Ghost Heels

Copyright Oggbashan September 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

+++

"I'm scared, Harry. I don't want to do this."

"You agreed, Sarah," I said. "You promised Angela's parents and the Police that you would. It will help her parents and it might help find out what happened to Angela."

"I wouldn't do it for her. She was a vicious bitch. What she did to Jason that night was evil. But I don't want to meet her ghost. Dozens of villagers have heard her heels tapping along the road at night. And tomorrow tonight of all nights, Halloween, exactly a year after she died? A dead Angela could be worse than a live one."

"I'll be there. The Police will be there. All you have to do is walk from the village hall to the public toilets for the re-enactment. You will be recorded by multiple cameras. Unlike Angela who was on her own..."

"...was she? Or was she with her killer?"

"That's what this is about. Did she commit suicide or was she murdered by someone she trusted? We don't know. What you will do could help to solve the mystery."

+++

That Halloween Dance had been a year ago. We had all gone in costume. Sarah and I had gone as Dracula and Dracula's victim bride. As a joke, Sarah had worn the Dracula costume and I had worn the white bridal gown. Angela had gone as an Evil Fairy. She had been wearing yards of silver-grey chiffon floating around her, a long silver silk scarf draped around her neck and falling down her back, fairy wings... But instead of a wand she had been carrying an electric cattle prod.

Angela had been drinking too much. None of us, not even her boyfriend Jason, had known she had taken spice as well. Close to eleven o'clock her behaviour had been getting erratic. Jason had tried to calm her down, to take away the cattle prod which she was waving violently. It wasn't turned on but it was dangerous just as a heavy stick. Angela had pushed Jason into a low chair and had jumped on him.

Jason was drunk, as most of us were. He had been surprised by Angela's attack and unable to push her weight off him. Her sharp stiletto heel had torn his trousers and deeply scratched a leg. She wrapped her long silk scarf around Jason's neck and pulled it tight, actually strangling him. Several women had pulled Angela off Jason who wrenched the scarf off his neck. His face was bright red and his neck showed bruises the next day. Angela could have killed him if the other women hadn't intervened. Jason wadded the scarf and threw it at Angela.

"That's it!" Jason shouted. "I've had enough of you, Angela! You've gone too far. We're finished. Ended. I don't want to see you again -- ever!"

He turned away to go towards the bar. Before any of us could stop her, Angela had turned the electric cattle prod on and jabbed Jason in the back. He collapsed on the floor writhing uncontrollably. Several women grabbed Angela, took away the cattle prod, and pushed her out of the village hall, throwing the cattle prod after her. They shut and bolted the doors to keep Angela out. She banged on the door for a few seconds before the women heard her stiletto heels tapping as she walked away.

It took Jason half an hour to recover from the electric shock. His brother and sister took him home. Jason shared a bedroom with his brother who testified that except for a visit to the ensuite bathroom Jason hadn't been out of sight until after breakfast. By that time Angela had been found dead behind the public toilets fifty yards from the village hall. She had been strangled with her silk scarf and hung from the branch of a tree. Her silver high heels were a yard away. Jason's blood trace was on one of them.

What was odd was that she could have supported herself on her toes. The branch wasn't high enough to lift her wholly off the ground. If it had been? The assumption would have been suicide. As it was, the Police thought she had either been strangled and then hung up, or someone had pulled her downwards while she was hanging until she died from lack of breath. Either way, she was dead and had died less than half an hour after having been evicted from the village hall. The cattle prod, still turned on, had been found at her feet.

She hadn't been raped, nor had she any unexplained bruising. She hadn't been wearing panties but her dress was so long that no one would have noticed. She might have been masturbating because vaginal secretions were on the fingers of her right hand. Jason's DNA was on her scarf but in the places where it fitted with Angela strangling him. There were a few slight traces of DNA on the cattle prod from the woman who had thrown it out of the village hall. Angela's DNA was all over it and her thumb print was on the on/off switch and the activation button. Her DNA, not Jason's, was on the prongs but there was no evidence on her body that the cattle prod had been used on her.

The Scene of Crime officers thought Angela might have peed behind the toilets. They weren't sure because several other people had used that area, earlier in the evening after the toilets had shut for the night. Angela's gown was marked with urine but that was probably a result of her strangulation.

