Just a Deer

Harold gripped the steering wheel tightly, the engine still idling. The shape had disappeared from his view before he had really had a chance to notice, he could have imagined it, it was so quick. Just a flash in the headlights before the light had disappeared from in front of him. He tried to recall the shape but the image in his mind was blurry, a second of light in the pitch black of the road and he’d hit the brakes. Harold realized he was holding his breath and took a sharp intake that made his head swim, he pushed his head back against the headrest and stared into the interior light, trying to make out the shape in his memory from the marks that the LED left on his retinas.

He must have imagined it, his sleep deprived brain playing tricks on him. Harold laughed at his own foolishness and reached down to take a sip from the bottle in the cup-holder to his left. He paused. He had noticed something about the bottle, but he wasn’t quite sure what. He sat there a few seconds, mesmerized from the gentle rocking of the liquid. Soporific waves going back and forth, back and forth against the glass, still carrying the momentum of his sudden stop. Eventually the bottle’s contents lost all force and held still, the drink appeared almost frozen in place, half way through a wave, sloped at about twenty degrees from horizontal. Harold had that feeling again, like he had realized something but just not quite understood yet.

The liquid was sloped, the bottle must be slanted.

The bottle was in the car, the car must be on a hill.

The car couldn’t be on a hill, the road was completely flat for miles.

The back wheels must be raised.

There was something under the back wheels.

Harold breathed steadily and stared out into the inky void of the windscreen. No other cars in sight, he wanted to check the wing-mirrors, but his head refused to turn, not wanting to allow the gory hypotheticals that flooded his mind to become his reality. He took a swig from the bottle. He tried to superimpose his memory of the shape over the road in front of him. It must have been a deer. That was it, he’d hit a deer. It was fine. Just a deer.

Putting down the bottle Harold took the steering wheel and put his foot on the accelerator. The car eased forwards painfully slowly, the angle of the liquid in the bottle creeping back towards horizontal before the object came suddenly loose and the back wheels hit the ground with a crunch as they made contact with the dirt track.

Harold sat a few seconds, contemplating the blackness before him. His car a beacon in the black. Harold tried his best to ignore the sounds that he heard coming from the road. Faint moaning noises and the occasional scratch at the back bumper. Harold tried to ignore the deer, but he had a responsibility. The groans grew louder. Unclipping his seat-belt he reached his hand around into the back and felt for the handle to the toolbox he kept under the seat. With a grunt he pulled out the heavy metal case, dull red paint battered with use. Inside, a short roll of gaffa tape, spare bulbs for the headlights, and a heavy headed tyre iron. Harold shuddered and drew out the tool, feeling its weight in his palm. Hand on the door handle now, Harold pushed it open eyes dead ahead, hoping to remain unaware of the flecks of red that spattered his bonnet. The groaning, no longer filtered through the glass, was louder now, a wretched cry into the night, a faint gurgling noise catching on the wind.

Shaking, Harold made his way towards the back of the car, the rear lights’ red glow illuminating his path. The car had been still now so long that the fumes from the engine had begun to gather like a fog in the road, Harold gagged as he reached them, the acrid stench filling his lungs and causing his eyes to tear up. Coughing he reached his hand out to rest on the brake-light, casting it in a dull scarlet haze. He turned the corner and saw it. The deer stared up at him, breathing shallowly in the fogged air, a pair of large brown eyes taking in his face.

“please…” the deer choked, blood spitting from between its teeth.

“please help me”