Scary Short Stories

Underneath the Mattress

Ever since my parents died, I've been running low on money. I have no family left to help me out. I decide I have to sell my parents' house. It's been in my family for 25 years but it's my only source of money right now.

I call up a real estate agent to help me out because I'm only 16 and don't know how to sell a house.

After it's all done, I decide to find a cheaper house to stay in. It's weird, the house I find is free. It's a one bedroom, one bathroom house with a kitchen and living room. Not too big but not too small for my liking. I don't know why it would be free. Yes it's kind of dirty, old, and in the middle of nowhere but still, free?

I decide to research the house a bit after I move in completely.

That's why. I think.

There's a legend saying that people who lived here would be murdered and hid somewhere in the house.

It's just a stupid legend. I tell myself before heading to bed.

There was a queen sized bed in the bedroom when I first moved in, so I just put on some fresh sheets and pillows and slept on it.

I fall asleep quickly. I sleep on the left side of the bed. After a few hours of sleep, I wake up and start to toss and turn. I roll over to the right side to fall back asleep, but when I do my eyes shoot open. There's a weird, hard lump in the mattress.

It's an old mattress, it's going to be lumpy.

I try sleeping on it for a few more minutes before it just bothers me too much. I get up and walk over to the right side of the bed. I lift up the mattress to search under it.

Nothing.

It must be the filling inside the actual mattress. I'll look tomorrow. I walk back to the left side and fall back asleep.

//

I wake up and decide to check out the inside of the mattress. I search the house for something sharp to slice the mattress open with. Eventually I find a kitchen knife, hopefully sharp enough to cut through a thick mattress.

I go back to my room and start slicing. I run the knife back and forth for what seems like hours before I finally make a small hole in the mattress. I slide the knife in the mattress and then run it against the whole length. I pull the fabric back and look at what my lump is.

I almost vomit at the sight and the smell that spreads quickly through the air of my room. It's a dead, rotting body. It's a fresh body, too, pretty recent. It's skull was bashed in and the body was drenched in blood. The legends were true.

And then I wonder, How many other bodies are there in this house?

That was the last thing I ever thought.