The Dead and Gone

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  "I don't care if Briana is cleaning the stables for the birth of baby Jesus," Alex said. "Get her."

  To his astonishment, he heard the woman say, "Find Briana Morales, and bring her here. Her brother's on the line."

  "Thank you," Alex said. "I'll hold."

  Still clutching Carlos's postcard, Julie stared at Alex. "Is she coming?" she asked.

  Alex nodded.

  Julie hugged him. "Let me speak to her," she said. "Please."

  "Of course," Alex said. "But we probably won't have much time, so make it fast."

  "I want to tell her about my garden," she said.

  "Tell her you have one," he said. "Don't go into details."

  It took close to five minutes before he heard anything, but when he did, it was worth the wait. "Hello?"

  "Bri? It's Alex."

  "Alex? Is it Mami? Is she home? Or Papi?"

  "No," Alex said. "It's just us, me and Julie. We haven't spoken to you for so long, and we wanted to wish you a happy birthday and find out how you're doing."

  "I'm fine," she said. "I just thought ... I mean Sister Marie made it sound like it was an emergency, and I've been praying so hard for Mami and Papi to come home so I could, too; I guess I got carried away."

  "Why?" Alex asked. "Aren't you happy where you are? Are they treating you okay?"

  "Oh no, Alex, they're really nice to all of us," Bri said. "I love the farm. I love taking care of the goats and the sheep. We eat three meals a day. I even have a nickname. The girls call me Brush, because I came with so many toothbrushes. But I miss home anyway. It's like I never stop aching. How's Julie?"

  "She's right here," Alex said. "Ask her yourself."

  "Bri!" Julie shrieked. "Bri, is that really you? I miss you so much. I think about you always. Alex says I can't talk too long, but I want you to know I'm working in this big garden in Central Park. All of us at Holy Angels are, and I wish you were here working with me. Yeah. Really? Goats? Do they kick? And sheep? And breakfast? We don't eat breakfast anymore, but Alex gets us food every week and we eat lunch at school, so it isn't too bad. But sometimes I just hurt because you're not here. I know that's selfish and I pray for forgiveness, because you're happy and there are the goats and all that, but I still wish you were here. Yeah. Well, Alex is gonna kill me if I keep talking. No, we're getting along pretty well, actually. He lets me beat him in chess sometimes. Okay, here he is."

  "You're doing all right?" he asked. "You're not hungry or overworked or anything?"

  "I'm fine," Bri said. "How's everyone else? How're Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Lorraine? Have you heard from Carlos?"

  "We just got a postcard from him," Alex said. "He went to Texas."

  "Texas," Bri said. "Well, I guess that's closer than California. Does he sound all right?"

  "You know Carlos," Alex said. "He sounds fine. Do you have classes, or is it all farmwork?"

  "Oh no, we have classes, too," Bri said. "It's practically tutoring, because there are just us ten girls. We wake up at dawn and do chores, and then we go to chapel, and then we have breakfast and do some more chores. Then after lunch, we study for a couple of hours, and then it's back to working until evening chapel and suppertime. But after supper we talk and play games and have lots of fun. Some nights we sing. I don't know if I have a vocation, but I think I might. I pray for one, because it would make Mami so happy if I did. When she gets home. You haven't heard anything from her or Papi?"

  "Nothing," Alex said.

  "Well, I still believe in miracles," Bri said. "Talking to you is a miracle. Someday there'll be another miracle and Mami and Papi will come home."

  "We tried to call on your birthday," Alex said. "We think about you all the time."

  "I think about you, too," she said. "Sister Marie says I have to get off now. I still have to tend the sheep."

  "Okay," Alex said, reluctant to hang up. "Bri, just one more thing. What's the weather like up there?"

  "It's kind of strange," Bri said. "It was really hot and sunny at first, but a week or so ago, it turned gray and it's been that way ever since. Every night we pray to St. Medard to intercede and bring us sunshine, because without it, the crops will die and we don't know what we'll do if that happens. But it stays gray."

  "It's like that here, too," Alex said. "Okay. Bri, we'll talk again soon, I promise. Take care. We love you."

  "I love you, too," she said, and hung up.

  Alex held on to the phone a second longer. Julie stared at Carlos's postcard.

