Drapes

I nodded in satisfaction as the salesman showed me the new drapes. Brown. Ordinarily I didn't much approve of the color, but my wife had insisted that we needed a deep brown for the living room. Knowing this, I decided that, because it would be her Christmas gift, I would buy her only the best. The best was at Jennings & Filmore's Textiles Co. I smiled as I payed for the drapes, a whopping fifty dollars, but for my Caroline, it was worth it. Mr. Filmore was very hospitable, even going so far as to provide a box for the drapes and to wrap them. I noticed a tag on the drapes and, being the curious man I was, asked who the person on the tag was. Mr. Filmore looked at me curiously before saying that they helped with the cloth; I was surprised, since, of course, I knew the name of the young lady whose name was printed on the drapes. A w***e, one of the wayward women of Main Street. He assured me that she had been hired completely legally, and that she had indeed proved useful. I reminded myself to come back; Mr. Filmore and Mr. Jennings were doing great things.

Of course, when I came home, Carol simply adored them. We put them up almost immediately, and they fit in quite well with the color and the decor of the room. However, it was only a few weeks before we noticed that the drapes had begun to smell somewhat. We knew that they eventually would, and would be more likely to do so if something were spilled on them or some such, but they didn't smell like that at all. They simply smelled... Wrong.

Naturally, we decided to simply put them in the wash, and that perhaps that would help with the smell. However, upon removing them, we were surprised to find them a stark white. This could not be... How could something go in the wash a nice, handsome brown, but leave a bright white?

We made the obvious decision to try to take them back. After all, these products were certainly not satisfactory to any degree. However, as soon as we, that is to say, I, arrived at Jennings & Filmore's, I found that the doors were shut, and police were investigating inside, putting away some of the darker drapes in evidence bags, even some wet ones, dripping with Jennings' signature red dye.

I only realized exactly what was happening when they brought out the corpse. The corpse of miss Anna LeBelle, one of the wandering, wayward women of Main Street. She had been bled out, pale as a vampire.

I looked down at the drapes in my hands; Specifically the tag.

Ana LeBelle.