The Crooked Bed

It was the summer of 2016 when I moved into my uncle’s old farmhouse in the outskirts of a sleepy town. The house had been in the family for generations, but no one had lived in it for decades. My uncle, a distant relative I barely knew, had offered to let me stay while I worked on my thesis. The place was a two-story structure with a gabled roof, peeling paint, and a porch that sagged like an old dog’s back. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of mothballs. I chose a room on the second floor, at the end of a hallway that creaked with every step. The room had a single window overlooking the overgrown garden, and a bed that seemed to have a slight tilt to it, as if one leg was shorter than the others. I shrugged it off, thinking it was just an old piece of furniture.

My daily routine was simple: I’d wake up, make coffee in the rusty kitchen, and sit at the dining table surrounded by boxes of books and papers. The house was strangely quiet, but I attributed that to its isolation. The nearest neighbor was a mile away. At night, I’d hear the usual creaks and settling sounds, and the occasional scurrying of mice in the walls. Nothing out of the ordinary for an old house. But after a week, I noticed something odd: every morning, the picture on my nightstand, a small portrait of my parents, would be turned to face the wall. I thought I was doing it in my sleep, so one night, I propped it up against the lamp and watched it. Just before I drifted off, I saw it move. Not dramatically, but a subtle shift, as if something had nudged it. I felt a chill run down my spine, but I convinced myself it was a draft.

A few nights later, I woke up at 3 AM to the sound of scratching. It was coming from inside the walls, directly behind my bed. I sat up, heart pounding, and listened. The scratching was rhythmic, like nails on wood, and it moved in a pattern: scratch, scratch, pause, scratch. I told myself it was a rat, but the pattern was too deliberate. I got up and pressed my ear to the wall, and the scratching stopped. Then, a faint whisper, so low I could barely make it out: ‘Get out.’ My blood went cold. I stumbled back and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

The next evening, I called my uncle to ask about the house’s history. He hesitated, then said, ‘There was an old woman who lived there before us. She died in that room. They say she was a bit touched in the head. But you’re fine, right?’ I lied and said I was fine. After that call, I noticed the bed tilt seemed more pronounced. I measured it with a level, and the bubble was off by a good inch. No matter how many times I fixed it by placing a book under the leg, by morning, the book would be gone and the bed would be tilted again. It was like the floor itself was sloping towards the window.

One night, I had a dream. In the dream, I was lying in the bed, and the tilt was so severe that I was sliding off. I grabbed the headboard, but it was smooth, and I slid further. I looked at the window, and I saw a silhouette of an old woman standing there, her long hair covering her face. She reached out a gnarled hand and pointed at me, and I felt a pressure on my chest, like someone was sitting on me. I woke up gasping, and the bed was tilted even more, so much so that I was practically lying at a 45-degree angle. I got up and decided to move to the downstairs bedroom, the one near the kitchen. But as I was gathering my things, I noticed the portrait on the nightstand was gone. It wasn’t facing the wall anymore. It was gone entirely. I searched everywhere, but it was as if it had vanished into thin air.

The downstairs room was worse. I had been in there before, but I noticed something I hadn’t before: there was a child’s drawing on the wall, faded and torn. It showed a stick figure lying on a bed, with a crooked smile. Underneath, in a childish hand, were the words: ‘I like this bed.’ That night, I put my sleeping bag on the floor, refusing to use the bed. But as I lay there, I heard a faint creaking above me, like someone walking in the room I had just left. I looked at the ceiling, and I could swear I saw a crack forming in the shape of a smile. The scratching started again, but this time it was coming from beneath the floorboards, right under me. I looked under the floorboards through a gap, and I saw a pair of glowing eyes looking back at me. I screamed and ran out of the house.

I spent the rest of the night in my car, shivering. I called my uncle the next morning and told him everything. He was silent for a long time, then said, ‘I shouldn’t have let you stay there. That room was my grandmother’s. She had a thing about beds. She used to say that the bed was the most dangerous place in the house. She slept standing up for the last year of her life. I thought it was just her dementia.’ I asked him what she meant, but he wouldn’t say. I decided to go back to the house one last time to pack my things, but I couldn’t find the portrait anywhere. As I was leaving, I looked up at the window of that room, and I saw the old woman again. This time, she was holding my portrait and smiling. She waved at me, and then she turned the portrait to face the wall.

I left that town and never went back. But sometimes, at night, I still feel the bed tilting, even though I’m lying on a solid mattress on the floor. And I hear that whisper, ‘Get out,’ but now it sounds like ‘Get back.’ And sometimes, I think I see a crooked smile in the shadows, and I know that the bed is calling me back.