Not Deer

At a distance, a Not Deer passes for whitetail. Average body size, typical coloring, standing in the kind of place a deer would stand. That's where the resemblance does its job and then falls apart. Up close, witnesses report eyes set forward in the skull...predator placement, not prey. Some accounts describe them as too close together, others as too reflective, catching light in a way whitetail eyes don't. The neck is frequently described as too long or too thick, and proportions shift between reports. Some report an oversized head on one, elongated torso on another, as though the shape isn't held to a single template. Legs are the detail that recurs most. Joints bending the wrong direction, extra articulation points that shouldn't be there, or limbs that are simply too thin for the body they carry. Several witnesses describe movement that looks mechanical. The Not Deer may have jerky, stuttering strides, like something learning to walk by watching deer and not quite getting it. Some accounts include bipedal movement: the creature rising onto hind legs and staying there with a steadiness no whitetail could manage. The skin reads wrong to people who spend time in the woods. Too smooth in places, or covered in hair that doesn't lie the way fur should. Discoloration. A texture one hunter described as "like it was stretched over something that wasn't the right shape underneath." Sounds don't match either. Instead of snorts or the stamp of a hoof, witnesses report clicking that’s rhythmic, deliberate, coming from the jaw or throat. One account mentions a low grinding. None of them sound like a deer.

“"I've hunted whitetail since I was twelve years old. Forty-some years. I know what a deer looks like from every angle, every distance, every light condition you can name. What I saw on the backroad behind my property was not a deer. It was standing broadside, maybe thirty yards out, right at the edge where the field drops into the woods. I glassed it out of habit. Body was right. Coloring was right. But the legs... I couldn't make head nor tails of the legs. The front knees were bending forward, like a person's. And it was just standing there, weight balanced, like that was normal for it. Then it turned its head and looked at me. Not toward me. At me. The eyes were wrong. Set too far forward. I've seen does look at you when they catch wind, that quick head-up where they're already calculating the bolt. This wasn't that. This was still. Patient. I lowered the binoculars because I didn't want to be looking at it through glass anymore. I went inside. Locked the door, which I don't normally do around here. Didn't go back out to check. I know what I didn't see, and what I didn't see was a deer."”