The Man in the Black Cloak

Danny has been my friend ever since childhood, even back than he had a compulsive need to help others. I remember him once taking on three bullies at once because they were tormenting a little kid that lived on our street. Twenty years onward nothing has changed, he's often found himself in hospital after taking on thugs in the street for causing problems with random people.

About a week ago Danny called me and a couple of our friends telling us he wanted to talk to us, said something really strange had happened and he needed to talk to someone, we met up at his apartment that day and when we got there, he wasnt himself, he looked white as if he had just seen a ghost. I asked him what was the matter and he just asked us to sit down, we did so knowing he would tell us in his own time.

About ten minutes had passed of complete silence before Danny had started talking. "It, all seems like a nightmare, but than it probably was." His voice was shaky, whatever he was about to tell us we knew it had really freaked him out, none of us had ever seen him like this before. "I was walking down the corridor to the apartment and, I heard a woman screaming from down the hall so, I went to check it out like anyone would, I tried opening the door and it was locked so I just reacted on instinct and broke the door down." He had taken another pause and started looking more anxious, I looked at the two girls that were in the room with us and they seemed to be excited to hear what happened like it was some kind of ghost story someone would tell around a campfire, but to be honest I was becoming more interested as well. "There was a man, at least it looked like a man, he dressed in black with a hooded cloak covering his face, but i was more concerned with his hands." At this point the girls were on the edge of their seat and i found myself staring intently. "In one hand he was holding what looked like a large machete and in the other he was holding the screaming woman by her hair, I didn't have time to think." Colour started to come back to his face and there was excitement in his voice like he was just having an adrenalin rush. "I grabbed the hand that was hold the blade by the wrist and punched him in the face, he let go of the woman so i threw him out into the hall and went to hit him again but." The excitement in his voice went and all the colour faded almost as quickly as it came, he looked like a rabbit caught in a pair of headlights. "Before I could make contact, h-he disappeared, he just vanished in a haze of grey, i couldn't stop my punch and i hit the wall." His expression started to change again to confusion. "The woman came out of her apartment yelling at me saying what do you think your doing and asking if i was proud of myself scaring her like that and starting ranting about her door. I didn't know what to say so i went to the owners office asking if i could look at the security tapes, he said sure and took me to see it. When we looked at the tapes, there was nothing, just footage of me breaking down the door and punching a hole in the wall, he was pretty mad so all i could do was apologise tell him I don't know what came over me and that I'll pay for the damages."

Nobody said anything for about five minutes I guess we were all trying to process what we had just been told. "He's here." Danny's eyes widened with fear at this and started staring at Sam one of the girls that was with us, I looked over and couldn't stop myself from staring, she appeared to be in a trance, eyes wide and unblinking and a grin stretching across her face. I was so focused on her that I didn't realise that Jess had the same look on her face. Danny gave a small laugh. "Nice try you two, you guys can't scare me that easily." My attention was broken from the two girls and was now fixed on Danny, i felt all my blood leave my face. the two girls were now talking in unison and monotone. "You're going to die." Danny turned his attention to me, I opened my mouth to warn him but I was frozen with fear, the only thing my voice would allow me to say was "behind you." I could only sit there and watch as Danny turned around to be staring at the hooded figure which with a single swipe of its blade slashed Danny's head from his shoulders, before there was a chance for a single drop of blood to be spilled the figure and Danny vanished in a haze of grey. "Are you ok?" Sam seemed to be back to normal. "you look like you just seen a ghost." Jess back as well "Danny." The two girls looked at me blankly and at the same time asked, Who's Danny?