Shades of Red

by T L Christianson

  I had talked to her on occasion, but like her, I kept to myself.

  That night, when her small dog woke me, I knew something was wrong. I could smell the blood from my apartment. Elizabeth’s apartment was directly below mine.

  Walking down the stairs, I knocked on her door several times. After a moment or two, I picked the lock and let myself in.

  A small gray dog jumped at my shins, leaving smears of blood on my white nightgown. Its high-pitched yap started to give me a headache.

  “Be quiet and stay still!” I told the dog.

  It obeyed immediately and sat, clearly upset, looking at me with a forlorn expression.

  Feeling guilty for snapping at the poor thing, I reached down and stroked its head. “It’s all right. What’s going on here, girl?”

  When I stood, I didn’t have to search far for Elizabeth. Her body was lying a few feet away on the floor behind the kitchen island.

  I blinked in disbelief at what I saw.

  A sob escaped my mouth as I realized my neighbor was dead.

  The blood.

  The blood was everywhere.

  I hadn’t seen such a gruesome sight since the war.

  Her blond hair was slick with sweat against her face, her blue eyes vacant and wide. The camisole and panties she wore were bright red, having soaked up part of the mess.

  After my initial moment of shock, I inspected the scene.

  The blood-saturated dish towels told the story. My poor neighbor must have had someone over and had some wine. While trying to clean up, it looked like she’d walked too close to the trash bag and broken glass in the bag cut her. The wound was on the back of her knee, and she must have bled out in minutes.

  What a waste.

  A waste of a young soul.

  And a waste of blood.

  The dog whined, and we looked at each other.

  I knelt down and reached to close her eyes.

  At that moment, I knew what I was going to do. We looked a lot alike. Both blonde with blue eyes—minor differences, but close enough.

  By sunrise, I’d gotten the apartment cleaned up, the body disposed of, and a liter of blood in my refrigerator.

  What? There's no use wasting what was left, and it was still warm.

  Chapter Six

  Owen and I were both quiet during the long drive to the airport, where we boarded a small airplane owned by Owen's company, and a steward greeted us.

  I looked around at the eight or so large comfortable seats before choosing one across the aisle from my employer.

  Once I settled in, I looked over and saw him on his laptop, typing away. I pulled out my phone and entered the name from the side of the plane into Google—Chronos Corporation.

  The same logo from the plane popped up beside the first result:

  Chronos Corp—Global Leader in Medicine and Pharmacology

  Press Release | Lima, Peru – Chronos Corp (Chronos Corporation) issued the following press release following the recent conclusion… Chronos Corporation is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York, New York, with offices in 19 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 countries. Wikipedia.

  They were a private company and had no stocks. I tapped on the website link and clicked on research.

  A woman in a lab coat displayed a toothy white smile, with the words, Living better through Science. I read on, For almost 200 years, through exploration and challenging pursuit, our scientists have revolutionized the field of medicine. Our dedication starts in Chronos Laboratories, where we’re solving important global health issues.

  I sniffed. Something was fishy with this company. They were considered one of the largest pharmaceutical companies. There was no reason for me to feel suspicious of Chronos Corp, but I did and I knew to trust my gut.

  “Ma’am, would you like a beverage before we close the cabin door?”

  I clicked off my screen. “Sure, do you have ginger ale?”

  “Of course, would you like ice?”

  “Yes, thanks.” The plane was already beginning to move, so I buckled my seatbelt.

  When the stewardess returned, she set the bottle of ginger ale in my large cup holder and the glass of ice in the other.

  Before I could comment, we were on the runway, taking off.

  In general, I don't fly unless I have to. I'm not afraid to fly, but this plane, as modern and sleek as it was, spooked me. I knew it was silly for me to be frightened, but I didn't know if I could survive a plane crash.

  So, when we took off into the clouds from the mountaintop, I pulled my legs up to my chest and hid my face. I was embarrassed, but my sense of fright overtook me. The plane jostled to and fro so much that I thought it might come apart.

  That’s when I felt Owen’s warm fingertips touch my arm.

  He had reached across the aisle toward me.

  “It’s okay,” he said. I could barely hear him over the straining engines as they pulled us into the sky, but I knew what he was saying nevertheless. “It’s always like this flying in and out of Durango.”

  Looking over, I replied, “I flew into Denver and drove from there.”

  I forced my feet to the floor and held his outstretched hand. His steady fingers wrapped around mine, cocooning them in warmth. I felt like his touch was an umbilical cord of comfort, and I held on until the plane leveled out and the engine noise died down.

  Sheepishly, I released his hand and bit my lip. I could feel my unruly curls around my face, and I tried to smooth them back and adjust my headband.

  After wiping an errant tear on my cheek, I laughed at myself.

  “I feel so stupid!” I said to him. “I’ve flown loads of times.”

  "That was kind of rough with the wind today, I'll admit." His eyes danced with laughter. "Although New York can be worse. It seems always to be raining there when I have to fly in or out."

  Paralyzed momentarily, my eyes widened.

