Chapter 3: BunkShaker
Adana clung higher in the iroko tree, her small legs wrapped tightly around a thick branch as the night wind tried to pry her loose. The bark felt hotter tonight, pulsing like a vein. Below, the Egbere(bush baby)
circle had grown larger, more ugly gnome-spirits, their baby-like cries mixing with low, hungry growls from deeper shadows.
One wrong word and they would swarm the tree.
She took a deep breath, voice barely louder than a whisper but carrying clearly into the dark:
"This is the tale of the Bunkshaker, the turbulent playful spirit that turns sleep into terror at St. Agnes…"
It started as rumours among the junior students in the boys' hostel at St. Agnes Secondary School. "Something shakes the bunks at night," they whispered during morning assembly.
"Like an invisible child playing rough."
No one believed them at first. Until the marks appeared.
The Bunkshaker had no form most could see, only a cold, giggling presence that smelled faintly of wet earth and spoiled palm wine. It came after lights-out, when the dorm was thick with the sound of breathing and the occasional snore.
It chose its victims randomly, but once it picked you, it never forgot.
The first night it visited a bunk, it shook the metal frame gently, just enough to make the bed creak and sway like a cradle in a storm.
Most students gripped the edges and stayed on. But if you rolled too close to the edge and fell with a thud onto the concrete floor, the Bunkshaker marked you.
The boy who fell first woke with fresh, burning scars across his back, thin, whip-like lines that looked like tiny fingers had clawed him.
From that night on, small misfortunes followed him: lost textbooks, sudden fevers, teachers who suddenly hated him for no reason. The scars never healed properly; they itched and bled whenever it rained.
Those who did not fall earned the spirit's full attention.
For seven nights the Bunkshaker would return, each night more aggressive than the last.
Night one: soft rocking, like a mother trying to soothe a fussy child.
Night two: harder shakes, the bunk rattling loudly enough to wake the whole row.
Night three: violent jerks that slammed the metal legs against the floor, making the entire frame dance.
Night four: the giggles turned into wild laughter echoing in your head even when you covered your ears. The bed would lift slightly on one side, then slam down.
Night five: the spirit became furious. Invisible hands yanked at your mattress, trying to flip you off. Cold breath blew directly into your face, carrying the smell of gravesoil.
Night six: the bunk shook so violently that screws loosened and fell out. Students in nearby beds heard bones creaking as if the frame itself was alive and angry.
Night seven: pure malice. The Bunkshaker hurled itself against the bunk again and again, the metal screaming. If you somehow held on through the final night, gripping the rails until your fingers bled, praying in every language you knew, the spirit would finally stop.
Then came the reward… and the curse.
The survivor would wake the next morning feeling unnaturally lucky. Exams passed without study. Money appeared in pockets. Teachers smiled at them. Opportunities opened like magic. But within weeks, terrible news always arrived: both parents dead in a sudden accident, a car crash on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, a mysterious fire in the village house, or simply "they stopped breathing in their sleep."
The good luck was paid for in full with their parents' lives.
The ones who fell off early carried the scars and the lingering bad luck for the rest of their short, miserable lives. Some went mad from the constant itching and the sound of distant giggles in their ears.
Others simply disappeared after the marks spread across their entire bodies like a map of torment.
No one knew where the Bunkshaker came from. Some elders said it was the restless spirit of a boy who died in the hostel years ago after falling from the top bunk during an earthquake.
Others whispered it was an evil spirit that had grown bored with killing children and now preferred to toy with the living, turning their safe beds into instruments of fear.
At St. Agnes, students began tying themselves to the bunks with ropes and belts. Some slept on the floor in groups. But the Bunkshaker only laughed louder.
It preferred the top bunks, the higher the fall, the better the mark.
One SS2 boy named Tolu lasted all seven nights. He emerged the next morning with shining eyes and a sudden promotion to class captain. Two weeks later, his mother and father were found dead in their bed, bodies already cold, faces frozen in identical expressions of surprise.
Tolu never smiled again. The "luck" followed him like a shadow, wealth, girls, perfect scores, but every night he still heard the faint creak of metal and a childish giggle just beyond his window.
The Bunkshaker still walks the dorms on quiet nights. If you listen carefully after lights-out, you can hear it testing the bunks, gentle rocking at first, then building into violent, playful fury.
And if your bed begins to shake… hold on tight.
Because falling is painful.
Surviving is worse.
Adana's small voice cracked at the end. She pressed her cheek harder against the warm bark, heart hammering as the Egbere below erupted into louder, more excited weeping.
Their baby cries mixed with sharp, gleeful giggles that sounded too much like the Bunkshaker itself.
One Egbere with a particularly twisted face looked up, tears streaming, and wailed:
"The beds still shake in the dark… The parents still die… More, storyteller! Give us the next terror before we shake this tree!"
Adana felt the branch beneath her tremble slightly, whether from wind or from the spirits' growing impatience, she could not tell. Her fingers dug into the bark until sap-sticky resin coated her palms.
She whispered into the night, voice shaking:
"Tomorrow…"
The creatures settled, but their cries grew wilder, closer.
Adana closed her eyes and held on, knowing the Bunkshaker's giggles might soon join the chorus in the forest.
And somewhere back at the abandoned school, empty bunks waited in the dark, ready to be tested once more.