It was late October, the year the drought broke, and I was driving the north loop of Lost Valley Road just before dawn. The rain had stopped an hour earlier, leaving the asphalt slick and the ditches running. That's when I saw the deer — not one or two, but a whole herd filling the road from shoulder to shoulder, standing perfectly still in the headlights. No flicker of fear, no scatter. They just watched me. And then I noticed the way they stood — all facing the same direction, all with the same stillness, like they were waiting for something. I killed the engine and rolled down the window, and in the silence I heard it: a low hum, not quite sound, not quite vibration, coming from the dark beyond the tree line. The deer didn't blink. I sat there for a long time, engine off, breath fogging the windshield, and when I finally turned the key again, the herd was gone — not a single hoofprint on the wet road, not a track in the mud. I drove the rest of the loop without seeing another living thing, and I haven't taken that road since. This is the story of what I saw, what I heard, and what I'm still trying to understand.