One night, many years ago now, I was asleep in the back bedroom of my parents’ house in an old iron bed that had belonged to my great grandmother. Over in the morning, I woke up when I felt someone lay down beside me. Somehow I knew whatever it was, it wasn’t human and I was terrified to turn over, afraid of what I would see. I lay paralyzed in fear until daylight broke through the windows. I jumped up, still without looking back, and practically ran from the room.

When my mother got home after working third shift at Hamlet Hospital, I told her what had happened. At first, she looked surprised, then proceeded to tell me that the same thing had happened to her. She said, at first, she thought it was our dog, but when she called his name, he came running in from another room. When I asked her why she never said anything, she replied that she didn’t want to scare us. When asked if she turned around to see what it was, she said, “Are you kidding?”

A year or so later, my youngest brother was sleeping in that same room when he said he woke up to hear voices in the wall. He woke up my other brother who was sleeping in the middle room right beside this bedroom to tell him about the voices. My other brother told him he was imagining things, to go back to sleep. My youngest brother got back in bed and went back to sleep. Then, my other brother started hearing the voices. He woke our younger brother and they went to find our father to tell him what had happened.

Not sure if it’s the room or the bed, but we have tried to find out if a previous owner might have passed away in the house with no luck. Mama did finally get rid of the bed, but to this day, no one in the family will sleep in that room. We won’t even go in there after dark…..