The Dead And The Gone (29 page)

The last time Alex had been at Port Authority it was May, crowded with hysterical people trying to escape. Now it was deserted. It surprised him not to see anyone there for the convoy, but he thought maybe they used a different entrance or maybe they were all inside already. He couldn’t look at his watch without shifting Bri around, so he asked Julie what time it was. She stopped pulling the sled and checked.

“Ten-fifteen,” she said.

“I guess we’re the first ones here,” Alex said. “That’s good. We can get seats together.”

“I see a cop!” Julie cried, pointing toward the building. “He can tell us where to go.”

Alex gently put Bri down and walked over to the cop. “We have passes on the convoy out,” he said to the cop. “Do you know which entrance we need?”

“No convoy today,” the cop said.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked. “The December twelfth convoy. We have our passes and our reservations.” For a moment he panicked that somehow it was December 13 and they’d missed the convoy by a day. “It is the twelfth, isn’t it?” he asked, unable to keep the terror out of his voice.

“It don’t matter what today’s date is,” the cop said. “No convoys because of the quarantine.”

“What quarantine?” Alex asked. “What are you talking about:”

The cop looked at Alex, then at Bri and Julie and the sled. “No one told you?” he asked, and Alex could hear pity in his voice.

“Told us what?” Alex said, already knowing how much he was going to hate the answer.

“New York City is under quarantine because of the flu,” the cop said. “No one allowed in or out of the city.”

“Until when?” Alex asked. “For how long?”

The cop shrugged. “Until it runs its course,” he said. “Or until everyone in the country gets it so it won’t matter anymore. Or until we all die. Take your pick.”

“Do you know about the convoys?” Alex asked. “Will they start running again? Will they let us on if they do?”

“I know all about the convoys,” the cop said. “I know all about the lucky people who get to go on them. Yeah, there’ll be another one. They run every two weeks, and if that one can’t go out, then the one after that will take care of you and your family. If you hear the quarantine’s been lifted, come back in two weeks. If it hasn’t by then, come back in four. For people like you, there’s always a way out.”

Alex would have laughed, except if he did, he wouldn’t have been able to stop. Instead he thought about the next convoy. Two weeks was December 26. Christ was certainly too merciful to have them die before Christmas. Alex would keep his sisters alive for two more weeks and the convoys would be running again. He’d be eighteen and wouldn’t be allowed to go with them, but that would be all right. The buses would be filled with women and children, and one of the women would certainly volunteer to look after Bri and Julie until they got settled in. Someone would be kind.

“Thank you,” he said to the cop.

“Good luck, kid,” the cop said. “Tough break. You have far to go?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “But if we made it here, we can make it back home.”

Tuesday, December 13

Alex and Julie walked to Vincent de Paul hardly saying a word. None of them had talked much since the nightmare walk back from Port Authority. All Alex told his sisters was that the city was under a quarantine and once that ended, the convoys would be running again. They’d see how things were in two weeks.

He wouldn’t tell them he couldn’t go along with them until they were safely on the bus. But what was one more secret.

There was a big, handwritten sign on the front door of the school:
CLOSED
UNTIL
FURTHER
NOTICE
DUE
TO
QUARANTINE

“How long do you think ‘further notice’ is?” Julie asked.

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe just a week if we’re lucky.”

“Do you think Harvey still has food?” Julie asked as they began their walk home.

“Yeah, I’m sure he does,” Alex said. “I don’t know what I have left I can barter with, though.”

“Maybe you could bring him the sled,” Julie said. “I bet he’d give you lots of food for that.”

“We’ll need the sled in two weeks,” Alex said. “I can’t carry Bri all the way to Port Authority.”

“She’ll die anyway if we don’t get food,” Julie said.

“Harvey won’t want the sled back,” Alex said. “We’re the only people who’d want it. Think, Julie. Is there any food left at all?”

Julie nodded. “I left twelve B a can of beans,” she said. “It seemed wrong to leave nothing in case they ever came back. And there’s a canister of macaroni we never used because it had things in it.”

“Things?” Alex said.

“Bugs,” Julie replied. “I thought it would be wrong to throw it out, so I never did.”

