A Crimson Rainbow

Chapter 9

When Ellie called me later that night, she asked if I had found out anything when I went to see Jared, and I honestly didn't know what to say.
"I asked him, but he didn't really want to talk about her," I said.  Hey, at least I wasn't lying.
"Well, what did he tell you?"  When this girl wanted to find something out, she just kept digging.
"We didn't really talk much," I replied, before I realised I may have put my foot in my mouth.
"What do you mean?  What else would you have ... Oh my god!  You didn't, did you?"  Yup, my mouth met my foot.
"Didn't what?"  I knew how to play innocent with most people - some think I'm still a virgin - but I knew Ellie wasn't so easy to fool.  Still, I had to try.
Ellie gasped.  "You totally did!  Oh my god, you slut!"  From the sound of her voice, I wasn't sure if she was impressed or disappointed.
"Hey, in my defense, I didn't start it."
There was silence for a moment while Ellie processed that.  "I'm guessing you probably didn't mean to out someone?"
She was right.  I just outed Jared without meaning to!  Shit!
"I mean, if there's anyone I could trust not to tell anyone, it's you, right?"  Fuck, I hope I was right about that!
Ellie was silent again for a moment.  "You're lucky I love you, you know."  I breathed a sigh of relief.  "Ok, so now that that's out in the open.  How was it?  Give me details!"
I laughed, glad that we could talk about something other than Stefi for a bit.  "Well, a lady never tells, does she?"
Ellie snorted.  "Are you saying you're a lady?  I'm calling bullshit on that one."
And so began an hour long call discussing Jared's physique and my sex life pre-Jared before the conversation turned back to Stefi.
"So, I've heard some weird rumours going around.  Have you heard any of them?"  Ellie asked me.
"Uh, no, I've kinda been pre-occupied with Jared," I reminded her.
"Well," Ellie paused and took a breath.  "There's talk that her body was drained of blood, and the only point they could see it went were two marks on her neck."
Now it was my turn to pause, trying to wrap my head around what I was just told.  "Wait, are you saying she was killed by a vampire?"
"Well, that's what they're saying.  It looks like it was made to look like a vampire killed her."
"Ellie," I sighed.  "You know as well as I do that they aren't real."
"I'm not saying an actual vampire did it, I'm just saying that's how the body was found.  Someone wanted it to look like she was killed by a vampire."  There was a strange tone to Ellie's voice, something in between fear and paranoia.  Did she actually think there was a vampire on the loose?

After talking to Ellie, I couldn't get the idea out of my head about the vampire killing.  I looked online at how many murders were made to look like vampires, just so I could send them to her. I felt like I needed to reassure Ellie that vampires don't exist, and people are a lot scarier than anything fictional.
Unfortunately, the search ended up taking me down a rabbit hole, and I began looking into whether vampires actually did exist.  There were Youtube videos saying vampires live among us, in plain sight.  There were articles that compared fictional vampires to real ones.  There were even websites dedicated to "outing" vampires - most of which were in USA or third-world countries, none in Australia - and I realised that so many people actually believe they are real.
I gave up after a short while, convinced that I would become a believer if I kept digging, and I seriously was not ready for that.
Getting undressed and climbing into bed, I struggled to fall asleep.  When I did finally fall asleep, I had the weirdest dreams.  I was re-enacting the day with Jared, then all of a sudden, Stefi would be in bed next to us, and she would open her mouth, snarling at us with fangs bared.  My dream then took me to Ellie and I going home from Jared's party, and seeing Stefi, but this time, she was staggering and holding her neck, with blood running between her fingers.
All night, there were dreams of Stefi being a vampire, or being killed.  I woke up at one point, and it was just after 3am.  I knew that, if I closed my eyes, I would go back to the same dreams, so I got up, threw on some tracksuit pants and a shirt, and went outside for a smoke.  Since my parents didn't know I smoked, I had to go to the back of the property and jump the fence.  As I sat there, I kept hearing twigs snapping near me, and kept using the torch on my phone to see what was causing it.  A few times, I saw a possum running away from me, but most of the time, I couldn't identify the source.  After having half a cigarette, I gave up, and went back inside, careful to wash my hands and rinse my mouth to get rid of the smell before getting into bed.
I swear, Ellie's paranoia was contagious, because the last thing I thought I saw before I fell asleep was a figure standing at my window, looking in at me.  In the moonlight, her hair looked blonde.