The Return of the Red Shoes
Prologue
Doctor Jane Robinson's throat burned, her stomach heaved, and her eyes watered while fixated on the drain hole of the surgery sink.
'Damn, what is it about this corpse?' she pondered.
Back when she was studying she was the only intern who never threw up during her entire training. Twelve years later and the esteemed Dr. Robinson stood in the morgue’s bathroom, regurgitating like a drunken prom date. She felt pathetic. She had seen maggots crawling from corpse's ears. She had seen eyes gouged, bodies crushed, faces pulverised. Yet she had never seen anything like what was lying on her table.
Ever.
Nurse Ginny Smith continued rubbing the Doctor's back. “Jane, are you okay?”
“I have been a forensic investigator for twelve years, but that cadaver makes me feel ill for some reason. It’s her face. She is so bloody relieved but how could she be, after what happened to her?”
Ginny had no answers for Jane. All she could do was hold the Doctors hair back and ready a clean washer for the older woman to wipe the spew from her face once her stomach emptied. Of course there was one other thing Ginny could do. That was to never, ever look at that body. Anything that made Dr Robinson, the tough as nails bitch of the morgue, throw up was more than Ginny‒or any other semi sane person‒should see.
No matter what Doctor Robinson did she could not get that face out of her head. The girl on the slab was a hacked and bloody mess. It looked as though she had been through a mincer. Jane decided that it was probably some guy who claimed to love her. It was always love that did the most damage.
Jane considered what it was causing her to have such a reaction to the corpse. It was not the severed flesh, nor the bones poking through skin, she decided, nor the blood or dangling tendons that was particularly upsetting.
It was the girl's face. She appeared happy. Her face revealed that in the final moments of death she was grateful, truly relieved. How could anyone in that state be thankful.
How could you die with a smile on your face while someone is hacking at you with an axe?
CHAPTER ONE - All That Was Old Is New Again
Alison received the call at roughly eleven am that morning. “Thank heavens, she's dead!" Alison suddenly realised what she looked like, being so happy someone had keeled over. No wonder Scott's expression was quizzical. "Oh, I don't mean that the way it sounds. It's just that I get two calls a week about her atrocious house." Scott, the intern, just politely smiled and kept his opinions to himself like usual.
Alison was the Mayor’s right hand, which meant she was the one who actually ran the city. However she received none of the perks except for a hand signed card from the Mayor every Christmas. The job also required that she was forced to smile politely every time the Mayor’s wife called her Angela, this required a great deal of Alison’s will power not to strangle the pretentious woman.
The person that Alison was glad had passed over to the other plain was Ms Von Pein. She had been a crazy lady who lived in the wealthy suburb of Paradise Vale. Her family had owned the dwelling for generations, and thus it was an unpainted shack bordered by pristine, white stucco mini-mansions. The McMansions were not only identical in appearance but every one of them was so neat and tidy it was actually offensive. The Von Peel home, however, was a tired, sagging eyesore.
Ms Von Peel was a hoarder who cluttered her house‒inside and out‒with junk. The neighbours had been ringing a minimum of twice a week to insist that Alison ‘do something’. The council sent cleaners, psychologists, lawyers and police, but as soon as anyone cleaned the pigsty up Ms Von Peel went back to her junking with a fury. Alison would not have been surprised if Ms Von Pein did it just to annoy her.
The death of the crazy old lady offered Allison a chance to get the mess fixed up and greatly improve her working conditions by reducing the many complaints from snobby Paradise Vale residents.
“Come on, Scott. We're going to get that house sorted. Today. That irascible old bat keeling over is the highlight of this sucky week, and you are going to help me.” Scott sighed with resignation and grabbed his raincoat. Alison smiled. "Oh come on, Scotty. Smile!. You know this is what gets us the big bucks." Scott grinned at his boss, he admired her trim figure, clear cornflower blue eyes and tidy blond bobbed hair.
"Sure, Al. When are those big bucks turning up, exactly?" Scott grinned back.
"Now, Scott. I know you do this for your civic duty, like me." She flashed a massive mega-watt smile and Scott’s heart skipped a beat.