“We can eat that,” Alex said. “People eat bugs all the time.”

“Yuck,” Julie said.

“It’s better than starving,” Alex said. “Besides, it’s only until Friday. We’ll get our bags of food then. And maybe Vincent de Paul will open again by Monday. We really just have to get through today, tomorrow, and Thursday and we’ll be all right.”

“We still have to cook the macaroni,” Julie said.

“Oh,” Alex said. “How do you do that?”

Julie shook her head. “You’re totally useless,” she said. “Even Carlos knows how to boil water.”

“So you boil water and you cook the macaroni in that?” Alex asked. “That doesn’t sound too hard.”

“It isn’t,” Julie replied. “Except the stove hasn’t worked in weeks. Bri’s done all the cooking in the microwave when there’s been electricity. Which there isn’t anymore, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s not my fault there hasn’t been electricity since the storm and the stove doesn’t work and I don’t know how to cook,” Alex said. “How long will the can of beans last us?”

“Depends whether we eat it or just look at it,” Julie said.

“You boil water in a pot, right?” Alex said. “Over a flame.”

“Yeah,” Julie said.

“Well, we have the pot,” Alex said. “And we still have running water. So the only thing we don’t have is the flame.”

“We could set fire to the apartment,” Julie said. “Then we’d have the flame and we’d be warm for a change.”

“Fire,” Alex said. “We’ll make a fire.”

“Inside the apartment?” Julie asked. “Like a campfire?”

Alex shook his head. “We can’t expose Bri to the smoke,” he said. “We’ll build the fire in one of the other apartments. In the sink. And we’ll put the pot on top of it and the water’ll boil and we’ll have macaroni and beans.”

“And bugs,” Julie said, but Alex could hear the excitement and relief in her voice. “We don’t have any firewood, though. What can we burn?”

“Magazines,” Alex replied. “There are plenty of those left behind.”

“We’d better boil lots of water,” Julie said. “We’re almost out of the water Bri boiled in the microwave. She boiled lots every afternoon, so we’d have it for an emergency, but we’ve pretty much used it all.”

“You and Bri have taken really good care of me, haven’t you,” Alex said.

“It wasn’t so bad before the snowstorm,” Julie replied. “Bri used to thaw our suppers in the microwave when we were in school. Now we keep the cans in our sleeping bag.”

Alex thought about how often he’d felt burdened by his sisters. But he’d been as dependent on them for survival as they were on him. “It’s only for a couple more weeks,” he said. “We’ll get on the next convoy. And Friday there’ll be food. Until then, we’ll eat macaroni and beans.”

“And bugs,” Julie said. “Oh well. It’s better than nothing.”

Friday, December 16

Alex would have preferred to keep Julie home on Friday, but they needed the two bags of food. They’d finished the macaroni and beans by lunchtime the day before, and with the minimal amount of food in each bag, there was no way they could survive on what he alone would bring home.

There was nothing in any of the apartments left to barter. Alex had searched carefully at first and then frantically all Wednesday and Thursday. He’d done it by candlelight since all the flashlight batteries had burned out. They still had two candles left and half a box of matches.

Mostly they slept. Alex wasn’t sure whether that was good for them or not, but there was nothing else to do, and he figured they probably burned fewer calories that way. He saw to it that Julie prayed during her waking moments. Prayer came naturally to Bri, so that was no problem.

Everything was gone, used over months of bartering for cans of beans and bags of rice. The only things Alex could think of to bring to Harvey were the coat he was wearing and a bottle of aspirin he’d insisted on holding on to.

That wasn’t true and he knew it. While he’d traded practically everything he’d found in the medicine cabinets, he’d kept a half dozen prescription sleeping pills, so if he ever had to, he could drug Bri and Julie and smother them while they were sleeping. He was sure they’d be in a state of grace when they died and that was what mattered.

He told himself not to go crazy, that Julie could figure out how to stretch two bags of food for ten days, or maybe the quarantine would be over and Vincent de Paul would reopen. If they could just make it to December 26, they had a chance.

He hated seeing how weak Julie had gotten. He knew she’d been taking less food for herself so that Bri could have a little more. Silently he begged her forgiveness for ever complaining about her.

