What came Out of the Bed!

What came Out of the Bed!

Two nights later I was woken by a fit of coughing in the middle of the night. There was a black acrid smell to the air, and one of the now empty pipes of the bedheads was showing signs of fire and smoke. It appeared that something had erupted out of it and shot into the air. Two cups of tea later and I went back to inspect the damage, carrying a can of air freshener.

The pipe wiped clean with a clean cloth, yet the smell lingered so I sprayed the freshener liberally, meaning to spend some time on Facebook d until the effect finally went away. I had no idea what had come out of the pipe, or whether there had been some kind of explosion within it! Perhaps even an evil entity in spiral of black smoke had come out, as in all the paranormal series. One can hope, of course... It makes for good writing!

I coughed out a lot of gloop, and started to feel more normal splashing jellies, and making words on Facebook – it takes a lot to scare me these days. The bed looked innocuous, and welcoming, even with the duvet splashed out like a curled wave.

Eventually I went back to sleep. The night passed fairly peacefully at least in my flat. Although later I learnt that something had gone on upstairs.

The next night the man with the very bad smell came round. He was smellable all over the block of flats. How did I know this, I'd taken a donation for the charity pick up upstairs to be collected the following day!

Had he been trapped in the bedpost? He wandered all over the flats moaning about having nothing, with doors closing in front of him upstairs among the other flats. I could hear him, thrashing about. People said things such as...

“Where's your clothes?”

“We can't help you any more!”

“You really ought to put some clothes on!”

“Who let you in?”

“Can you go now please! I'm going to bed now!”

Eventually he went somewhere else – only I'm not sure it was outside. Later in the night he came back. He was crying about food, and that his friends were now all dead and gone. Apparently the animals he lived with had eaten them. It was weird. He wanted someone else for them to eat, they were hungry. He assured me that he'd not eaten them. He'd tried to keep them alive, yet their condition was such, that they couldn't survive.

I could hear squeaks coming from outside. I'm not sure that it was from rats! Someone told him curtly to get himself a wash, or a shower. He cried.

“They'll eat me too, if I smell too good!” he said slyly.

I knew that talking was dangerous so I moved away from the wall. He was now outside in the corridor. The smell was pungent! We as a nation are getting used to human smells again, being poorer than we were, has led to less use of heated water, and deodorant. His smell however was so strong that even from outside my flat – it invaded by itself.

He moved closer to the wall. I could hear his hands trying to pin point my whereabouts in the bed.

It was as if he were a magic act. It felt like my head, right at the very top was being pulled.

I fled to the safety of the bathroom.

“You'd let me in for a shower and some food,” he said softly.

I knew I mustn't. It was too dangerous. He was procuring. Was this the meat market?

Another voice sounded from one of the other flats. Male, hard. “He's got millions of friends to feed,” it said sharply, “What ever you do, don't let him in. A tin of tomato soup or beans won't do...

There are just too many of them!”

I'd been thinking of putting out a tin of soup. It was uncanny. Sense prevailed though.

So what had we got here? How had it got in? It surely couldn't have been what was in the bed, that the German family wanted put in storage... I went to the front door and looked out through the peep-hole. There was no one in the corridor. No one at all!