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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Haunted-nightmares on 2024-09-21 03:26:06+00:00.

The northwoods winters have always been quiet. The wide stretches of pines and hemlocks combined with a couple feet of snow meant that almost no sound traveled through the air. Still, even in the dead of winter, some sounds could always be made out. The wind whistling through the trees, the scuffling of creatures who had not gone to sleep for the winter, the occasional howl from a distant wolf, all sounds that could be picked out amongst the silence. Somehow there was always some sort of noise. Yet, the forests of my land made none. 

The silence is somehow more deafening than any bustling city or crowded suburb. I find myself straining my ears, desperate for noise… but there is none. Only silence.

Nothing dares to make a peep while the fawns are stalking.  

I live alone in a cabin in the northwoods of Wisconsin. Just a small wooden cabin with ten acres of wilderness surrounding it, untouched for generations. This land has been in my family since my great great grandparents immigrated here from Germany. It has never been logged or altered in any way, as my family preferred to use it for game hunting. The pelts and furs of the various wildlife species that roamed our property kept my family alive for two centuries. 

To this day, it is still used for that same purpose. Ducks, rabbits, pheasants, and quail all end up on my table every year. However, the deer on my property are the best of the bunch. My land produced some of the biggest bucks and does this side of the Mississippi. I sell the meat to local restaurants and the pelts and antlers online. I also keep chickens and have a small vegetable garden whose products I sell at the farmers market during the warmer months. I have made a good life for myself up here… but that life is no more. 

It started off small a couple years back. I noticed a lot of the deer I spotted on my property starting to look a little sickly. They were skinny and often seemed disoriented. Sometimes they would just wander in circles in forest clearings, wheezing in distress. Even weirder, I began finding a lot of the deer in the lake.  

I couldn’t understand it at first. What could possibly be dragging them into the lake and drowning them? No big aquatic predators existed like that this far north. No way in hell. 

It wasn’t until I personally witnessed a buck walk straight into the lake and drown itself that the mystery was finally solved.

The final straw came when the hunting season came around. I was sitting up in my stand one morning and watched as a doe stumbled out into the clearing. I raised my bow and took aim, but stopped before I fired. 

God, she looked just awful. She was practically a walking skeleton. There wasn’t a single ounce of fat on her whole body. She was foaming at the mouth and barely able to stand, her knees wobbling beneath her. Looking at her then, I bet a slight breeze could have knocked her to her side. I was so distracted by her grotesque form that it took me a while to realize that…

She was looking right at me. 

She stared straight at the tip of the arrow I was pointing at her heart, and did nothing. It’s almost as if she couldn’t register that she was in danger. 

Or, she just didn’t care. 

We stayed like that for a while. Just staring at each other. Eventually, I lowered my bow. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot her, she was just too pitiful. Looking into her eyes, I could have sworn I saw disappointment cross her gaze. There were a couple more moments of silence between us before she suddenly dropped to the ground.

She was dead. 

It was at this point I knew I needed to call someone to help me figure this out. I normally hate having other people on my property, let alone the government, but I had no choice. I called the DNR and they sent someone to take some samples of the doe. 

If you are familiar with deer, then you may have recognized the signs of the now well known chronic wasting disease, or CWD. 

Chronic wasting disease is a contagious, always-fatal brain disease affecting animals in the cervid family. CWD is a prion disease, meaning that bacteria and viruses play no role in the infection. Prions are proteins and healthy prions are found lining the cells of healthy animals and humans. However, a disease like CWD causes those prions to warp. It starts off with just one prion, but it slowly spreads throughout the entirety of the cervids body over time. Sometimes, it can take over two years for the disease to finally kill off the deer. In the meantime, they will be afflicted with symptoms such as emaciation, excessive salivation, lack of muscle coordination, difficulty in swallowing, excessive thirst, and excessive urination.

