On the way into the alleys, we collect stray bits of food: beef jerky laced with dust, half-eaten hotdogs with spots of mold, green meatballs, etc. We carry it in open containers as we walk into the alleys, and then we dump it on the ground and climb up onto the slope of trash and cardboard boxes that chokes the alley.
After that, it’s a matter of waiting.
We hear the snarls in the distance, and Peter switches on the tape recorder.
In a pack, they pad into our alley, three of them, each more muscular than the last. Finding the treasured meat, they leap onto it. They snap and snarl and growl and howl at each other, a cacophony that echoes in the alley.
Peter begins to record.
One of the dogs catches our scent. He fixes his yellow eyes on us and howls. The other dogs notice. All of them begin to scratch and paw at the trash that leads to us. But Peter has picked a place with too steep a slope. They can’t do anything but pace below us, which they do.
I look at Peter and want to ask what the plan is now, but he’s crouched at the edge of the trash, still recording, and I don’t want to mess up his recording and have to repeat this. So I wait. My legs begin to cramp but I don’t dare move. Claire curls beside me and naps.
And wait. And wait.
He settles against the trash, tape recorder resting in his lap, still whirring away. I see his chin droop onto his chest. Both he and Claire sleep.
The dogs keep their vigil below.
At last, the tape recorder clicks—it’s run out of tape. But the dogs aren’t gone. I try to make myself comfortable. I close my eyes and can’t imagine how I’ll sleep through this.
Somehow, I do.
I wake in near darkness to the sound of a woman shouting. Claire and Peter are shadows beside me. Howling, the dogs scatter as gunshots ring out through the alleyway. In close quarters, the shots sound like bolts of thunder inside a room. They echo and rattle deep into my bones.
“You’re both dead,” Peter whispers.
I shut my eyes and don’t move.
He calls down, “I found them like this. Dogs must have gotten them.” I hear him half run half hop down the side of the trash. The pile shakes but doesn’t fall. I try to breathe shallowly. “They must have climbed to safety and then bled out.”
There are several people down there. I hear their voices, murmuring to each other, too low for me to pick out individual words. I concentrate on not moving. My leg is cramped. My shoulder itches. My back is twisted. But I keep myself as still as possible. If it were daytime, the red paint would never be mistaken for blood. In the darkening shadows, I think it must look like dark liquid. I can’t open my eyes to check.
A man’s voice is louder than the others. “But they’regone,not just dead?”
In a singsong voice, Peter says, “Because they could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for them. The Carriage held but just these two and Immortality.”
“The Missing Man must be back!” a woman cries. “He sent their souls on!”
I hear cheering. Cheering for my death, for the death of a little girl. Peter promises to bury our bodies, but the crowd doesn’t listen to him. They’re racing out of the alley, whooping with joy.
I want to cry.
I don’t.
I want to throw my arms around Peter and thank him. For a little while at least, I’ll be safe, maybe for long enough to find my way home.
But I don’t move.
I lie there until I am certain that the people have left the alley and aren’t returning. Then I sit up. Claire sits up beside me. Wordlessly, we climb down the trash heap. She slips her small hand into mine. Hand in hand, we go home.
Chapter Eleven
Five days after I was pronounced dead, Claire bursts into my bedroom. “He found him!” She bounds onto my bed, and I bolt upright. For an instant, I think,The Missing Man!She’s beaming from cheek to cheek. In her arms is a bedraggled polka-dot bear. “Prince Fluffernutter! Peter found him!”
I flop back onto my pillow.
Peter appears in the doorway. He has a gash in his trench coat. I open my mouth to ask if he’s okay, but he holds up his hand. “I didn’t kill anyone. The thief was already dead.”
