Greetings and Salutations, Y'all!
This month here at Southern Fried Common Sense & Stuff we're counting down to my favorite holiday of the year: Halloween.
October is the first full month of the autumn season here in South Carolina -- and pretty much everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere -- and many people (yours truly included) see this month as one long build-up to Halloween (Oct. 31st) at the end of the month. This means that, in addition to the leaves beginning to fall from the trees, this is the month for pumpkins on the front porch, classic horror movies, and scary ghost stories.
Over the course of my currently 47 years in this world that God has blessed me with, I've had my share of dealings with the unexplained. Things that, for the most part, I cannot rationally write off as a natural phenomenon -- at least what I would personally consider rational, or natural. I've had at least two paranormal encounters (maybe three, though I'm still iffy on that third one) and one really bizarre and creepy encounter one late fall evening with a heard of deer.
Now living here in South Carolina, I've certainly had plenty of encounters with deer over the years. Some pleasant -- like the ones that show up in my back yard every once in awhile to eat the berry bushes -- and some that were unfortunate -- I've accidentally hit at least one with my car, and been riding in a car and been present for two other deer strikes in previous years. Poor things! I've never been a sports hunter, so I've never shot one; nor do I have any real desire to do so.
Once when I was swiming late one summer night with a notable female friend in my late teens, a beautiful doe came out of nowhere and actually walked up to the above ground pool we were in and looked at us curiously for a full minute before strolling off unafraid. That particular event wasn't so much creepy, but it was strange and can probably serve as an interesting story on its own that I'll share another time -- if y'all are interested that is? Please let me know in the comments section below.
This story however, is not so much about a deer, but rather an encounter with a whole herd of them....and what I now believe was the Not Deer -- well, maybe.
The name Not Deer is pretty much self-explanatory: its not a deer, although it often takes the shape and form of one. The Not Deer is the name given to an Appalachian cryptid that some witnesses describe to be some form of shapeshifter: similar to the legends of the Navajo Skin-walkers.
However, unlike a single creature like, oh say, the Skunk Ape (Southern Bigfoot) or the notorious Lee County Lizardman; the Not Deer is often described by witnesses as more of a phenomenon, like the infamous West Virginia Mothman. Although, unlike the Mothman, the Not Deer is not confined to a specific geographic location in the Appalachian mountain and Piedmont plateau regions of the Eastern United States.
There are a number of stories that can be found online on cryptozoology and paranormal websites detailing encounters with some form of this creature. There are also a number of alleged sightings of the Not Deer told on Reddit from people who claim to have witnessed some variation of the cryptid.
It was reading some of these stories a few months ago that triggered a few memories of the story that I'm about to share with y'all for this countdown to Halloween.
Now, I know that some of y'all -- probably most of y'all -- won't believe this story because I'm basically building up to explaining that I encountered what is essentially an urban legend in real life. I expect the same sort of skepticism that one might give to someone who claimed they had a UFO abduction encounter, or some similar tall tale.
Indeed, I'm can't say for certain that what I, and the person I was traveling with at the time, encountered one late November evening was in fact the Not Deer itself. All I can say for certain is that everything I'm about to share here with y'all is the truth as I personally witnessed it.
My Story
This trip into the bizarre took place on a late Friday evening in late November of 2012 along a mostly deserted section of SC Highway 901 in eastern Chester County, about maybe ten miles from the town of Richburg, somewhere just below the York County line.
I was driving in my car with a female friend at the time -- let's call her Stacie (not her real name) -- that I was seeing at the time. I was taking her home after an evening at the movies in nearby Rock Hill, and were going back to her home. Her housemate at the time was spending the weekend with her boyfriend, so she invited me to stay the night with her and....uh, watch DVDs.
It would be my only actual time doing so I'm sad to say. She was a pretty cool girl, but she ended up going back with the boyfriend she dumped not long afterwards and eventually moved to North Carolina with him about two years later from what I've heard.
After getting off Interstate 77 at exit 73, and a brief stopover at the Flying J Travel Center and Truck Stop for some sodas, gas, and a few other last minute overnight supplies, we continued down Highway 901 (Mt. Holly Road) towards Edgemoor.
By this time, it was just a few minutes after 11:30 PM EST and I had the music down low so I could hear Stacie talking to me and the slightly misty rain began to turn into a steady drizzle. I cut on my windshield wipers, which needed to be replaced at the time and made a dull squeak on low. It was starting to get cool at night so I had my heat on low.
It was late so there were very few cars on the road at this time of night. I turned on my bright lights just as we passed through Edgemoor. We made a turn past a local cemetery still on 901 (Edgeland Road) and were headed towards the small town of Lando when we came to the area near the bridge at Fishing Creek when I saw them and slowed the car down.
In the road and on both sides just before the bridge was a herd of what looked like about a dozen deer of various sizes. At least four of them were bucks and the rest all does and younger ones.
