The Burning Bed - part 1
by Jeff S. Gibbs


The bed in which the story revolves no longer exists.  I burnt it in an open
field behind my house some 6 years ago.  I burnt the mattress, the box
springs and the wooden four-post frame.  I burnt them all to ashes.  Doing
so rid me of the nightmare I endured for several days, and I can only hope
that the nightmarish curse tied to the bed burnt along with it on that cold
February night. No one else should have to endure that terror.
	The story begins one week after Christmas in 1996.  I had been given
quite a bit of money that year from friends and family in lieu of gifts
since everyone knew I needed new furniture and household items for my new
house.  I had left most of my previous furniture belongings behind with my
ex-wife so she could continue her life relatively undisturbed after I moved
out.  One thing I desperately needed was a new bed.  The cheap inflatable
mattress wasn't going to cut it as a permanent fixture.
	My mother called me just after Christmas and told me about an estate
sale that was taking place just outside of town.  Knowing you can
occasionally find a good deal at these overblown garage sales, I decided to
go.  Once I got there, I made a quick survey of the house and the items for
sale.  Most things were older and a little worn, but I have to admit I was
captivated by the bed in the master bedroom.  It was an oversized four-post
bed with a deep, dark cherry wood finish.  The finish looked virtually brand
new and the mattress and bedspring looked to be in excellent condition.  The
price was almost too low to believe, but I figured the surviving family or
estate handlers wanted to just get rid of it, and didn't care about the
price.
	I paid the person running the sale and got some help loading it into
my truck.  I got it home and had a neighbor help me move it up to my
bedroom.  It only took 30 minutes or so to rebuild it and dress it with some
new sheets and a comforter.  I lied down on it for a brief minute or two or
could feel how comfortable it was.  I couldn't wait to sleep an entire night
on a REAL bed so I could retire the inflatable mattress once and for all.
	That night I stayed up rather late watching some goofball movie on
TV, and by the time I finally made it to my new bed I was exhausted.  I
crashed immediately, and went to sleep almost the second my head hit the
pillow.  My sleep, however, would not be restful. I rarely remember my
dreams, be them dreams or nightmares, but I remember having a very vivid
nightmare that night.  I was lying in bed and appeared to wake up, finding
myself surrounded by flame - the heat searing the flesh from my bones.  It
was very short, but very intense ... almost too realistic for comfort.  It
roused me from my sleep and I had to get out of bed to drink a glass of
water and gather my thoughts.  Luckily, the rest of my sleep that night was
uneventful.
	The next three or four nights passed without much trouble.  My sleep
wasn't exactly sound, but there were no nightmares that I remembered.  That
all changed on the fifth night. I had another nightmare that night, and it
was both a sleeping and waking nightmare.
Again, I dreamt of being on the bed surrounded by fire, only this time I
didn't feel like I was alone.  I could have sworn I heard the cries of a
small child next to me.  I turned my head to see what was making the sound,
but nothing was there.  It was at that moment that I woke up.  I thrust my
eyes open, and wiped the sweat from my forehead.  I took a few deep breaths,
and tried to calm down by reminding myself it was only a dream.  As my eyes
slowly focused on the dark room, I could sense a shape next to my bed, and
quickly diverted my eyes in that direction.  There, standing next to me was
a young boy.  He was horribly scarred, with blackened, almost charred skin
blotched with blood vessels right beneath the surface.  He looked as if he
had been dead for quite some time.  I remember looking into his eyes and
seeing nothing but black, as if his eyes, his cornea and pupils had all been
removed and replaced with a black onyx stone.  There was no reflection, no
refraction of light, just two black holes looking at me.  He was so close
that I could even feel the heat from his breath on my cheek.  I stared at
him, frozen in fear and morbid curiosity.  His mouth moved as if he was
whispering something, but I could not make out what it was.  
	Although he had no discernable pupils to dictate where he was
looking, I could sense his attention moved from me to some point above.  It
was then that I felt a shadow appear over me.  I looked up and fear once
again shot through me like ice.  Floating above me was an inverted torso and
head of a black haired woman.  She was leaning over the head of my bed, bent
at the waist, examining me from her perspective.  However, the head of my
bed was up against the wall, so she couldn't have been "entirely" there.
She was literally leaning out of the wall.  Her eyes were like the boys,
devoid of all life and completely black.  Her skin was charred and blackened
as well with a long dead look upon her complexion.  She lowered her head
merely inches from mine, and even though our faces were inverted from one
another I could sense malice in her face.  I felt the boy's hand grasp my
arm either in fear or anger, but whatever the case, it hurt.  I then noticed
the woman's eyes grow even bigger as they briefly flickered with an orange
flame and then she screamed.  The sound she made was not human, as it
sounded like the voice of a thousand tortured souls yelling out at once.  It
was so loud that I thought my eardrums would burst.  It was the single most
bloodcurdling thing I've ever heard, and it carried the echoes of anguish
and torture deep into my very soul.  Blood began to trickle out of my left
ear as its eardrum burst.