Alison and Scott entered the Von Peel dwelling fifteen minutes later. The house frowned with discontent at the frantic activity that had been taking place. The old lady's body had disappeared but the smell of her rotting corpse still hung in the air. The aroma fused with rotting meat, mould, dead mice and dust. Everything was covered in a fine dust that made every surface gritty. The air inside was heavy and angry, giving Alison a headache.
Walls of indiscernible scrap were piled from floor to roof. There were thin paths that wound through the rubbish. Every now and again was a random rustling from either large cockroaches or mice. It was over whelming. Alison pointed to a room in which a filthy bed sat like an island floating on a torrid sea of refuse.
“That's where she died. God, this place is depressing. I recommend just sending in the big boys and trashing everything." Scott smiled at her.
“Can’t do that Alison, not until the estate is settled. The best I can do is investigate the situation. Let me call some people.”
Scott disappeared around a corner of Junk and slipped outside to get some fresh air while he called the Public Attorney. Allison was about to leave but something drew her toward the back room.
The last room in the house was tiny and clean. It was painted a soft, delicate yellow, and it was empty except for a box perched on a stool in the centre of the room. On top of the box was a letter.
“To whom this may concern, In the event of my death this box is to be burned. Do not under any circumstances open the box. The contents of this box have been in the safe keeping of my family for over five hundred years. I am the last of my line and have no one to take on this duty. The object inside is of no real value, no monetary value at least. However the object will cause despair to any person who touches it. My intention was to dispose of this item but I could not. I would try to discard this item in every describable manner. The following morning it would be back in this room. I am hoping that with the end of my line someone else will be able to destroy them.
For the love of all that is holy, if you value your life, please follow these instructions.
Yours Sincerely
Anya Von Peel"
"My goodness, Ms Von Peel was a whole new can of crazy. Probably ran around the backyard wearing a tin foil hat." Realising she was standing in Captain Crazy's house talking to herself; Alison chuckled and shook her head.
She could not help herself. She checked behind her to make sure that she was alone, and gingerly lifted the lid. What was inside was truly remarkable.
Sitting amongst tissue paper was a pair of red shoes made of soft, kid leather. The creation of them was clearly handmade, and the design of them was like none she had ever seen before. They were archaic. A compulsive urgency took over Alison's soul. She lifted up the soft shoes and slipped them into her pockets, then scrunched the note and threw it in a pile of rubbish that leant against a nearby wall.
She stroked the shoes inside her pocket, they were soft and sumptuous. She loved how the soft, pliable leather caressed her fingers. She could see herself putting the shoes on. She could visualise her feet slipping into them. She could imagine how lovely the shade of red was, like deep, rich blood. It was all in her mind's eye, but it felt oddly real. . A tinny, musical sound filled the air, like a massive music box playing. Even after turning every which way she could not find the origin of the hypnotic, eerie music. Then it stopped.
"Did you hear that music?" Alison asked urgently when Scott walked into the room. His brow furrowed.
"What music? Oh, I know. I just got a new ringtone for my iPhone. Maybe that was it."
Alison knew the music didn't come from a ringtone. "Yes, that must have been it. Sounds good. What is the news on the fate of this house
“Okay, according to Public Attorney her will reads that the house is to be left to the local Lutheran Church. I have contacted them and they are happy for the building to be cleaned but they want it standing until it after the reading of the will.” Alison smiled distractedly and nodded. She then made her way out of the house silently, as if in a dream.
Scott frowned as he watched Alison glide out of the house, moving with a new grace. Alison did not normally glide; rather she marched as if going into battle. Scott thought it odd but hurried out of the house, deciding he was going home early to take a long, hot shower. He intended on using every cake of soap in his house until he felt clean. He took a long last look at the house. It occurred to him that in some ways he may never feel clean again.
Alison too went home. On the way there the Mayor rang her to ask where the hell she was. Alison simply said, “Not now.” She then did something that would have been unthinkable earlier that day; she hung up on the Mayor, cutting off his ranting with finality. She drove to her apartment as if by remote control.
