I left them dripping and sunning themselves on the rocks as I went to retrieve my clothes.

I’d planned the trip so it would just be Rhonda and me, but she had to go and invite Jessica, Patrick, Steve and Brandon along as well.  After hearing everyone else go on about Lacrosse all day I was ready to go home.  I dried myself off and was about to go into the woods to exchange my swim trunks for my jeans when I realized that there was something in my pant’s pocket. 

I reached in and pulled out a necklace with a black pendant in the shape of a slender fang.  “Hey!”  I shouted.  “Check this out!” 

To my relief everyone ignored me except for Rhonda who got up and walked over to me in her flower bikini that made it really hard to be “just friends.”  My only problem with the sight was that she had gotten the name of her sorority tattooed on her shoulder.  All her sisters were going to get one but the rest of them had chickened out.

I handed her the necklace.  “Check it out.”

“What the hell is that Charlie?  Did you buy this for me?”

“No!  I found it right here in my pants pockets.  It was just-.”

Leaves rustled behind us.  I turned around and looked up into the woods.  A woman stood just outside the trees.  She was probably just a couple years older than us but was rail thin and her saggy skin was maggoty pale.  She wore a tattered gray dress that looked like was about to fall off her. 

“Hello?”  I shouted.

The woman quivered and looked like she was trying to shout something but no sound came out. 

“Who are you talking to?”  Rhonda asked.

“That creepy lady up there!”

“What creepy lady?”  As if she wasn’t aware of what she was doing, Ronda untied the necklace and brought it up around her neck.

The girl flailed her arms and looked like she was trying to scream. 

“Wait!”  I turned to Rhonda.  “I don’t think you should-.”

She fastened the necklace.  There was a bang like a door slamming.  Rhonda and everyone else turned and looked up at the woods.  I looked back, expecting the woman to be gone but she was still there.  Her arms drooped and she had a look of horrified dismay on her face.  She stepped forward into the sunlight and I got a clear look at her neck for the first time.  It was covered in burns like someone had clamped a necklace of red hot metal around her. 

“Hey!”  Rhonda shouted.  “Whose that?”

The woman pulled down the front of her dress.  Tattooed into her left shoulder was the name of Rhonda’s sorority.