The Wild Hunt

I see ghosts.......

Except my ghosts aren’t just floating see-through apparitions. They aren’t drifting clouds of mist, or glowing balls of light. My ghosts are the soundless, walking zombies of the dearly departed. They are the rotting corpses of the dead.

I am crazy........... 

 I have never pretended to be anything else. I know that seeing the dead isn't something sane people do. No. I am fully aware of my own psychosis. Too bad knowing and accepting isn't a cure.

But.......

  Something else seems to be happening around me. People are dying, people I know. And whats worse the Sheriff thinks I'm doing it. Even my silent rotting friends can't help me, not without a voice.

I am not a murderer.

THE WILD HUNT

Prologue

~Imaginary~

When I was a little girl, I had an imaginary friend. Jillie was my silent companion when I played dress up and pretended to sip tea. Every day Jillie walked soundlessly beside me to the school bus. At the end of the day, she listened while I whispered my secrets. Jillie was the best friend I had for most of my childhood. After my sixth birthday, my father decided I was too old for imaginary friends. He told me my friend wasn’t real, and that no one could see her.

For two years, my father punished me every time I played with my invisible friend. Through his punishments, I learned my first lesson in defiance. I grew proud of the welts that lined my skin. Each one was a snub in my father’s direction. Sure, they hurt, especially when he used the belt, but every lash was a helpful reminder of my father’s true face.

One day my mother begged me to forget about Jillie, and never mention her again. The funny thing is my mother looked at my imaginary friend. It wasn’t in some small way of pacifying me either. Her pale green eyes scanned Jillie’s blood splattered dress and dirty knees, and smiled with understanding. Like she too once had an imaginary friend. I still see Jillie sometimes. A childhood ailment I never outgrew, but the little girl who was my imaginary friend, was never really imaginary, Jillie was…is…a ghost.