When she got home Mr Muggles, her cat, was there to greet her, but she did not bend to pat him. He continued to mewl. His human was acting the way that she normally would. She did not seem to be in any rush to feed him. It was most upsetting.
Alison took the ancient shoes from her pocket and put them on the coffee table. Then she sat on the cracked leather chair opposite the table and stared at them. She had never seen anything so beautiful. She felt that even touching them was wrong but she wanted to grab them and rub them against her cheek. After a while of sitting there she shook her head, trying to clear the fog that had built inside of it.
Time ticked on.
Hours later she looked up at her carriage clock that had been ticking away on her mantelpiece. She was stunned to realise that she had been staring at the shoes for three hours. The sun had gone down an hour ago and she had been sitting in the dark staring at the same spot. It was an odd feeling.
Alison stood and went to her bathroom. As she felt the cold water splash over her face she began to feel herself again. Eventually scrubbed clean, she felt it was time to leave the shower. She wrapped her green dressing robe around herself and went to check her phone. Apparently the Mayor had rung her five times and Scott had rung six times. It was now just after ten and she, exhausted, decided to go to bed. She avoided the shoes, but they kept haunting her mind.
That night came the music box (melody/harmony/song).
Then came a dream.
She was in a small village within The Black Forest of Germany. Everyone around her was dressed in rags of mostly course material. They stank of sweat and desperation. Bathing was obviously not high on the villager’s priority list. Most of them had black stubs of teeth and greasy hair. Alison caught an image of herself in a thick, grimy window.
She was a child with curly, irrepressible, ginger hair. Her nose was sprinkled with freckles and her eyes glistened like blue ice chips. Intellectually Alison knew it this was not her face and that she was not ten. She should have felt worried but, here in this dream reality, it all felt normal.
The street she had been standing on faded and merged into a child’s bedroom. Alison started to dance in her box room. She was in the widow Marlee's house. She sat on the narrow cot and put on her lovely red shoes and went to church. She was wearing her confirmation outfit. Her red shoes contrasted with her crystal white dress. The minister was yelling at her but she did not understand his words, he was speaking another language. He kept pointing at her lovely, red shoes.
Her foster mother, the widow Marlee, was disappointed in Alison and made her promise to never wear the evil shoes again. She agreed, but the next week another girl was in a pretty new dress. Alison wanted to be beautiful, to be envied. She put on her red shoes and went to church. Again they were angry with her for wearing them. They kept yelling, and the old lady shook her head and turned her back.
Suddenly Alison began to dance. She felt alive and free. She twirled and spun, leaped and twisted. Eventually her legs burned and her arms felt like lead. Her back was screaming and she was dizzy, but her feet just kept on dancing. They danced and danced and danced. Finally Alison spied an axeman and begged him to cut her feet off.
He reluctantly did, and her disembodied feet went dancing into the mist.'
Alison woke up screaming and sweating. The memory of that hideous song still rang inside her head. Alison looked at the shoes. She decided that they were cursed. I am going to throw them out, right now! Her choice was difficult, and the idea of hurting her wonderful shoes tormented her. However the fear of the blood red shoes overwhelmed her lust for them.
Alison rose out of bed and went to them. They were singing a luring siren song. Their tinny, musical plea pounded inside her head. Alison wanted to pat them, maybe even put them on. Instead she thrust her shoulders back, took the shoes to the rubbish chute and dropped them down. She listened to the shoes moving down the metal chute. It was the sound of freedom.
Alison went back to bed relieved and she quickly settled into a deep sleep. In the morning Alison opened her eyes and the first thing she saw were the shoes.
There they were sitting on her bed. Alison screamed.
CHAPTER TWO- Dance of Doom
Alison continued her everyday life mechanically, and every afternoon she would come home and stare at the shoes. During the evening she would try to destroy them, and every morning they would be there to greet her. If the shoes stayed in the house she would toss and turn and dream of the dance that never ends. She was in a trap, and there did not seem any way out.
One rainy day Alison was particularly despondent. Everyone’s voices were hollow echoes that washed over her. She had no interest in food, and even Mr Muggles had left her, probably because she kept forgetting to feed him.
