The Cabin
The Cabin
by ff_b
Larry and Darryl had been best buds since junior high school, so it was only natural that they wound up together in the hunting cabin on the evening of October 31st. After a few hours of cards and Coors, Darryl hoped that he and Larry could get into a little of the Brokeback Mountain thing. Larry had kind of lured Darryl into hunting, not that he was all that crazy about it. Still, if killing a few animals gave him time alone with Larry, that floated Darryl's boat. He found that it helped if he didn't think much about it when he pulled the trigger on whatever was in the crosshairs. Larry had even talked him into mounting a deer's head trophy on his wall back home; it seemed so alive sometimes that it creeped him out a bit.
The weather hadn't been great this hunting trip, with a lot of rain and not much game to be found. As Larry and Darryl knocked down a few wet ones, a strange mist started to arise outside of the small cabin which thickened quickly. Out of this mist shapes appeared to surround the cabin, the lumbering forms of deer that the duo had killed previously. They were in differing stages of decomposition, some with gaping bullet holes and dried blood on their fur, others with shattered limbs and clouded eyes staring lifelessly out of their sockets. Bones protruded from the hides of several of them. Standing upright, they began to pound on the timbers of the cabin with their hooves, the sounds startling inside the sparsely-furnished abode.
Larry looked out the window in response to the sounds with a mixture of fear and excitement. "Dang, we're surrounded by zombie deer!," he declared to Darryl. "Now this is what I call a target-rich environment!," he added as he shouldered his weapon and the two hunters targeted their assailants through the window. Their rifles cracked and the slugs tore into the bodies of the deer, who flinched and responded to the impacts but were not stopped by them, continuing a relentless assault upon the exterior of the cabin. Within a few minutes the door gave way under the pounding and a large antlered buck entered. The two men pumped round after round into him, but the buck continued advancing, lowering his enormous antlers and pinning Larry against the cabin wall.
"You can't kill us," said the deer to the hunters. "We're already dead!--Take them outside!," ordered the large antlered buck to his compatriots, who responded by butting the two men roughly outside. To their astonishment, the neutralized hunters saw the deer beginning to assemble into some kind of formation.
"Hit it!," commanded the big buck to his companions. In response, a generator roared to life, flooding an area in front of the cabin with light as familar music began to play. The assembled deer began to twitch in perfect synchrony with the music. It took a few seconds, but then Darryl realized what was happening.
"Oh my God!," said Darryl softly.--"They're doing the dance from 'Thriller!'"
"Son of a bitch!," responded Larry. "That's some pretty impressive choreography, though!"
"Who ever would have thought that deer could move that well?--Especially, err, dead ones!," commented Darryl.
"And where did they ever get a red leather jacket to fit that big antlered buck?," added Larry.
As the number concluded, the big antlered buck wearing a copy of Michael Jackson's trademark jacket approached Larry and Darryl, who were attempting to applaud a little despite their fear and wonder. The big buck leaned forward over Larry, causing them to think that he was about to lick or plant a kiss on him. Instead, the buck clamped onto Larry's neck with his teeth, and tore off a ribbon of flesh. Darryl started to scream uncontrollably as the deer began to chew the tidbit.
...he was still screaming when he woke up at home in his bed drenched in sweat. "Thank God, it was only a dream!," muttered Darryl as he arose shakily to stagger to the bathroom and throw cold water on his face.
...had Darryl only looked, he would have seen the mounted head of the deer on the wall twist his neck to follow his departure, the eyes of the deer slitted and demonic, and his mouth contorted into an apparent dark smile...