The Lady with the Flashlight Eyes, part 3

continued from part 2:

It is almost night, and somehow, I am alone, at the bottom of the hill. The wind is whipping around me, and it has begun to rain. I know I must make it up the hill quickly, before the rain makes the hill insurmountable, and forces me to walk home the long way. "Gosh, this seems familiar," I tell myself, "kinda deja-"
“Can I help you, dear?” A voice and a hand appear from the top of the hill. “Yes,” I respond, taking the hand, “ thank you.” The hand belongs to a woman – maybe in her thirties or forties.
"Crap! It's her! How'd I get here, again?" I ask myself.

I closed my eyes, willing myself to be anywhere but here. "Please,please, anywhere but-"
I opened my eyes --

And I'm running up the stairs to my house. "How'd I get here? I ask myself, "How'd I get from the hill to the house?" But I can hear her laughing, almost cackling, “ You must die! You killed my son! I can follow you anywhere! You killed—“I grab the door handle, and run inside, slamming the door behind me. I head for the kitchen, still reeling with deja-vu. As I walk into the kitchen, I notice that some of the cabinet doors are open. “That lazy -- NO!" And I know, without looking that
There’s an arm reaching out of the lower cabinet
-- and it will grab hold of the cabinet door, and out she will step

-and so I close my eyes, "Please, please, anywhere but here."
And when I open my eyes, I'm in a beautiful meadow. Safe. "Cool," I can transport out of a bad dream."

The dreams continued for 2-3 years. Sometimes, I knew it would be one of "those" dreams; I would be plagued in the dream with deja-vu. I would know that something bad was going to happen -- and if I recognized the warnings early enought, I could "move" myself out of the dream, although some "moves" were into even more dangerous or deadly places.

"The Lady with the Flashlight Eyes" saga started while we lived in Merced California, and stopped about six months after we moved to Lincoln Nebraska. My family had much fun teasing me along the way: JoJo would leave cupboards open, Jeff would put mini-flashlights by his eyes at night to scare me.......but the biggest scare came a year or so after I had the last dream -- and happened in real life during a hot summer afternoon:

"Jayne!" Susan dug her elbow into my side, "Come on! This is our stop!"
"Huh?" I quickly stood up, and followed Susan off the bus.
"Jayne, you've been acting funny all day. What's kicking?"
"I dunno Susan, I just feel funny. Kinda having some deja-vu."
"Cool! You doing that ESP stuff? Tell me my future!!!!"
Susan loved to tease me, and usually I was up for it. But all morning I'd had a strange feeling in my gut. Something was up -- something bad was goin--
"Jayne! Here's that incense shop I told you about! The woman was really nice last week. She told me if I brought some friends in that she'd give us some free stuff."Susan grabbed me by the had, and dragged me into the small store.
--Dark. My nose was bombarded with incense and candles. And something else. something familiar -- but I couldn't place my finger on it. And all the while, that deja-vu feeling was becoming stronger and stronger. Susan was dragging me towards the back of the store. There was a woman there, with her back to us.
"Ma'am? Hi! I was here last week. You told me to come back with some friends --"
"Yes, deary," the woman said, and started to turn around, "How responsible of you, deary --"

It was her! The Lady with the Flashlight Eyes - for real! I closed my eyes, and said, "please, please, anywhere but here" and opened my eyes - but she was still there. Those eyes - all black, with no white around the edges. And she looked at me--

and smiled.
She knew.

I grabbed Susan, and ran out of the store. I continued to run for three blocks before I stopped, and told Susan who it was in the store.

I made my mother sleep in my room for the next three nights.

--And I still can't sleep with drawers, cupboards or closets open.