"Oh wow!" Stacie exclaimed in the passenger seat seeing the animals all gathered together. I brought the car to a stop and started counting the deer. I managed to get up to about 14 different pairs of eyes, when I noticed something that kinda made the hairs on my arms raise up.
Every single one of them had turned their heads to look at the car. At us. A couple were chewing, a few ears flickered, but otherwise they just stood there, looking at us in that unnerving way. Their eyes were reflecting in the bright lights. I cut them down, but that only seemed to make those bright eyes stand out more somehow while making the brown and gray-white creatures themselves appear a bit dimmer.
Suddenly, Stacie let out a scream that made me jump also. She was looking wide-eyed at the passenger side window, where one female deer came out of nowhere seemingly and was looking right at her through the rain-streaked glass.
I actually started to laugh, but that died right in my throat when I looked ahead and saw that one of the large bucks, which had at least 12 points on his wide antlers, stand straight up on his hind legs. He was about a dozen paces from the front of the car and his glowing eyes never wavered.
At first I thought he was just rearing up, but instead he just stood there like that, balanced on his hind legs, as if he could walk to them naturally....then he did. As my squeaky windshield wipers swiped away the rain water, the buck began moving in a jerky walk, taking one step, then two towards the car on those unnatural hind legs. His head twitched to the side and those eyes never blinked. The other deer in the herd never even moved, nor seemed to react to this.
Stacie, poor girl, did. "Oh my gawd!" Stacie screamed out next to me, grabbing my arm tightly. My heart was in my throat. I don't even remember what I was thinking at the time. I was really creeped out, too scared to move.
At that moment, as if on some sort of collective impulse, all of the deer started charging and ran past on either side of my car like a stampede. A few of them bumped the car, making loud thumping noises -- my driver side mirror was knocked out of place by one. I held Stacie and both of us were yelling.
Behind us, bright headlights appeared and then a large truck angrily honked at us. The deer were gone, including the strange buck. I didn't even notice he'd gone off with the rest of the herd, or maybe dodged off into the woods on the side of the road? Either way, they were all gone.
Needless to say, I put my car into gear and drove on. Stacie was drinking down some of her soda. She was laughing, but not in a funny way; more in a slightly hysterical way. She was even crying a little. I certainly didn't blame her. I didn't cry, but I was shaking like a leaf. I needed to adjust my mirror, but I felt unable (or unwilling) to lower my window to do so right then.
"Did you see that one?" She asked me. I could only nod, I had no words for what I saw. When I finally did, all I could say was, "Freaky." Not much more needed to be said to describe the ordeal.
Ten minutes later, we arrived at Stacie's place. I checked my car to see if there was any damage done. Aside from a few deer hairs and the mirror that I readjusted -- the only evidence of the encounter -- there were no dents on the car. The hairs would be washed off by morning following the after midnight rainstorms.
I stayed the night. I was planning to anyhow, but neither of us wanted to be alone after what we went through. I certainly didn't feel like driving again till morning and clear skies. After a bit, both of us calmed down and even laughed over the whole thing. An hour later we were both in her bed and found other ways to calm each other down. Neither of us talked about it and the rain outside helped us both drift off. Thankfully neither of us had nightmares about it -- at least not then.
About a month afterwards, I did have a dream about that night where I did decide to roll my window down and adjust my crooked mirror....only to have the large deer jump out of the shadowed woods bordering the road and bite down hard on my forearm! I woke up and screamed....it was the last real night terror I'd had in years.
People in rural areas who drive at night know the dangers of encountering wildlife crossing the road in front of their vehicles. Encountering a herd of deer at night in the rain just standing in the road with their eyes reflecting in the headlights would be eerie enough on its own, especially late at night. But the strange behavior of that one buck and the sound of the herd rushing past my car still gives me the shakes when I dwell on the memory.
I won't lie, I'm typing this up in the middle of the morning on a very sunny fall day, and there are still goosebumps on my arms as I'm doing so! I swear to y'all, on a stack of whatever books you want me to swear to, that everything I wrote is the truth as I remember it.
Was it actually the Not Deer that me and Stacie saw? I don't know for certain if it really was, or if my ten-year-old memory of the experience was colored by the accounts that I've read about the phenomenon. The way every deer just looked at the car unblinking was really unnerving.
Certainly the behavior of that one 12 point buck was a bit strange. Was it the herd leader trying to intimidate my car? I'm told that rearing up like that is something a deer will do to try and frighten off predators, or when they fight other deer.
My rational mind tells me that was likely what it was. It certainly didn't give any indication it was turning into a monster. Even so, why did it's head jerk like it did? That's the part that always bothered me, and still does to this day.
Also, what made the herd impulsively start running away past the car into the woods? Probably the semi-truck coming up; but even so, why didn't they run when we pulled up to them?
Although there is a very likely 99.8% probability what we saw wasn't actually a legendary cryptid, this strange true story about my creepy night time deer encounter is still a good scary tale of my existence for y'all to enjoy this Halloween season. Please let me know what y'all think in the comments section below, and tell me if any of y'all have ever had a strange encounter with the unknown yourselves.