That day the Mayor had fired her. Even worse, on the notice of dismissal, he called her Angela. There was nothing left. She was even going to lose her apartment. The notice of eviction was pinned to her door when she got home. Alison knew who‒or rather what‒was to blame.
Alison's resistance crumbled. With eager fingers she reached out to the shoes and softly caressed them, she even sniffed them. The cyclical nature of their relationship was tiring. She would try to destroy the shoes and in turn the shoes tried to destroy her. It was clear to her who had won.
Slowly and deliberately she slid her feet into the soft, kid leather. They melded to her feet like a second skin. Tinny music enveloped her. She felt like she had to dance.
Alison danced down the hall, the stairs, and out onto the city streets. Her body waved in time to the ancient tune in her head. Everywhere she went people stopped and stared at this plain woman in the non-descript sweat suit dancing like a prima ballerina. Her movements were elegant and graceful. Her arms were like the wings of a gossamer butterfly drifting through the urban jungle, and her feet were arched onto her toes. She pirouetted. She did arabesques. She made impossible leaps.
Alison’s body screamed as it stretched and pulled. She was no dancer and had no ability to do what she was doing. Her muscles were eating themselves with acid, her tendons were all stretched, and her joints screamed and protested. There was nothing she could do.
She could not control her body or the direction it took. She screamed nonstop when the shoes made her dance on the highway. The sound of horns tooting, cars swerving and the inevitable of metal crashing into other metal were deafening. The worst was the screams from the people who were injured in the accident and the howls of the mother whose child was bloodied and dead. Alison, having caused the death and destruction on the highway simply danced away while her eyes wept with horror and grief.
Hours later the dance continued and Alison found herself in a hardware store. The customers tried to ignore the girl dancing down the aisles. Using that sixth city sense they refused to make eye contact in the hope that she did not exist and they would not be put in danger by her. They pretended they could not hear her pleas.
"Help me. Stop me. Please just kill me.”
Alison danced down the aisle where the axes were kept. The shoes kept her there, spinning. The shoes slowed until she was able to grab an axe. Then they committed another betrayal. They took her to Scott’s house.
Scott ambled outside after hearing an odd sound. His usual neat appearance was ruffled as he stood on his veranda in his pyjama bottoms.
“Alison, what are you doing here? Why are you dancing?”
“Scott, please help me.”
Scott tried to stop her but as strong as he was she just kept moving. Her pain was pouring out of her eyes, tears stained her cheeks she spoke with ragged breaths, “I can’t stop.I... just... keep... dancing. o something.”
Scott ran inside his house and brought out some sleeping pills. “Here take these.”
Allison shoved the pills down and Scott tied her to his fence so that she could not dance away. He sat on the dewy grass and watched her. He kept hoping she would stop but her eyes drooped and he realised with horror that she was dancing in her sleep. He thought she might be crazy, but even that did not explain how she could dance while unconscious. He stayed and watched over her. By four o’clock he dropped off to sleep.
A blood curdling scream woke him. Allison had chopped one of her feet off, and was hacking at the last one while it danced. Scott tried to grab the axe off her. Alison surrendered it as she passed out. “Please Scott, cut off my foot. Please.”
Scott closed his eyes and cut off her other foot, then screamed in horror as the disembodied feet danced away covered in blood. He rang the ambulance and held Alison.
“Ali I know you can’t hear me but I just want to tell you that I love you. I know I always hid it from you, from myself but it is the truth.”
Just then the ambulance turned up. They rushed toward Alison seeing the pool of blood. The Ambulance officer bent down and inspected her.
“I'm sorry, she has passed on. What the hell happened here?” Scott looked up, the bloodied axe lay beside him.
“I killed her.”
Alison was taken away in the ambulance, and was on time for her date with coroner Jane Robinson.
Epilogue
Doctor Jane had left the morgue and gone home. Ginny was just cleaning up the lab. She was careful to keep clear of the body which gave her chills. She then spotted something under the gurney. Ginny bent down and spied a flash of red. Oddly enough there were some ancient red shoes. Ginny looked around. She reached out and shoved them in her pocket.
