I hope the deer were in costume too

Yesterday was disturbing, even for Halloween. My close friend Michaela and I thought, while disregarding the nature of the holiday, that instead of dressing like naughty nurses and getting trashed in town, we would instead venture off into the night with a camera and take some night shots for her final before graduation. The thought of standing in the middle of nowhere with only the stars above me and the crickets singing to me was romantic and the urge to catch it on camera was even more appealing. So we drove about in search of anything that would make for an interesting photo. Along the way a few oddly grotesque and somewhat alarming things happened to us. Half of me does not care to remember. My saliva is already starting to taste bitter.

So we were traveling along this dimly lit back road that led to New Braunfels when Michaela noticed something interesting on the opposite side of the road. Since no cars were around, it was safe enough to take a U-turn. Just before the turn as she began to slow, her headlights reflected off of something that made my insides churn. Before I could speak a warning, her tires went right though the bloody mess. At first I didn't know what to identify the corpse as. After my friend rolled over it and got another look, she thought it was a porcupine. But our second drive by proved otherwise. It was a ribcage. A freaking ribcage that was all maggoty and shit.

We decided to keep going and surprisingly, we were still in high spirits. I don't know what the frig was wrong with us.

We rolled to a three-way stop where another car sat perpendicular to us. Michaela waved them on, so the car continued forward. As it passed in front of us, her headlights shined through the window and illuminated a mask that was looking directly at us. It was white with hollowed out eyes, like two large black holes on a skull, and a malicious grin. Blood was pouring from the eyes. Neither of us screamed, necessarily. We simply exchanged nervous glances while thinking with warranted repetition, "Do not like, do not like, do not like, do not like, do not like!" 

Now those kind of spooks were to be expected, but nothing like the next two that followed.

After taking a few shots in a nearby park, Michaela and I got back into the car and hit the highway again. I was telling some elaborate story that I cannot recall now, as I was too distracted by the next bit to even care about finishing it off. In mid sentence, both Michaela and I caught site of a decapitated deer head that was on my side of the road staring directly at me as we sped past. "...so then I wa- EW! HOLY SHIT THAT WAS THE MOST DISTURBING THING I'VE SEEN ALL NIGHT."

(Pause for me to make noises that I do not care to type out.)

The next one topped it all, and Michaela was the first to see it. We traveled through the park a second time for a follow-up shoot and ended up getting lost. After a few turns here and there, she pointed through my window and shouted, "OH MY GOD." Of course, being, well, me, I looked over to see what she was gaping at. There limped a deer, half of the bone in its leg jutting out through its skin. And it was still standing. Like. Walking on it. That was when I screamed.

You'd think that being born and raised in the South, where seeing a restaurant called "The Roadkill Cafe" is normal, I would be somewhat used to the prospect of viewing dead animals on the side of the road. But this was just ridiculously morbid. I was practically being forced into seeing dead animals over and over again. That mask just made me jittery, weakening my defenses before I saw the real nasty stuff. We decided to head home after that.

For once I feel sorry for my food. This must be what it feels like when you actually watch those videos on YouTube titled, "What Cruelties Happen to Animals Before Consumed." Only firsthand.

This is going to make me think twice about finishing off that venison meat Dad has stored in the freezer, and I don't even know who to blame.