Chapter Six
Vanessa lived six streets over, where the shops and pubs petered out into quieter roads flanked on both sides by lavish-looking houses. Frankie felt like she should be paying for the privilege of just walking down this road. More than once she glimpsed the telltale blue of a swimming pool peeking through a garden fence; the people who lived here had money.
Frankie had never visited Vanessa's house before, she only knew it was big and fancy through the boastings of the queen bee herself and her gang of clones. As they approached, she reflected that it was exactly what she would have expected.
Vanessa lived on the corner of the street, in a huge mock-Tudor with two BMWs in the drive. The front lawn was meticulously tended, surrounded by equally neat flowerbeds, and a stone water feature gurgled in the middle of the grass.
The quieter street meant less sick people around and Frankie was supremely grateful for that. Running from the jeweller's to Vanessa's road had been a span of time that felt like a warzone; dodging the sick and dying, knocking into other people as they tried to flee, and desperately trying to block their ears to the sounds of screaming.
Vanessa's road still looked normal and Frankie couldn't help a pang of irritation. It would be typical if somehow the rich in town had managed to completely avoid whatever was going on. As soon as the thought crossed her mind she felt bad for it. No one deserved to go through what she'd seen today.
Vanessa's heels beat a staccato rhythm as she strode up the sloping drive to the front door. Frankie and the other girls trailed behind. Now they were away from the horrors they'd seen, it almost felt like it hadn't really happened, like they'd all woken up from a bad dream. It made Frankie uncomfortable again - walking towards the queen bee's house, a place she'd never ordinarily have been invited to.
Vanessa unlocked the front door and strode inside. She didn't invite them in, but she left the door open and Frankie took that as an invitation.
The door led into a vast foyer, open arch doorways on either side leading to a living room and dining room. At the end of the foyer, a wide staircase curved up to the second floor.
"Mum?" Vanessa called. Her voice was imperious as ever but there was an undercurrent of fear shuddering along the edges of her words. "Dad?"
Nobody answered.
Vanessa looked back at the others. "Don't just stand there," she snapped.
Frankie ventured into the dining room. It was a huge room, dominated by a polished trestle table. An ornate mirror overlooked a marble inlaid fireplace and a teardrop chandelier hung from the ceiling. It was probably made from real crystal. Nothing looked out of place so she moved onto the living room.
Vanessa had disappeared through another door to the left of the fireplace. Her voice echoed back through the house, calling for her parents. But still nobody answered.
There could be a dozen reasons for that, Frankie reasoned with herself. They could have been out shopping, or playing golf, or sipping crystal flutes of Dom Perignon on someone's private yacht. Okay, the last one was a little implausible.
Beth, Melly, and Allison still hovered in the foyer, looking awkward. Frankie didn't know if it was because they were in the home of someone who'd never made any secret of the fact that she didn't like them, or because they were still in shock from what was happening. It could be both.
Frankie headed into the living room. It was as lavish as the dining room, boasting ceiling-to-floor curtains, a plasma-screen TV that took up almost the entire far wall, several sofas upholstered in what was probably silk.
And a body lying in the middle of the floor.
Frankie froze. The dead woman wasn't Vanessa's mum, she could tell that right away. Vanessa was blessed with porcelain-pale skin that never seemed to blemish or sprout spots. The woman on the floor had an olive cast to her skin, something Mediterranean.
Frankie took a step forwards. The woman's chin was red-coated, blood flecking the cream carpet around her. There was a strange mottling on her skin, patches of reddish-purple on her face and arms. Had there been mottling like that on anyone else that had been sick? Frankie couldn't remember - everything had happened too fast.
Vanessa's heels clicked back through the foyer, heading for the living room. Frankie turned, angling herself so she hid the body from view. She opened her mouth to warn Vanessa, but what was she supposed to say?
Vanessa must have read the horror in Frankie's face. She visibly steeled herself, her glossed lips hardening into a line, her shoulders tensing. She pushed past Frankie and Frankie didn't stop her. Vanessa stared at the body for the longest moment, her face impassive.
"Who was she?" Frankie couldn't help asking.
"Josie. She was the maid." Vanessa's voice was flat, inflectionless.
