Night Terrors

Jillian was walking to school, when she heard a sound nearby in the alleyway. She didn’t think much of it, she thought it could just be the animals rummaging through the garbage, but that wasn’t the case for Jillian. A gunshot went off, this made her jump and cover her mouth.
  Too curious for her own good, she decided to investigate, no matter how scared she was right now. She crouched down beside the green dumpster and peeked around. 

She saw a man pointing a gun at a guy that looked about the same as her, she was sixteen. Bang! The bullet went flying and threw into the young man’s head. Jillian’s eyes widened but this wasn’t the only thing that frightened her, they started fading. Wait, did they just disappear?
     

Jillian couldn’t believe her eyes, what was happening? Jillian fell onto her butt and crawled away. Until she bumps into something, well more like someone.  Jillian slowly looked up and saw it was the man who killed the young boy, her eyes widened. But they disappeared, how did he get behind without getting seen? 



“Well, look who we have here. Someone who wasn’t supposed to see this, so what should I do to you?” His southern accent showed she had to remember that to tell the police.


“Let me go and I won’t tell anybody.” Jillian pleaded as she glanced back at the boy.
The man chuckled.


“Ha! I needed a good laugh and that was it!” He smirked after he finished laughing. “I know you’ll go to the police if I set you free, I’d be a fool if I did and probably the worst criminal out there for doing so. At that point I should turn myself in.” Jillian had an idea, there was a space big enough for her to escape threw his legs. She didn’t know the young man that died in front of her, but she felt connected to him, she wanted to come back for him.



“I’ll be back for you.” She whispered to him, although he probably couldn’t hear her since he was dead. For some reason she saw a smile on his face. 

Jillian smiled and slammed her hand on the murder’s foot. She scooted away from him, got to her feet and ran for the sidewalk that was connected to a busy road. She didn’t let him go after her, when she got to the exit she looked behind her to them gone again. She raised an eyebrow in confusion, their gone again? How could this be? Jillian put a foot forward into the alleyway, just to see them again. She saw someone walking by her on the sidewalk. Jillian tapped on her shoulder.



“Excuse me, I need help!” The lady looked at her in confusion. Why would this kid need her help?



“Yes?” Jillian could hear a slight French accent in the women’s voice.



“Can you tell me if you can see them?” The French lady looked at her strange but nodded her head.

“Sorry, but I don’t see anything.” Jillian frowned, she saw them still there.

“Are you sure?” Jillian asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now, I must be going.” With that the young French women left with a spin on her heel. Jillian sighed and removed her foot just to see them disappear yet again. She couldn’t believe what was happening and that no one else could see it. Maybe this was all just in her head.

Jillian shook her head and decided to continue her day like normal, but with whatever happened in the back of her head. She didn’t have anything happen to her for the rest of the day until she got home. She felt like someone was there watching her. Double checking the two story house, she found it empty. Why did she feel this way? She shrugged and went to her bedroom.

She screamed when she saw the young man that got killed sitting on her bed, looking around her room. Jillian placed her hand over heart and tried to catch her breath. The young man looked at her with a smile.

“How did you get in here? Also aren’t you dead!”  This caused him to smirk.

“Yes, but my soul is now attached to you. My name is William by the way.” Jillian ran her fingers threw her hair with a panic look. 

“Jillian. Now, please explain to me why you're here.” William put up his hands in surrender. 

“Well, I don’t exactly know. Maybe because you're the only one that witnessed my death and I became attached.” William said with an eyebrow raised.

“Why is that I’m the only one that could see you?” Jillian walked to her desk and sat in her spin chair, William shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m new to this as well. So therefore we're in this together.” William said as he walked over to the window seat. He looked out and smiled when he saw a family laughing and smiling. He realized he couldn’t have that anymore. 

“So, what are we going to do about it? Just wing it? I don’t think so.”

