I was finishing my post grad that summer. It didn’t go well. In fact, it was the worst summer of my life. I’d moved into a fully furnished basement apartment, looking for some solitude, away from distractions. The old lady living upstairs was Mrs. Whittaker. She was sweet as lemon meringue pie. Her home was a quick jaunt to school, and the rent was unbelievable. I thought I’d hit the lottery.
Then I started noticing red blotches on my legs. They itched like hell.
I thought it was bed bugs.
When I removed the mattress cover, I shuttered. The mattress looked like a hot chili massacre. Big brown blotches with green swirling splashes mixed with what looked like ketchup stains. The form amalgamated into what looked like the shape of a body. When I flipped the mattress onto its side, I gagged. It looked like the aftereffects of a car crash.
I barely made it to the washroom before relieving myself of my breakfast.
“How could a mattress get so bad?” I asked myself, bewildered.
I scanned it for bed bugs, and found none. Phew. One less thing to worry about. Then I spent the weekend preparing my speech to Mrs. Whittaker. How do I broach the subject of her deplorable mattress?
Mrs. Whittaker laughed nonchalantly when I brought it up.
“Oh, that bed is fine and dandy,” she assured me. “Always has been. Always will be.”
The woman was an ocean of secrets. Most old people surround themselves with memories. Not Mrs. Whittaker. Her home was devoid of photographs of any kind. Plenty of jewelry, random nick-knacks and a TV with an antenna. But no sign of her past.
Her kitchen was delectable. She wore her apron down to her knees, her wrinkled hands shielded by orange oven mitts. Before I know what’s what, she serving up freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies with my name on them.
I stuffed my face with chocolate goodness. The cookies were delicious. We chatted for over an hour about nothing in particular, then I retreated to the basement to work on my assignment.
It was 3 a.m. before my butt hit the bed.
I’d forgotten about the soiled mattress.
I awoke like a flash of lightning. My legs felt prickly. Something was crawling across them. Something big. Whatever it was, it had been nipping at my legs all night. I flung my feet in a fit of rage, stifled a scream. Then I fumbled for the bedside light. It gets spooky-dark down here at night. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust.
When I checked my bed, I found no signs of bugs or creepy crawlers of any kind. Nothing.
I must be losing it.
I forced myself to the washroom and peed for an eternity. Then I tip-toed across the living room, until I finally reached my bed. I searched the bed sheets like a detective, including the pillow cases. Checked under the bed. Twice.
Nothing.
Then I heard a noise coming from the bathroom.
“Um, hello?” I asked, not recognizing my own voice.
Silence.
My heart was going to explode. I crawled under the covers, ignoring the icy thoughts crowding my mind. I left the bedside light on. Sleep came, but came slowly, like an old coffee maker that refuses to release its precious juice.
The following week was a disaster.
Chuck, my best friend, was quick to judge.
“You look like garbage,” he told me, in between sips from a Styrofoam cup.
I laughed and told him to go to take a leap off a tall building. I wasn’t ready to divulge my sullied little secret. It’s just a dirty mattress, I reminded myself. If I hadn’t removed the cover, I’d be none the wiser.
But I did.
I saw what lies beneath.
The spots on my legs worsened. They itched tirelessly. Sleep was impossible. I’ve always been a Light Sleeper (a curse, as any Light Sleeper can attest to). Consequently, my bloodshot eyes drooped to my knees. I felt miserable. I looked worse. If I didn’t get a good night’s sleep, and soon, I was in trouble. Not surprisingly, I’d fallen behind in my studies. This alone was enough to induce a lifetime of anxiety. My mother was going to kill me if I flunked out of school. My final assignment, worth seventy percent of my final mark, was due in three weeks.
Things got worse.
One night, I heard something slithering across the floor. I snapped awake. From the corner of my eye, I saw a strange shape slithering into the washroom.
“Just my imagination,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
Then I heard the toilet water splash.
I spilled out of bed, hitting my head on the night table, and saw stars.
For a moment, my mind and body shut down. Apparently, they were on a leave-of-absence. Dust bunnies as big as New York rats greeted me from under the bed. I grimaced. Then I noticed a trail of sickly-green slime with red dots leading toward the toilet.
“Hello?” I asked, knowing full well this question was in vain.
In reality, I was giving whatever-it-was time to escape. Out of site, out of mind, as they say. Finally, after an undisclosed amount of time, I forced myself off the floor and puttered to the washroom.
I shrieked.
