Chapter two

We strapped the bed to the roof rack because it wouldn’t fit in the car with me in it as well; there was a pause before we decided that if I fell off the car roof there’d be no need for the twenty quid bed anyway... Well I had to carry the thing around the place so I charged them delivery, they just didn’t know it. Right now we were getting close to our house, the bed made a weird noise when we went too fast and the wind rushed through; it sounded like it was screaming and it creaked a lot. I didn’t mind the sound, it wasn’t the most comfortable sound to hear but there were worse things to hear in the middle of the night. I’d thought long and hard about it and decided that I didn’t know what ghosts and ghouls did to you, but I knew what people did to each other and it couldn’t be any worse really.

I grumbled as I pulled the bed from the car roof, having to balance it on my head to get the legs totally clear since I’d have hell to pay if I scratched the car. Each footstep I took was accompanied with a thump and an “ouch” as the bed bounced off my back again and again, the stairs were the worst and every five steps up I had to pull a bed post from some orifice. My temper was frayed already before the metal posts stuck in the door; I could have easily turned it sideways and pulled it in but I decided to rattle it and yank at the thin base.
“Yes that’s right, shake it and try to twist it in half” a bored voice said right in my ear.
I dropped the bed and spun around at once, I was about to ask who was there when the thin metal dazed me by falling through the doorway and onto my head.

The voice forgotten I lowered the bed frame into place, quickly dumping my thick mattress onto the criss-crossing metal wires of the base and starting to make my bed.
I was half way inside my covers when someone mumbled “Jeese this guy’s an idiot” right in my ear.
I tore off the covers at once, my head twisting like an owl’s to try and find the source of the voice. My hands shook and twitched for a minute before I caught them, dropping the sheets onto my bed for later and stuffing my dancing digits into my pockets. I kept looking around as I left the room, trying to be as silent as I could as I crept from my room; though I wasn’t sure why I was sneaking around in my own bedroom. At the top of the stairs I looked around again to check if my invisible assailant had appeared yet, found they hadn’t and dashed downstairs desperately.
“Bye mum I’m off for a walk!” I yelled as I slid across the floor and slammed the door behind me as I almost ran from the house.

It took me two minutes and thirty feet to come to my senses; it was really the fact I couldn’t take this panicked running but it slowed me down enough for me to get my mind straight. There hadn’t been a voice I thought to myself as I began to walk slowly now It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I was following my usual path without thinking about it; going from my house then along a few winding paths into the old factories. This was a district full of old abandoned factories; breweries, mills and metal works that had been shut down over the years for various reasons. I liked it here; it was creepy and there wasn’t another living person anywhere near here usually. I cut through the old hops factory, passing great vats of rain water that had once held beer. There’d been a fire here years ago; some new guys had gotten drunk on some of the strong stuff and light up a cigarette. Twelve people had died in the blaze and the brewery had been closed a few days afterwards; they’d barely been open enough to clear up the mess. I walked along a broken pathway, skipping along fallen roof pieces where the path was too dangerous to walk and sliding down the side of a collapsed work shed. I picked my way across the wrecked floor, leaking broken pipes poking from the walls and shattered bottles from the few people who did dare come here.

I kept hopping among the cobbled streets, dashing among broken buildings and falling down several times as the unsteady cobbles slipped out from underneath me. I always ended up scratched and bruised when I took this route, the pain helped my mind sharpen and put my thoughts in order. The voice had just been my mind playing tricks, the old lady was just creepy and cold and the bed would last me a good few weeks with my luck. My feet dashed across the remains of a rolling press; the lady had just been trying to scare a naive young skinny boy when she’d told me that story about how the bed returned. I thundered down some steps in the quiet dusty air of a tin plate works; the one thing that bugged me was that if she had really just been telling me a story why did she give it to me free I mean- a plank gave way, I dropped.
“OW!” I yelled over and over as I rolled down the soft wooden steps, trying to desperately to cling at the rails as they flew past.

I gripped a rail finally, my arms locked and I swung round and slammed into the side. I let out a groan of pain from the smack of metal rail in my ribs, just lying there and breathing heavily. I got up finally, clutching my chest as I looked down at the floor a few meters below me. It was coated with broken glass; bottles and windowpanes lay on the floor and pointed their blood hungry teeth at my already prickling flesh. Still holding my ribs I skirted the snarling spikes and made my way home the quickest and safest route I could. It took me under two minutes to find my way back home; all over troubles were forgotten in the face of the pain in my chest. I opened the door carefully not to make any noise, closed it and crept upstairs past my TV engrossed parents. I didn’t want them to find out I’d been in the factories again, they were already nervous about me wandering around there and I didn’t want them to get the idea that it was dangerous. I slumped onto my new bed and groaned; my everything ached in pain from the fall and my arms and chest still hurt from holding onto the rail.
“Pains in the chest are never a good sign” a voice sighed in my ear as a chill went through me.

BOAMM chapter three