Unbalanced
by Ezra Ventura
John Marshall High School
Ezra Ventura is a junior at the Law and Medical Magnet School at John Marshall High School. He began writing in middle school. His biggest influences have been Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy (one of his all-time favorite novel is Blood Meridian). This is his first published story.
Looking through the scope on his hunting rifle, Ralf watched the young buck. Its antlers brushed against some of the lower hanging branches as it approached a small stream that snaked along the ground. Ralf’s gloved hands tightened around the wooden grip of the gun. He slowly but surely adjusted his prone body to a slightly more comfortable position. Somewhere beneath his body, a twig snapped and Ralf froze. The deer’s head perked up, surveying its surroundings. He prayed that the deer hadn’t seen him. After thirty seconds or so, the deer apparently deemed himself safe and lowered his head to drink the water. That’s when Ralf pulled the trigger and the bullet shot through the buck’s neck. Specks of red littered the leaves and dirt around it as the deer collapsed to the ground with a heavy thump. It tried to bleat and yelp but only managed to choke more and more on its own blood. Ralf stood and stared. He cautiously approached the deer as its bleats subsided and gave way to heavy, labored breathing. The deer tensed and its eyes stared at Ralf with a mixture of emotions that Ralf could not properly sus out. He could’ve sworn he saw tears begin to well up around the border of its eyes. This caused his heart to sink a little bit as guilt wormed its way into his consciousness. He cursed himself for letting himself get careless.
When Ralf was seven or so, his grandfather took him on his first hunting trip. As it wasn’t deer season just yet, they were relegated to hunting the various species of small birds that populated the woods behind his grandpa's house. Ralf watched his grandfather with bated breath as he took aim with a small rifle at a small dove of some sort as it pecked mindlessly at the ground. After a few seconds, the gun was discharged and a flurry of white feathers erupted from the ground where the bird had just been standing. His grandfather, keeping his eyes focused on the trees around him, said:
“Kill ‘em in one shot, Ralfy. Always. Don’t let ‘em suffer. They suffer, you suffer too”.
Ralf kept his eyes on the feathers as they finally ceased their sky dances and fell to the ground.
“What do you mean, Grandpa?”, he asked. His grandfather didn’t answer.
Ralf turned his head to repeat the question but his grandpa was already walking towards the bird carcass. He pulled a small sack from one of the many pockets on his hunting jacket. Ralf watched him pick a reddish-pink flesh thing off the ground. He saw a single white feather fall from the mass as it was lowered into the bag.
As the two walked back to the house from their trip along the thin dirt path, Ralf looked at the now full sack that his grandpa carried and asked:
“Grandpa?”
“Yes, Ralfy?”
“What did you mean when you said not to let them suffer? Back when you got the dove?”
“Well, let me ask you this. And I want you to really think about this one. If you were an animal, would you want a quick and painless death or a slow and painful one?”
Ralf thought about it for a second.
“A painless one, I guess.”
“Well, it’s the same thing for animals. No living thing wants to die painfully. Or at all, really. But, you know, things have to die in order for other things to live.”
Ralf nodded.
“Let me ask you another question. Do you believe in ghosts?”, his grandpa asked after a while.
“My friend at school said she saw one in her attic one time. She said it was all-”
“But do you believe in them, is what I asked”.
“Yes. Do you?
“I do”.
“Have you ever seen one?”, Ralf asked.
“I have… and before you ask, no, it wasn’t the kind of ghost you’re thinking of. That’s not what real ghosts are like”.
This answer disappointed Ralf and dispelled the image of his grandpa running away from a ghost like a Hannah-Barbera cartoon character, accompanied by that bongo drum sound effect that Ralfy always heard on TV. That disappointment, however, was taken over by a strong curiosity.
“Well, what do real ghosts look like?”
“Nothing, Ralfy. You can’t see them. Ghosts are sort of like how your voice echoes in a cave or something. You can hear it even after you’re done talking…”
He noticed the confused look on Ralf's face and thought for a second.
“It’s like, if a bad thing happens to a person, that bad thing stays around and makes more bad things happen to other people. And it won’t stop until the person who caused the bad thing is punished. It’s not like Scooby-Doo or anything like that. It’s unbalanced karma, Ralfy.”
“What’s karma?”
“Well, when someone does a bad thing, they get punished. Right? And when they do a good thing, they get rewarded. Like how they do it at your school. It’s like that.”
Ralf nodded and looked down, only half understanding what his grandfather was trying to say. Another moment of silence followed, allowing the outline of his grandfather’s house to come into view amongst the trees.
“Is letting the animals suffer a way to make the tarmac unbalanced?”, Ralfy asked.
“Karma. With a ‘K’”.
