Beneath the Mattress

A family went on vacation together and checked into a suite at a cheap old hotel. They booked two double rooms, one for the husband and wife and one for their children, a boy and a girl.

When the children got to their room, they both detected a bad odor. The husband called down to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager. He explained that the room smelled very bad and they would like another suite. The manager apologized and told the man that they were all booked due to a convention. But he said he was going to send a maid up to their room to clean and to try and get rid of the odor.

After lunch, the family went back to their rooms. When the kids walked into their room, they could both still smell the same odor. Again, their father called the front desk and told the manager that the room still smelled really bad. The manager told the man that there was nothing he could do.

So the kids had to spend the night in the room. The girl and boy held their noses, trying not to breathe in the stink. Eventually, despite their discomfort, they got to sleep and in the morning, their parents were knocking at the door to wake them up.

When they opened the door, their father smelled the stink and decided he had to get to the bottom of what was causing this horrible smell. He started searching the entire room for the source of the bad odor. He sniffed the towels, took down the curtains, and checked the carpet. The kids helped out too, checking the bedclothes and the mattress. As he pulled the top mattress off the bed, the young boy saw there was a big hole in the box spring base underneath. He looked down into the base of the bed and came face to face with a horrible sight.

There, lying curled up inside the base was the dead body of a woman. The boy realized that he had slept all night just a few inches away from a rotting corpse.