V
Spencer was restless with the air conditioner off. The apartment’s electricity had been disconnected for none payment. Another reason Jillian wanted the Insurance funds in the bank soon. Her mind was flooded with worry. It was difficult enough trying to find a new job and now she struggled to get any rest. She tossed about in in her sleep. Jillian woke up in the middle of the night to a hysterical pounding on her front door. Peering through the peep-hole she saw a red hair young girl with no clothes on, and franticly yelling for help. Upon opening the door, the frightened child was nowhere to be seen as Jillian was blinded by the afternoon sunlight. In that moment her alarm clock sounded.
The unsettling nightmare stayed with Jillian Henson throughout most of her morning routine. By the time she had begun making breakfast, other thoughts allowed her to forget the dream from the night before. She finally busied herself with going through George’s things and found that most of his personal effects were items she really had no use for, such as: cologne, ties, undergarments, work-related paperwork, or his science-fiction toy collection. There was very little if anything she even kept. Eight trash bags later, and they either went into the dumpster or to Good Will. By late afternoon her clean house was decorated and furnished with things that only spoke of her. By the time she was done no one would have ever known that George or any other man for that matter had ever been in her apartment. Well, other than Spencer and he would always be in her life.
Cleaning out the bathroom medicine cabinet, Jillian came across a used bottle of Vicks rub, outdated prescriptions of Clozapine and Fanapt, and an empty box of Viagra; then she found the new bottle of Midol she had really been searching for. Before doing anything with them, she was interrupted when the phone rang. In answering it, she listened to an automated voice notifying her to claim George’s cremains from the funeral home before five o’clock. The message halted any of her efforts in trying to move forward with a new life. Her long inhale and frustrated exhale accentuated the reality that closure had not yet come. Seeing that it was nearing three-thirty, she decided to take the Brittany spaniel for another walk, before she went to Jonas & Hartman Brothers Memorial; something she dreaded doing in the first place.
Jillian found that she was pleasantly alone again in the open field that introduced the trail-laced wooden area, near her apartment complex. Spencer was eager for the high-stepping exploits of being one with nature again. She knew the walk would have to be a brief one and so did not venture far beyond the boundary of the parking lot’s edge. Suddenly, from behind her a little boy ran passed. He bumped her arm jarring her hold of Spencer’s leash. The dog bounded after the sprinter. Near the tree-line’s break, where a trail’s entrance lay, both the dog and child stopped. The boy gave a taunting laugh at her and then darted into the woods. Interested, only in retrieving her pet, Jillian pursued the canine who complied with her command to stay. Claiming the leash, and glancing beyond the clearing of trees, the dog-owner did not see the boy anywhere. Instead, Jillian caught a glimpse of the same red-haired girl from her dream; this time she was wearing a bright yellow sun-dress with bangles on her wrist. There was a crimson stain growing on her right side as the young lady floated out of view. Spencer began barking after her, as Jillian cautiously went down the footed path. The canopy of green darkened the further she went into the shadowy woods.
Abruptly running into her dog, Jillian asked, “What is it now?” Looking down she saw him sniffing at a book that had been placed beneath a large rock. Taking the odd find, she quickly thumbed through its crinkling pages. Giving a loud sigh, she told Spencer, “Well, I can’t read it in this light, boy. Besides, I need to get back home and turn off that bath water.”
After picking up a brown package, which contained the plastic box filled with George’s ashes, Jillian returned home feeling physically and emotionally drained. Pouring herself a glass of tea, she sat in her recliner and begun a closer inspection of the book she had literally stumbled upon earlier. Its pages were dirty and weather-worn. Each was filled with a scribbling of detailed notes and disjointed diagrams of street addresses. Her thoughts fought against trying to decipher the hurriedly scripted handwriting, and the feeling that it was actually, somehow very familiar. Jillian became nauseous with it the more she read. It appeared to be a diary written in very graphic detail by a rather sick individual.
CONTINUE Reading... 6
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