	I winced in pain and closed my eyes, tighter than I've ever closed
them before.  Suddenly, her scream dissipated and was replaced by utter
silence. I very slowly regained the courage to open my eyes.  The woman was
gone, as was the boy.  It was then that I felt a heavy and uncomfortable
weight press on my stomach. I thrust my head up and looked down the length
of my body to see a small shape resting on my stomach, forming a small lump
under the comforter and sheets.
Driven by curiosity or some other unexplainable force, I took my left arm
and began to lift the sheets to expose whatever was underneath.  As the
little ambient light that existed crept in, I could see my bare chest.
Nothing there. I raised the sheets a few more inches so I could see the top
part of my stomach. Nothing there. I finally gathered the nerve and fully
lifted the covers, exposing the small lump.  Two small eyes stared back at
me. It was the ghostly form of the small boy, lying on top of me as if
seeking the protection of being hidden under the sheets.  I could actual
feel his body trembling and felt a strange sensation of intense heat
emanating from his body.  Completely freaked out, I spun myself sideways,
shaking the weight off my stomach and then threw myself out of the bed. I
hit the wood floor hard, bruising my hip in the process.  I scrambled to my
feet as I awkwardly backed out of the room, turned and ran down the hall and
into the kitchen.  
After catching my breath and letting my heart rate return to normal, I
plugged my bleeding ear with a bandage and went through the house, turning
on almost every light.  I spent the rest of the night, sleepless, pacing
through the house trying to find an explanation for what I had experienced.
I never returned to the bedroom that night.
	The next day was a Saturday and I remember not knowing what to do.
Should I tell someone about what I had experienced?  Would they believe me?
Do I believe it?  Was it another dream? I've heard of waking dreams, but
this was all too real for it to have been a dream.  Besides, when you dream,
you feel a shift in consciousness when you wake up, and I've never been
fooled in thinking a dream was reality before.  What happened was not a
dream.  Of that, I was certain.
I spent most of that next morning thinking.  Once the sun arose, I finally
got the nerve to reexamine my bedroom. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary,
but I felt like I had to call someone and ask some questions to put my mind
at ease.  I had bought the house through a friend of mine who worked as a
realtor in the area.  I called my friend and explained that some weird
things have been happening around the house and asked if he knew about
anything strange in the house's history.  He assured me the previous owners
were the original owners and had lived there since the home was built some
20 years ago.  He jokingly added that he was pretty sure the subdivision in
which I lived wasn't built on any ancient Indian burial grounds, and that I
should be safe.  When I didn't laugh at his joke, he paused for a moment and
asked if I was okay.  I assured him that I was and that I might call him
later on if I needed to talk.  
I mulled on the situation throughout the early morning and then it hit me.
I had stayed in the house for nearly a month without incident and the only
that had changed I the last week or so was the bed.  With that revelation in
hand, I decided to examine the bed more closely.
Under close inspection, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  The finish
seemed new and the wood was unscratched and smooth.  However, unless the bed
was brand new when I bought it, which I doubt it was since it came from an
estate sale, someone had recently refinished it.  I had some old varnish
removal in the basement, so I decided to test it.  
I searched for a hard to see spot on the frame and decided to investigate.
After applying some varnish removal and scrubbing off several coats, I could
tell that whoever varnished it had put on several layers on order to emulate
a new wood shine.  Once I got to bare wood, I ran my finger over it and
noticed it felt freshly sanded.  Some of the latent dust was even present in
the deepest layers of the varnish.  What did this mean?, I wondered.
Whoever had this bed before me had completely stripped off the original
varnish, sanded the entire wood structure, and then put on twice as much
varnish than one would regularly need to cover it up.  I figured whatever
secret this bed contained was going to be impossible to find with just a
visual examination.  That is, until I looked under the bed.  The wood under
there felt rough and unfinished, so I decided to give it a closer look.  
I took my flashlight and lay on my back, scooting my head just under the
frame of the bed, looking up at what looked like slightly charred wood.  I
didn't notice this when I moved the bed and found this extremely disturbing
to say the least.  The wood looked like it had been exposed to fire, not
long enough to burn through, or even cause extensive damage, but just long
enough to heat the exterior surface and force what sap remained in the wood
to bubble up on the surface.  The color was even blackened a bit, which was
something else that I strangely didn't notice during the moving and setup
process.  I rubbed the sticky sap with my finger and smelled the charred
odor as lay there trying to remember if I even saw this side of the frame
when moving the bed when I heard something creak in the frame.  It sounded
like someone or something had just moved about on the mattress above.
Fear once again stuck me like a hammer.  I lay motionless, afraid to even
breath after what I experienced the night before.  After nearly 30 seconds
or so (which seemed like an hour to me), I finally gathered the nerve to sit
up.  I hadn't heard any additional noise and figured it must have been my
overactive imagination.  I started scooting back out from under the bed and
as soon as my eyes cleared the darkness, they were treated to a grisly site.
