The Dead Travel Fast

Chapter 7

7

When I woke up, I was cold and sore. I looked around, confused. Why was I lying in someone’s front yard, hidden underneath a hemlock bush? For a few moments, I was dazed and uncertain, still blissfully free of memories of the previous night. But then I remembered everything that had happened, and my heart sank. Actually, it did more than sink—it positively dropped to my feet. I felt a rush of panic and disbelief, a feeling that I had never felt before.

I wanted to hope that the firefighters had somehow saved my family, but I knew deep down that that had not happened. I could sense with utter certainty that my family was dead, and I was an orphan now. I can’t explain how I knew; I just did.

What was I to do? My first thought was to go to the police. Honestly, in light of all the weird things that had happened yesterday, I didn’t feel like the police would really be able to understand the weirdness of the situation or even do anything about it, but maybe they would know what to do with me.

After checking over and over again that no one on the street was looking, I rolled out from under the hemlock and stood up. The world spun around me. It was a normal day in the city. Kids celebrated their winter vacations, athletes ran or biked on the sidewalk, doctors rushed to the hospitals, and businesspeople worked away in their buildings. Nothing to them was different or strange. To them, a burned house would simply be a rectangle in the newspaper.

I noticed that I was wearing full outerwear—winter boots, hat, gloves, and heavy coat. Under them, I just had my pajamas. I couldn't remember anything before I woke up outside of my house. I must have sleep-walked out of my house and put on my outerwear on the way. I remembered the staircase in that prison in my dream, which, for a flash, had looked just like the staircase in my own house.

I stumbled along the sidewalk, trying not to look too conspicuous in my dirty, thorny coat. I wasn’t entirely sure where the police station was, so my feet took me in the direction of my house. I passed the majestic row houses and grand mansions until I saw a familiar neighborhood—my street.

Walking down that street, the butterflies in the pit of my stomach got more and more agitated. The scene was surreal. The whole street was blocked up by flashing blue lights, police cars, and bright yellow tape. I could not see my house at all, but I saw the trees in my yard, and they were singed and blackened. The other houses on the street were untouched.

Finally, as I got closer and closer to the police cars, I caught a glimpse of my house between the blue lights. At least, I caught a glimpse of what used to be my house. My house was gone. All that remained was a pile of ashes, blackened splinters, and unidentifiable pieces of metal. It was ugly, shrunken, and sad. How could such a big, beautiful house turn into…this?

Nothing could have prepared me for what I was seeing. My vision blurred. I was a mess of tangled feelings and emotions that I had never experienced before. There was no single word for what I was feeling. There weren’t ten words for it, either, or a thousand, or a million.

I wondered if my mom’s, dad’s, and sister’s charred and bloody bones were still in that pile of ash. Probably not. The authorities probably had already removed them.

I knew I wasn't supposed to, but I slid between the police cars and the cones, walking toward the tape. I couldn’t keep myself away. I knew that it would hurt me, but I wanted to find out more about their end.

An amiable-looking policeman stopped me when I reached the tape. “Hold up,” he said. He had a long, shiny face that was turning red in the cold, and his accent was strong. “This is a crime scene, you’re going to have to stay back.”

I stared up at him blankly. I could barely speak, but I managed to force out, “Crime scene?”

“What?” He leaned in to catch my quiet voice.

I swallowed. “Are they all dead?” I asked.

“Oh.” The policeman smiled indulgently. “Are you a relative?”

A relative. Huh, you could say that. I was only their daughter. Only her sister.

Unable to vocalize all of these thoughts, I nodded.

He sighed. “Yes, unfortunately. By the time the firemen got here, Mr. Walsh and Ms. Matsuda and their daughter had already died.”

I knew it.

The policeman kept talking. “It was a very odd fire. No one called the fire department until the house was completely, you know, on fire. According to the neighbors, it was like one minute it wasn’t on fire, and the next it was really flaring up. By the time we got here, it was like this.” He gestured at the wreck. “Usually, it takes a while for a house to burn down, but it took this house a matter of minutes. And it was a big house, by the way. Look at the houses in this neighborhood!”

“That’s…weird.”

“It gets weirder. Look over there. See the guys collecting samples in the house?”

I looked. There were indeed some men poking around carefully in the ash with minuscule tools.

The policeman continued, “Those are the arson investigators. Do you know what an arson investigator is?”

I shrugged.

“They’re wicked smart. They’re like detectives, they look around for clues and figure out what started the fire. Usually with house fires, a candle got knocked over, or someone left the stove on, or something like that. But this morning the stuff they've found has frankly been bizarre. For one thing, it looks like many sections of the house all caught fire at the same time. I guess that sort of matches the reports that one moment the house wasn’t on fire and the next it was, but we’re still not sure how that could have happened. And second…” He paused dramatically. “Well, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but as long as you don’t tell anyone else, I’m sure it’ll be fine. We have reason to believe that this was murder.”

A shiver went down my spine. “What?” I demanded. “Why?”

“We’ve found fresh footprints in the backyard. Besides, a few witnesses say they saw a man standing behind the house when it was burning down. Creepy, right?”

I had a sudden, very disturbing flashback to the previous night, when I had seen that man in the long coat standing by the fire. I had clearly seen his eyes glinting gold in the light of the blaze, and he had smiled at me. My breathing was short. I put my head in my hands.

The policeman, who had kept on talking, stopped. He looked at me, obviously concerned. “Are you all right?” he questioned.

I was not all right. “Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. Nausea was rising in my stomach, and at the same time I felt my eyes grow heavy. No! I wouldn’t throw up. I wouldn’t cry. I had to stay calm.

“It’s just a lot to take in.”

He nodded sympathetically. “I know. I just don’t understand why someone would want to murder this family. Mr. Walsh was a doctor, and Ms. Matsuda used to work in real estate. Their daughter was in fifth grade. Sure, they were wicked rich, but I don’t think any of them would have had enemies. Not anyone who would have burned down their house this spectacularly, anyway.”

And then, while he nodded at me sadly, it hit me. There was something weird about this whole situation. Not once had the policeman mentioned me. He had only talked about my parents and Victoria. No one seemed to be interested in the girl who was missing, the one who seemed to have escaped the fire.

“So…” I said slowly. “The whole family died in the fire?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Whole family.”

“The whole family,” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure no one escaped?”

He gave me a pitying look. “As much as we would have liked for them to escape, no one escaped. We found all three bodies—the mom, the dad, and the daughter—in the wreck early this morning, and we’ve already sent them off to the morgue. They were in a pretty bad state.”

All three bodies. I felt like I had been slapped in the face.

“What do you mean, all three?” My voice was trembling. “I thought there were four. I thought there were two daughters.”

“No, you’re mistaken. There was only one girl. Her name was Victoria.” The policeman frowned at me. “Don’t you know? Aren’t you a relative?”

That’s when I turned around and ran from the scene, sprinting away down the street. The policeman shouted after me, but let it go. I didn't look like anything more than a crazy girl, anyway.

All three. Three. The police weren't looking for me. They didn’t even know that I existed. Was this all a mistake? Had they simply forgotten about me? Would they even acknowledge me if I asked for help?

I kept running, and when I finally stopped, I was no longer in my neighborhood of tall houses and trees. I was facing a line of elegant stone four-story row houses. They looked familiar, and I remembered why—one of my friends from school, Gigi, lived on this street. Yeah, the same Gigi that was crying and making nasty remarks to me at school the previous day.

I had an idea.

Maybe the police had just forgotten about me. But maybe something stranger was going on. There was only one way to find out.

I advanced toward the house that I knew was Gigi’s.