Beth

“Come on feel the noi-oise… Girls rock your boy-oys… We’ll get wild, wild, wild… Wild, wild, wild! YEAHHHH!!!”

Quiet Riot blared through Camp Rellik, counselors and campers dancing around the bonfire at the Grove in the center of camp. Gary sat with his friends on the edge of Lake Ninword, drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. Neither substance was allowed on grounds of the camp, but this was Party Night and the counselors turned a blind eye. This was the best night of the summer three years running. Camp Rellik was run by recent high school graduates who weren’t quite college material, but somehow the owners and the parents thought that they were trustworthy. And so the party raged on, out here in the middle of nowhere.

Gary took a drag from his butt, a swig from his beer, and watched as Sandy danced around in her “itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow polka dot bikini”. Wyatt, with Dolores on his lap, and Chandler, with Becky on his lap, looked on with laughter as Sandy became quite suggestive with her moves.

The alcohol coursed through Gary’s blood, and he noticed, with glee, that his vision was beginning to blur slightly. Liquid courage and half-naked girls were the perfect combination, and he raised his can to his fellow campers and banged his head as Quiet Riot ended their song. With little pause, an organ came over the speakers to the loud cheers of the campers. Prince’s new song was released only two weeks ago, and it was lighting the airwaves on fire.

He removed the cigarette form his lips, blew out the smoke from the corner of his mouth, and welcomed Sandy onto his lap. She grabbed his face with both hands and planted a deep kiss upon him.

“WHOOOO!” came the unison cry from their friends. When she released his face, Gary raised his beer once again and gave them a wink. Without a doubt he’d get lucky tonight.

In the background came the voice of Prince:

“’Cuz in this life… Things are much harder than in the afterworld… In this life… You’re on your own!”

And that’s when the screaming began. The group of friends looked at each other with a bit of concern but shrugged it off to excitement as the song ramped up. The screams never ended, though. As Sandy looked over her shoulder, her face went pale.

“Oh my God!” she said in a whispered scream.

The group stood up and saw the campers and counselors and running for their lives.

“What the hell is going on?” The fear in Chandler’s voice was evident through his drunkenness. something was very wrong.

Then they saw her. Skin wet and pale, black fingernails, damp, tangled hair down to her waist, dark blue lips, and black-rimmed eyes were in stark contrast to the bright pink one-piece she wore. White eyes stared directly into Gary’s soul, and he knew that whoever, or whatever, this girl was, it was coming for him. Anybody that just happened to get in her path was grabbed by this girl-thing and held face up and mouth open. Her head would snap to look the prey in the eyes, and her hand would come up to cover their mouth. And as the victim began to scream it was drowned out by water that came out of nowhere to pour out of their mouth, their quick death turning their skin as pale as their attacker.

There was something familiar about this girl-thing, but Gary couldn’t quite put his finger on it. As she drew closer to him, though, he realized it didn’t matter one bit.

“We need to get the hell out of here!” he said in a panic. The group began to back away from the edge of the water and turned to run away.

There was the sound of water splashing and the girl-thing was standing right in front of them. Gary’s stomach lurched and churned, and he heard Wyatt say, “Oh god,” before spilling the contents of his own stomach. In the next moment the girl-thing had a hand over Dolores’ mouth and Rebecca’s mouth, their deaths came a moment later, the water gargling from their bodies as they collapsed. Sandy, in an adrenaline-fueled rush, had picked up a rather large branch from the ground and swung it at their attacker. It busted like a dry twig across the girl-thing’s head, and in the blink of an eye Sandy and Chandler were the next vicitims.

Paying no attention to the doubled-over Wyatt, it came to stand in front of Gary. She stepped towards him, her face mere inches from his, the air of stagnant water emanated from her like an invisible fog. He found it difficult to focus on her blank, white eyes, but the girl-thing stared back him menacingly. Head cocking slowly to his right, she uttered a single name in her gurgling voice, “Henderson.”

When she broke her gaze from Gary, he looked around him. He was standing on the shore of the island in the middle of the lake, with no recollection of how he got there. The girl-thing smiled at him as she caught his eyes again. He watched in astonishment as the girl-thing suddenly appeared on the far shore, and with the smile he could see on her fire-lit face, she raised her arm and beckoned him to her. Stiff with fear, he slowly made his way into the cool lake waters. He had made this swim many times before, so Gary steeled himself against his fear and began to swim.

The water, however, felt more like Aunt Jemima syrup, and Gary found his energy being sapped from his limbs rapidly. He knew that he would never make the far shore, and that was the point. This girl-thing was seeking revenge, and he was the focus. And as his head began to sink beneath the surface, the girl-things face was in front of him, as it was in life. He knew her face…

Beth, he thought. Gary’s brother Eric had bullied the poor girl in high school. During the summer before his freshman year, the summer of Eric’s graduation, Eric had left her on the island to swim back to the shore as a prank. She never made it. The firelight at the surface dimmed as Gary sunk deeper into the lake’s depths, and his life dimmed with it.