Ralfy repeated it to himself a few times to engrain it in his little mind.
“And yes. Yes, it is.”
Ralf’s grandpa died a year later. Ralf had overheard his parents saying he was out hunting when he tripped and ‘fell on his gun’. Ralfy didn’t really know what that meant at the time but he remembered that the coffin at Grandpa’s wake was closed. He remembered trying to open it with his grubby little hands before his mother gently slapped his hand away.
“Ralfy! That is very disrespectful”, she angrily whispered to him, too quiet to disturb anyone else’s mourning.
Ralfy tried to formulate a response but his mother nudged him along back to their seats in the chapel.
He approached his crying grandmother and asked her:
“Was it a ghost that got Grandpa?”
His grandma only stared at him with teary-eyed confusion before his mother told him to go and sit with his cousins while she talked to Grandma.
Presently, Ralf stood over the deer. It still stared at him as its breathing became weaker and weaker. A soft groan escaped its mouth. Ralf raised his rifle and placed the end of the barrel against the buck’s skull. He winced as pulled the trigger and the deer went limp.
Two shots.
“I should’ve bought someone with me”, Ralf said to himself as he trudged through the undergrowth, carrying the buck over his back like a wounded soldier. “Woulda made this part a helluva lot easier”.
He was approaching the clearing where his truck was parked. One more mile.
“Only a little bit longer”, he said again to hype himself up. “Just a bit-”
The sound of crunching leaves cut his monologue short. He stopped and looked around, seeing nothing but the green of the trees around him. He stood for a while, listening for more crunching leaves but he heard only the sound of his own breathing. A smell entered his nose. A foul, noxious smell. Ralf’s eyes went blurry with tears and he could no longer stand. He collapsed to his knees, letting the carcass on his back roll off of his shoulder and onto the ground. Ralf’s ears just barely managed to pick up the sound of a thick snapping sound as it hit the ground. A small flurry of flies that had begun to crowd around the hole on the deer’s cranium swarmed into the air and flurried about before settling back down. Ralf felt his stomach churn and gurgle as the smell assaulted his nostrils and caused his eyes to water more and more. He could almost feel the odor as it streaked through the air and into his nose. A thick, goopy, yellow liquid suddenly pushed its way up his throat and out his mouth. It sprayed onto the brush, creating a perverse mural of the previous night’s dinner and that morning’s bowl of cereal. His nose began to sting as some of the yellow liquid trickled from his nostrils and onto his chin. He hurriedly wiped it away with the back of his gloved hands. He tilted his head up and closed his eyes, trying as hard as his mind would allow to avoid vomiting again. He tried to swallow his saliva but it had mixed with the vomit, coating the inside of his mouth in a thick layer of film that tasted just as foul as the smell that still perforated his senses.
“Oh god…”, he said, eyes still closed.
Shakily, he stood up, using a nearby tree for support. He opened his eyes and examined his clothes which had thankfully escaped unscathed by the vomit torrent.
“What the fuck is that smell?”, he said mostly to himself, but also to the deer carcass behind him.
The deer! He spun around and gasped. The deer had landed in a rather unfortunate way, leaving its neck visibly broken. A small streak of dark red blood ran from its nose and ended in a small pool on the ground. Its eye still stared up at Ralf. A fly crawled across its unmoving pupil.
Another crunch rang through the silence and made his eyes slowly move upward. He gasped. In the dead center of the path that had been carved by his feet through the undergrowth, stood a stag. Ralf wanted to be impressed by the size of the beast. Its massive antlers looked like jagged, white keratin tentacles reaching toward the treetops. Its ribs were visible through its patchy and uneven coat of fur. Thick, cakey-looking blood made a large, red circle around a mouth that was devoid of both lips and a few teeth. The remaining teeth it did have were brown with decay. As its jaws hung there, open, flies and many other kinds of tiny insects called in and out and to and fro across its face. It watched Ralf with glassy brown, vacant eyes as he stepped backward, away from the carcass. The deer took several, unnaturally clumsy steps towards the carcass, its antlers knocking down the leaves from the low branches around him. Another wave of stench threatened Ralf’s senses.
“Jesus Christ, oh my God”, he whispered to himself.
