The Phantom Man

This story came to me in a dream I had last night and upon waking up, I began Chapter 1.

Chapter 1

The day had began just like any day.  Gray, overcast clouds had hung in the sky.  I was sitting outside in my lawn chair, drinking a cup of coffee—my usual morning routine.  A haggard, old man who appeared from nowhere came up to me and asked for a spot to sleep.

He looked like he hadn’t had any sleep in days, so, in my generosity, I offered him a room to sleep.  He seemed relieved as I showed him inside and up the stairs to a room on the corner of my two-story home.

As soon as the old man’s head hit the pillow, he was asleep instantly. As I headed back down stairs to my chair on the front porch, that’s when things went crazy.  A young woman in her 20s happened by and seeing my generosity with the old man, assumed I would give her a place to sleep too.

Not wanting to disappoint, I too led her inside and up the stairs to a room next to the room the old man was sleeping in. 

Little did I know the horror that would come just by being generous….

As soon as I sat down in my lawn chair to do some reading and finish my coffee, I jumped out of my chair when I heard a blood curdling scream.  I ran inside and up the stairs to the room the woman had been sleeping in, when I found her dead in the bed.

I immediately went to check on the old man in the next room and he was sleeping soundly like a rock.  I shook him to wake him and he wouldn’t budge. 

I then went down stairs and called the police about the dead woman in my home. 

When police and investigators arrived at my home, they questioned me profusely for hours.  My home was now a murder scene and I could not offer any guests a place to stay until after their investigation was over.

As I went over my story with the officers, one thing came to mind—after the death of the woman, I saw a strange black fabric appear on the floor outside of the door to the woman’s room, then disappear soon after…a fact I withheld from the officers, not thinking it was a substantial piece of evidence.

When the officers finished interrogating me, they closed of my home so guests would be deterred from coming by my home.  It would be a while before I found myself offering someone a place to sleep because the untimely death would haunt me for days, as I wondered what happened to the woman?