By A. Sims
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Doctor Jane Robinson's throat burned, her stomach heaved, and her eyes watered while fixated on the drain hole of the surgery sink.
'Damn, what is it about this corpse?' she pondered.
Back when she was studying she was the only intern who never threw up during her entire training. Twelve years later and the esteemed Dr. Robinson stood in the morgue’s bathroom, regurgitating like a drunken prom date. She felt pathetic. She had seen maggots crawling from corpse's ears. She had seen eyes gouged, bodies crushed, faces pulverised. Yet she had never seen anything like what was lying on her table.
Ever.
Nurse Ginny Smith continued rubbing the Doctor's back. “Jane, are you okay?”
“I have been a forensic investigator for twelve years, but that cadaver makes me feel ill for some reason. It’s her face. She is so bloody relieved but how could she be, after what happened to her?”
Ginny had no answers for Jane. All she could do was hold the Doctors hair back and ready a clean washer for the older woman to wipe the spew from her face once her stomach emptied. Of course there was one other thing Ginny could do. That was to never, ever look at that body. Anything that made Dr Robinson, the tough as nails bitch of the morgue, throw up was more than Ginny‒or any other semi sane person‒should see.
No matter what Doctor Robinson did she could not get that face out of her head. The girl on the slab was a hacked and bloody mess. It looked as though she had been through a mincer. Jane decided that it was probably some guy who claimed to love her. It was always love that did the most damage.
Jane considered what it was causing her to have such a reaction to the corpse. It was not the severed flesh, nor the bones poking through skin, she decided, nor the blood or dangling tendons that was particularly upsetting.
It was the girl's face. She appeared happy. Her face revealed that in the final moments of death she was grateful, truly relieved. How could anyone in that state be thankful.
How could you die with a smile on your face while someone is hacking at you with an axe?
CHAPTER ONE - All That Was Old Is New Again
Alison received the call at roughly eleven am that morning. “Thank heavens, she's dead!" Alison suddenly realised what she looked like, being so happy someone had keeled over. No wonder Scott's expression was quizzical. "Oh, I don't mean that the way it sounds. It's just that I get two calls a week about her atrocious house." Scott, the intern, just politely smiled and kept his opinions to himself like usual.
Alison was the Mayor’s right hand, which meant she was the one who actually ran the city. However she received none of the perks except for a hand signed card from the Mayor every Christmas. The job also required that she was forced to smile politely every time the Mayor’s wife called her Angela, this required a great deal of Alison’s will power not to strangle the pretentious woman.
The person that Alison was glad had passed over to the other plain was Ms Von Pein. She had been a crazy lady who lived in the wealthy suburb of Paradise Vale. Her family had owned the dwelling for generations, and thus it was an unpainted shack bordered by pristine, white stucco mini-mansions. The McMansions were not only identical in appearance but every one of them was so neat and tidy it was actually offensive. The Von Peel home, however, was a tired, sagging eyesore.
Ms Von Peel was a hoarder who cluttered her house‒inside and out‒with junk. The neighbours had been ringing a minimum of twice a week to insist that Alison ‘do something’. The council sent cleaners, psychologists, lawyers and police, but as soon as anyone cleaned the pigsty up Ms Von Peel went back to her junking with a fury. Alison would not have been surprised if Ms Von Pein did it just to annoy her.
The death of the crazy old lady offered Allison a chance to get the mess fixed up and greatly improve her working conditions by reducing the many complaints from snobby Paradise Vale residents.
“Come on, Scott. We're going to get that house sorted. Today. That irascible old bat keeling over is the highlight of this sucky week, and you are going to help me.” Scott sighed with resignation and grabbed his raincoat. Alison smiled. "Oh come on, Scotty. Smile!. You know this is what gets us the big bucks." Scott grinned at his boss, he admired her trim figure, clear cornflower blue eyes and tidy blond bobbed hair.
"Sure, Al. When are those big bucks turning up, exactly?" Scott grinned back.
"Now, Scott. I know you do this for your civic duty, like me." She flashed a massive mega-watt smile and Scott’s heart skipped a beat.