There was no one on line when they got to the school. They both knew what that meant, but they walked up to the door anyway.

FOOD
DELIVERIES
SUSPENDED
INDEFINITELY

Alex stared at the sign. What did “indefinitely” mean? Was it just until the quarantine ended? Or had the plug been pulled on the city? And if the city had been left to die, did that mean the convoys had stopped altogether? He willed Julie to start crying. Maybe if he had to comfort her, he wouldn’t feel so helpless, so terrified, himself.

But Julie never did what he wanted her to, and this time was no exception. “It doesn’t matter,” she said instead. “It wouldn’t have been enough.”

“You’re probably right,” Alex said.

They began the walk home. “I’ll try Harvey,” he said. “I have my coat and a bottle of aspirin. Maybe he’ll give me something for that.”

“How can you survive without your coat?” Julie asked.

“I can manage,” Alex said. “I’ll just walk around wrapped in a blanket. Maybe you and Bri can figure out a way of making it more like a coat for when we go back to Port Authority, so my arms will be free to pull the sled.”

Julie stood absolutely still. “I don’t think we’re going to need the sled,” she whispered, as though there was anyone within five blocks to hear her.

“We’ll need it for Bri,” Alex said.

“She’s down to her last cartridge,” Julie said softly. “She’s been using it for a couple of weeks. Sometimes at night she coughs and she doesn’t use it and I think she’ll die right then in the sleeping bag.”

“Bri isn’t going to die,” Alex said. “We’ll be on the convoy in less than two weeks. We just need enough food to keep us going until then.”

“You sound like her,” Julie said. “When she goes on about Mami and Papi still being alive.”

“It’s different,” Alex said. “We can’t do anything about Mami and Papi. But we can still keep ourselves alive. Including Bri.”

“Would it help if you took my coat?” Julie asked. “It’s too big for me anyway.”

“Keep your coat,” Alex said. “Maybe next week we’ll bring it to Harvey.”

They walked in silence until they got back to their building. “I’m not afraid to die,” Julie said. “I figure I’m going to know more people in heaven than I do on earth anyway. Mami and Papi and Kevin. Lots of people. I just don’t want to be the last one to die. That’s what scares me most, that you and Bri will both die and I’ll be all alone.”

“That won’t happen,” Alex said.

Julie stared up at him, with that strange combination of extreme youth and unnatural aging. “Promise?” she said.

“Promise,” he said. He hated the thought of climbing the twelve flights of stairs, but he hadn’t taken the bottle of aspirin with him and he had to get it. It took them twice as long to get up the stairs as it had the week before. He didn’t know how on the twenty-sixth he’d manage to carry Bri down the stairs to the sled.

She was sleeping when they got in and her breathing was labored. When her cartridge ran out, Alex told himself, that night he’d find the strength to give them the pills. They’d die peacefully and that was the best anyone could hope for.

He found the bottle of aspirin and told Julie that he was going. “Do you want me to go with you?” she asked.

“No, stay here,” Alex said. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if Harvey made an offer for her while she was with him. He took his time walking down the stairs, and then slowly made his way to Harvey’s. He knew it was possible no food had come in during the week and Harvey might not have any to barter. He also knew Harvey might find his coat and a bottle of aspirin worthless. He knew lots of things that he didn’t want to know.

But at the store he found the one thing he didn’t expect: The door was locked.

Alex banged at it. Maybe Harvey was in the John. But there was no sound. Had Harvey gone? Had he somehow escaped, in spite of the quarantine?

The thought enraged Alex. If Harvey had left, he certainly would have taken his food with him. But Alex was too angry to be rational. He pulled off his shoe, and using what little energy he had left, used it to smash open the storefront window. Shards of glass fell onto the snow.

Alex put his shoe back on, reached in, and unlocked the door. Harvey was lying on the floor, his right arm stretched out, as though he was grabbing for something.

Alex took off his glove, knelt, and felt for a pulse. He couldn’t find one, but Harvey was still warm, so he put his ear to Harvey’s mouth to try to sense any breathing. Not that he’d know what to do if Harvey was still alive.

It didn’t matter. Harvey was fresh dead. Probably no more than ten minutes. The last of a dead breed.