The Curious Case of the Feet in a Pair of Boots

A lot happened in 2020, a lot that I can imagine most of us wish to forget. Nevertheless, it has changed the world forever and whether we like it or not COVID-19 is not going anywhere. For me, as well as many many others, COVID-19 has completely changed our lives. I was 22 and had not long graduated university. I lost my job at the start of the pandemic and found myself sofa-surfing. It was awful. The only good thing in my life was having met my current partner, and he asked me to live with him. Our flat wasn't much just a studio flat in a building of about fourteen others.

Social housing isn't great and everyone is in each other's business. It can be a real toxic environment that can result in physical conflict. Although, amongst the gossip and chaos I did find two friends. We would cook for each other and support each other when we needed it, and as young women in our twenties trying to survive the pandemic on next to nothing was rough, but we helped each other through it.

Some spooky things happened on a regular basis in the building. Feelings of being watched, the creepy laundry room, blood splatters appearing on walls unaccounted for...the list goes on. So the topic of the creepy, abnormal and all of the above was always on the conversation table. On one occasion my two new friends told me of their discovery in their old abandoned college. My partner loves to explore whether urban, cave, or mine. He was familiar with the building, although he hadn't gone himself, it was a known abandoned location. (I use the term was because it is now in use as a paintballing centre and a new college has been built near the old one).

For purposes of the story, I have changed the names of my friends and will be referring to them as Mollie and Freya.

When they first visited the building (roughly late 2014/early 2015), everything was wide open and had already been graffitied. Some canteen tables had been stacked on top of another up against the cafeteria walls, while others flipped on their side. They both claim that there were two tables in the middle of said cafeteria covered in blood, with a trail of blood going out the door you have to come in:

"It was weird in there... when we went in we didn't notice the trails of blood, not until we got to the canteen."

They also claimed to have found a pair of men's boots with the feet still in them. Freya had described the pair of boots as if they were owned by a police officer. Once they had made this shocking discovery they quickly left the building and contacted the police and said they were "shitting themselves" as they waited to hear updates. Two weeks later the police had finished their investigation, and they hadn't heard anything so they returned with more people this time.

When they went back everything was boarded up and in the cafeteria, most of the blood had gone, the boots and their contents had been taken, leaving nothing but a small pool of blood and police officers' jackets that had been left as if they left were in a hurry. Both of them confirmed they toured most of the building without issue, except for the top floor. They said "something told them not to" and ended their exploration with that feeling.

On their own once more the girls returned for a third and final time. On this excursion, more areas that had been previously locked had been opened, but the blood was still there, and by this point, it was really starting to smell. Mollie claimed to have puked from the stench and what she alleged to be "a very heavy atmosphere." After this, cutlery from the kitchen began to make noise and both girls claim to have seen a shadow figure move in front of them, to which a door banged, proceeding with a blood-curdling scream. They ran to the stairs and made it to the second to the top floor of the building. However, once more they felt extremely uneasy and felt the urge to quickly vacate.

Both of them said it was common knowledge that as students at that college, the building was known to be haunted. It was apparently built on top of what used to be a graveyard in 1929. Mollie said "it wasn't a place you wanted to be after the day had finished, it was just eerie. The toilets in the canteen and the canteen itself were the worst and heaviest..."

Freya added: "you felt like you were always being watched."

On one of the three occasions (they cannot remember which one), both girls claim that they had found another blood trail leading to the canteen toilets. Mollie said, "I went in there and all the cubicle doors were open except one." The one door of course had the blood trail directly leading to it. She says "I couldn't open it at all like it was dead weight up against it."

Freya added once more the question at this point we were all thinking "What if that's the body to the feet?"

They said every time they went they noticed more unusual things, things had changed, and trails of blood appeared in new places. Freya claims on the second time with friends that they had gone into the reception that faces out on top of the car park. Freya said, "I heard first steps running towards me, and my friend shouted at me and told me to get out of there and run, they had already left me behind at that point."

She continues "Apparently they saw a shadow too, standing right behind me."

The girls also found an abandoned car with the keys near it. Mollie said, "it was full of clothes and it had a golf club in the boot and that was it."

Neither of the girls had an explanation as to what those explorations had uncovered, they are still to this day freaked out by it, and wonder often about the feet in the boots. Did the police do an investigation? I do not know as I have tried to find any information confirming this, but sadly I cannot.

Of course, this is their story and their experience, I cannot account for whether or not any of this is true, but both parties verify each other's story. When I asked if they could get in contact with their friends they went with, they said they would try, but they said their friend doesn't like talking about it what he saw that day. I never heard anything from this.

This story has been in my journal for over two years now, and it bothers me. I cannot stop thinking about it, is it just a story? or is this a scene of a crime that has just been swept up in police paperwork? I have a lot of questions, but needless to say, the curious case of the feet in the boots is a mysterious one indeed.