A boy’s broken body, bruised, bloody, lay on its back in a pool of blood. The students, the glittering joy of the end of finals still flowing through their veins with vodka, cheap beer, and cheaper weed, gathered in a growing crowd as a hush passed in a wave over the group to meet embers of the fire. The crowd, stunned into a stupor, was silent – until a girl burst through the group, her face already streaked with tears, agony apparent. 

She threw herself on the boy’s body, sobbing, screaming, calling his name. No one in the crowd went to her side, huddled together like a cauldron of bats, no one willing to get any closer than the pool of blood allowed. The girl wailed until the police arrived and finally pulled her away.

For weeks, the mystery murder of the bonfire body was investigated, the story traveling throughout the campus and beyond until slowly, like all tragedies, the memory began to fade from the minds of those who only read of pain. But the girlfriend could not. When the end of the third week came she received a call. Locked in her dorm room, her roommate only a wall away, she was told they had closed the case. Irate, she stormed to the police precinct to demand why.

There is no case, the police said.

There is no evidence of a crime, the police said.

Everything pointed to an animal attack, the police said.

The girlfriend refused to believe it; they showed her pictures of his body, clean, as sterile as it could be, on a metal slab in the morgue. His skin, pale, gray, mottled where the blood settled, showed lacerations, broken bones and, now that the blood was gone, bruising all over his torso and chest in the shape of hoof marks. 

He must have spooked a deer, the police said.

Maybe an elk, the police said.

Maybe a herd, the police said.

Staring at the glossy pictures, the girlfriend still refused to believe it. In the single moment the detective looked away, she grabbed the file and ran from the room.

There must be something else, she thought.

There were no hoof marks there, she thought.

I know he was killed, she thought.

Safely back in the security of her dorm room, she spread out the paperwork and begged her roommate to help. Together, they looked over the evidence. However, the girlfriend saw from the corner of her eye, her roommate trying to hide a stack of papers. Snatching them back, she flipped through page after page of interviews.

Two…six…twelve…one account after another, proof and something she’d never allowed herself to think. Every page, every girl, all saying that they’d been hooking up with her boyfriend for months. She kept reading, with bile in her throat, tears clouding her eyes, four stood out. Each of the girls she knew, would even have called friends until one by one they had dropped out of her life.

Each of the four claimed that her boyfriend had sent them vulgar, disturbing messages. That he refused to leave them alone. That they’d had to change their number, move back with their parents, change their schedule, just to get away from him, from his obsession.

A note in the file, coffee stained, smeared said “Player – girlfriend had no clue.” 

Heartbroken, dizzy with anger and betrayal, she steadied herself. Motive, she’d found a motive. And there, there in the ME report: cause of death, internal bleeding caused from blunt force trauma…by an animal or unknown entity. And hope for an answer fled.

At a loss, the girl was comforted by her roommate, but cradled in her arms the words she heard chilled her: “It was tragic, but maybe this was the only way.”

Furious, she shoved her friend away. If the police didn’t care, she would solve this herself! She would go to woods and hunt down whatever killed her boyfriend. 

Unheeding of her roommate’s calls, she fled to the woods, back to the clearing where her boyfriend’s body had been found. The remnants of the bonfire still crumbled in the center, a dark stain of grass near the edge of the forest where the body had lain. 

The sun was setting, the woods grew dark, the shadows reached out to her like gnarled hands. With only the light of her phone to guide her, she strode into the woods following the path of broken branches from where her boyfriend had struggled to escape the forest’s grasp. 

Deeper, and deeper she went, for long enough she was sure the sun had set though the woods created an unnatural darkness. Alive and waiting, like it was breathing, watching her, stalking her. She slowed her frantic stride until she finally came to a halt. She could no longer see evidence of her boyfriend’s scramble. Somewhere in her haste, she’d lost the trail. 

Crack!

She gasped, a second snap echoed. She spun around, casting her phone’s light in every direction until something flashed back.

She froze, her hand somehow managed to remain still as she locked gazes with two black eyes reflecting in her light. Her breath caught her chest, sticking to her ribs. As if pulled, her phone followed the eyes as they got higher – no, as the animal stood up. 

It must have been ten feet tall. She backed up, knees locking making her steps unsteady. Her back hit a tree and the creature stepped forward, just close enough for her light to illuminate it. Standing on two legs, cloven hooves and dark brown fur, was the largest deer she’d ever seen. It took another step towards her, black eyes unblinking and she screamed, throwing her phone by reflex and only waiting long enough to see it strike the deer in the face.

She ran.

Whether it was back the way she came she did not know. Her legs pumping, heart jackrabbiting in her ears. She felt like she would never be able to stop, that she would die in a race. Until…

She hit something, warm and soft. Arms gathered her close and she screamed again before hearing her name being called. Over the rush of her heartbeat she was finally able to focus and looked up into the eyes of her roommate. Relieved, she held back with all her strength, crying and stuttering through an explanation of the creature. 

Her roommate replied, “I know.” and something was pressed into her hand. Looking down, she saw the cracked screen of her phone.

And blood dripped from her roommate’s nose.

She pushed away, her pulse climbing once again and looked down. Below her roommate’s waist there was fur, and lower still cloven hooves. Before her eyes she watched as they changed, morphed back to human feet. 

“I told you about him. I told him to stop. To leave those girls alone, to break up with you. I warned him.” her roommate said in an empty voice. 

The girlfriend stared, this girl whom she trusted, whom she knew so well. And asked, “Why kill him?”

Her roommate tilted her head, and her eyes flashed, black seeping in like spilled ink.

“How else could I protect you?”