  "I wonder if the sun is shining in Texas," she said. "Maybe when Bri gets back, we should go there."

  Chapter 9

  Monday, August 1

  "Watch out for that rat," Alex said to Julie as they walked home from Holy Angels. Every day there were more dead, and the rats were getting larger and more daring.

  Julie dodged the rat. "Sister Rita doesn't know what we're going to do if the sun doesn't come out soon," she said.

  "She'd better think of something," Alex said. "The sun isn't coming back for a while."

  "I really worry about the string beans," she said. "They're my favorites. Lauren likes the tomatoes best, because there are so many of them, but the string beans remind me of summer." She laughed. "I guess it is summer," she said. "Do you think it's cold like this at the convent?"

  "Probably," Alex said. "It's probably getting colder all over the world."

  "Brittany—she's my new best friend—she says her father says the strong will survive and everyone else will die and the world will be better because everyone'll be strong," Julie said. "Lauren says the meek will inherit the earth, not the strong, and Brittany says who wants the earth anyway, so the strong might as well have it."

  "What do you say?" Alex asked.

  But before Julie could answer, they both felt a rumbling underfoot, the way it used to feel in subway stations. Only now they were outside, and the subways weren't running anymore.

  It lasted for about half a minute. Alex and Julie stood there, frozen. The few other people walking down Broadway had the same shocked looks on their faces.

  "Earthquake!" a man shouted.

  "You're crazy," another man said. "This is New York, not California."

  "I used to live in California," the first man said. "I know what an earthquake feels like and that was an earthquake." He looked thoughtful. "Four point five maybe," he said. "Nothing serious."

  "Was it really an earthquake?" Julie asked Alex as they resumed walking.

  "I don't know," Alex said. "Does it matter?"

  Tuesday, August 2

  "Did you feel that earthquake?" Tony Loretto asked Alex and Kevin at lunch. "I was home, and my St. Anthony statue fell off the chest of drawers."

  "I was on Broadway," Alex said. "My sister and I both felt it. Someone said it was an earthquake, but I didn't know whether to believe him."

  "The quake wasn't too bad," Kevin said. "It's the tsunami that caused the problems."

  "Tsunami?" Alex said.

  Kevin shook his head. "Sometimes I think you live under a rock, Morales," he said. "The earthquake was in the Atlantic, and lower Manhattan got hit by a tsunami. Big one, too. Like the tidal waves haven't been enough to wash New York clean of sin."

  "My mother works for the city," Tony said. "She says there are going to be mandatory evacuations south of Thirty-fourth Street by September. All of lower Manhattan is flooded now, and the water keeps seeping up. Big sewage problem, too. Coffins floating around. Huge health problems."

  "From one tsunami?" Alex asked.

  "And the tides," he said. "But they think there're going to be more tsunamis. There's a fault line in the Atlantic close to the city, and with the moon changing the gravitational pull, the earthquakes are going to happen pretty regularly, and that means more tsunamis. It isn't like Thirty-fourth Street is under water, but the water keeps moving uptown, pushing the sewage and the coffins, and things keep getting worse."

  "Even the rats are drowning," Alex said.

&n
bsp; "Nah," Kevin said. "They've been taking swimming lessons at the Y."

  Monday, August 8

  "So, Morales," Kevin said as they ate their cafeteria lunch of boiled potatoes and canned carrots. "What do you have planned for tomorrow?"

  Alex shrugged. "The usual," he said. "Checking on the elderly, studying theology, fighting for survival. Same old, same old."

  Kevin laughed. "You need something new and exciting in your life," he said. "Wanna go body shopping? It's my latest hobby."

  Alex knew immediately that this would be something gruesome and disgusting, and if not illegal, most certainly immoral. "Sounds great," he said. "Where and when?"

  "First thing tomorrow," Kevin said. "I'll meet you in front of your building around seven o'clock, so we can both visit our old folks first and get to school on time. I know how you hate to be late for classes."

  "It's Father Mulrooney," Alex replied. "He makes St. Augustine come alive."

  "Which is more than he can do for himself," Kevin said. "Speak of the devil..."

  Father Mulrooney walked up to the two boys and gestured for them to stay seated. "I looked over your list just now, Mr. Morales," he said. "I noticed there were only seven signatures."

