Chapter 60: S#10. Deer in the Woods (3)
by fnovelpia
“Kill them all,” the director said.
I was dumbfounded.
“What the f*ck is that supposed to mean…?”
“It’s the scene that will climax the work. If you don’t slaughter them, I will slaughter Nancy Strode instead.”
Suddenly, the door to the projection room burst open.
“…Nancy?”
A tall young man in a college jacket. A stranger.
“Excuse me. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but did you just say Nancy Strode?”
The logo on his jacket was from the same college as Nancy.
At the director’s nod, the cameramen seized him.
Before I could intervene, they ripped off his head.
Pop—like popping off a Lego head, the young man’s head came off.
It was an instant death.
The cameramen brought out cameras from somewhere. They mounted a camera over the gushing red stump of his neck.
Machinery and flesh slowly fused together. It looked like a scene from <Virus>.
In less than three seconds, the young man came back to life, his head replaced with a camera…
The cameraman was complete.
The young man’s torn-off head rolled down the corridor in front of the projection room.
A passing woman screamed.
“Aaaaaaahhhhh…!! FREDDDDD!!!!!”
Her face was familiar.
I had met her on the way here, a female college student.
A sweet date turned into a nightmare.
Seeing the female college student crying and holding the young man’s severed head made me feel like a heavy lead weight was placed on my heart.
All those cameramen were made this way too.
I could never forgive the director.
“Summer. Now get ready to kill all those spectators…”
“That’s enough.”
I punched the director in the stomach.
It sounded like a basketball popping.
I reached through his stomach and pulled out his intestines.
I wrapped the long intestines around the director’s neck and pulled hard, strangling him.
The bespectacled fatso who had been annoying all day fell with that blow.
My hands were tainted with a foul stench.
The director’s stomach was rotten. Was he a zombie?
The grimy intestines still wrapped around his neck, the director did not lose his gruesome smile.
“You… will regret this… now Nan… cy Strode will… end up just… like me……”
“You’re wrong.”
“What…?”
“The forest is close by.”
The forest where Nancy was located was close to the theater.
There were only three cameramen inside the theater. The rest were outside.
After dealing with the three cameramen, there was no one left to stop me.
I left the projection room.
I broke the hallway window and jumped out.
From the third floor. The ground shook as I landed.
I sprinted towards the forest.
Crows sat on the bare branches above.
“Huuuh, huff… sob…”
The crows looked down at a woman who was sobbing.
It was Nancy Strode.
Nancy wiped her tears and tried to remember.
On her way home, she had been kidnapped by someone.
When she came to, she found herself tied up in a silent forest.
She was also being watched by a stranger.
Instead of a head, there was a movie camera, and it didn’t seem to be just makeup.
Every time the camera head scanned her body, she got goosebumps.
Gradually, the forest dimmed and then was completely engulfed in darkness.
Tied up, she couldn’t run away.
Nancy firmly believed that Summer would save her as usual.
But on the other hand, she felt anxious.
What if… Summer is late…?
What if this camera human harms me before Summer arrives?
She couldn’t shake off that anxiety.
Suddenly, the mannequin-like camera human moved.
He approached Nancy.
“Oh, oh, don’t come…!”
She struggled. It was no use.
The camera human crouched and reached out to Nancy as if he was about to rip open her belly and pull out her intestines.
“No! I don’t want this… Help me, Sum……
Fwoosh──────────
The crows flew away.
I had arrived in the forest.
The fluttering of the crows’ wings melted into the night sky.
The eerie forest seemed like the kind of place where the ‘legendary deer’ might appear.
There was no camera, but I momentarily became a tracker.
A tracker not for deer, but for Nancy.
My only compass was my senses, which were as sharp as my physical abilities were superior.
I had to find Nancy at all costs.
In the distance, I saw the base of a rotten tree.
Someone’s back of the head shimmered briefly.
Was it Nancy, sitting and leaning against the stump?
“Nancy!”
I ran straight toward it.
But it wasn’t Nancy.
It was a severed head.
A head with its neck gruesomely chopped off was placed on top of the tree stump.
I turned and looked around.
A foul smell of blood. Severed heads were scattered everywhere. There must have been at least a hundred.
What is all this…
I had seen all sorts of gory scenes up to now, but this one was particularly horrific.
I realized too late. This was all the director’s doing.
He had captured people, cut off their heads, and mounted cameras on them, turning them into cameramen.
“…The tracker once again dashed into the forest, scrambling to find the deer.”
Suddenly, I heard the director’s voice from somewhere.
The bushes rustled eerily.
“But again, he could not find the deer. All he grasped was despair.”
“You… how are you still alive?”
“Everything is going according to the script.”
The director approached from a direction.
Suddenly, cameramen surrounded me in a circle.
Rotten intestines dripped from the director’s pierced abdomen.
Yet, he walked unaffectedly.
“Let me tell you a story you don’t know about. The story of the day the hunter’s neck was cut.
The severed hunter’s head rolled down and fell on a deer’s body.
A taxidermied deer head trophy was also nearby. The hunter’s body fell on top of the trophy.
Then something unbelievable happened.
The hunter’s head attached to the deer’s body. The taxidermied deer head attached to the hunter’s body.
When the mismatched joints magically interlocked, two monsters were born.
A deer’s body with a hunter’s head.
A hunter’s body with a deer’s head.
Man-deer and Deer-man.
‘The legendary deer’ was actually two creatures.
The deer head with the hunter’s body left the forest and never returned.
