Day 743

Ever noticed those pairs of shoes on telephone wires, dangling above with no owner in sight? Ever noticed how small they are? I've yet to see a pair that are actually adult sized or coloured. The most common 'round my area are those little boy style shoes with comic book characters plastered over every inch.

They're mostly found in the more rural areas, down by the farm houses and the garden centres along where the motorways meet the back-water countryside roads. There's one section in particular that's constantly gaining shoes to the point where the line around that street is terrible at best. They've removed as many pairs as they can but somehow someone just keeps throwing more on.

While the farmstead opposite that section complains about the static over the lines they say they're too used to the sight to want it cleaned up for good. The people around are always very quick to follow their complaints with a "but we love it, it's a tradition, we wouldn't change it for all the tea in China" and other local idioms to express their fondness for the inconvenience.

Idioms aside the locals all admitted they knew who put the shoes up there but they refused to name the person (or persons - they refuse to specify number). It wasn't until blood was found on a pair fallen from the line that everyone else began to ask questions. Those along that street claimed ignorance until matching blood was found scattered about the doorsteps of every house on that row.

Belonging to a missing child from east London, the blood was less than a week old and there was a lot of it beneath their front doormats. Some houses had the blood painted about like a sigil against something while others seemed to have hastily thrown it over their steps, covering it with a mat and leaving it be.

The child's body was never found, the street shut off and every house searched all for nothing. It went quiet for a while until a video taken by a London film crew showed several pairs of recently added trainers dripping blood onto the tarmac road below. When they tried to ask the street they found every door partially open and unlocked, the metallic scent of blood thick in the surrounding air.