My grandmother had passed away and sometime after the funeral me and my brother were given the task of cleaning out her house of her possessions. We lived in another state so we would be sleeping at the house for the week or so it would take to go through her stuff. Being a young lady I was given the bedroom while my brother Dave would be sleeping on the couch.
I was dusting some old picture frames off while Dave was going through a rack of old records when I came across a photo of my grandma and grandpa together. I never knew him because he died when I was still very young. “Did you know Grandpa?” I asked.
Dave looked up and replied. “Not really. I met him a bunch of times when I was a kid. He was kind of a jerk to be honest.”
“Oh,” I was curious now, “how so?”
“He was real mean,” Dave said. “I was here one halloween because mom and dad were in between apartments and had to stay here for a month. When the kids would come to the door, he’d scare em off.”
I kind of giggled, not that that is funny but at what kind of person would do that. I needed more details. “That’s so wrong. What did he do just run out the door after them?”
Dave put the records down and looked at me. “He’d hide in the bushes and jump out at them. And then laugh as they ran away. He never did give em any candy.”
“Are you serious? What the hell?” I said as I put the picture frame in a box of memorabilia my mom would want to keep. “Just out of curiosity, how did he die?” I asked.
Dave thought for a minute with his hand on his chin. “I think they said his car went off the road and into a lake. Funny thing is they never found the body. The car couldn’t be recovered because it was sunken into the lakebed up to the rear doors. It was literally sticking into the mud front first. They said the bottom of that lake was like quicksand.”
That night I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. It was a hot summer night in Louisiana and we had the air on to keep us from sweltering. But the air vent in this house was in the ceiling and blowing cold air right in my face. I stood up on the bed to see if I could aim it somewhere else but it was one of those fixed vent deals. I couldn’t even close it. Not only that but the mattress was hard as a rock and full of dips. How grandma slept on that thing I’ll never know.
The left side of the bed had a wall next to it with about a foot of clearance, and the right side had the nightstand which was heavy so I couldn’t just move the bed out of the way of the arctic blast. So I grabbed the pillow and switched directions, laying with my head at the foot of the bed and vice versa. At least I’d have a blanket over my feet and that should work. It did. I started to nod off into dreamland.
It was about 11 O’clock and I was almost asleep. I was in that in between zone where you’re partially asleep but still somewhat aware of your surroundings. That’s when I felt it. Someone grabbed my ankles under the sheets. I rolled over and pulled my legs up towards by chest and jumped out of bed.
There was a night light but it wasn’t bright enough to tell if someone was there so I just ran for the door. I didn’t even bother to turn the light on. I just got out of there.
My brother checked the room with the lights on and said no one was in there. He even checked under the bed. He asked me if I was fully asleep and I said no. He told me that when you’re in between awake and asleep it’s called sleep paralysis or a ‘hypnagogic state’ whatever that means. He said during that time people often feel like someone is touching them or sitting on them. Sometimes people even hear things and see shadowy figures.
Dave was smart and knew about all kinds of things so I believed him. Maybe that’s all it was. I went back to bed but this time I turned the closet light on and left the door cracked open a little bit so I could see every dark corner and recess in the room. I also read up on sleep paralysis on the internet for a few minutes and my brother was right. I guess that’s all it was.
About a half hour later I was trying to sleep but I just couldn’t. I was relaxed and resting but I was definitely not in the ‘in between’ state. I felt a hand grab my foot again. It was definitely a hand. I could feel the various fingers as it clenched. I screamed out and pulled my feet up and jumped out of bed again.
This time, after looking the bed over he asked why I was sleeping with my head at the foot of the bed. I explained to him about the vent and cold air. Dave said that all that cold air on my feet must have a numbing effect on my feet and this can cause the nerves to feel funny where any small thing touching the skin can feel like something else. Even a hair or maybe even a small bug of some kind could have run across my foot.
I was just too freaked out to stay. I made him take me to a hotel and drive me home the next day. Dave got his buddy Max to come and help him finish cleaning out grandma’s house without me.
A few days later I got a text from Dave. He said they were at the house and waiting for the police. I asked him why and he said they were in the bedroom and taking the bed apart when they discovered something. There was a slit in the mattress facing the wall so they looked inside and then cut the mattress open because of what they saw.
He then sent a photo of the inside of the mattress after they cut it open. I recognized it right away. It was grandpa. Mummified.