Movement sounded behind Frankie and she glanced over her shoulder. Allison, Melly, and Beth crowded into the doorway, questions on their faces. Frankie waved them away. The last thing Vanessa needed right now was a crowd.
Vanessa's shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. Then she spun around so fast her dark hair lashed the air like a whip. "I have to find my parents."
She shoved past Frankie and made a run for the stairs. Her heels sounded like gunshots as she pounded up the marble staircase.
Frankie ran after her. "Please let them be alive," she whispered. But if they were why hadn't they answered? Frankie tried to remember all the reasons she'd given herself earlier but they slipped through her mind, too insubstantial to catch.
When she reached the top of the stairs, there was no sign of Vanessa. But the white double-doors at the end of the landing were flung wide. Frankie edged closer. Someone was crying inside the room.
Please, please, please, please. The word chased itself through Frankie's mind. She didn't want to go into that room and find Vanessa's parents dead. But she couldn't just stand outside and wait for Vanessa either.
She approached the open doorway.
The bedroom inside was huge and as opulent as the rest of the house, complete with four-poster bed, another crystal chandelier, and French windows that opened out onto a balcony. Frankie took it all in at a glance, anything to avoid looking at the woman on the floor and Vanessa hunched over her.
This time there was no mistaking who the woman was. Her raven-black hair spilled out across the carpet, as groomed and glossy as Vanessa's. She had her daughter's bone structure and porcelain skin too. Frankie swallowed. At least she'd had that porcelain skin. Now it was mottled and splotched with drying blood.
A pair of feet wearing expensive leather shoes lay in the open doorway of the en suite bathroom - with a pang, Frankie realised that was probably Vanessa's dad.
She took a step towards Vanessa. The other girl's shoulders heaved with sobs, her head bent over her mother's body. Frankie had no idea what she was supposed to say. The most comforting she'd ever had to do was for her friends when a boy dumped them. She'd never dealt with real grief before and she just didn't know what to do with it.
"Vanessa?"
The other girl stiffened. She swiped a hand across her eyes like she was embarrassed to be seen crying. Mascara left black streaks across her face.
"I . . ." Frankie's voice trailed off again. She spread her hands like she was trying to physically pull words from her brain.
A shudder rippled through Vanessa then her jaw tightened, her body going tense like she was pulling herself back together. "It's what I expected," she said. Her voice was hollow, the thickness of tears following the last word.
"Vanessa . . ." It was all Frankie got out before footsteps clattered up the stairs as the other girls came to see what was going on.
"Oh no." Frankie turned to see Allison hovering in the doorway. Allison stared at the bloody spectacle of Vanessa's mother lying on the bedroom floor, and stumbled back. "No, no, no, no."
"Allison?"
The other girl didn't seem to hear Frankie. Her eyes were fixed on Vanessa's dead mother, abject horror flickering in her eyes.
"No," Allison whispered again.
Beth reached for her but Allison jerked away. She was breathing heavily, tremors rippling up and down her body.
Frankie approached her, holding out her hands. "Allison, listen to me -"
Allison whipped around and fled back down the stairs.
"Wait," Frankie shouted, giving chase.
Allison didn't slow down. She ran through the foyer and out of the front door, and Frankie had no choice but to run after her. Although she'd been the one who said they should stick together, she knew where Allison was going - home. And if her house held the same horrors as Vanessa's then Frankie needed to be there for her. If it meant leaving Vanessa alone with her grief so be it. Frankie ached with sympathy for Vanessa but when it came down to it, she'd choose Allison over Vanessa any day. Allison was her friend. Vanessa wasn't.
Frankie expected Melly and Beth to come after her so she was struck with surprise when Vanessa ran up alongside her. She'd ditched the heels in favour of a pair of red Converse trainers that looked like they'd never been worn. They were a bright contrast to her grey-and-blue school uniform.
"She's going home, isn't she?" Vanessa said. Her tears had dried, her eyes hardening with determination. Either she was colder than Frankie had ever imagined or she was being driven by some incredible survival instinct.
"Yeah."
Vanessa's jaw tightened. Frankie didn't ask the other girl why she cared or why she was coming with them. Vanessa had just lost her parents; Frankie couldn't blame her for not wanting to be alone.