  "Yes, Father," Alex said. "Only seven people answered when I knocked on their doors."

  Father Mulrooney nodded. "That's to be expected," he said. "I just wanted to confirm. As time goes on, more of the elderly and infirm will die. And, of course, some will move away with their families. Have you any plans to leave New York, Mr. Morales?"

  "No, Father," Alex said.

  "Very well, then," Father Mulrooney said. "I'll see you later for Latin."

  "Yes, Father," Alex said. With the lay staff gone and only three elderly priests left on the faculty, education at St. Vincent de Paul Academy consisted mostly of theology, Latin, and church history. Alex didn't mind that. There was something comforting in those subjects, a connectedness with the past that was soothing when the present was so bad and the future so terrifying.

  "Body shopping," he said to Kevin. "Sounds like fun."

  "You'll love it," Kevin said. "Bring a face mask and a garbage bag. I'll supply the latex gloves. And when you say your prayers tonight, ask for a fresh crop of corpses."

  Alex took a deep breath. "Deal," he said, knowing whatever he'd be doing in the morning, Kevin, at least, thought it would prove worthwhile.

  Tuesday, August 9

  "Good," Kevin said at seven the next morning. "Face mask and shopping bag. You're set. Here are the latex gloves."

  "I put some mentholated gel in this Baggie," Alex said, offering it to Kevin. "Put some under your nose. It helps with the smell."

  "Good idea," Kevin said, rubbing it on. "Okay, then. Fifty-fifty, right? Whenever we're together, we split the booty. I'll show you where you can trade it in for food or whatever."

  "Fair enough," Alex said.

  "Okay, then," Kevin said. "Let's get going. Want to walk across on Eighty-eighth?"

  "No," Alex said. "How about Eighty-ninth instead?"

  Kevin grinned. "It's taboo, isn't it," he said. "Body shopping on the block where you live. I feel that way, too, even though I don't understand why. Father Mulrooney could probably explain it."

  The boys walked up West End Avenue to Eighty-ninth Street. Though there were some bodies on West End Avenue, Kevin walked right past them.

  "Nothing worth stopping for," he explained. "You get so you can tell. The glint of a watch is a big help. Watches are always good, but shoes are better, and anything in a wallet: cash, IDs. Coats are a growth market. The colder it gets, the bigger the demand."

  "And we can get food for all that?" Alex asked. The food in the Friday bags was getting sparser, and even though he skipped supper most nights and fasted on Saturdays, there was hardly enough for Julie.

  Kevin nodded. "You see what I see?" he asked, pointing to a body lying halfway down the block. "We got a fresh one." He jogged over, Alex following him.

  It was a man, fully dressed but no coat. "I bet he's been dumped within the past few minutes," Kevin said. "Hardly stinks at all, but maybe that's the menthol. You get the watch; I'll look through the pockets."

  Alex begged God's forgiveness, and unstrapped the watch off the dead man's wrist.

  "Nothing," Kevin said with a shrug. "Different families handle it different ways. Some of them think ID'll help somehow, before the bodies get dumped in the crematoriums. Others don't want people to know their address. Guess this one is one of them. Shoes next. Nice ones, too. They were crazy not to keep them for themselves."

  Alex pulled the left shoe off the body while Kevin took care of the right one.

  "This pair's for you," Kevin said. "Put them in your bag. Is that a body I see over there?"

  "Yeah, I think so," Alex said. "A woman."

  "Men are better than women," Kevin said. "Bigger demand for their shoes. But we should check anyway."

  They crossed the street and walked to where the corpse was lying. Alex could smell it half a block down.

  "She's a pungent one," Kevin said. "And useless. Look at that: barefoot already."

  "How long do you think she's been there?" Alex asked, the bitter taste of bile in his mouth. Most of the woman's flesh had been eaten away, and he could see her partly gnawed bones sticking out from her dress.

  "Couple of days probably," Kevin said. "Come on. I see a pile over there. Maybe we'll get lucky."

  Alex followed Kevin to the corner of Eighty-ninth and Riverside Drive.

  "See how wet Riverside is?" Kevin asked. "That's going to happen all over New York pretty soon. The wetter the city gets, the more people'll need nice dry shoes. Hey, it's a family. Look at that: Daddy, Mommy, and baby."