Angela's body was still being kept in the morgue until a coroner could decide exactly how she died. Meanwhile? Her ghostly footsteps haunt the village.

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All through the dark hours of winter and early spring people had reported hearing Angela's heels tapping their way along the pavement near the public toilets. The sound was only heard when there was no wind or rain and it was a still night. It was louder when it was frosty. Most people just heard the steady sound of the heels. Some said the sound became faster for a few seconds and then stopped, as if Angela was hurrying before coming to a halt. The sounds scared many of us. Angela had been a bitch to almost everyone when alive. What might she do as a vengeful ghost?

Jason had been Angela's boyfriend for about a month. He was a wimp, and no match for Angela who had decided she wanted him. Was it Jason she wanted, or the farm he would inherit? Most of us thought Angela was more interested in the farm. She had used and abused almost every other single man in the village. She had made enemies of both sexes with her sharp tongue. She had been suspected of a poison pen campaign which ended after she died. The poison pen had damaged marriages and other relationships by suggesting plausible but false infidelities. The vicar had even included a reference to the poison pen in a sermon. He had been accused of an affair with one of the women who organised the church's floral decoration. It wasn't true even if the woman was attracted to the vicar.

There were too many people in the village who hated Angela but I couldn't think of anyone who hated enough to kill her. Like the poison pen letters had, suspicions of murder were wrecking the village's social life. How could we be as friendly as we had been when one of us might be a murderer?

This evening my problem was Sarah. She was really worried about re-enacting Angela's last half hour. She would be wearing a similar dress, heels, scarf and carrying a cattle prod without its batteries. The re-enactment would start at the doors of the village hall.

We were sitting on the settee in the living room of my small cottage. Sarah was leaning against my shoulder. I had one arm wrapped around her and was stroking her soft brown hair with my other hand. Her face was pressed against my chest.

"You will be there, won't you, Harry?" she asked again.

"Yes, Sarah, as close as I can be without getting in the way of the film crew. Nothing and no one will get close to you."

"Not even Angela's ghost?"

"I'd kick Angela's ghost if she existed. I had no time for her alive and less now she is dead."

"You were one of the few men who never dated Angela, Harry? Why?"

"Her parents and mine have been friends since before they married. My parents and I knew exactly what Angela was like. Her parents couldn't understand how she had turned into such a spiteful bitch. She may have hurt many villagers but her parents suffered more than anyone."

"And tomorrow I have to pretend to be her, Harry."

"You're not Angela. You'll be dressed to look like Angela but you will still be my Sarah."

"Your Sarah? You love me, don't you, Harry?"

I picked up her left hand and held it in front of her face.

"That ring shows that I do, Sarah. Your engagement ring. We're planning the wedding. I love you. I want you to be my wife."

Sarah snuggled closer to me.

"I want you too, Harry."

Suddenly she sat up.

"Sod Angela! Fuck Angela's ghost! I want you, Harry. Now. In bed! Come on..."

She dragged me off the settee and upstairs to the bedroom.

"We're going to get rid of Angela's ghost with some energetic sex. That's what I need. I want my Harry in me."

Sarah stripped quickly before turning on me and tearing my clothes off. She pushed me on the bed and jumped on me. She straddled my chest before she slowed down. One of her hands stroked my cheek.

"I trust you, Harry, with my life."

"That's what marriage is supposed to be about, Sarah. I trust you too."

"You'll be there for me tomorrow night?"

"You know I will."

Sarah slid down my body. Her hand reached for my erection and fed it inside her where I wanted it to be. She bounced up and down frantically, squealing with delight. All I could do was hold back until she had shuddered into orgasm after orgasm. Sarah had never been this demanding or this vocal. I watched, mesmerised, as her breasts swayed with her movements. Her nipples were more erect than I had ever seen. I reached out a hand to touch. Sarah grabbed that hand before pressing it on her breast. I squeezed. She squealed louder and pulled my other hand to the free breast.

Sarah's excitement went on and on. My resistance, trying to hold back, was waning as her lower lips clamped harder and harder around me. Eventually I couldn't restrain myself any more. I erupted into her, bucking my hips as she thrust downwards. She clamped harder still as I pumped into her.

I slumped back, exhausted. Although Sarah had ridden me, the effort of preventing an early ejaculation had been considerable. She lowered her body to my chest, her breasts spreading over my torso.