But what happened to the hunter head with the deer body?”
The director took off his coat. He also removed his gloves.
The truth was revealed.
The director’s body was furry.
Not just hairy, but clearly the fur of a beast.
It was as if the director’s body was… a large deer.
“You were the hunter.”
“That’s right.”
The director smirked.
The half-decayed deer carcass.
The line between neck and body was clear.
“Thanks to the deer’s mysterious powers, that creature could not only survive decapitation but also fuse biological sections. Thanks to the body swap with the deer, I gained the same ability.”
“You should be thankful to the deer.”
“Thankful? To the one who made me like this?!!”
The director was furious.
“Listen well. I’m no documentary director. I’m still a hunter. I’ve been chasing that ‘legendary deer’ that turned me into this and stole my body, for a long, long time.”
“The role I was given… it was all about you.”
“That’s right. There are too many mistakes in the folklore spread around the village. I, who died unjustly because of a mere deer, was treated like a villain. So I wanted to set the story straight.”
The director pointed at the cameramen around him.
“With this documentary,” the cameramen charged at me.
I countercharged, throwing punches and smashing two cameras, initiating a brawl.
It felt like déjà vu: me versus many in the forest.
They surged like a torrent. I was overwhelmingly outnumbered.
But I faced them, driven by the sole thought of saving Nancy.
“Futile struggle, Summer. Nancy is already dead!”
“Shut up!”
“Ah, the expression of prey cornered! I should decapitate you and make your head a trophy on the wall!” the director shouted.
Nancy’s face flashed in my mind.
We were supposed to watch Clowns from Outer Space together…
I gritted my teeth.
I hurled my body at the cameramen, knocking them down like bowling pins.
My muscles surged.
I smashed every camera in sight. The documentary had turned into a massacre.
But there was no defeating this mob.
One by one, the cameramen clung to my back and soon completely covered me.
As they restricted my movement, my breath was crushed.
Just as my consciousness began to fade, I heard a shout.
“Summer!”
It was Nancy’s voice.
Wondering if I’d heard wrong, I turned around.
The cameramen also stopped their attack and turned around.
Nancy stood beyond the bushes, looking unharmed.
The director wore a baffled expression.
“My, Nancy Strode…? How… how did you survive? I clearly ordered the cameramen to kill you…!”
“I didn’t die!”
The director, trembling, charged at Nancy.
“Nancy, run…”
The words I tried to shout were buried under the weight of the cameramen smothering me.
As the director passed the bushes, intending to kill Nancy himself,
suddenly, a harsh metallic sound clanged.
“Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
The director screamed and fell.
Blood spurted wildly. His ankle had been severed.
What happened?
The cameramen collectively zoomed in their cameras, capturing an unexpected scene.
Now visible among the bushes was a large bear trap, its steel jaws tightly clamped around the director’s severed foot.
The director rolled on the ground, clutching his severed ankle, as a symphony of pain echoed through the forest.
The bushes had been a trap, and Nancy had been the bait.
Someone emerged from behind Nancy.
“You, you are……”
The director, stuttering, looked up at someone.
A body of a human. A head of a deer.
Deerman, the ‘legendary deer’.
“It can’t be… This time, I… I was hunted instead…?”
The director muttered in defeat.
Deerman looked down at him impassively.
Numerous cameras recorded this dramatic reunion.
However, the filming didn’t last long.
A creature burst from the bushes and began smashing the cameramen.
It was a bear.
But its head was that of a deer.
A bear’s body with a deer’s head, a bizarre combination but immensely powerful.
The Deer-Bear swiftly tore apart the cameramen.
It seemed to be Deerman’s creation.
Just as the director had manufactured cameramen, Deerman had crafted the Deer-Bear in the forest.
“Damn it…! Wasn’t stealing my body enough, you monster…!!!” the director cried out.
Deerman offered no response.
But his cold gaze seemed to say,
You’re wrong. It was you who stole a body first.
Deerman pointed at the fallen director.
Then, like lightning, the Deer-Bear charged and lifted its massive paw, delivering a spike to the director.
His head flew off, a fiery decapitation.
Deerman picked up the severed head.
Deerman left with the Deer-Bear without looking back.
The director’s head dangled in Deerman’s hand.
If mounted as is, it would surely make a fine trophy.
We also returned.
Nancy told me about what had happened in the forest.
At the moment she was about to be overrun by the cameramen, Deerman had appeared and saved her.
It was incredibly fortunate.
If there was one regrettable thing, it was that Nancy had sprained her ankle on the forest path.
I effortlessly picked her up.
Her soft and warm body warmed my back.
The night sky, with the full moon cradled in clouds, was exceptionally beautiful.
As we passed the theater, I heard the voice of an attendant.
“Re-screening of <Clowns from Outer Space> in 30 minutes!”
It seemed they were re-showing it probably due to the debacle with the trashy documentary screening.
“Nancy. Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you still feel like watching the movie?”
“Uh, yeah…! I want to see it!”
We entered the theater.
People glanced at us.
It was understandable, considering I was carrying a fully-grown woman on my back.
But I didn’t care about the stares of others.
Perhaps spending all day with cameras had made me insensitive.
Of course, I wasn’t acting right now.
Nancy seemed happy, burying her nose in my nape.
Her childlike action was nice.
“Summer… Can I ask you something too?”
“Sure, what is it?”
Nancy whispered softly in my ear.
“……Why does the back of your neck smell like mom’s perfume?”
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