be a scary bedtime story of sorts (because that's all the golden deer was to the townspeople before the story began) and then it turns into real life at the end.

Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic.