The Dead And The Gone by Pfeffer Susan Beth

Author:Pfeffer, Susan Beth [Pfeffer, Susan Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Adventure, Apocalyptic, Dystopia
ISBN: 9780152063115
Google: tHtdRwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0547258550
Goodreads: 2169506
Publisher: Graphia
Published: 2008-05-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Monday, August 29

“Oh Alex!” Julie cried, flinging herself into her brother’s arms and weeping.

Alex looked down at his little sister. In the three months since everything had happened, he had yet to see, or even hear, his little sister cry. Whine, complain, sulk, scream, and carry on, but never cry. Not when it became obvious neither Mami nor Papi was likely to return. Not when Bri left. Not when she learned Uncle Jimmy had left. Not when she was hungry or lonely or scared. And here she was sobbing for no apparent reason.

“What happened?” he asked as he gently led her away from Holy Angels. “Did someone die?”

Julie shook her head, but she continued to cry, and her tears cut into Alex, more even than Bri’s ever had.

“It’s the garden,” she finally choked out. “We lost everything over the weekend. It’s all gone, all the vegetables. All our vegetables. My string beans. I wanted you to eat my string beans, and now they’re dead.”

Alex pictured row after row of dead string beans lined up in Yankee Stadium. “You’re crying over string beans?” he asked. “We got a can of string beans last Friday.”

“I hate you!” Julie cried. “You don’t understand anything.”

“I understand plenty,” Alex said. “I understand that you’re upset, and I don’t blame you. You worked hard all summer in that garden.” He stopped for a moment, until the rustle of rats got him moving again. “They’ll still feed you lunch, won’t they?” he asked. “It’s not your fault you can’t work.” He tried to control his panic as he worked through the options if Julie no longer got lunch.

“I don’t know,” Julie sniffed. “I don’t care. I wish I was dead.”

“No you don’t,” Alex said. “Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think it.”

“You can’t tell me what to think,” Julie said, but at least she’d stopped crying. “I loved the garden. And it died because it’s so cold. It’s August, and I’m wearing my winter coat and gloves and my garden froze to death. And I hate corpses! I hate them!”

Alex didn’t blame her. They had just passed one that had been decomposing in front of a pizza place for a week now, its flesh eaten away by rats. At first when the bodies started appearing, they got picked up within a day. But now there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to when the sanitation crews removed bodies. With more people dying and fewer trips to the crematorium, the corpses were becoming part of the city landscape. Good for body shopping but nothing else.

“If it’s cold like this in August, what’s it going to be like in December?” Julie asked.

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But maybe by then they’ll have figured out a way of clearing the ash from the sky. The scientists must be working on that.”

“I thought they were working on getting the moon back in place,” Julie said.

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