"That was great, Harry," Sarah said. "We must do it more often -- like tomorrow night after the re-enactment when I've stripped off that bitch's gown."

Sarah stayed on my chest for most of the night. By the morning she was snuggled against my back.

+++

About eleven o'clock on Halloween evening I was helping Sarah to dress herself as Angela had been a year ago. We were in a side room of the village hall. This year's Halloween Dance was scheduled for Saturday night, not this Wednesday evening that was the actual date of Halloween.

The gown, the scarf, the stiletto heels, the cattle prod -- they were all replicas. The originals were still held as Police evidence pending the continued inquest. There was no battery in the electric cattle prod so Sarah couldn't accidently shock herself or anyone else.

"There are too many layers to this dress," Sarah complained. "And the panels fly all over the place. How Angela could have hauled it up to pee? I don't know. I'll just have to try when I get behind the toilets."

I could see what Sarah meant. The inner gown was in one piece. The rest was several layers of chiffon that were split from bust to lower hem. It might look spectacular when dancing but would be a nuisance in a wind.

We went out into the main village hall. Sarah felt that she was making an entrance onto a stage because there were dozens of people waiting for her.

"Let the show begin," she announced.

Several people frowned. Was Sarah taking this too lightly? I knew different. Sarah was scared stiff and worried. She went out of the main doors which were shut behind her. She hammered on the door a few times before turning to walk away. The sound of her high stiletto heels seemed unnaturally loud.

Fifty yards later Sarah walked into the darkness behind the toilets. The sound of her stilettos stopped as she walked onto the grass. The video cameras were recording in infra-red and very low light. We could hear the slither of chiffon layers. I was watching, as were the Police, on a monitor.

Sarah had real difficulty keeping the layers of chiffon raised so she could squat to pee. Eventually she used the cattle prod to keep some of the layers away. A police woman made a loud intake of breath. What Sarah had done could be probable.

Sarah moved further away to stand under the branch. She reached up and wrapped the end of the long scarf over the branch. She knotted it but instead of tying it around her neck as it had been for Angela she just let it dangle. That was the Police advice. They didn't want Sarah to strangle herself.

What Sarah hadn't told me was what the Police had asked her to do next. She reached under her gown to finger herself as Angela might have done. She had the same difficulty with the layers of chiffon. They kept getting in the way. As before, Sarah used the cattle prod to keep the chiffon away. Even so, it still obstructed her fingers. She turned the cattle prod around and used it as a dildo. Sarah shuddered and kicked off her heels. We could see what might have happened. Sarah dropped the cattle prod, stood up, and walked towards the back of the toilets.

"Shit!" Sarah exclaimed. "I'm wet!"

The floodlights were turned on. Sarah's head and shoulders were glistening. We could see a flow of water from high up just under the eaves of the toilet block. It was arcing away from the wall and falling into bushes. Sarah had walked straight into the stream.

I came forward and dried Sarah as best I could with a clean handkerchief.

We, the video crew, and the Police went back to the village hall to review what had been recorded.

"I think I know what happened," Sarah announced.

"You do?" A senior Policeman asked.

"We know that Angela was drunk and high. I think she used the cattle prod when peeing, as I did. She probably wanted to try auto-eroticism, which would explain the scarf around her neck. But... and this is the important part, she couldn't pleasure herself with her fingers. She used the cattle prod, shocked herself internally and in the spasms her legs couldn't hold her up. She hung herself as she writhed -- probably unintentionally -- but she underestimated the effect of the cattle prod inside her. It must have been much stronger than the effect on Jason."

+++

Sarah's theory was proved correct. A further examination of Angela's body showed burning deep inside her vagina.

As for the ghostly stiletto heels? The overflow from the toilet block would begin about five and a half hours after that toilet was last used. It would start by dripping on the concrete base around the block. Those drips would sound like someone walking in high heels. After about ten minutes the flow would increase and the jet of water would arc past the concrete into the bushes. The leaves would muffle the noise of the water.

In summer the toilets were open until ten pm. The overflow wouldn't start until three-thirty in the morning when there were few people around to hear it. From the first of October until the thirty-first of March the toilets closed at six pm. The overflow drips would be heard as stiletto heels about eleven-thirty pm, the time that Angela probably died.

A plumber banished Angela's ghostly heels.