The Dead and the Gone

By August 1, the sun still hasn’t appeared through the floating ash, causing the nuns at Holy Angels to start worrying over the survival of their garden in Central Park. Alex and Julie discuss this as they walk home from school. As they walk, they feel a 30-second rumble in the ground that they later learn was an earthquake. At St. Vincent de Paul the next day, Alex and a few boys discuss the earthquake and what it means. Kevin explains that the quake originated in the Atlantic Ocean and caused a tsunami that hit lower Manhattan. Kevin predicts that the flooding in Manhattan will eventually creep further and further inland, leading to new problems.

Several days later, Kevin invites Alex to go “body shopping”—stripping dead bodies of anything valuable to trade for food—so they meet outside Alex’s apartment building at 7 o’clock the next morning. They find a man’s body and take his watch and shoes; as Alex does so, he eases his conscience by telling himself that he’s doing this for Julie. They move on to another body—a woman—but it has been there for a few days and is already significantly eaten away. Next the boys find a small family lying together, causing Alex to retch.