The Shoes

Every town has its urban legends about some monster that either kills, kidnaps or just scares the crap out of people. They're either considered good publicity or just an annoying rumor that's been circulating since who knows when.

Our town wasn't much different.

We had this tall tale about a woman who ran off into the woods to escape an angry mob of people who were convinced she'd done something to their children.

They drowned her in the nearby river, and for whatever messed up reason, took her shoes. (Why on earth would they want her shoes? Why?) Then, the next day, they found out the real killer was arrested trying to break into a neighbor's place.

Clichéd, right? That's what I thought it was. Just a big ole cliché story about some woman being convicted of some crime and then getting killed by a group of total morons. And usually after the killings they find out the kids were alive or that someone else did it.

So I did more research, and found out the urban legend was based on a disappearance some odd years ago. The woman wasn't chased into the woods by anyone. In fact, she didn't even drown.

A family had gone out camping for the weekend and only been there for five hours when they realized that the mother, who went to take a shower at the nearby bathrooms, was gone. No trace of her was ever found and no one had found her body. It was almost as if she just vanished off the face of the earth.

And after what was weeks of searching, they gave up.

All their searching turned up was a pair of shoes next to the showers. Black flats with gold beads and three rhinestones on the tip of them. These shoes weren't exactly ideal for what they had planned for the weekend. They had apparently showed them to the husband and he didn't seem to have any idea of why his wife would bring them. He was sure she wasn't even wearing them when she headed towards the restrooms.

So how come the police found them near the showers? In fact, how did they get up there if his wife hadn't been wearing them? And just why were they left there? Did the person who took her not want them?

I closed the article and tried to put it out of my mind by playing some games on Facebook. It honestly didn't work. A half hour later and I heard the front door open and someone call out, "I'm home!"

Getting out of the computer chair, I walked to the living room to see it was my older brother. He held up a long box in one arm and a big bag in the other. He told me, "Hey, Liuanne. I got us dinner. And I got you a present."

I rolled my eyes and asked, "Oh, and what is it?"

Setting the bag on the floor he held out the box to me saying, "I know you've needed new shoes, so when I saw these I thought they'd be perfect for you."

I took the box from him and opened it up to see, a pair of black flats with gold beads and three rhinestones in a pattern on the toe of either shoe. My eyes widened as I held up both of them by the toes and asked, "H-how the? Where in the world did you find these?"

Looking over at my brother as he picked up the bag of groceries and walked past me to the kitchen he said, "The store, silly."

I followed after him as he continued, "They were in the middle of the shoes section just sittin' there."

He set the bag down on the counter and started taking things out as I asked, "Um... so Jay, how much were they?"

Putting down a large sub that was for dinner, he answered, "Oddly enough they didn't have a price tag so the clerk just let me pay a dollar for it. Weird, right?"

I nodded and thanked him before running to my room with the shoes. Soon as I got into my room, I ran over to my closet and chucked them inside. Then I locked the door to make sure that nothing could get in, or out.

After I tested the door to make sure that the lock was sturdy, I walked to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Jay was already eating like he hadn't seen food in five years, and didn't seem to notice that I was nibbling at my sandwich. The shoes were all I could think about; the more I thought about them, the less hungry I felt. But I ate my sub and chips anyway. I didn't want to make my brother worried.

So I put the plate in the sink, went back to my room, and heard the oddest noise. Like something was tapping at the closet door. The tapping got louder and louder until it became banging on my door. I glanced at my bedroom door and realized that Jay didn't hear the knocking at all. And that terrified me more than the shoes did.

Hesitantly I walked over to the door and unlocked it. Soon as I turned the lock the noises stopped. Pulling the door open, I reached in and tugged the little chain for the light. The only thing I saw in there other than my clothes, were the shoes. But something seemed odd about them, I know I just chucked them in the closet and that they should be in disarray but... they weren't. They were arranged neatly together with the toes facing the back wall of my closet.

I bit my lip as I walked into the closet and slipped them on my feet. They felt a little tight but otherwise fit just fine. When I tried to walk I realized that my feet felt... heavy... like I couldn't move them as easily as I used to. I struggled to pull one foot even the tiniest bit off the ground. I started to panic and tried to take my feet out of the shoes and found that I couldn't. It was like they were glued to my skin.

So I screamed, "Jay!! Jay! Help me!!"

I felt a pair of hands grip my shoulders and the next thing I knew my vision went dark...

A Few Hours Later
I sat on my little sister's bed looking at the picture of her and me as a cop asked me, "Did your sister seem depressed or disturbed by anything?"

"No. She was acting completely normal the last time I talked to her." I answered looking at him and he asked me, "Are you sure? Think. Did she say or do anything out of the ordinary?"

"Well... I gave her these new shoes and she sorta went nuts over them..." I told him. He raised a brow and questioned, "New shoes?"

"Yeah. Black shoes with gold beads and these rhinestones on the end of them." I answered and the officer asked, "So she'd be wearing them right?"

"Yeah..." I said looking over at the closet. They were checking that part of the room more intensely then the other parts so I asked, "Why are you in her closet? Shouldn't you be checking out the other parts of her room?"

He walked over to the closet and motioned me to come over and when I came over he pointed in and simply said, "That's why."

I raised a brow as I looked in and saw... the shoes I had bought for my sister. Laying neatly together with the toes pointed towards the back wall.