The Deerborn Series

Despite my mom’s begging and pleading for me to stay away from the mountain trail with Ashley on our walk, I wasn’t as deterred as she was.

At one point, I thought my mother was going to demand that I stay home, but it seemed as though the sudden realization of me being an independent twenty-one-year-old washed over her like a ton of bricks.

I tried to reassure her that I would stay as far from the mountain as I could, trying my best to lie through my teeth.

This was not the case whatsoever. My plan was to do my own investigation of the area where Harold was murdered and possibly pick up something that the police missed.

I had a lingering feeling that Aaron was either directly or indirectly involved in Harold’s murder, although I had no evidence other than his odd behavior, questions, and the fact that he had a liking to their grape juice.

But that didn’t add up. Why on earth would Aaron kill Harold McGrath over juice? Thinking about it further, many people were disappointed with McGrath’s orchard being shut down, but I didn’t point fingers at them.

Then I started thinking further. What if Aaron was somehow affiliated with the McGraths and their business?

Perhaps he had a stake in their business and the McGraths never told him about the closing of the business. Therefore, Aaron came to figure out where his money was.

After thinking that over a little further, I realized I was just grasping at straws. There was nothing that directly tied Aaron Jachtel to the murder of Harold McGrath, other than my utter distaste for him.

When I met up with Ashley on the opposite side of town nearest to the mountain, because my house was on the outskirts heading down the highway away from Bon Resi, she was shaking in her designer brown leather combat boots.

I looked at her skeptically.

“Oh come on, Ash, you’re not telling me you’re too scared to even go a quarter of the way up the mountain?” I spat, pulling my gloves off so I could reach into my pocket for my very old-school Nokia cellphone.

Ashley looked over her shoulder at the narrow path that was surrounded by the tall oak trees that led up the mountain.

“And you’re telling me that you’re not freaked out in the slightest? Seriously Syb? Bon Resi hasn’t had a murder since the Kilarney massacre…” Ashley’s voice trailed off.

She shoved both her hands into either pocket on her forest-green vest.

I waved that thought off.

I would hope that whoever murdered Harold McGrath would have a little more wit to them than to stick around at the crime scene, which everyone seemed to lean to.

“Everything’s gonna be fine. Come on, I didn’t walk this whole way for you to puss out,” I snapped, my curiosity peaking as I stared up the incline of the path.

I checked my phone for battery life, signal, and that everything was working.

I wouldn’t deny that even though I trusted we would be safe on our walk, I wanted to be prepared. Better safe than sorry, as my grandma always said.

Ashley narrowed her eyes at the sight of my gaudy cellphone, looking less than impressed.

“Seriously, you need to get a phone from this decade,” Ashley joked.

I tried to look offended, but I knew she was right. I liked to keep my life fairly simple; newer technology didn’t really ‘push my buttons.’ Hah.

“It works, that’s what counts,” I mentioned, showing her it was still fully capable of sending text messages and receiving phone calls. She shrugged it off.

Finally, after another heated disagreement about whether or not we should venture through the mountain trail, I convinced her it was perfectly safe for us to do so.

She seemed reluctant, but I had to admit that I was pretty persuasive. I should have been a saleswoman.

We allowed ourselves to get back into our routine, enjoying our gossip and conversations about pop culture as well as her amusing stories about Colby.

For a little while, I let the intrusive thoughts of Harold’s sudden death escape my mind and focused more on the little things that I enjoyed.

We took a quick break after walking forty-five minutes, enough to breathe in the fresh mountain air and drink some water. Just as I thought my mind was at ease, as I was bending over a rock to stretch, I noticed a small trail of blood.

My heart just about stopped, and I slowly let my eyes trail along to where the blood led. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out anything because it disappeared into the woods.

Ashley had been talking, and as she realized my focus was gone, I could tell she was beginning to panic.

“Oh, my God, please don’t tell me there’s something out there,” she said, stepping up beside me to view the blood for herself.

I stood up straight, keeping my eyes on the blood. I felt a little queasy, but my inner detective wasn’t frightened.

“I don’t know, Ash. It could just be animal blood,” I mumbled although I was quite sure it was the opposite.

“Should we call the cops?” Ash almost begged, and I could tell she was scared to her wit’s end.

I put my hand on her forearm to try to get her to relax. She was just making me tense and it was actually starting to annoy me.

“Who’s to say they haven’t already seen this?” I stated.

That wasn’t entirely something to comfort Ashley. It was quite possible that they had already discovered this.

Plus, I was a little intimidated about calling the police to tell them we had been on the mountain after they advised everyone to stay away.

I was sure to get a lecture from Constable Clarrens. He had sort of become like a father figure to me after my dad’s passing, seeing as how they were quite close.

I could see Ashley reaching into her pocket for her iPhone, quickly turning it on, but letting out a few curse words.

“Are you kidding? No service! All the times we have come up here, we never had a problem. Yet the one time I actually need the damn thing!” she exclaimed, roughly shoving her phone back into her vest pocket.

I reached into mine to pull out my solid old Nokia, only to find out that I had no service either. Strange, my Nokia had the best reception around, despite being highly outdated.

I looked around hastily. There was no one in sight, just Ashley and me.

“Well,” I said, taking a minute to think over my next words carefully. “Maybe we should check it out?”

Ashley grabbed me by the arm, pulling me close to her, despite me not even making a move yet.

“You have got to be kidding me, Sybil! Why the hell would you even reason that out to be a good idea?” she snapped.

I pulled myself away from her, rearranging my now scrunched hoodie. I stared at her, thinking fast.

“What if someone is hurt? What if they only have a matter of time and we’re their last hope?” I conjectured, wanting to give myself a pat on the back.