Desperation gave Allison a speed she'd never had before and it was all Frankie could do to keep up. Vanessa kept easy pace with her; Frankie knew from several years of PE that Vanessa could run faster than Frankie but speed wouldn't help her if she didn't know where Allison lived. Beth and Melly huffed along behind them.
Frankie rounded the corner on Allison's street, a less lavish affair than Vanessa's, and almost tripped over a woman sitting on the curb. The woman coughed and blood splashed over her chin. Frankie hated herself for doing it, but she didn't even slow down. Allison was the priority, not some woman she didn't know.
Allison's house was halfway down the street, a modest two-bedroom structure with lace curtains at the windows, and a cracked pathway leading to the front door. The door hung ajar.
Frankie slowed when she reached it, her heart jackhammering. She'd only met Allison's parents a handful of times and each time it had been polite chitchat. She'd never really got to know them but they were Allison's parents. Finding Vanessa's had been bad enough but Vanessa wasn't Frankie's friend. Allison was and that made everything so much worse.
Vanessa pushed through the door and Frankie followed her. Fear clawed at her, making her want to run in the opposite direction. She didn't want to go inside but if something had happened to her parents, Allison would need her friends. It wasn't like Vanessa would comfort her.
They found Allison in the kitchen, slumped in a corner between the fridge and the oven. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms locked around them.
It was just as Frankie had feared. Allison's parents were contorted on the floor, mottle-skinned and bloody-mouthed. They probably hadn't been dead for long, and they looked like crumpled puppets lying on the linoleum.
Frankie bit her lip until she tasted blood. Finding Vanessa's parents had been bad enough but Frankie hadn't known them. It was easier to distance herself from the corpses of strangers than the corpses of people she'd known.
Her eyes travelled around the room, taking in the shelves on the walls sporting framed family photos, the magnets on the fridge, souvenirs of family holidays, the row of dusty wellies at the back door. She'd stood in this kitchen many times with Allison, making snacks after school, gossiping about who'd said what, and who was dating who.
The happy memories fractured at the sight of Allison's parents, dead on their kitchen floor.
"I wasn't here," said Allison dully. Her wild hair all but obscured her face but Frankie could see her eyes were dry. The shock of it hadn't sunk in yet. Or else the pain was too great for something like crying. Frankie couldn't imagine that kind of pain. She felt irrationally guilty that her parents were out of town and she'd been spared going through what her friends were suffering. She couldn't relate to their pain.
Allison looked up at Frankie and the agony in her eyes was like a physical blow. "I wasn't here," she repeated. "They died alone."
"There's nothing you could have done." Frankie winced as soon as she said it. Could she have said anything more . . . stupid? More insensitive?
Allison scrambled to her feet. "Ben's not here."
Frankie started at the mention of Allison's brother, younger than her by two years. He finished school at the same time but he preferred to walk home with his friends rather than catch the bus. He'd never even made it home. Frankie spared a moment to pray that Ben was okay, that he'd managed to find somewhere to hide.
"I have to find him." Allison started towards the door but Frankie held her back. Allison's arm felt boneless under her hand, trembling and fragile.
"You can't go back out there," Frankie said.
"My brother -"
"I know he's out there and I know you want to find him, but we're not going to get anywhere rushing off in a panic." The calmness of Frankie's voice surprised her. The grief pouring out of the people around her would overwhelm her if she let it. She had to lock the fear and panic away inside her, and focus on maintaining some sort of authority. It was the only way she could cope.
"Then what do you want us to do?" Melly asked from behind her.
Frankie was scared. She was hurting for her friends. Her head pounded with questions. But someone had to take charge and keep everyone safe. She'd already stepped into that role and now everyone was looking to her for answers.
"We need to know what we're dealing with before we go back out there," she said.
It was easier for her to assert logic because she didn't have family out there in trouble, but what she said made sense. They couldn't rush blindly around when they didn't have a clue what was going on. They needed to pause and take stock of everything.
Vanessa slowly nodded. Her fortitude was almost scary and Frankie hoped it was just her way of dealing with what was going on. Vanessa had been a bitch at school but not even she could lose both parents and bounce back from it within a matter of minutes. It had to be a coping mechanism.
Frankie walked out of the kitchen and headed for the stairs tucked away by the side of the front door.
"Where are you going?" Melly called.
"To find out what's going on."
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