The excessive thirst drives them to water, but they often struggle to drink. They will dunk their entire head into rivers or ponds because it is the only way they can get any water into their mouths. This often results in them accidentally drowning themselves, hence why I found so many drowned deer in my lake. 

These prions can be spread by 1v1 contact or be transmitted into the environment—such as soil, food, and water—through feces, urine, and other bodily fluids of an unhealthy deer. CWD can spread to deer if they ingest these unhealthy CWD prions from their environment. These prions can live in the environment for years at a time. This makes managing the disease incredibly difficult, if not near impossible. 

Once it has spread, there is no going back. 

I was given the go ahead by the DNR to kill any infected deer on my property on sight, whether it was during hunting season or not. I tried my best to rid my land of the infection, but it was no use. Things only seemed to get worse. 

A couple years passed and it looked like my land was almost barren of deer. The last season I had was pitiful. The only thing I shot was one scrawny, diseased doe who’s meat or pelt would be no use to anyone. I was distraught, but there was nothing I could do. 

The infection had won. 

I had just about given up ever having healthy deer on my property. That was… until spring came. 

The snow had just started melting outside. The birds were beginning to arrive in droves from their vacation south and lit up the forest with their song. I was happy that the long winter had finally ended, but I couldn’t help but feel down. 

Usually, my land was alive with the arrival of new fawns at this time. Big healthy does would wander my property, trailing one or two beautiful baby fawns with them. The promise of the next generation soothed something in my heart. If I saw fawns, it meant my land was fertile and my livelihood would continue. 

That contentment had not entered my heart in some years. 

As I gazed depressingly out my window, something caught my eye. A doe. She was scrawny and exhausted looking, much like all the other deer I had seen these past years, but behind her trailed… a surprise. 

A big, beautiful baby fawn followed her. It seemed perfectly healthy. It was plump, clean, and happy as could be. It trotted happily after its mom, not seeming in the slightest bit bothered by her deteriorating state. 

I couldn’t believe it. 

How is this possible? I had not had healthy fawns in years. On the rare chance a fawn was born, it would always die before summer’s end. Either taken by disease or starved because their mother died before they could be weaned. 

At the time, I figured that the fawn would only remain healthy for a little while. Eventually, the ruin of my land would take its life too. Except… it didn’t. Not only that, but it wasn’t the only healthy fawn to be found. 

By the time the summer ended, I had at least a dozen happy, healthy fawns. All of which were led by a scrawny, diseased doe who looks at those she was seconds away from her painful end. 

I couldn’t understand it. How were they so healthy? It should be impossible. Their mothers certainly couldn’t be producing enough milk to sustain them. Even if they could, the milk would be diseased, The fawns should be infected by this point and starting their decline. 

Yet, they weren’t. 

At the time this made me happy. I disregarded any nagging concern with halfhearted excuses. Maybe the mothers weren’t as sick as I thought, or maybe the fawns were immune to the disease somehow. If I had been paying closer attention, maybe I would have seen the signs sooner. 

The first time I sensed something may have been off with the fawns was around the time hunting season came around. Last year my hunt was pitiful, as previously mentioned. This year though, I had the slightest glimmer of hope that I may be able to kill something worthwhile. 

I never even made it to my stand though, as I was stopped in my tracks by a grisly discovery. Well, stopped in my tracks might not be the best choice of words. I mean, I literally tripped over the damn thing.

While trekking to my stand in the dark of the morning, I tripped over a large, warm body. As I fell forward, my hands landed on something warm, fuzzy, and… wet. I yelped in surprise as I fell, getting up as quickly as possible once the fuzzy texture hit my hands. As I was trying to regain my footing, the most horrid stench hit my nose. It was so bad it almost caused me to stumble back to the ground again. I managed to keep my composure and took a couple steps back to get a look at the creature. 

Below me was one of the most grotesque sites I had ever seen. 

It was a doe. Not just a doe, but one of the does I saw with a fawn earlier in the ye…

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