  Owen’s melodic laughter drew my eyes to him. “I promise it’ll be fine.” He recapped his sparkling water and fiddled with a sheet of paper.

  There was a moment of silence before I said, “Do you take this airplane every time you fly?”

  He shook his head. “No, just when I’m bringing samples or materials with me.” He tapped a small white ice chest with his foot. I hadn’t even noticed it there before.

  “Oh? So, what’s in there?”

  He sighed and glanced down. “Er, some blood and…” He raised a sardonic eyebrow at me, and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Liz, you know I can’t tell you about this.”

  I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips. "I know, but I thought you could tell me… I don't know… something."

  He shook his head and laughed, then handed me something. I looked down at the small intricate origami lily that he’d just folded for me.

  He’d already started to work on his laptop, but our eyes locked and he gave me an easy smile before immersing himself back in his work.

  I needed to wrap up my old alias and fully embrace the new one, but I wasn’t sure what to do about all of Liz’s accounts. I didn’t know any of the pin numbers, so I’d have to walk into an actual bank, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to do.

  I sighed, and Owen looked up at me over his computer. “What are you thinking? Are you excited to go home for a little bit?”

  For once, I answered him honestly. “I don’t really know. I’m kind of worried about dealing with Emilie and all that. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.”

  His kind gaze put me at ease, and we sat there in a comfortable silence.

  The flight was pleasant for the first couple hours until I felt that red-hot poker of thirst draw me to the ice chest.

  I’d brought a book from the library and would pretend to read until I had to peek again. I couldn’t smell the blood, but knowing it was in the chest was killing me.

  I was like a friggin' kid, and I couldn't help myself.

  I had to look into it.
r />   I had to.

  I knew flat out that it was wrong of me, and ultimately, that this was a fool's errand, yet I was compelled to sneak a peek.

  When Owen got up to go to the toilet, I practically leaped out of my chair at the cooler. Quickly, I unbuckled the metal clasps and lifted the lid.

  Inside it, were several carefully packed vials of red and yellow liquid. Some were large enough to hold maybe a full cup, and others had a scant tablespoon. Running my fingertips across the tops, I was tempted to taste one of them. It would be easy to pop the cap and just have a little sip.

  But the sound of a door opening snapped me out of the poor decision.

  I placed the packaging back on top and closed the lid before leaping to my chair.

  I sat there, knees pulled to my chest, fangs out.

  Think of being in the forest, on the blanket with the kids. My heart raced, and my fangs refused to retract.

  I had the book up to my face when I realized it was upside down! I righted it and took a quick peek to see Owen settling back in.

  “Good book?”

  “Eh, it’s okay,” I said behind the creamy pages of the hardback, still hiding my stubborn fangs and trying not to slur my words. “How’s your book?”

  "Eh, same. It's a sci-fi, not bad, but I'm not engrossed either." His rich baritone relaxed me, and I felt my ornery canines slide upward on their own. “It’s about this rag-tag group of drifters who scavenge and sell what they find. There’s even an evil empire out to get them.” He breathed out a laugh.

  I enjoyed hearing about Owen’s book, and our banter seemed to press the stress out of my mind.

  Later that day, I stood outside my old building in New York, absorbing the sights and sounds for a moment before digging out my keys. I unlocked the front door and nostalgically ran my hand over the smooth wooden banister.

  Elizabeth had already sublet her apartment until December when her lease would run out. I unlocked the bolts to what had been my home for several years. Inside my apartment, Liz's boxed up possessions stood like silent sentinels in neat rows against the walls.

  I had lived here the longest, and no one seemed to notice me.

  No one noticed that I never changed.

  This was a high-turnover building that catered to students and faculty from Columbia. No one was ever there long enough to know me. I was one of the few people who owned their space.

  I had to close down all of my old accounts, which were few, and carefully deposit my money into Elizabeth's name in a way as to not draw suspicion.

  Writing out a list of things to do in my neat curling handwriting made me feel better.

  I spent that afternoon until late into the night going through all of Elizabeth's bank statements and financial papers.

  Groaning, I stretched my back. There wasn't anything I wanted from Elizabeth, but I needed to sort out her life on paper before I could continue with her identity.

  Her laptop had sat in front of me blinking, Password all night, and after trying anything and everything I could think of, I was ready to tear my hair out.

  Elizabeth was a typical millennial with loads of student debt and a recently completed graduate degree in a field where she would barely make over minimum wage.

  Sitting on my living room floor, I spotted something on top of a box. It was a small wood-framed photo of an older couple. I picked it up. Elizabeth’s parents had died four years ago. I knew that because I saw the paperwork from their estate last night.

  I felt guilty about Elizabeth's death, even though there was nothing I could've done.

  Her life was too short. If only I had gone to check on the barking dog earlier.

  Could I have saved her?

  Feeling defeated, after wasting so much time on passwords that I would probably never find, my temperament grew grim. I thought about my transformation into a vampire.

