The sky above Nag’s Head is stained an uneasy shade of gray by the time we pull up to my parents’ North Carolina beach house. Beyond the dunes and waving field of sea grass, the water is sharp and choppy, the color of slate.

“Shit,” says Gina, climbing out of the Range Rover. She shades her eyes, her long, lavender-dyed hair flapping across her face. The wind slaps us both with the salty, thick smell of the ocean. “You brought the keys, right?”

Her eyeliner is perfect, as usual. I can’t believe she drew it on in the passenger seat while I was doing 90 on the I-40, eager to put as much distance between us and Duke University as possible.

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First published in The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Nightshade Books, 2018.