The Deer are the Eyes of the Stars

1-Assignment Day

"You can't be serious Myra," he begins with careful patience, attempting to hide his growing frustration with the woman on the other end of the call. "Where even is Bayersville?"

"Wisconsin, Lou," Myra replies tiredly, having told him three times now where Bayersville was. "you have a map, you have a smart phone, you have gas money and equipment at your disposal in addition to any rental vehicles you may need; besides, Rob is the one who decided to send you on this one, not me."

Rob. That name made Lou's fists clench into tight fists with fingernails digging into his clammy palms and leaving crescent moon shapes in their wake as he forces himself to calm down. A deep breath in, brief hold, and then a soft sigh of an exhale. He sounds as tired as Myra does when he speaks again, voice weary and resigned.

"I know, I know... but Wisconsin? I'm not exactly built for being out in the woods and doing nothing other than staring at trees and cows and drinking alcohol to keep the boredom at bay."

"There's more out there than trees, corn, alcohol, and hunting, Lou. You need to touch some grass, and I don't mean the artificial turf and plastic trees Rob calls the company park in the staff room. Call when you get to Bayersville so that we know you made it in one piece; I've got the coordinates for where you're going after you get there and I've emailed them to you earlier today."

She responds almost clinically, back in business mode.

"I've got them, thanks. I'll call when I get there, but before I hang up, am I doing this alone Myra?"

Myra is quiet on the other end for a moment, the occasional soft muffled clicking of keys carries over the phone's speaker, but Myra doesn't respond. Lou is about to ask again when Myra begins speaking first.

"Nope, you've got a partner joining you on this one due to the size of the property... looks like you're working with Jay."

Jay wasn't the worst person to work with, but he wasn't the greatest either. Son of the owner of the company, given a few too many chances and still here despite his paraphernalia being found in a company vehicle and showing up drunk as a skunk and smelling like one too. He'd recently passed ninety days of sobriety, but something told Lou that it wasn't actually ninety days due to the smell of alcohol still clinging to Jay when he walked in through the doors twenty minutes late.

"Lou?"

Myra's concerned voice snaps him back to reality and he answers with a shaky "y-yeah, just thinking about working with Jay."

"Rob figured that one of the company's better employees should be paired with one of the weakest links in our team. Something about how 'your responsibility should rub off on him' or something along those lines."

That sounded like something Rob would say, and Lou knew there was no use in arguing the point with Myra when she wasn't the one responsible... she never was. Rob always assigned partners, always was in charge of delegating work flow to the field workers, and always had some kind of story prepared to cover his ass if things went sideways due to his actions, inactions, or wonderful leadership skills.

"Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that Rob doesn't like me on a personal level?" Lou asks rhetorically, but he gets a snide remark from Myra anyways: "Because you're the one who messed up the company Secret-Santa by giving him peanut brittle which you genuinely had no idea would cause his allergies to flare up, but then gave the rest of us food poisoning because you couldn't be bothered to buy sushi from a reputable source instead of the local supermarket."

"Thanks Myra, good to know you're still not going to let me forget about that." Lou replies sarcastically before wrapping up the conversation with Myra and hanging up, placing his phone on the hotel coffee table with the screen facing the tabletop, not wanting to see who the messages, notifications, or calls he would be receiving despite being able to still hear his phone vibrate.

Lou orders room service- a venison steak cooked medium rare with mashed garlic potatoes and mushroom gravy, in addition to a side of green beans and bacon. Dessert consisted of a plain slice of cheesecake and a cup of black decaf coffee -and flips through the channels on the television with a bored expression on his face, sports- "-people are growing more and more excited for the Soccer World Cup-" -then a news broadcast - "-small town suspect cultists in the area-" -and then a few more channels of different soap operas witn the same plot lines and devices, before finally landing on a black and white film that caught his interest. It had been almost a decade since he had last watched a black and white film, the last time being with his mother for Christmas and watching James Stewart in 'It's a Wonderful Life.' ... she was dead two weeks later.

The movie playing is an old horror flic from the nineteen fifties, and when Lou hears Vincent Price's unmistakable voice coming through the television speakers, he knew which film it was, an old favorite when he had been a teenager: 'House on Haunted Hill.' Lou settles in as he feels the warm wave of nostalgia wash over him, a small smile slowly creeping and growing across his lips as the film progresses. He gets up to answer the hotel door when room service brings him his dinner and eats in content silence as he watches his old favorite film, thoughts of Wisconsin and Bayersville as far from his thoughts as the present moment is from the past hundred years.