Blood was leaking from the toilet seat, dripping dime-sized drops onto the cold linoleum floor. Lots of blood. Easily a pint’s worth. The throne was as red as the devil’s right hand. It was gruesome.
I fetched some towels and tried soaking up the mess. I was elbow-deep in grime. The toilet seat refused to cooperate. It kept sliding from side to side. All the while, my face leaked fresh tears into the rouge-tinted water: plunk plunk plunk.
Finally, three towels and two rolls of TP later, the gory mess was gone. By now, it’s 6 a.m. Too tired to sleep, I brewed some coffee and went to my desk, ready to work on my assignment.
Work never came.
Instead, I searched up bed bugs, night critters, midnight monsters, and a plethora of demons, ogres, and unusual enemies. Each search produced scarier results.
By the time I finished, it was well past noon. I’d skipped my classes.
My mind was in shambles. I needed to get to the bottom of this, before I flunked out of school.
“I should check the mattress again,” I told myself tepidly.
I ripped off the covers.
There’s not enough alcohol in this world to make me forget the horror I saw.
The corpse-sized encrustation had turned a darker hue. The crepuscular cracks running along its side more vivid. But that’s not what freaked me out most. What made me want to crawl into a hole and never come out was the splotches of dried blood sullying the entire mattress. In the center of the blood-soaked stain was a black splotch that resembled a spider. It was pulsing. Like a beating heart.
Exactly the spot where I slept.
The mattress was alive.
I stood transfixed, staring at the beating heart, unsure of what to make of it.
Then I panicked.
I was about to call my mother, in hopes of her inevitable advice, but stopped myself. My parents were going through a sticky divorce. Did I really want to worry her? My father lived a million miles away, and was preoccupied with his work. He’d tell me to figure it out myself. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame him. I’m not a kid anymore.
The scabs on my legs were infected. Pink patches of pestilence skittered up my legs like snakes. Anymore scratching, I’d rip the skin right off.
To make matters worse, my studies were in jeopardy. Plus, I was broke. Buying a new bed was out of the question. And even if I did, I couldn’t toss out Mrs. Whittaker’s old mattress. What would I tell her?
If this was last year, I’d simply move in with Chuck. But sadly, that’s no longer an option. He’s shacked up with his girlfriend, who hates me. She hates everyone, but still. I was running out of options. I searched up rooms for rent, but came up empty-handed. All the good places were taken. The rest were out of my price range. I was searching for ghosts.
Eventually, after a week of no sleep, I grew weary, and succumbed to my fatigue.
At some point in the night the mattress moaned. Then it released a vile odour, like a corpse stuffed with cheese.
I swallowed a mouthful of vomit.
The mattress was leaking. Something evil was being ejecting. It clasped onto my legs and tried to pull me under. I kicked like a mule until whatever it was released me. Then I raced to the kitchen and found a knife. It was as dull as my depleted sense of humor, but it would have to do.
I crept closer to the mattress, white-knuckling the knife. The mattress was bobbing up and down like a boiling pot of stew. It was making awful noises, like a heartbeat: Lub-Dub; Lub-Dub; Lub-Dub.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Sweat stinging my eyes.
The bed belched. The smell was putrid.
The knife fell from my hand and landed with a clunk.
The mattress jerked. Then it went still, and the basement fell under a blanket of gloom. Grudgingly, and never taking my eyes off the bed, I reached down and picked up the knife. It felt like an anvil. The knife stayed pointed at the disfigured stain on the mattress for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Finally, after the mattress monster failed to return, I put the knife away and sighed. Too scared to shower, I ran a comb through my hair, freshened up as best I could, then walked to school. After hitting up the cafeteria, I planned on seeing the nurse about my rash. Once and for all.
I kept to myself. The last thing I wanted was company.
“Well, well.” A voice crept up behind me. “Look who decided to show up for a change.”
It was Chuck. Beside him was Tasha, his girlfriend. Noticing the bags around my eyes and the paleness of my face, she rolled her eyes and quickly looked away.
“Let’s go,” she snapped.
Chuck patted my shoulder, then the pair disappeared into the crowded cafeteria.
I put my head on the cafeteria table and closed my eyes. The mattress appeared to my mind’s eye. Was it really alive? Can’t be. It’s just my over-active imagination. A lifetime of watching horror flicks was coming back to haunt me.
I sauntered towards the school’s medical center but didn’t enter. I chickened out. The last thing I wanted was for someone to poke and prod at my flaky skin. They’d start asking questions. Questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. Not yet, anyways. Instead, I returned home, where I was greeted by Mrs. Whittaker.
