I hated campfire stories growing up. My parents made me go to summer camps where people who couldn't stand

their kids ditched them. Why bother having kids if you couldn't stand to be around them during

the summer? My parents told me it was for enrichment, whatever that meant. Make friends, get to know

people, have a good time.

Well, nothing is good about being forced to sit by wood smoke while getting poked by mosquitoes.

All while some idiot named counselor Todd told a cheesy campfire story.

Worse was when, cool, counselor Chadley accompanied on his guitar.

Anyway, as I said, I hated these stories growing up.

I always had really vivid dreams, along with an overactive imagination.

Those stories that blurred the lines between reality and fiction made both go haywire, and my mind

became trapped in a spiral of what-if scenarios. Always watching the shadows of the cabin walls

as the moonlight made the branches stretch like fingers, feeling breath on my ear when it was just

the AC. The groan of my bunkmaid's bedsprings was some

horrible criminal dragging his sickle along the floor. I think the worst story that Todd ever told

was about the dear woman. It was nothing like the Native American tales of shape-shifting women

where men are lured away to be stomped by their

hooves or stories of transformation. No, Todd's deer woman was something much more scary.

It was something like this woman was driving down a road close to camp and hit a deer. Upon impact,

she went through the windshield and collided with the deer. When the police and ambulance arrived, they found the deer, the crushed car, and a set of red footprints leading off into the woods.

They never found the woman. Legend says she still haunts the forest around the camp to this day.

Todd said this to his terrified masses.

The shadows playing over his face made him look demonic.

...