  Alex stared at them. The mother's arms had loosened and the baby had fallen next to her. The father was lying on top of them both.

  "I'm going to be sick," Alex said.

  "Not on me," Kevin said.

  Alex tore the mask off his mouth and turned away from Kevin. He had nothing in his system, but he retched violently. He felt Kevin's hand on his shoulder and turned back to him.

  "If we don't take their shoes, someone else will," Kevin said. "See, they were all shot. I bet Daddy shot Mommy and the baby and then himself. Nice of him to do it on the street like this. Or maybe he carried them here and then shot himself. It doesn't matter. I wonder how baby stuff will do. I've traded some kids' things, but never any baby shoes. Booties, that's what they call them, I think."

  Alex remembered when Julie was born. I'm doing this for her, he told himself.

  "No coats," Kevin said. "But looky here. Daddy's got a brand- new gun."

  Alex stared at it. "Are you going to trade it?" he asked.

  Kevin shook his head. "It could come in handy someday," he said. "Okay if I keep it?"

  "Take it," Alex said.

  "Great," Kevin said. "You can have all the shoes, then. I'll keep Daddy's watch and you can have Mommy's."

  "Don't call them that," Alex said.

  "You don't have to be so touchy," Kevin said. "They're just bodies. Their souls are in heaven or hell or wherever. Probably not Catholics anyway. Come on, take her shoes off. You got to get used to it."

  Alex took a deep breath, then pulled off the woman's shoes. Kevin unlaced the man's and took them off. "I'll do the booties," Kevin said.

  "Thank you," Alex said.

  Kevin shook his head. "You act like you never saw a dead body before," he said. "What are you, a tourist?"

  "I don't know," Alex said. "It's different actually touching them."

  "It'll be us soon enough," Kevin said. "Tell you what. Let's get our feet wet and walk up a couple more blocks. Then we'll turn this stuff in. When all this turns into loaves and fishes, you'll have a different outlook."

  Alex doubted he'd ever feel differently about robbing the dead. But he followed Kevin up Riverside Drive. The water sploshed under his feet, and he could feel his socks getting wet. It was cold out
, that weird, unnatural cold he couldn't get accustomed to.

  "Do you think we'll ever be warm again?" he asked Kevin.

  "We'll be warm enough in hell," Kevin said. "I've got a good feeling about Ninetieth. See? I told you." He ran down the block.

  Alex caught up with him. This one wasn't so bad, just an old dead guy. "He has glasses," he said. "Is there a market for them?"

  "Good question," Kevin said. "Let's take them and find out. Nice watch. No coat, but I bet that sweater will be worth a can of Dinty Moore. Come on, help me pull it off."

  Alex removed the man's glasses and put them in his garbage bag. He grabbed one arm and Kevin grabbed the other, and they pulled the sweater off the body. Alex took the man's loafers while Kevin searched through his pockets.

  "Bad day for wallets," he said. "But on the whole a profitable morning's shopping. You ready to trade in the stuff?"

  Alex nodded.

  "Then let's get going," Kevin said. "Maybe we'll find some more stuff on the way over."

  But the only corpses they saw were old and picked over.

  As they turned up Ninety-fifth, Alex spotted a body. "See it?" he asked.

  "Sure do," Kevin said.

  Alex forced himself to go first. I'm doing this for Julie, he thought. God will forgive me. "He's got his coat on," he said.

  "I bet he dropped dead of a heart attack," Kevin said. "Great find, Morales. See if there's a wallet."

  Kevin removed the man's coat and Alex searched through his pants pocket for a wallet. "Found it!" Alex said.

  "It's yours," Kevin said. "You take the shoes and the watch and I'll take the coat. Fair?"

  "Fair," Alex said. "Is that a real Rolex?"

  "Looks that way," Kevin said. "The coat's cashmere. Well, I guess death comes to all of us sooner or later. Just sooner for him. We should do pretty well for ourselves today."

  "Where next?" Alex asked, relieved the body-shopping part of the event had ended.

  "Harvey's," Kevin replied. "Our friendly neighborhood dealer. You'd better learn to love him, because he's got the monopoly around here."