Alison and Scott entered the Von Peel dwelling fifteen minutes later. The house frowned with discontent at the frantic activity that had been taking place. The old lady's body had disappeared but the smell of her rotting corpse still hung in the air. The aroma fused with rotting meat, mould, dead mice and dust. Everything was covered in a fine dust that made every surface gritty. The air inside was heavy and angry, giving Alison a headache.
Walls of indiscernible scrap were piled from floor to roof. There were thin paths that wound through the rubbish. Every now and again was a random rustling from either large cockroaches or mice. It was over whelming. Alison pointed to a room in which a filthy bed sat like an island floating on a torrid sea of refuse.
“That's where she died. God, this place is depressing. I recommend just sending in the big boys and trashing everything." Scott smiled at her.
“Can’t do that Alison, not until the estate is settled. The best I can do is investigate the situation. Let me call some people.”
Scott disappeared around a corner of Junk and slipped outside to get some fresh air while he called the Public Attorney. Allison was about to leave but something drew her toward the back room.
The last room in the house was tiny and clean. It was painted a soft, delicate yellow, and it was empty except for a box perched on a stool in the centre of the room. On top of the box was a letter.
“To whom this may concern, In the event of my death this box is to be burned. Do not under any circumstances open the box. The contents of this box have been in the safe keeping of my family for over five hundred years. I am the last of my line and have no one to take on this duty. The object inside is of no real value, no monetary value at least. However the object will cause despair to any person who touches it. My intention was to dispose of this item but I could not. I would try to discard this item in every describable manner. The following morning it would be back in this room. I am hoping that with the end of my line someone else will be able to destroy them.
For the love of all that is holy, if you value your life, please follow these instructions.
Yours Sincerely
Anya Von Peel"
"My goodness, Ms Von Peel was a whole new can of crazy. Probably ran around the backyard wearing a tin foil hat." Realising she was standing in Captain Crazy's house talking to herself; Alison chuckled and shook her head.
She could not help herself. She checked behind her to make sure that she was alone, and gingerly lifted the lid. What was inside was truly remarkable.
Sitting amongst tissue paper was a pair of red shoes made of soft, kid leather. The creation of them was clearly handmade, and the design of them was like none she had ever seen before. They were archaic. A compulsive urgency took over Alison's soul. She lifted up the soft shoes and slipped them into her pockets, then scrunched the note and threw it in a pile of rubbish that leant against a nearby wall.
She stroked the shoes inside her pocket, they were soft and sumptuous. She loved how the soft, pliable leather caressed her fingers. She could see herself putting the shoes on. She could visualise her feet slipping into them. She could imagine how lovely the shade of red was, like deep, rich blood. It was all in her mind's eye, but it felt oddly real. . A tinny, musical sound filled the air, like a massive music box playing. Even after turning every which way she could not find the origin of the hypnotic, eerie music. Then it stopped.
"Did you hear that music?" Alison asked urgently when Scott walked into the room. His brow furrowed.
"What music? Oh, I know. I just got a new ringtone for my iPhone. Maybe that was it."
Alison knew the music didn't come from a ringtone. "Yes, that must have been it. Sounds good. What is the news on the fate of this house
“Okay, according to Public Attorney her will reads that the house is to be left to the local Lutheran Church. I have contacted them and they are happy for the building to be cleaned but they want it standing until it after the reading of the will.” Alison smiled distractedly and nodded. She then made her way out of the house silently, as if in a dream.
Scott frowned as he watched Alison glide out of the house, moving with a new grace. Alison did not normally glide; rather she marched as if going into battle. Scott thought it odd but hurried out of the house, deciding he was going home early to take a long, hot shower. He intended on using every cake of soap in his house until he felt clean. He took a long last look at the house. It occurred to him that in some ways he may never feel clean again.
Alison too went home. On the way there the Mayor rang her to ask where the hell she was. Alison simply said, “Not now.” She then did something that would have been unthinkable earlier that day; she hung up on the Mayor, cutting off his ranting with finality. She drove to her apartment as if by remote control.