  I drove an ambulance on the front lines during the Great War, or as it's known now, World War I. I've wondered in my mind over and over again, why did I volunteer? The war was an awful shock for gently bred young women. I suppose the men were just as shocked as we, but it would've been cowardly to show it.

  No one was ever ready for the actuality of war.

  Most of the drivers at this time were still men, but I was part of a small group of women to take on the task.

  I was small but had always been a sturdy girl.

  One night, I was called back out after driving the day shift. That night, the rutted-out dirt roads seemed to rock me almost to sleep. Fatigue hung heavy in my bones, and I struggled to keep my eyes open.

  War waits for no man, or woman, so I did my duty.

  I don't even remember what battle it was.

  I’d just picked up a load of men and was told they were dead. Usually, my cargo would moan, cry, or scream, so the quiet was fine by me.

  I was well away from the battlefield when something shifted in the back of the ambulance. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I became concerned that I'd been given a living person along with the dead.

  Suddenly, a white-faced man grabbed me by my coat collar and pulled me out of the driver's seat.

  The ambulance went off the road, and everyone and everything flew sideways and hit the wall of the truck as it slid down the ditch and came to a thudding halt.

  Before I had a chance to react, the vampire reached out to me and hooked me with his gaze. His blue eyes were angelic, and they seemed to strip away every care from my mind. This was the vampire thrall or compulsion, as I call it.

  He held out his hand, and I walked away with him into the darkness of the trees. I remember the forest, and I remember he touched my face and kissed me.

  If I’d been in my right mind, and not under thrall, I would've screamed and fought. But at that moment, the soldier was the most attractive man I had ever seen, and I yearned to please him.

  Thrall doesn't make people forget, but it makes them want to comply.

  Why this soldier did what he did, I will probably never know. I'd like to assume that he'd been a kind man, who was injured and desperate.

  Even though he didn't speak, I knew what he wanted.

  I laid down on the leaf-covered ground in the dirt. He pulled my cap from my head, unleashing my golden curls, running his fingers through my hair.

  He undid my uniform tie and opened my blouse. That's when he must have bitten me, but I don't remember.

  I think many people have been bitten by a vampire and will never know.

  A vampire's saliva must release something similar to that of a mosquito. It didn't hurt until afterward when he licked my wound, and it began to heal.

  He must have drunk too much, and in a misguided attempt to try to "fix" me, he enthralled me to bite him back. My teeth made a popping noise as they broke the skin on his neck. He began to bleed slowly, and I drank from him until he pushed me away.

  I felt so tired. Black spots began to fill my vision until they overtook it in its entirety.

  The official story was that I had fallen asleep at the wheel. They found me inside the ambulance in the driver's seat.

  When I awoke, I felt terrific. Then a few days later, I felt horrible. Fatigue and fainting spells overtook me. When I tried to eat, I would vomit. After a solid week of this, I was sent home.

  At first, I thought it had all been a dream, but the man who had done this to me had left me changed.

  I'd never seen the soldier since the night he made me. I wondered to this day if I had a choice that night, would I have chosen to die instead?

  When I awoke, I ate some packaged porridge while looking at photographs from Elizabeth’s box next to the couch.

  My hair kept falling into my face, and I swiped it back with the same hand that was holding my spoon. I’d done this several times when I accidentally flicked oatmeal onto the floor. Turning to pick it up, I knocked over the cardboard box full of pictures.

  It landed with a crash, spewing glass out onto the hardwood. I needed to throw out
the framed photos anyway, but the sight still saddened me.

  Carefully sorting the mess and sweeping up the broken bits, I thought that my bad luck from the night before had followed me into today.

  That was until I saw a small slip of folded-up paper that had been wedged in the black cardboard backing and I tugged it free. As soon as I opened the lined paper, I knew what it was. Website names were neatly written on the left and passwords on the right.

  I nearly kissed it, I was so relieved.

  It didn’t take me long now that I had access to Elizabeth’s life. She owed almost one hundred thousand in student loans. I transferred funds from my own account and paid off her debts. I then paid off her credit cards and closed all of them except for one.

  Deliberately, I went through all her pictures on social media accounts and deleted any pictures of her that didn’t look like it could be me. The most noticeable difference between us was our hair. Her hair was dirty-blonde, and mine was a bit lighter and crazy curly. Her eyes were a dark blue, and mine were more green. Liz had straight, even teeth from braces, while I had a gap between my two front teeth.

  It was sad work, but I was done. Next, I packed more of my own things to take back to Colorado. I was thinking of selling this apartment.

  Chapter Seven

  When we returned from New York, I was determined to find some answers.

  After having crept down the stairs toward the study, I found it unlocked. I entered and felt along the bookshelves and the desk.

  Nothing budged, nothing moved, but I was sure something was there.

  I walked the hallway and around to the kitchen. There should be another room here. Striding outside, I counted my steps from one end of the Victorian mansion to the other.

  There was too much space unaccounted for. There was a hidden room.

  Owen hadn't appeared out of thin air that night when I heard the crash and found him suddenly in his office.