A Crimson Rainbow

Chapter 24

Despite my nerves doing their best to take over, I somehow managed to pass my driving test and got my license first time - yay, go me!  Once I got the all-clear and the obligatory Mum-hug, she gave me permission to go on my first solo drive.  Needless to say, my first stop was a big house with 10,000ft walls surrounding it.
Pulling up to the gates, I buzzed the intercom (did I forget to mention this family was filthy rich?), and looked into the camera, trying to pull my best Zoolander pose, but possibly looking more like an orangutan pouting.
There was static for a few seconds before a familiar voice asked, "Um, what the fuck?", followed by a buzz as the gates opened.  Driving up towards the house, I saw Jared walk out of the house with a look of shock on his face.
"What?  Didn't think you would see me behind a wheel?" I asked.
"Honestly? Not really," he laughed.  "But it suits you!  Whose car?"
"Mine.  What, do you think I stole it or something?"
"Wait, was this a birthday present?  Nice!" Jared whistled, giving it a good look.  "So does this mean I get to be passenger for a change?"
I didn't answer, just looked over to the passenger door and nodded my head towards it.  Jared didn't wait for any further signs, as he ran to the side, and jumped in.  He looked at me with a "this will be interesting" bemused smile, which I decided to take as a challenge.  He then put his hand on my thigh, evidently wanting to make it more of a challenge than I was planning.  Ok, maybe I was planning something involving my thighs and Jared, but that's for later.  Right now, I needed to focus on not killing ourselves so that the other plan could come to fruition.
Turning to Jared, I asked where he wanted to go.
"You're the driver," he responded. "You take me however you want.  I mean, wherever.  Wherever you want."
"Oh, this boy is gonna be paying for that later," I thought as I put the transmission into Drive, and took off without a plan in mind.

After spending the day shopping and going to the movies (I only asked if Jared had plans about 4 hours after picking him up), it was starting to get dark, so we began the journey of heading back to Jared's house.  Being in public all day had severely limited what we could do, so now that we were in private, Jared kept trying to tease me by putting his hand on my leg and creeping it up towards my crotch.
"Keep that up, and you'll be bent over as soon as we are back at your place," I warned him.
He looked at me with a side-glance.  "What makes you think that wasn't the plan?"
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard, I almost tasted blood.  "Well, you better stop if you want to actually make it home without crashing," I pointed out, giving him a warning-meets-mock-warning look.  As if on queue, the car ran slightly off the road, just enough to remind me to pay attention.  "See what I mean?  You're too distracting!"
Jared giggled, but seemed to curb his behaviour enough to allow me to drive without incident.
That is, at least, until he decided to start playing with the radio, and connected his phone to the bluetooth, then started shuffling through his playlist.
"Aha," he exclaimed after a minute of skipping tracks.  "This is what I was looking for."  Suddenly, a country song started playing, sounding really sweet, until the chorus, where the singer starting saying something about bouncing off booty cheeks.
I couldn't help myself as I burst out laughing.  However, this was quickly cut off by Jared yelling out, "Spence!  Look out!"
I just had enough time to swerve, as I saw someone in the middle of the road momentarily showing in my headlights.  Going off the road, skidding on gravel, I somehow managed to stop about 1 second before we would have slammed into a tree.
I sat for a minute, trying to recover my breath.  Jared put his hand on my chest, and asked if I was ok.  "Yeah, I'm ok.  What the fuck was that?"
Jared turned around to look outside.  "I have no idea," he breathed.  "It looked like someone walking on the road, but they were hunched over, so I couldn't get a good look."  He looked at me for a moment, before unbuckling his seatbelt.  "I'm going to go check it out."
I grabbed Jared's arm before he could move.  "No, don't.  It could be dangerous.  It might be the killer.  Please don't go," I begged.
He leaned over me and popped the boot.  "I'll be ok, don't worry.  Besides, someone needs to protect you," he winked before getting out.  Walking to the boot, he turned his phone torch on, then looked under the carpet and found the jack.  Grabbing the handle, he closed the boot as quietly as he could, then turned around and started shining the torch, looking back the way we came.
I couldn't just leave him out there on his own, so I got out and caught up to him.
"What the fuck are you doing?", he asked.  "Get back in the car and lock it."
"No way.  I'm not letting anything happen to you." I whispered back.
"And what are you going to do if they come for you?  How are you going to defend yourself?"
I looked around and found a branch near the car.  Picking it up, Jared gave me a quizzical look, so I gave a stabbing motion.  "It's supposed to be a vampire, right?"
Jared rolled his eyes, then apparently resigned to the fact that he was stuck with me, as he started to make his way forward.  As we reached the road, there was no sign of the hunched figure I avoided, but there was something else on the road.  Making our way closer, we realised with horror that it was another person.  As Jared's torch highlighted the face, I recoiled in shock as I recognised who it was: Caz, Ellie's friend who's father works in the morgue.
As I studied their body, I realised the chest was rising and falling softly.  Holy shit!  They weren't dead!  I jumped forward, and grabbed them under the arms, as Jared realised and grabbed their legs.
We moved Caz off the road, and back to the car, eventually putting them on the back seat.  I closed the door and locked it, then looked at Jared.  "What the fuck?  Did we just interrupt the killer?"
Jared, who always had a way with words, put it into a more positive spin.  "I think we just saved a life."  As Jared called 000 and started reporting what we found, I heard a branch snap behind us.  Jared didn't seem to hear anything as he kept talking to the operator, so I took my own phone out, turned on the torch, raised the branch as if it were a stake, and looked around.  Not seeing anything anywhere, I turned back to Jared as he was finishing up the call, and that's when I heard the growl.