“Oh, there you are, Cameron,” she said, carrying a tray of steaming biscuits.
My tummy grumbled.
Instead of bringing up the elephant in the room – or dare I say the monster in the mattress? – I stuffed my face with warm biscuits, washing them down with a tall glass of milk. Whenever I tried to bring up the stingy subject, she would go off about the weather, or her baking, or how her backyard still needs mowing. Not once did she mention her past.
We spent the evening watching old reruns on her outdated television. By nine o’clock, Mrs. Whittaker was fast asleep on her favorite reclining chair.
Against my better judgement, I sneaked into her bedroom, keeping as quiet as a corpse. Again, I was struck by the oddity of her lack of photographs. Her room was a mixture of old-lady perfume and mold. Everything was neat and orderly, mostly old furniture devoid of purpose. Beside her single bed, next to the oldest sewing machine I’d ever seen, was a treasure chest. It was the size of a casket. I inched closer, feeling like the Worlds-Worst-Person. But I did it anyway. I was desperate.
Mrs. Whittaker mumbled and turned to her side.
I bolted upright. My blood turned cold. I stole a quick glance over my shoulder. Although she was facing me, her eyes remained shut.
The floorboard creaked as I crept ever closer. I took a deep breath. Then with two large strides, I reached the treasure chest. It was cracked oak, with gold markings carved into its hinges. A faded red strip ran along its side. The rusted lock was battered beyond belief. With shaky hands I gripped the lock. It was cold and clammy. With one strong pull, the lock fell effortlessly to the floor.
I said a silent prayer. Then I opened the box.
I gasped.
I slammed the lid shut and beelined it for the basement. The basement greeted me like a hostage. My mind was in shambles. One thing was certain: My life was in danger. The treasure chest told me so.
Dust and bones.
That’s what I saw.
The trunk was stuffed with the bones of the dead. The smell was atrocious.
My mind went into lockdown.
“Alcohol. That’s what I need.”
I fetched a bottle of wine my mother had given me, and uncorked it. The sound set off a series of silent alarms throughout my body. At first, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t typically drink red wine, but exceptions can be made.
I drank the entire bottle in under an hour, chatting to myself like a deranged lunatic.
“I should scoot upstairs and put the old lady’s room back in order,” I whispered to myself, in between gulps. I pondered this for a considerable length of time, stealing sips from the bottle. Ultimately, I stayed where I was. Fear had stolen over me. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Having a low tolerance for alcohol, I quickly became inebriated. At some point, after finishing the bottle, I crawled my way under the bed sheets and crashed.
I awoke in the morning with an ear-splitting headache. My legs were burning. The rash spread to my thighs, stopping just below my privates. Both my hands were covered in itchy red spots. When I sunk my nails into my inflamed skin, blood oozed out. The pain was insidious.
I flew out of bed, hurried to the toilet, and vomited. My reflection in the mirror wasn’t encouraging. I was ghost-white, with bloodshot eyes that fell past my knees. I looked away. That’s when I noticed the trail of mucus slinking towards my bed like a slaughtered snail.
That was the final straw.
I texted my mother, telling her I was dropping out of school. I could finish my post grad in the fall. I was still young. Time, as they say, was on my side.
My mother called back straight away. She wanted none of this. But once she heard the distress in my voice, she sent money for a bus ticket home. I packed up my belongings like my life depended on it. It didn’t take long, seeing as I owned next to nothing. Just my laptop, some clothes, and an array of overpriced textbooks as big as my current crisis.
I checked the bus schedule. The next bus wasn’t due for hours.
Something crashed upstairs. Mrs. Whittaker was swearing like a trucker on amphetamines.
My mind shattered.
She knew.
I raced upstairs, rushing towards the front door.
She was blocking the exit. Standing a mere five-foot-nothing, it was an incredible site to behold. Her face scurried into a scowl. The purple veins on her neck pulsated. Her ghost-white hair in disarray.
“Cameron,” she said, in a quivering voice. “You’ve been a bad boy.”
She had a gun. Her Colt Single Action Army looked as old as the stains on mattress. Her deadpan eyes told me everything I needed to know: I wasn’t going anywhere. Not alive anyway.
Words failed me. All that came out was a whimper.
Mrs. Whittaker snarled, baring her teeth.
“You ain’t going nowhere, sonny boy,” she said. “I’ve got plans for you.”
She motioned me into her kitchen. The clicking of her colt made me pick up the pace. My mind insisted that her ancient pistol was as limp as wet noodle, but I wasn’t feeling lucky enough to find out.
