The deer’s instincts suddenly kicked him in the tail as hard as they could and self-preservation came back with a vengeance.
“Wait, no!” The deer gasped, backing away from the woman almost immediately. “I-I don’t even know you! I’m not going into your house!”
The woman lunged forward and grabbed at the talking deer’s front legs just as he skidded backwards, plummeting to the grass of her yard and frantically grasping at strands of his fur. “Stop! You’ll make me rich!”
“I most certainly will not, lady!” Buck gasped, turning tail and breaking into a hop-run across the front lawn. People walking down the street stared in shock as a full grown deer bounded out in front of them and onto the sidewalk.
Buck turned, saw the new people staring back in shock, and his green eyes widened in horror.
“HE’S GOT RABIES!” The mushroom woman screamed. “SOMEBODY CALL ANIMAL CONTROL!”
The two humans on the sidewalk screamed and backed away, one reaching for his phone frantically.
Oh, no! Buck shrank, looking around frantically, and cursed his mission going off the rails so quickly. He bolted the other way down the street and his heart pounded as the human couple on the sidewalk pointed at him as they frantically phoned whatever animal control was – it certainly didn’t sound friendly to intelligent deers, at any rate – while the crazy lady kept chasing him with a rake now in hand.
You’ve got to be kidding me, Buck glanced back, just about meeting the bumper of a large van turning the corner of the road he had run across. The deer veered off at the last second, letting out a horrified scream as he just about met his end at the hands of a moving vehicle like so many of his kin. He clattered off the road, avoiding another car that had slowed down to his other side, and hoofed it as hard as he could back toward the highway and out of suburbia.
Dammit, he cursed, near tears. I’m not ready for this yet! I don’t know what to do! He frantically pumped his burning thighs as more voices hollered at spotting him, and flew out of the trees lining the town just in time to find himself staring up at the big highway he had previously crossed. No traffic, he realized, so he beat it across the asphalt and back into the safety of his forest. He didn’t stop running and hopping over deadfall and tall grass until he was panting in exhaustion and sobbing uncontrollably. No, no, no! He had failed!