The stag tentatively sniffed the nape of the carcass’ neck. With each sniff, a small cloud of insects was shot into the air before settling back into place. Ralf gripped his rifle with white knuckles as the stag opened its mouth and a thick strand of yellow saliva dropped down to the ground. It took a few cautious nibbles at the neck of the carcass before it bit down with horrifying strength. The sound of tearing flesh and indistinct gurgling and squirting clouded Ralf’s hearing. A small red comet streaked through the air and landed at the trunk of a nearby oak. As the deer raised its head, its mouth chewed awkwardly at a small hunk of neck meat. Ralf wanted to avert his eyes, to run to the truck, to just get away from there as fast as possible. Instead, his eyes watched as the deer took another bite of the carcass. Another red comet streaked across the air and splattered on the tip of Ralf’s hunting boots. Suddenly the deer shot its head up and stared at him. Its vacant stare placed fear in Ralf’s heart which caused his bladder to loosen just a bit. A few drops of urine slid their way down the inside of his pants. His hands trembled as they gripped ever tighter around the rifle. His breathing turned to shaky half-whistles as the deer stepped over the carcass. As it did so, it tripped on the carcass’ antlers and tumbled to the ground. Ralf backed away. He was startled when he felt his sweaty back press against the bark of an oak tree. A big one, by the feel of it. His mind was briefly distracted from the violation of nature happening in front of him until the stag let out a phlegmy bleat. Ralf’s hand moved towards the bolt of the rifle and chambered a round. A tiny golden cylinder shot from the side of the gun and landed peacefully in the grass with a tiny plink sound.
When Ralf first watched Bambi at the tender age of five, he saw the scene where Thumper and Bambi slid across the ice of a frozen pond. He was laughing to himself as the duo clumsily tried to stand and walk on the ice. That image came back to him as the deer tried to stand though there was nothing to laugh at here. Not at all. The motions being performed lacked any of the basic grace or coordination needed to operate as a living being. It squirmed around in the growth like a fish out of water, throwing clumps of dirt and hair into the air. A bony tine snapped off of its left antler with a horrendous crack that made Ralf press himself against the tree. After several endless seconds, it regained its footing and stood. The patchy brown hair that once covered its sides and back had been ground away during its pathetic struggle, revealing grayish-pink skin that was dotted with specks of dirt. It let out a quick snort and stamped its foot. It began to rear up and slam its feet to the ground over and over again. With each repetition, it became more clumsy and manic. It let out a series of bleats and cries. Ralf had never heard a deer’s voice break before. But now that he had, he didn’t care much for it. Not one bit.
The deer reared up one more time and let out a horrible screech. It charged at Ralf with considerable speed. It was about fifteen feet away when Ralf caught a glimpse of its glassy eyes staring dead ahead at him, unblinking and unmoving. It was ten feet away when his mind began to scream and shriek for him to move out of the way. The world slowed. The stag lowered its antlers and kicked on the back burners. Ralf forced his legs to move and the rest of his body followed suit. He flailed clumsily to the ground, losing grip of the rifle. As it clattered on the ground, the chambered round discharged and whizzed past Ralf's head. A wave of heat encompassed the left side of his face. The bullet embedded itself in a set of bushes causing some unknown creature to skitter deeper into the forest. Just after that, a thunk rang through the air as something huge collided with the tree where Ralf had just stood. He flipped over and looked towards the tree where he had just been as several leaves danced their way to the ground. The deer stood, swaying slightly on its frail legs. A large, bloody canyon bisected its forehead. Its antlers were now reduced to measly white stumps. It stepped back, snorted, and rammed itself into the tree again. More leaves floated to the ground. It reared back again and charged forward. Again and again and again. The fleshy canyon on its skull grew wider and wider as chunks of flesh and bone dropped to the ground. The horrid thunks turned into even more horrid squelches. Ralf stood and bolted in the direction of his truck. Weaving branches and plowing straight through several spider webs. He didn’t even realize he was screaming.
Interview with the Author
What inspired you to write this piece? What was your thought process throughout?
For this piece, I was inspired by four things: the recent outbreak of CWD (essentially the deer equivalent of Mad Cow Disease) in North America's deer population, the Greek myth of Agamemnon and Iphiginia, the myth of Erysichthon and Demeter, and the spiritual concept of residual hauntings.
What do you hope readers will take away from your piece? What effects do you want the piece to have on the person, community, or society?
I would like readers to see this as my take on the mythic concept of mortals interfering with the balance of forces that they cannot comprehend (ie Adam and Eve, Prometheus, Erycthion, etc.)
What is your favorite piece of fiction (short story, novel, flash fiction, etc.) that you’ve ever read? Why?
My current favorite piece of writing is "Blood Meridian". Some other contestants, as edgy as it sounds, would be "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, "American Psycho" by Brett Easton Ellis, "The Langoliers"and "IT" by Stephen King, and "Oh, the Things You Can Think!" by Doctor Seuss.
If you plan on continuing to write, what are some goals/plans you may have for your future?
Short term, I'd like to get the full version of "Unbalanced" published (the Quirk version was edited to fit the word count constraints). Longterm, I would also like to make a living off writing, as ambitious and daunting as that prospect sounds.