1 Chapter 1 - “Who’s Looking At Me?

I turn the radio knob to the news station. Dylan and I are going on our annual week-long hunting trip, and we're heading towards our hunting cabin. Suddenly, Dylan slams on the breaks, and my head collides on the dash.

"What the hell is wrong with that deer!" Dylan yells

"What the hell is wrong with you! I just hit my head on the dash!" I retort

"Well I'm sorry but I almost totaled our damn truck, Damon!" He replied

"What could've totaled this truck, almost nothing comes on this road anyway?"

"Dude, that was a big ass deer, shoulda saw the size of it!" Dylan said

Dylan's face lit up, and looked at me with glee. He scooted up and grabbed the dashcam, and looked for the red light. 

"YES!" He exclaimed, "It's on! I'll show why once we get to the cabin." He said with a smile

We kept driving for about 15 minutes or so, and Dylan could barely sit still. I wonder what could make him so excited. We finally arrived at the cabin, and grabbed my bags from the backseat. I opened my door and slammed it shut. Dylan did the same. We both stood at the engine of the truck, looking at the forest, but it felt different, as if the forest itself was looking back at us.

"Hey Dylan, do you feel that?"

"Feel what? I feel just fine, really." He replied

"I don't know, it just feels odd here, I got a weird feeling in my stomach." I explain

"Well you did hit your head pretty hard back there, you just need to lay down for a bit."

Although it was a probable explanation, I just wasn't convinced. However, this was an annual thing we did, and if that deer was as big as he said, we're gonna bring it down. We walked down to the trail that led to our cabin, and the trail started to grow less and less grass, since we've been using it for a few years. I could swear something was off. The cabin was in sight, and we were nearing it. Dylan walked in first, and switched the flip, but no light came on.

"That's right" Dylan says, annoyed at himself and flops his hand in the air. 

"Go turn the generator on" He said

I dropped my bags near the door, and walked towards the back of the cabin. The generator was in a storage shed to protect it from the weather, and any animals if it came to that. I got closer towards the shed, but almost immediately noticed the door was already opened. I stepped at the entrance and saw that some of the paint was scratched off. I looked down at the lock, but it was on the ground near my feet. It was broken, and snapped in half. I picked it up and rushed back towards the cabin before I even turned the generator on, but that's when I heard Dylan calling my name.

"Damon! Get in here!" He said.

"Don't have to tell me twice," I said to myself.

 I walked in the door, and Dylan stood over the trophy case. He spoke up, and turned towards me.

"Where'd my trophies go? They aren't here anymore."

"That's not the only thing you should be worried about, someone broke into the shed. They scratched the paint and broke the lock, it was smashed in." I showed him the lock.

He grabbed it out of my hand and inspected it.

"Whatever, it's probably just some squatters, honestly. Was the generator damaged?" He asked

"I didn't catch a look at it, came back to you after you called for me" I responded

"Well go and see, I'm going to see if anything else was taken" Dylan said.

I walked out the door a second time and rounded the corner of the cabin. The shed was still open, and I walked right in. I checked the generator for any damage. But as far as I could tell, nothing was wrong with it. I poured some gas into the generator, then flipped some switches and pulled the cord. The generator worked just fine, so I walked back to the cabin to check in with Dylan. He wasn't in the living room by the trophy case anymore, so I assumed he was in the bedroom. I walked into the room, and saw Dylan getting the computer set up. 

"Let's not worry about the squatters, and if they come back, we'll deal with them. But I have got to show you this deer."

Dylan knew more about computers than me, so I just let him do his thing. Once he finally got the footage from the dashcam onto the computer, he showed me the screen. 

"Look," He said while pointing at the screen.

The footage started with the truck just driving on the usually empty road, but when the truck stopped, we could both see the deer clearly, and the deer was just as big as Dylan described.

"SEE look at that thing, that's what we're going for this week!" Dylan said excitedly.

I was still silent, and noticed something was off with the deer.

"Dylan, look at it's legs, it looks like something got at it. It's all cut up, like something attacked it."

Dylan looked at the legs as well.

"So how did it run so fast? It's only got three functional legs." He asked.

I didn't know what to respond with, so I kept quiet. 

"Well it's still a one big ass deer, and look at the antlers! I mean come on, you can't tell me you don't wanna get that thing down."

"Look at the eyes, Dylan, do they look normal to you?" I asked

The eyes were cloudy and pale. They weren't a dark-brown color.

"Ah, the camera probably just glitched. Stop worrying so much, we just got out here."

"Yeah alright," I agreed, "Go set up the trail cameras, I'll start unpacking. Make sure you don't get lost, and take this." I hand him a walkie-talkie.

Dylan nodded, and grabbed the bag with the cameras, and walked out the door. I did what I said I'd do, and unpacked all our things. Clothes, ammunition, food, and our guns. It took me about 30 minutes to get everything sorted. Dylan spoke up on the walkie-talkie.

"Test, test, one-two-three. This thing working?"

I held down the button and responded.

"Yeah, I can hear you, what's up?"

"I only have a few cameras left, I'll be back soon."

"Sounds good, I got everything unpacked, so we're all set-up."

"Alright cool, start the fireplace, I'm freezing out here."

I put the walkie-talkie in my pocket, and walked out the bedroom. I opened the bedroom door to light the fireplace, but before I even took a second step out the door, I saw Dylan standing outside the window, staring inside. I walked up to the window and looked at his hands. 

"Hey, where's the bag? Are the cameras done?" 

The brim of his hat was covering his eyes, and was slowly falling down.

"Hello?" I say as I wave my hand by his face. "Dylan!" This time I yell.

I grabbed my walkie-talkie from my pocket and brought it to my face.

"Dylan, stop staring at me and come inside, this isn't funny."

I looked at his face, his hat still falling slowly. I didn't hear my voice come from his walkie-talkie, in fact, I don't think he had his at all. Instead all I heard was Dylan from my walkie-talkie say,

"Damon, what're you saying? I was just about to set up the last camera?" 

My blood ran cold, I didn't take my eyes off of whoever this was. His hat finally fell down, and all I saw was a mangled version of Dylan, who's eyes stared at me blankly. The same color as the deers. I press down the button. 

"Who's looking at me?"