The Sinners Ghost

  Do you watch your dreams or do you take part in them? Have you ever done both at the same time?
 

  He layed fully clothed, save his boots and gun, on the bed. His chest pressed hard on the stinking mattress, his left cheek rested on the flat feather pillow, it smelt no better then the bed. He wasn't asleep as the other men filed into the room. One stopped and whispered into his ear., "None of yer shit tanight, boy." He said nothing in reply. He just layed there and listened the whispering voice. The one that talked to him even before the men had come into the bunk house...

  ... He had heard the voice for most of his life. When he was young it would scare him with its words. It would hurt him, make him ashamed, feel bad about himself. Sometimes it was more then a voice, much more. A dark shadow would haunt him from a corner of his room at night. On occasion it would steal things from him. Worse, it would wait for him to fall asleep then jerk him from his bed, tangling him in his own sheets and drag him down the hall. ...

  ... The bunk house was quiet. The last of the cowboys had passed out at the table they had been drinking at, trying to wash there own problems away. He had learned long ago that all the boozing in the world would never fix a problem. ... He drifted into sleep, his demon, Phobetor, following him into Morpheus' realm. ...

... He lept straight up, standing on the bed screaming, begging at the top of his lungs. The men in there bunks all jolted heaving from there own sweating dreams like night terrors had struck them. They saw him screaming at the ceiling. A thick wet black patch of  gore began to drip from a crack in the ceiling. It smelled like raw oil and something dead. Some men began to vomit at the smell, they where still in a mad sort of shock, staring at him, screaming. "What do you want! Why won't you leave me be! What do you want?", he began to weep. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, forgive me. Please leave me be. You black bastard, leave me be." He grabbed for his gun, draped across the footboard of his bed and began to shoot at the ceiling. The man who had whispered in his ear that night jumped up and grabbed him by the leg. He dropped the gun and lept at the widening black patch. His hand and forearm slipped into the ceiling then he began to fall as the other man pulled hard on his leg. He came down, hitting the floor hard a trail of slime following him from the ceiling. A large mass of sludge hits the floor next to him. The men in the room back into the corners trying to shield themselves from the mass of stinking black hell on the floor. He sat there, the Sinner, staring at this black demon, his ghost, and as he did so the thing began to change, the oil began to dissolve, and it spoke to him in a calm even voice., "It's OK now, you are free. I am you." At that all could see the spectre, and it indeed looked just like the dream cursed cowboy. The wet sickening blackness had disappeared and it sat there bleeding naked on the floor but only for a long moment then it faded and disappeared. ...

  This was an experience I had on this night, January the 10th, one year ago.  I watched this dream and was the cowboy at the same time. A very odd occurrence.                                                                                   I have written a short story based on this dream and what I wrote here are excerpts from the original first draft so please respect copyrights.