Prion

I used to really love hiking in the forest. There’s something really magical about the sunlight filtering in between the trees, or hearing the pitter patter of rain against the canopy, and when the afternoon mist comes rolling in it feels like you’re walking through a fairytale. Going out was my way of relaxing when life got too much. Not that I had a bad life, quite the opposite. I love my family and I have a nice job, but sometimes the routine – even a good one – can become overwhelming. When it did, I would get up early on a Saturday or Sunday morning, drive an hour or so out of the city to one of the nearby hiking trails, and go on a three or four hour hike. I’d unusually be back home with my wife and kids right around lunch.

One Sunday morning I was hiking a trail that I like to call The Three Hills Loop. It might have an official name, which I don’t know, but I call it that because it connects three low peaks and then loops back around along an old logging road. This time I had, for whatever reason, decided to do it backwards, as it were, starting with the logging road and what’s normally the third peak. I was on the way up towards the middle peak, about as far from the trail head as you can possibly be, when I heard a strange noise. When you spend enough time in the forest you learn to recognize all the different sounds: the chirping of birds, the creaking of branches in the wind, even the uncanny bark of a deer. I could tell right away that this sound didn’t belong. It was a sharp sound, as of two rocks being smashed together. There it came again, not quite two rocks, more like someone striking a rock with a rubberized hiking pole. This wasn’t a popular trail, I usually never met more than four or five other hikers out here, but this was an exceptionally fine morning, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to meet other people. It sounded once more, closer this time. It was turning into a rhythm, as if someone was vigorously tapping their hiking pole against a rock with every step. That was surprising, because this section of the trail was fairly smooth; there weren’t many rocks that someone could be tapping their pole against.

I continued along the trail, that rhythmic tapping in my ears, wondering what it could be, until I came around a bend and spotted something moving between the trees. It wasn’t another hiker at all. It was a deer standing in a small clearing a couple of meters off the trail. I have long since given up on photographing wildlife when I hike. There’s usually too much underbrush in the way to get a clear picture, and whenever I try to sneak closer, the animal scampers. This time however, there was enough space between the trees to get a clear shot, so I quickly got my camera out of my backpack and put my eye to the viewfinder.

Just as I was about to press the shutter button, the deer twitched, almost as if shrugging off a fly, lowered its head then charged towards a large, moss clad boulder at one end of the little clearing. It bashed its horns into the boulder with a loud thunk then stumbled backwards a couple of steps. The deer stood stock-still for a couple of moments, then rushed head first at the boulder again, smashing into it with another thunk. It repeated this process several times with eerie regularity, as if counting the exact number of seconds before each charge; thunk…thunk…thunk. By the umpteenth time, it was starting to look a little woozy but that didn’t stop it; it pawed the ground a couple of times then rushed headlong into the boulder with one final thunk then sank to the ground. At that moment I awoke as if from a trance, and I realized I had been staring at this spectacle open mouthed, with the camera shutter button half pressed. I lowered the camera – no point in taking a photo now – and gave my head a shake to clear some of the mental fog that had settled on me. What the fuck had I just seen? Was that kind of behavior normal for deer? Perhaps more importantly, did I need to be concerned?

As these thoughts were going through my mind, the deer suddenly lifted its head and looked around. By some kind of instinct I ducked in behind a tree; I felt I didn’t want it to see me. As it turned to face my direction I saw that its eyes were completely vacant. I’m not sure it could have seen me even if I wasn’t hiding. When it turned away from me, I raised my camera and took a picture. When I did, I realized something I hadn’t noticed before: a chunk of its antlers had been broken off – probably as a result of bashing its head against the cliff – and was hanging by a thread of velvety skin, like a morbid Christmas ornament. To my surprise, the deer started struggling to its feet. As it did, I turned the settings knob on my camera to video mode, pointed the lens towards the deer and started recording.

Looking through the viewfinder I saw the deer turn its attention towards the boulder again. This time it didn’t charge. Instead it positioned itself next to the boulder and started bashing its antlers against it rapidly; one, two, three, four, pieces breaking off with every couple of hits. Soon enough there was little more than stumps left. As if it could feel that whatever it was endeavoring to do was almost complete, it took a couple of steps back, and in one mighty rush, it bashed its head against the rock face one last time then collapsed in a heap at the foot of the boulder. Thinking it was over, I turned off the recording and put down my camera.

