Camouflage

It’s 4:00 a.m. Hearing the wind whipping through trees, old dead leaves crunching under our feet as we travel through the silent woods.

Green and brown is all I see, miles and miles of trees. With the wind slapping me in the face with its stinging whip. Keeping up with Justin is hard. Obviously he’s done this before, it feels like he is running ahead of me. While feeling like we have been walking for miles, my eyes become oblivious to the other hunters.

With my bright orange, so luminnest that to my morning eyes, I’m blinded. While incognito, we sit for hours, well what seems like hours patiently waiting. With the distant gunshots, we know deer must be roaming. Sitting, staring at the endless amount of trees, with wind rattling the blind. Through our slow whispering, we hear what sounds like an explosion.

I freeze turning to Justin, his eyes darting around the scene, nose bright red and rapid breaths. He hits his knees faster than I can focus, his gun on his shoulder. I follow his eyes, more focused than I’ve ever seen. No deer, my eyes have gotten used to the colors. 1 shot.

2 shot. Then two more. Than another. 4 shots, he fires, he turns and looks at me, “he gone” with the biggest smile on his face. Carefully placing the gun down, unzip the deer blind, and we search for our prize.

Joining us is Bucky, Justin’s grandpa. Finally I spot the deer, only a 4 pointer, medium sized, still kicking and trying hard to breathe. Bucky leans down, stabs the deer right in the heart, the deer still kicking, another stab, this time he stabs the lungs, twisting the knife, not once but twice, then the most horrible dying sound I have ever heard. Now he is finally gone.The guys set their guns on safety and lean them up against a tree.

The sound of ripping skin and breaking ribs gives me the chills, but I still watch carefully, I’ll eventually have to do this myself. With the most intimidating smell, they cut out the organs they don’t need one by one..Bucky cuts off the reproductive organ of the deer, throws them to my feet and states “put them in my pocket for good luck.” I smile and kick it aside.

Blood oozes out of the deers brown fur, leaves drenched in blood. As organs sit, slowly decomposing in the cold, the only warmth, coming from the inside of the deer, steam rising into the cold air. After detaching every organ; I carefully put the guns on my shoulder, the guys haul off the deer dragging it by the antlers, with blood clinging to their hands like rubber gloves. Following the blood dripped trail, I’m in shock but I still trail behind, between a couple trees,they stop, laying down the deer and they cover it with leaves. That was it. I just witnessed deer hunting, and it actually was not as bad as I thought.

It’s 8:00 a.m.