Horror on the shoulder

One day, my mother was driving me and my younger brother home from a gymnastics meet. Since we went out to eat after it, it was getting dark when we finally embarked on our journey home. We were driving down one of the roads to get to our house, which is a secluded branch of a road that veers away from the nearby town-We live down in the boondocks-when I saw what I thought was a little girl curled up on the shoulder of the road. At first, my mom, who has trouble seeing in the dark, didn't see the little girl, but I insisted I saw her. My mom has a very motherly persona, so she opted to turn the car around to see if the girl needed help. We made a U-turn, and circled back to where I had though I saw the little girl. When we reached the spot, she was nowhere to be found. My mom wrote it off as me just being tired from working so hard, so she made another U-turn to continue on our way home. After about ten minutes of driving, my little brother had yelled from his car seat. 'Mamma, the girl!' My mom instinctively stomped on the breaks, assuming someone was running into the road out of her view. When we didn't see anything, she asked him what he had meant. He told her that a little girl was sitting on the side of the road and was afraid she was going to get hurt since he was taught to stay away from streets. My mom glanced out of her side mirror, and I craned my neck to take a look out of the rear window. Nothing. After quietly scolding my brother under her breath for fabricating what I thought I saw, Mom begun to drive again. The rest of the twenty minute drive was rather quiet. No one talked, and the little girl didn't show up again. When we finally arrived home, my mom shuffled up the stairs to help my brother get ready for bed. I then remembered I forgot my bag in the car, so I turned around in the foyer to go back outside. I walked outside, went to the passenger's door, opened it, reached inside, and grabbed my bag. As I ducked out of the car, out of habit, I glanced out the side mirror. When I did, about fifteen feet behind me was the girl I saw on the side of the road about a half hour prior, still curled up and still hugging her knees. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, so I slammed the car door and bolted to my house. I didn't bother turning around. Still to this day, I try to avoid traveling down our road/going outside at night.