HAUNTED WIRRAL: The haunted bed

In this latest story, Tom unravels the mystery behind the haunted bed...

One sunny Saturday morning in November 2002, 32-year-old Lauren Atkinson left her home in Birkenhead and went over to Liverpool to meet up with her old friend Lisa Dean at the Brook Café in Quiggins, a popular alternative indoor market where Lisa worked.

Over veggie sausages, toasted cheese sandwiches and coffee, the two young ladies caught up on one another’s lives, and Lisa was a little taken aback to learn that Lauren had split with her boyfriend Lewis.

He’d left Lauren and moved in with a 19-year-old girl, and to add insult to injury, Lewis had taken the bed he had slept in with Lauren to the flat of his new girlfriend.

Lauren looked for a second-hand bed at Quiggins but couldn’t find one, so she and Lisa later went to a decent second-hand furniture shop in Wallasey.

As the girls had a look around the large premises, Lisa noticed something strange.

There was a rather new-looking double bed in a shady corner of the shop, and lying face down on it was an old man in a flat cap, brownish cardigan, light-coloured trousers and slippers.

He was stretched out straight upon the mattress with his arms at his sides, and Lisa wondered if he’d collapsed, so she went to the owner of the store and told him about the apparently unconscious man.

The owner of the shop, a Mr Fred Clive, returned a puzzled look and said he’d seen no one in that part of the premises but he went and had a look – and saw that there was no one there.

"He was lying across the mattress, honest," said an embarrassed Lisa.

Then Lauren saw the double bed and asked Mr Clive, "How much is that bed?"

"It’s er, £25, and we can deliver it for just five quid if you’re local," answered the second-hand store’s owner.

"I’ll take it," said Lauren, and she went and sat on the mattress of the bed and bounced gently on it.

"It looks new," she gauged, sliding her palm across the white damask cover of the mattress.

Mr Clive smiled and nodded.

"It’s got memory foam and the woman who brought it in said it was only a year old but she was going to live in France."

The bed was delivered that teatime, and by then, Lisa and Lauren had bought pillow cases, a bottom sheet and a duvet, along with a few bottles of wine.

Lisa just knew deep down that the old man she had seen lying prostrate on the bed had been some ghost or apparition, but she didn’t mention her suspicions to Lauren, and at 9pm, Lisa made her way back home to Liverpool.

Lauren said she was shattered and couldn’t wait to get into the new bed.

She undressed, got into the double bed, and then she leaned over to the bedside lamp and clicked it off.

Within a minute or so she heard herself start to snore as she lay on her back, so she turned on her right side, and dozed off.

She had a vivid dream that she was back with Lewis and felt him trying to get on top of her so she shouted, "No, stop it!"

Lauren woke up, and felt a weight on her – the pressing down of a body – and this naturally startled her.

She reached out and turned on the lamp but saw nothing on the duvet and it was plain to see that no one was in the bedroom.

All the same, Lauren left the bedside lamp on, as she felt a little unnerved by the eerie experience.

She awoke at around three and went to the toilet.

When she came back into the bedroom, Lauren got the shock of her life, for there was an old man lying face down on the bed.

He was dressed identically the same as the man that Lisa had said she’d seen on the bed at the second hand store earlier on that day: flat cap, cardigan, light coloured trousers and slippers.

As Lauren looked on in shock, the man turned in one swift movement so he now faced the ceiling, yet his straight legs and arms remained perfectly rigid.

The whole body of the stranger then rose steadily upwards head first with the feet remaining on the bed.

This unearthly slow movement really frightened Lauren, but her legs felt too weak from fear, so she stood there, feeling as if she was going to faint.

The man then smacked his lips loudly and ran the tip of his tongue along the top lip as he floated towards Lauren.

His feet remained about 5 inches off the floor as he glided along towards the frightened young lady.

Lauren turned and ran out the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

She was that scared, she had borrowed money off a neighbour first thing in the morning and got a taxi to Quiggins to tell Lisa what had happened.

They enlisted the help of Lisa’s boyfriend to take the bed back to the second hand store in Wallasey, and Mr Clive begrudgingly refunded Lauren.

Years later, Lauren had found out that an old man had dropped dead on that bed from a heart attack.

They had found him face down in the mattress, and days later his ghost was repeatedly seen on the bed, so the man’s wife sold it.

Haunted Liverpool 30 is out now on Amazon.