The Creeps! || Book of Spooky Stories (COMPLETED ✔️)

24 ~ Shoe In The River Bed

(ORIGINAL STORY FROM SCARY STORIES AND URBAN LEGENDS)

*****

This happened a few years ago. I had been through a tough divorce with my high-school sweetheart, and my friend - we'll call him Al - would distract me by taking me on random road trips. One morning, we decided to just jump into the car and drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico. At this point in my life, I always had a digital camera with me. I liked to take pictures at random, thinking of myself as an amateur photographer. Along the way we stopped at a small gas station/souvenir stand and picked up some cherry cider.

When we got to Carlsbad we saw that dammed off a small local river and pumped it so they could work on nearby bridges. We found a spot at a park nearby and parked. Drinking the cider and snacking on some treats we bought before, we decided to explore the driver river bed. We weren't the first to decide this, obviously, as there were footprints everywhere. There were people's footprints, dog's, cat's, and even what looked like javelina tracks.

Then I started to feel an odd sensation like we were being watched. I looked around and figured it was probably someone in one of the backyards facing the area we had walked to. Then Al caught my attention.

"Hey," he said, waving me over, "look at this!"

There was a spine on the ground. It looked like a spinal column, but from what we couldn't tell.

"What do you think it belongs to?" Al asked as we stared at it.

"Probably a beef or pork bone of some kind." I replied as I took a snapshot, and then kept on walking, thinking nothing of it.

As we continued, we discovered a strange, rust-colored rock jutting out of the soft sand. Al and I walked closer to it- sticking out of the sand, half buried, was a girl's shoe.

"I'm gonna kick the shoe," I told my friend as I walked back a few feet then began running at it.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard a little girl's voice shout, "No! Don't! Please!" I looked around but didn't see anyone. Al was looking at me confused.

"Why did you stop?" Al asked as I looked for the source of the voice.

"Didn't you hear the little girl's voice?" I replied.

Al didn't see anyone around us in the early afternoon light. "No one said anything." We shrugged it off and continued to walk farther.

Now I felt like more people were watching me. It was so heavy that it almost felt like a slight physical weight. Al stopped in his tracks and pointed ahead. "There's another bone!" Al said, pointing to what looked like a broken femur laying on the sand. It had some footprints around it, but other than that looked undisturbed. We looked at it, and Al whispered, "We should go. It looks like a human bone." I agreed.

The weight I was feeling was overwhelming, and the last bone looked too human. I took another picture and we headed back to the car. Al called the non-emergency number for Carlsbad. We told them what we saw, gave them our information, and were on our ways home in no time. I had forgotten all about the bones and the rust-colored rock until a week later when Al called me.

He had gotten a call from the Carlsbad police. The bones found were indeed human, and though there were plenty of footprints around, no one else had reported it. After finding them they started an investigation. Al told me they had asked him a few questions about the rust colored rock and how we found the bones. After they explained that it wasn't a large rock, but the remains of a pickup truck that had disappeared along with a family of three. A man, a woman, and their daughter.

Upon investigation of the area, they found a boot sticking out of the sand. Inside were the skeletal remains of a girl's foot. Thinking back to it made my blood run cold. Was the unseen voice that of the dead girl's? My thoughts were interrupted by what Al finished saying:

"Anyways, we helped closed a cold case from the 80s. So good job there."

*****

A/N: Ugh, I'm SO sorry! I've been in Little Space a lot lately, and I can't write in Little Space. I managed to keep myself out of it today to write this!

Also, I'm sorry if something doesn't make sense. I'm pretty sure this is fake... I'll edit later.