I was terrified. It happened almost twenty-five years ago, after one of those nights that seemed to stretch forever. Back then, partying in the hood was what we did — New York’s club, Empire off-sale, house party, house party, house party. Each one louder, messier, crazier than the last. It was always the same crew, a mix of family and friends, blowing off steam after a week of grinding through work.

That night ended like too many did — flashing lights, sirens, cops shutting things down. I got separated from everyone when the last party broke up. A cop chased me, but I jumped a fence, landed hard, and kept moving. That’s how I ended up alone in the alleys, weaving my way back home.

The streets were alive but uneasy. Dogs barked behind fences. Cars ripped past on the avenues. Streetlights flickered weakly — some burnt out, others stuttering on and off, leaving whole houses swallowed in patches of shadow. Regina at night was a jagged mix of light and darkness, and it made my drunken stumbling worse. The cracked pavement rose to trip me. Gaps in the sidewalk twisted my steps. Even my own clumsiness felt like it wanted to take me down.

I heard people yelling in the distance, shouting to run, and I thought the cops were coming again. All I could do was hide. I found a couple of garbage cans and dove behind them — Gawd, they stunk — and I hoped the cops didn’t have dogs. Maybe the smell of the garbage would throw them off. I closed my eyes, whether in silent prayer or just trying not to pass out, I don’t remember. But I do remember the sound. It was organic, like when you drop your tongue from the roof of your mouth: click… click… click. And then a darker sound followed: clop… clop. Silence. Then again: clop… clop. I couldn’t make it out. I slowed my breathing and strained to listen.

Sirens tore through the distance, but I couldn’t tell what direction they came from. I stayed still, afraid the cops might find me. Clop… clop. Gawd, what was that? I remember thinking. As quietly as I could, I turned my head toward where I thought the sound was coming from — and I smiled. The streetlight flickered, but the image was clear: a deer. A deer in the middle of the city, in the middle of the hood. I even let out a little chuckle.

That’s when its head snapped in my direction. I froze. I watched its ears twist and scan the air for more sounds. Slowly, gingerly, the head moved forward, inquisitive. Suddenly a motion light lit up the alley.

I wanted to scream.

The moment that light flared on, the “deer” turned and stared straight into it — and that’s when I saw the truth. It wasn’t a deer at all. Its front limbs weren’t legs but hands, pale and human, jutting from the sleeves of a trench coat that draped over its body. Yet the head was unmistakably deer: massive, crowned with antlers that branched like blackened trees.

It stood up.  

The trench coat shifted as its legs dropped beneath it — hind legs, the powerful, twisted limbs of a deer, ending in sharp hooves. It stepped back into the shadow, clop… clop, then turned its head toward me. The clicking sound came again, click click click, but faster now, sharp and deliberate. Then its mouth opened. Not the soft muzzle of a deer, but jaws lined with long canine teeth, dripping with ropes of saliva — and something darker. A smear of red. Blood red.

Clop… clop. It stepped toward me and I held my breath. Could it see me? Did it have some kind of night vision? Clop… clop. It seemed to sneer right at me. Click… click… click. The sound rattled in the dark.

Should I run? The thought tore through me, but I knew it would catch me in seconds. I imagined its antlers driving into my back as I ran, lifting me off the ground and smashing me down before those terrible teeth tore into my flesh. Clop… clop. It bent low, as if to leap or charge, and my heart stopped. My throat closed; I couldn’t scream.

Then it launched itself toward me—

—and I went limp.

Suddenly the alley lit up. Headlights swept across the brick, a car turning the corner. The spell broke, and I found strength in my legs again. Another light flared, a spotlight, followed by the flash of red and blue cherries. The deer thing was gone.

But the police were here.

They asked me what I was doing. I didn’t answer. They asked me my name. I just stared, wide-eyed and frozen. They arrested me, and I had never been so glad to be thrown in the drunk tank as I was that night.

I don’t think about that night — at least, not if I can help it. But last week someone whispered a story. A post on Facebook had been screenshot before it vanished. Someone said they’d seen a deer in the hood.

A deer standing on two legs.

As many of you know, I lost my brother Josh this year. It threw me for a loop — it was unexpected, and all my hopes and dreams with him died much too soon. Thankfully, I had photography contracts that needed to be fulfilled, and they helped keep me grounded through the grief. You’ll never know how much photography has done for me. At first, I thought about creating a photo series to work through my loss, but that felt too much of me and not enough of him. So instead, in the darkness, I wrote.Josh and I shared a love for the macabre, the spooky, and the mysterious — we would send each other YouTube channels to feed that shared love of the creepy: Nukes Top 5, Slapped Ham, Beyond Creepy, and countless others. In that same spirit, I wrote.I wrote stories that are a little unsettling, a little mysterious — the kind of tales Josh and I both loved. In the end, I wrote five stories. Through them, I found a small kind of healing and a way to express the grief I couldn’t photograph. I’ll be sharing them one at a time this coming week. I hope you enjoy them — and maybe feel a little of Josh in them, too.— Bill