Ashley shook her head at first, but after careful thought, realized that I had a valid point. She sighed, feeling defeated.

“Fine, fine! But there’s no way I’m letting you go up there alone!” she insisted.

I was hoping she wouldn’t let me go alone as there was a part of me that was scared. Mostly I was filled with adrenaline.

We both took a moment to mentally prepare ourselves, then made our way around the large rock I had been stretching on. We kept on either side of the trail of blood, following it up to the thick line of woods.

I looked over my shoulder briefly to make sure we were still alone. To my relief, we still were. We began weaving in and out of the oaks, following the trail despite the lack of proper light.

It was foggy, even though we weren’t that high.

All of a sudden, I heard a shift in the woods off in the distance. Both Ashley and I came to a complete halt, her hand reaching out for the comfort of mine.

I swallowed hard, unsure of my next move. We stayed put for a minute, but there wasn’t a secondary noise. We both summed it up to being a bird or a loose acorn.

I tried to convince myself that we were the only people in the woods, but I had a hard time believing myself. After a ten-minute walk as we followed the trail, I realized the blood was getting thinner and farther apart.

I thought of the inner detective inside of me and realized we were either following the trail the wrong way, or whoever was bleeding was starting to clot over. Then, we saw it.

The most gruesome things I had ever laid my eyes upon. All that was left was the head of a deer, propped upon a small rock between two oaks.

Ashley screamed so loud I swore my right ear lost hearing entirely.

Right then and there, I realized this wasn’t just an animal who had murdered the deer, because, upon closer examination, the deer’s neck was sliced perfectly with something sharp.

It was also displayed like either a trophy or a warning.

“Oh my God, oh my God…” Ashley repeated over and over again as she paced back and forth, and I reached out to stop her.

“Knock it off, Ash, you’re only freaking yourself out more,” I declared, giving her a light shake.

We had walked back down to the actual mountain trail, just because I knew if I didn’t get Ashley out of there soon, she was going to go completely catatonic.

Ashley ran both her hands through her hair, allowing them to stay there as every possible bad thought rolled into her head all at once.

“Something—someone—killed that deer. They mutilated it on purpose!” Ashley panicked, her breath escaping unevenly.

I shook my head, trying to get the gruesome image out of my head.

“Something isn’t right,” I mumbled, mostly to myself. But Ashley’s keen hearing picked it up.

“You don’t say?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Even though it was quite traumatizing, I felt as if Ashley was slightly overreacting.

“That blood—it doesn’t make sense. It looks like something was dragged toward it. The blood doesn’t match up with the crime scene,” I said, puzzled.

Ashley put both of her hands on my shoulders, shaking me out of my stupor.

“Crime scene? You’re not a police officer, Sybil! This isn’t your job to figure out. Now can we please go?” she begged, biting the side of her lip.

It took me a moment to reply as I was stuck in my own thoughts.

Was it possible that this mutilated deer was related to Harold McGrath’s murder?

Finally, I nodded to Ashley’s pleading. We basically ran the whole way back, Ashley’s hand often reaching out for me out of fear.

She was starting to get paranoid, stating that she felt like someone was watching her, even convincing herself that someone was following us. However, that was not the case.

It was just the two of us, and at this moment in time, we looked like two scared dogs with our tails between our legs.

Eventually, after quite a long journey, we made it to the mouth of the woods that led back to where we had started out. We both panted frantically as we basically tumbled over after arriving at our destination.

Once we caught what we could of our breath, we hurried over to the police station. Barging through the doors, we almost scared the pants right off the secretary Alison Clive. We ran up to the front desk.

“Whoa, what’s wrong girls?” she asked with a worried tone.

I tried to spit out what was running rampant through my head, but it only came out in short gasps. I allowed myself a minute to catch my breath again.

“The woods—we were up on the mountain trail—blood. We saw blood. We followed it—there was a deer head, propped up like something you’d see in Friday the Thirteenth,” I choked out.

Alison quickly buzzed for Constable Jack Clarrens, and he quickly rushed into the foyer.

“Are you okay, Sybil? What happened?” the Constable inquired, placing a hand comfortingly on my shoulder.

I nodded, placing a hand over my chest to try to slow my darting breaths.

“We were on the trails, and we found blood.

We followed it and there was a decapitated deer head on a rock, and it didn’t look accidental,” I spoke with a bit more clarity now. Repeating it a couple of times had made it easier to tell my story straight.

Constable Clarrens looked over his shoulder at Alison with skepticism, and I could tell there was a mutual glance being exchanged between them.

“It has to be recent, because we searched quite a distance beyond the trail for any evidence, and there was nothing like that around. It could have been poachers,” Jack mulled over though he sounded doubtful.

Ashley was shaking from complete and utter shock, and Jack had taken this into account. He pulled off his mandatory police jacket and draped it lightly across Ashley’s shoulders.

“Why would a poacher leave evidence like that?” I shouted, even though I knew I was just angry because I was just as scared as Ashley, if not more.

“I don’t know, Sybil. I need to see it for myself. Do you know the exact location?” he questioned further.

I did my best to explain to him the whereabouts of the mutilated deer, and when he asked if I would be willing to show him where it was, I had to refuse. He was fine with that, taking in the condition I was in.

Before he set out with a few other officers, he pulled me aside.

“I guess I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous it was of you to go on the mountain not even a few hours after a brutal murder,” he said to me in a hushed tone, to which I nodded begrudgingly.

Then it hit me.

“So, it was a murder?” I responded.

Now I had something to work on in my own private investigation.

Jack merely gave me a less than impressed look, patting me very lightly on my shoulder. “Go home, Sybil.”