It was the small boy.  Lying on the bed, on his stomach with his head
leaning over the edge as if to greet me as I slid out from under the bed.  I
froze and looked up at him in terror.  Suddenly, his eyes grew large and he
twitched as if he had been startled. He then began to struggle as if someone
had grabbed him and started pulling him back towards the center of the
mattress.  He looked down at me with fear on his dead face and I heard a
pathetic voice echo through the room, "Don't let her burn me, don't let her
burr..." and then he disappeared over the edge of the bed.  I rolled away
from the bed with a speed I didn't know I possessed and backed up against
the far wall of my bedroom.  I scooted my body up the wall in attempt to
stand up ... without taking my eyes off the bed.  Again my eyes looked on
with disbelief.
There was no one there.  The bed was empty.  Only silence and sunlight shone
down upon it.  Not once taking my eyes off the bed, I backed out of the room
and ran downstairs.  I threw on some fresh clothes from my laundry room and
left the house in search of answers.  


I drove out to the estate where I purchased the bed, ready to go ballistic
on anyone who would hear my rant, not once even thinking how ludicrous my
story would sound.  I pulled up into the driveway of the house and noticed a
young couple moving things out of the house and into a moving van.  I got
out of my car and approached them, still shaking a bit from last night and
this morning's trauma.  
"I want to talk to someone who knows who lived here," I said.  
"I know who lived here.  It was my father," the young woman said.  "This is
my husband ... we are just finishing up the last bit of moving so we can
close the sale on the house.  What can I help you with?"
I nodded hello towards the man with her, who simply nodded back and went
back into the house.  "I bought a bed from the estate sale here.  It was the
one in the master suite.  Something is ... wrong with it."  I decided tact
and vague information was best at this point.
The woman searched her memory for a moment and finally spoke, "Well, that
was the one thing in the house I wasn't familiar with when we went though
pricing everything.  I assumed my father bought some time in the last few
months or weeks before he died.  I hadn't ever seen it before ... but ... he
was an avid collector of antiques and woodwork.  He especially loved fixing
up and restoring old pieces."
I thought for a moment and said, "The bed appears to have been recently
sanded and refinished, so that would make sense.  Do you have any idea where
your father could have bought the bed?"
"I'd have to look through his checkbook and credit card receipts, but I may
be able to find something.  Can I ask what's wrong with the bed?" She said.
"It's ... hard to explain," I stammered out, "But knowing the history of the
bed and who originally owned it would help immensely."  The woman simply
nodded her head and said that her father's papers were still inside the
house.  She invited me in, so I obliged.  She started going through some
random papers and receipts as I found a wall to lean against.  As she
rummaged around, my curiosity got the best of me.
After mulling it over for a moment or two, I finally got the courage to ask,
"If you don't mind me asking ... how did your father die?"
The woman stopped her search, took a second to gather her composure and told
me her father had died of a heart attack.  "He was only 57 years old, but I
guess he had slightly high blood pressure, especially after he and my mother
split. I swear, he didn't eat anything but fast food and junk!  Anyway, I
was the one who found him.  He hadn't gone to work for two days and they
were worried since he didn't call.  His secretary called me to go check on
him. Since I hadn't called and checked on him for a week or so, I left work
and rushed over."  
The woman then had to choke back a few tears, but she continued, "I found
him on the floor in the bedroom.  He had been trying to crawl out of the
bedroom to the hallway where there was a phone, but he didn't make it."
Finally a tear came down her cheek as she finished her story, "What really
broke my heart ... was the look on his face.  It was sheer terror.  I think
he knew he was going to die and it scared him.  I'm just so sad that he died
alone and that I wasn't there with him.  Maybe if I was there he wouldn't
have been so scared in his final moments."
Her story made me think.  Maybe his fear wasn't driven by his heart attack
alone, but maybe it was his fear that caused the heart attack.  My thoughts
lingered back to the bed as I thanked the woman for her candidness. She
nodded and began to again look for information on the bed.  I considered
telling the woman of my experience, but decided against it.  It may have
relieved her guilt, but then again, she may have thought I was nuts.  After
about 6-7 minutes of hunting around, she found something.  It was a
hand-written receipt from an antique shop called Old Treasures, which was
located another 20 miles outside of town.  The receipt read: 4-post bed,
condition - poor, $75.  
"Hmm, he bought this just two weeks before he died.  It may have been his
last project.  In fact, it must be the last thing he completed refurbishing
because there was no other new project left unfinished in his work shed out
back," the woman said.  
"I wonder how many nights he slept on it," I unintentionally spoke out loud.
"Why?" The woman asked.
"Well, let's just say I think the bed has some ... issues," I answered.
"Issues?  Like what?"  The woman replied, obviously confused.
"Well," I stammered as I tapped my finger on the receipt.  "I need to do
some research, but that bed may have contributed to your father's death."
"What?!  How?"  The woman asked, now thoroughly thrown for a loop.
"I can't explain yet, but give me your number and I'll let you know what I
find out," I said.  She reluctantly obliged and I grabbed the number and
proceeded out of the house, leaving her with a bewildered look on her face.
I got to my car and sped out of the driveway and towards the antique shop
that sold the man that cursed bed.  I got there in record time.




continued in Burning Bed - part 2