When she got home Mr Muggles, her cat, was there to greet her, but she did not bend to pat him. He continued to mewl. His human was acting the way that she normally would. She did not seem to be in any rush to feed him. It was most upsetting.
Alison took the ancient shoes from her pocket and put them on the coffee table. Then she sat on the cracked leather chair opposite the table and stared at them. She had never seen anything so beautiful. She felt that even touching them was wrong but she wanted to grab them and rub them against her cheek. After a while of sitting there she shook her head, trying to clear the fog that had built inside of it.
Time ticked on.
Hours later she looked up at her carriage clock that had been ticking away on her mantelpiece. She was stunned to realise that she had been staring at the shoes for three hours. The sun had gone down an hour ago and she had been sitting in the dark staring at the same spot. It was an odd feeling.
Alison stood and went to her bathroom. As she felt the cold water splash over her face she began to feel herself again. Eventually scrubbed clean, she felt it was time to leave the shower. She wrapped her green dressing robe around herself and went to check her phone. Apparently the Mayor had rung her five times and Scott had rung six times. It was now just after ten and she, exhausted, decided to go to bed. She avoided the shoes, but they kept haunting her mind.
That night came the music box (melody/harmony/song).
Then came a dream.
She was in a small village within The Black Forest of Germany. Everyone around her was dressed in rags of mostly course material. They stank of sweat and desperation. Bathing was obviously not high on the villager’s priority list. Most of them had black stubs of teeth and greasy hair. Alison caught an image of herself in a thick, grimy window.
She was a child with curly, irrepressible, ginger hair. Her nose was sprinkled with freckles and her eyes glistened like blue ice chips. Intellectually Alison knew it this was not her face and that she was not ten. She should have felt worried but, here in this dream reality, it all felt normal.
The street she had been standing on faded and merged into a child’s bedroom. Alison started to dance in her box room. She was in the widow Marlee's house. She sat on the narrow cot and put on her lovely red shoes and went to church. She was wearing her confirmation outfit. Her red shoes contrasted with her crystal white dress. The minister was yelling at her but she did not understand his words, he was speaking another language. He kept pointing at her lovely, red shoes.
Her foster mother, the widow Marlee, was disappointed in Alison and made her promise to never wear the evil shoes again. She agreed, but the next week another girl was in a pretty new dress. Alison wanted to be beautiful, to be envied. She put on her red shoes and went to church. Again they were angry with her for wearing them. They kept yelling, and the old lady shook her head and turned her back.
Suddenly Alison began to dance. She felt alive and free. She twirled and spun, leaped and twisted. Eventually her legs burned and her arms felt like lead. Her back was screaming and she was dizzy, but her feet just kept on dancing. They danced and danced and danced. Finally Alison spied an axeman and begged him to cut her feet off.
He reluctantly did, and her disembodied feet went dancing into the mist.'
Alison woke up screaming and sweating. The memory of that hideous song still rang inside her head. Alison looked at the shoes. She decided that they were cursed. I am going to throw them out, right now! Her choice was difficult, and the idea of hurting her wonderful shoes tormented her. However the fear of the blood red shoes overwhelmed her lust for them.
Alison rose out of bed and went to them. They were singing a luring siren song. Their tinny, musical plea pounded inside her head. Alison wanted to pat them, maybe even put them on. Instead she thrust her shoulders back, took the shoes to the rubbish chute and dropped them down. She listened to the shoes moving down the metal chute. It was the sound of freedom.
Alison went back to bed relieved and she quickly settled into a deep sleep. In the morning Alison opened her eyes and the first thing she saw were the shoes.
There they were sitting on her bed. Alison screamed.
CHAPTER TWO- Dance of Doom
Alison continued her everyday life mechanically, and every afternoon she would come home and stare at the shoes. During the evening she would try to destroy them, and every morning they would be there to greet her. If the shoes stayed in the house she would toss and turn and dream of the dance that never ends. She was in a trap, and there did not seem any way out.
One rainy day Alison was particularly despondent. Everyone’s voices were hollow echoes that washed over her. She had no interest in food, and even Mr Muggles had left her, probably because she kept forgetting to feed him.