I was reminded of a story that my father had told me when I was young. He told me he was out hiking one day when he came upon a deer on the trail and startled it. It ran away in a panic and stumbled off the edge of the trail, tumbling down the steep slope. Realizing that the animal might be badly hurt and suffering, my father did the only thing a decent man could do in that situation. He carefully made his way down to the deer which was indeed hurt. He found a large enough rock and put an end to its misery with a swift blow to the head. I wondered if I had suddenly found myself in the same situation as my father had, all those years ago, and rose to check on the stricken animal. Getting closer I could see that the deer seemed to have knocked itself unconscious. Except for the broken antlers it looked unhurt so I decided to leave it alone.

I had only gone a short distance when I once again heard an unexpected sound. It was similar to what I’d heard before but softer somehow, as if someone had wrapped a piece of cloth around the deer’s antlers to dampen the blows. It couldn’t be the deer again could it? Part of me wanted to continue hiking, but another part of me wanted to turn around and see what was making the sound. After a minute or two of struggling with myself, my curiosity got the best of me.

Returning to the clearing I saw that it was indeed the same deer. It was once again standing right next to the boulder, repeatedly mashing its now unhorned forehead against the rock face with a rhythmic thock, thock, thock. I saw to my distress that a stream of red was starting to trickle down the deer’s face and that a corresponding blotch of red had appeared on the boulder. Strange enough, the deer seemed entirely unbothered, and simply kept going. I was transfixed by the rhythmic bashing; no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t look away.

After an indeterminate amount of time staring at the spectacle, there came a sickening crunch that sent a shiver down my spine. I knew instinctively that something had broken but at first I couldn’t see what. When I did, I could feel the nausea rising within me like a wave forming a mile off the coast. Though the skin was mostly intact, there was a sizable dent in the deer’s forehead. It must have crushed its own skull. Despite what should have been life threatening brain injuries, it kept going with grim determination, each whack fracturing the skull bone a little bit more. Eventually the skin split open against the jagged edges of the broken skull, and a mess of blood, bone shards, and liquefied brain matter came cascading out.

At the sight of this I could hold back the nausea no more; the wave that had been building up within broke over me, forcing me down onto the forest floor as the cold sweat washed over my body. Whenever I’m overcome by nausea like this, my world shrinks. I focus on whatever’s in front of me – in this case some withered old leaves – and concentrate on breathing; in…out, in…out. While in this state, I perceived a movement in the blurry distance. Though it was impossible, that creature – it surely wasn’t a deer – was getting to its feet. In fact, it got up on its hind legs – without antlers it looked eerily human – and started walking away. When it disappeared between the branches I forced myself to get up , my legs shaking and cold sweat pouring off me. When I was sure my legs would hold, I ran. I ran as fast and as far as I could. It was only when I reached the middle peak, my lungs burning, that I allowed myself to slow down enough to have a sip of water.

I stumbled and slipped my way down, acquiring several bruises in the process that I didn’t notice until later. As soon as I got down I started hiking the final hill. I was no longer able to run , but I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other in order to get as much distance as possible between myself and that thing. The descent of the final hill is all a blur but I got down somehow. When I got into the car and locked the doors and windows without having seen or heard that creature since it disappeared among the trees, I could finally let myself breathe a sigh of relief. As I drove, I could feel my fear dissipate gradually with each mile that I put between myself and the three hills. When I got home however, I knew that there was still a kernel of fear that would be much harder to dispel.

I didn’t tell my wife or kids about my encounter; how do you even begin to tell something like that? Instead I acted like it had been a normal hike, and tried to go about the rest of the day like normal. That night I had trouble falling asleep – images of that creature with its head split open kept popping into my mind. As I didn’t want to disturb my wife by my tossing and turning, I got out of bed. At first I went to the balcony and just stood there for a couple of minutes looking out at the sleeping city. When that didn’t help I tried reading a couple of paragraphs, but found I couldn’t concentrate. At last I sat down in front of the computer, staring at the black monitor for a minute before turning it on and starting to google.

I couldn’t find any horror stories set in the region of the three hills, nor could I find any accounts of deer, or other animals for that matter, in that area acting strangely. What I did find was much worse. Apparently there is something called prion disease. If you were around in the 90’s, you might have heard of “Mad Cow Disease” which is one variant of it. I won’t go into too much detail about how it works, but essentially prions are a kind of misshaped proteins that can infect a creature’s brain, turning it into mush. When that happens, it can cause the infected creature to start acting in strange ways. The worst thing about it is, that it can infect humans. It is always fatal.

I cannot say for certain that the deer was infected with prion disease – you would have to test its brain matter to know, but based on what I’ve read, I think it’s quite likely. When I started googling I thought that finding an explanation for what I had seen would calm me down. In fact it did the opposite. The natural explanation is so much worse than any possible supernatural one. Knowing that this is out there, what it can do to a person or an animal, there’s only one conclusion that I can draw: I’m never going hiking in the forest ever again.