The Dead And The Gone Read Online Free Page A

riots. Curfew between 8 pm and 6 am. Tides twenty feet tall, sweeping away people, trees, even buildings. Mandatory evacuations. Plane crashes. Countless numbers of people dead in subways and in cars from tunnel flooding.
    Alex hadn’t thought about people being on the subways when the flooding first began.
    He felt a wave of panic and had to tell himself to calm down. It would be easy enough to find out if Mami was all right. All he had to do was call the hospital and confirm that she was there. Sure, they weren’t supposed to call her at work unless it was an emergency, but they hadn’t heard from her in over twenty-four hours and that was emergency enough.
    Mami had the hospital number written on the scratch pad she kept by the phone. Just seeing it comforted him. He picked up the phone, but it was dead.
    For an instant he went crazy. The phone was dead because Mami was dead. But then he realized how foolish that was, and he began shaking with silent laughter. No wonder they hadn’t heard from Mami. It was a miracle the phone service had lasted as long as it had, long enough for Papi and Carlos to call.
    Alex went back to the TV and switched to the station with all the international news. Their newscaster was interviewing a distinguished-looking scientist about how long it would take before things got back to normal.
    “Things may never get back to normal,” the scientist said. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I know of nothing humans can do to return the moon to its orbit.”
    “But surely there must be something,” the newscaster said. “ NASA must be working on a solution day and night.”
    “Even if they can come up with something, it may take months, even years, before they can implement it,” the scientist replied. “What happened yesterday will be nothing compared to what lies ahead.”
    “You’re not suggesting we all panic,” the newscaster said in that calming, don’t-panic voice Alex associated with TV when things were at their worst. “Surely panic is the one thing we shouldn’t do right now.”
    Before Alex had a chance to find out what the scientist’s alternative to panic might be, the electricity went out again.
    Alex cursed under his breath. No phone, no electricity, two kid sisters depending on him to take care of them until their parents returned. God certainly didn’t want to make things easy for him.
    Or for anyone else, he thought. Floods in the subways. Devastation throughout the world. How many people had died in the past two days? Thousands? Millions? How long would it take before Carlos was back at his base? How long before Papi could return from Puerto Rico, before the hospital could let Mami go home?
    Stop it, he told himself. You’re starting to sound like Aunt Lorraine. One
dramatica
in a family is enough. No matter how^7 ^bad things were, he couldn’t allow himself to be frightened. Not as long as he was responsible for Briana’s and Julie’s well-being.
    Alex went back to his bedroom and picked up his notebook. Knowledge was the enemy of fear. Before every debate he always wrote lists of his argument’s strengths and weaknesses. He’d do the same now.
    He made three columns and labeled them: what i know; WHAT I THINK; WHAT I DON’T KNOW .
    Under what i know he wrote:
     
    No subways
    Floods
    Moon closer to Earth
    Carlos all right
    Bri and Julie all right
    School on Monday
     
    There didn’t seem much point writing down what he’d heard about Europe or Massachusetts. People there could make their own lists.
    He bit on his pen and thought. Then he wrote: F
ood in the apartment.
    Of course that was assuming Julie had packed things besides mushrooms and candy bars.
    But Mami had Wednesdays off, and most likely she’d gone to the supermarket to buy groceries. Alex made a mental note to check the kitchen cabinets, but he doubted there was anything to worry about when it came to food.
    He looked at the lists. Under what i don’t know he wrote:
How long it will