That day the Mayor had fired her. Even worse, on the notice of dismissal, he called her Angela. There was nothing left. She was even going to lose her apartment. The notice of eviction was pinned to her door when she got home. Alison knew who‒or rather what‒was to blame.
Alison's resistance crumbled. With eager fingers she reached out to the shoes and softly caressed them, she even sniffed them. The cyclical nature of their relationship was tiring. She would try to destroy the shoes and in turn the shoes tried to destroy her. It was clear to her who had won.
Slowly and deliberately she slid her feet into the soft, kid leather. They melded to her feet like a second skin. Tinny music enveloped her. She felt like she had to dance.
Alison danced down the hall, the stairs, and out onto the city streets. Her body waved in time to the ancient tune in her head. Everywhere she went people stopped and stared at this plain woman in the non-descript sweat suit dancing like a prima ballerina. Her movements were elegant and graceful. Her arms were like the wings of a gossamer butterfly drifting through the urban jungle, and her feet were arched onto her toes. She pirouetted. She did arabesques. She made impossible leaps.
Alison’s body screamed as it stretched and pulled. She was no dancer and had no ability to do what she was doing. Her muscles were eating themselves with acid, her tendons were all stretched, and her joints screamed and protested. There was nothing she could do.
She could not control her body or the direction it took. She screamed nonstop when the shoes made her dance on the highway. The sound of horns tooting, cars swerving and the inevitable of metal crashing into other metal were deafening. The worst was the screams from the people who were injured in the accident and the howls of the mother whose child was bloodied and dead. Alison, having caused the death and destruction on the highway simply danced away while her eyes wept with horror and grief.
Hours later the dance continued and Alison found herself in a hardware store. The customers tried to ignore the girl dancing down the aisles. Using that sixth city sense they refused to make eye contact in the hope that she did not exist and they would not be put in danger by her. They pretended they could not hear her pleas.
"Help me. Stop me. Please just kill me.”
Alison danced down the aisle where the axes were kept. The shoes kept her there, spinning. The shoes slowed until she was able to grab an axe. Then they committed another betrayal. They took her to Scott’s house.
Scott ambled outside after hearing an odd sound. His usual neat appearance was ruffled as he stood on his veranda in his pyjama bottoms.
“Alison, what are you doing here? Why are you dancing?”
“Scott, please help me.”
Scott tried to stop her but as strong as he was she just kept moving. Her pain was pouring out of her eyes, tears stained her cheeks she spoke with ragged breaths, “I can’t stop.I... just... keep... dancing. o something.”
Scott ran inside his house and brought out some sleeping pills. “Here take these.”
Allison shoved the pills down and Scott tied her to his fence so that she could not dance away. He sat on the dewy grass and watched her. He kept hoping she would stop but her eyes drooped and he realised with horror that she was dancing in her sleep. He thought she might be crazy, but even that did not explain how she could dance while unconscious. He stayed and watched over her. By four o’clock he dropped off to sleep.
A blood curdling scream woke him. Allison had chopped one of her feet off, and was hacking at the last one while it danced. Scott tried to grab the axe off her. Alison surrendered it as she passed out. “Please Scott, cut off my foot. Please.”
Scott closed his eyes and cut off her other foot, then screamed in horror as the disembodied feet danced away covered in blood. He rang the ambulance and held Alison.
“Ali I know you can’t hear me but I just want to tell you that I love you. I know I always hid it from you, from myself but it is the truth.”
Just then the ambulance turned up. They rushed toward Alison seeing the pool of blood. The Ambulance officer bent down and inspected her.
“I'm sorry, she has passed on. What the hell happened here?” Scott looked up, the bloodied axe lay beside him.
“I killed her.”
Alison was taken away in the ambulance, and was on time for her date with coroner Jane Robinson.
Epilogue
Doctor Jane had left the morgue and gone home. Ginny was just cleaning up the lab. She was careful to keep clear of the body which gave her chills. She then spotted something under the gurney. Ginny bent down and spied a flash of red. Oddly enough there were some ancient red shoes. Ginny looked around. She reached out and shoved them in her pocket.
By A. Sims
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