a deer with her car, she was going to Hell. This was God’s warning. He gave her a body as a vessel for His spirit. Not the other way around. She had better stop her sinful thinking. And get home, Mary Katherine. Now.
But the deer were blocking the road.
Mary Katherine had no choice but to turn around. She quietly put the car in reverse. She backed into a driveway and drove back the way she came. It would take a little longer to get home, but if she took a left at the next fork, she would be home before her parents knew she was gone.
But when she got to the fork, she saw more deer blocking the road.
Mary Katherine idled the car at the stop sign. She looked back into the rearview mirror and saw that the family of deer had followed her. On every street she scanned, there were deer. Blocking her path home. Leaving her only one street to drive on.
The street toward the Mission Street Woods.
Mary Katherine moved down the street. She reached the Collins Construction site. She turned the car around and saw them. Dozens of deer walking slowly toward her. Threatening to scrape the car with their antlers. Mary Katherine leaned on the horn.
“Get away from me!” she screamed.
The deer did not scatter. They did not run. They just inched closer and closer. Mary Katherine had no choice. She opened the car door and stepped out into the freezing night. The deer began to run at her. She climbed over the security fence and landed on the muddy ground. The deer stopped at the security fence, their antlers poking through the metal grate.
She took off into the Mission Street Woods.
Mary Katherine didn’t know if this was a dream or real. She prayed it was a dream. She prayed that she would wake up in her bed and never have had these thoughts. Never have taken the car out past midnight. Never have taken Doug into her mouth. She prayed that all of this was some horrible nightmare and that she was still a girl worth loving.
She could hear more deer in the woods running behind her. Scattering like cockroaches on a fresh kitchen floor. She ran aimlessly, looking for a path she might recognize. She ran past an abandoned refrigerator, right into a tunnel.
She dropped her cell phone. The tunnel went dark, the water from the melted snow squishing under her feet. Mary Katherine reached down and fished out her cell phone. She shook it. Nothing happened. She prayed for light. She dried the cell phone off on her overalls. Suddenly, the cell phone came back to life.
That’s when she saw the deer.
Dozens of them.
In the coal mine.
“Ahhhhh!” she screamed.
Mary Katherine ran. Lighting the way with her cell phone until she finally found the moonlight again in the clearing.
Mary Katherine saw the tree house. She remembered finding Christopher in there earlier that night. He grabbed her arm, and the heat shot through his fingers and made those tiny blisters. The blisters were warm. Like the tree house would be. Yes. That’s where she needed to go. The tree house would keep her warm and safe from the deer. Mary Katherine ran to the tree house just as the deer reached the clearing. She moved up the 2x4 steps. She opened the door and looked inside. The tree house was empty. Mary Katherine turned back around and saw the deer circling her like sharks in a tank.
Then she began to pray.
As she spoke the Lord’s Prayer, she looked up at the beautiful field of stars past the clouds. A shooting star flew across the sky. She remembered when Mrs. Radcliffe said that every shooting star was a soul going to Heaven. The memory soothed Mary Katherine. She thought about being a child in CCD with all those lessons about Jesus. God, she loved Jesus with all her heart. She was a child, and she did not know there was such a thing as a body that could do dirty things. Wouldn’t it be great to be that child again? To be pure of thought and deed. She whispered the Lord’s Prayer and crossed herself after the final line.
“And deliver us from evil. Amen.”
Mary Katherine closed the door to the tree house.
The instant the door snapped shut, she felt better. Calm and quiet. She realized it was not too late. God could have made her hit a deer, but He didn’t. He just warned her and