She told me to sit.
I did.
Immediately, my skin began to crawl. Every inch of my body was red-hot. I was in rough shape. What I wouldn’t do to scratch my throbbing skin. Scrape my fingernails across my arms and legs, make the itch go away. Apparently, the mattress had infected me. With what? I don’t know.
“Stay put,” she ordered.
I detected the sweet smell of cranberry muffins coming from the oven. My stomached turned. Then it dawned on me that she may have added something to her pastries. Something sinister. By this point, all bets were off.
Mrs. Whittaker returned with rope.
With impossible speed, she bound both my hands and legs. Before I could react, she’d duct taped my mouth shut.
Mrs. Whittaker grabbed a large knife from the drawer. It was a knife that could carve a bear. Then she produced a knife sharpener. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, leaving nothing but two black holes. Her entire face changed into something non-human. Just a leathery mask, with holes where her eyes and ears and mouth should be.
Fear enveloped me. Who the hell was Mrs. Whittaker? And what’s she planning on doing to me?
“I see you’ve been infected,” she said in passing, sharpening her knife: SWOOSH; SHOOSH; SHOOSH; SWOOSH.
My heart skipped a beat. My skin was boiling water. I tried scratching my legs using my feet and fell to the floor, cracking my head on the table on my way down.
Mrs. Whittaker barely noticed. She gazed at her silvery blade as though it was a long-time friend. Judging by its well-worn wooden handle, it was.
I managed to find my way back to the chair. ‘Think!’ my mind ordered. How do I get out of this mess? I twisted my wrists and somehow made the knots tighter. She’d done this before. She may be old as dirt, but she’s no ordinary woman. She was something else completely.
I remembered the trunk.
How stupid was I to leave it unlocked? I shifted in my seat until I was facing her bedroom. The trunk was open. The lock lay beside it. A trail of brittle bones was scattered around her timeworn floor like discarded toys.
“You’ve discovered my trunk,” she said with a simper. “Soon, you’ll be added to my collection.” Her pistol lay on the counter next to her, daring me to say otherwise.
Mrs. Whittaker pointed the knife at my throat. The prickly edge of the blade glistened under the florescent lights.
This wasn’t how I wanted to die.
She came at me, knife first.
Knock; knock; knock.
Someone was at the door.
Mrs. Whittaker sneered.
“Now, who could that be?” Her voice rattled. She peaked around the corner. Her face twisted in rage. “Don’t move,” she told me.
She traded her knife for the gun. Then she disappeared.
The door creaked. I heard a muffled voice. I recognized that voice.
Chuck barged in like a one-man SWAT team. He pushed the old lady aside as he entered the kitchen, staring in bemusement, as I sat bound and shackled.
Mrs. Whittaker aimed the gun at the back of Chuck’s head, telling him to freeze. Without a moment’s notice, he drop-kicked the hag square in the head. She crumbled like a sack of potatoes.
Chuck chortled. “Thirteen years of karate just so I could save my bro from the Wicked Witch of the West.”
I burst into tears.
Not only was I in extreme discomfort, as the rash traversed across my suffering skin. I was deeply embarrassed. I don’t recall what happened next. All I know is that I was rushed to the hospital, where I remained for most of the summer.
Word traveled fast about the bones in Mrs. Whittaker’s truck. The story went national. Turns out she was wanted for murder all across the nation, and had been for many years. Her notoriety spread fast.
Nothing was mentioned of the mutated mattress. Some things are best unknown.
Perhaps that was her hiding place. Or the source of her black magic. Or something different altogether. I don’t know. Chuck to this day, still teases me about it. He snapped some pics before the paramedics arrived. When the mood strikes, he’ll send appalling memes of the mattress, typically around bed time, wishing me goodnight. To him, this was funny.
I forgave his taunting, seeing how he saved my life. Turns out, my worried-sick mother messaged him, asking him to check in on me. Good thing. Otherwise, I would’ve ended up in Mrs. Whittaker’s treasure chest. Or worse. The mattress.
Mrs. Whittaker vanished. Her holding cell was empty when the guards arrived the following morning. Not one camera caught a glimpse of her sneaking away.
This isn’t the last of Mrs. Whittaker, I can assure you that.
She’ll be back.
I wonder where she’ll appear next. Some old mattress, would be my guess. It could be the mattress you’re sleeping on right now. Gross huh?
Let this story be a lesson to you. The next time you find yourself sleeping on some anonymous mattress, you’d best beware. Something evil may be living in it.
Mrs. Whittaker, perhaps.