“Jill, I’m not sure how we’re going to do this together but we will.” That didn’t help Jillian one bit, she let out a groan and face planted her head on the desk. Jillian mumbled something that William couldn’t hear. “Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you when you're smooching at the desk.”

Jillian lifted her head and glared at him. “ I said I’ll do some research on this, maybe ask my family if they had something like this happen to them.”

William debated if she should tell her family or not. They could put them at risk but then again they need help, they don’t know what to do. 

“Fine, but I don’t know how I feel about putting your family into this. This could be dangerous.”

“Your right, but we have no clue what we’re doing, we’ll need all the help we can get. I’m sure, they won’t think I’m crazy or tell anyone unless we agree.

A few days later which seemed to be a blur to Jillian, she talked to her parents and they seemed to have nothing. Maybe they do think she’s crazy. It didn’t surprise her, because the next day they came with their psychiatrist. She had to sit in a session with them and tell her story, this made her frustrated.

“I’m not crazy.” She told the three adults that were in the room. She shook her head and walked into the kitchen to make her some tea to calm her down. William stood there with his arms crossed and a worried look on his face.

“What’s going on in there?” He asked as she put the teapot on the stove, she sighed.

“You were right. They think I’m crazy, they brought in a psychiatrist.” Jillian grabbed the teapot once it started sizzling and poured some into a mug.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Jillian heard a knock on the white swinging kitchen door.

“Jillian, is everything ok? I hear talking.” William’s eyes widened and vanished into thin air. Jillian’s mother looked over to her husband and at the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist started to write stuff down in his notebook.

“Yeah, everything's fine.” Jillian said while putting her empty mug into her sink. 

“I think we need to study her further, maybe an institution would do her some good.” The psychiatrist said in a whisper, her parents seemed to agree, which caused the psychiatrist to nod and call them on his phone. 

“Jillie, can you come out here for a minute.” Jillian didn’t like the sound of that, usually they only call her Jillie if something bad is happening or she did something wrong.

“Yeah, I’m coming now.” Her parents took a few steps away from the door to let her threw. She walked out of the kitchen and saw the worry glances they were throwing at each other. “What’s going on?”

“We hate to do this, but we think this will benefit you.” Her mother started.

“And don’t think we’re not doing this because we don’t love you, we do. We think you should go to the institution that doctor Johnson is recommending.” Her father finished for her mother.

“But I’m fine.” Jillian said with an eyebrow raised.

“Honey, you come asking about murders and just a minute ago you were talking to no one in the kitchen, it’ll just be a few days.” Her mother said as two muscular guys came in.

“Wait, so I don’t even have a say in this!” The two men came and grabbed her arms. “Hey! Let me go!”

“Sorry Jillie, this is for your own good.” Jillian kicked her legs in the air thinking that’ll help get her away but it didn’t. She looked behind her as the three of them got closer to the front door, William was standing at the bottom of the staircase with an angry look on his face. They locked eyes before the door closed behind her. They got closer and closer to the black car.

“NO! Let me go!” Jillian kept kicking and screaming, but the two muscular men ignored her. They threw her in the car like she was nothing and slammed the door.

“Jillian wake up! Jillie! You’ll be late for school!” Jillian looked around the car confused. School? Wasn’t she already awake? Jillian heard the driver honk the horn multiple times. Jillian woke up with a gasp and looked over at her alarm clock that was ringing beside her bed. It was all a dream? But it felt so real.

“Jillie, you better be up. I’ll get the bucket.” She couldn’t believe that it was all a dream. Jillian’s mother, Cherry, walked into her room. “Oh good you're up, I didn’t have to get the bucket again. Now hurry up and get ready, the bus will be here soon.”

With that Jillian got ready with the dream lingering in her mind. She walked out the door once she was done and saw the school bus stop in front of her house. She gave a small smile to the bus driver and got on. Most of the seats were full except one that held a boy.

“Hi, can I sit here? Everywhere else is full.” The boy nodded, he looked oddly familiar. “I’m Jillian, you?”

“William.”