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bottom of them within minutes. The beans taste so sweet with their high fructose corn syrup glaze. I can’t remember the last time I ate something so decadent.
    Sunlight from the outside world dimly lights this one room. We spend our evenings here, after we shut down the rest of the house. Each night Forest pulls the sliding doors out of concealment with finality, closing off a portion of the house.
    But this evening, before Forest begins his routine, there’s a heavy knock on the front door, stopping all of us from the embarrassment of doing the actual bowl licking we are tempted with.

 
     
     
     
     
    chapter three
     
    T he last cowboy came six months, one week, and three days ago. He brought news that had upset us all. He’d said there’s no government rebuilding itself, that there’s nearly nothing, and no one, left in the abandoned city streets and towns across the once strong nation.
    The adults look into one another’s eyes, silent as they acknowledge the knock on the door. Once again I’m the outsider, left to wonder if the people I live with actually possess telepathic talents. They discuss so much without words.
    But their eyes betray them. Dad looks determined, at what I don’t know. Mom squints a bit, as though willing the table to have compassion for whoever’s on the other side of the door.
    Forest is the first to break the silent conversation. “We need to see who it is, then we can determine how we proceed.”
    “We made a choice the night we lost Shelby,” Mark points out. “Don’t let one rebel change our decision.
    This is news to me. A decision made ten years ago that I’ve never heard of?
    “Before any of us answers the door, we need to look at the feed,” Dad says. “Then we can decide what we want to do.”
    I understand the apprehension that comes with a visitor. We don’t know where they’ve been, if they potentially carry the virus. That’s been the greatest concern since we lost Thomas and Jack – avoiding the contamination of the outside world, whatever the cost. The only time we take walks outside on the property is when we’re wearing Hazmat suits. After surveying our borders, we spend an hour bathing in fire-hot water filled with antiseptic chlorine to scrub whatever may have gotten through our biohazard uniform. No visitor who’s come around has ever worn compound-approved safety gear, and though we talk about everything else under the sun, we don’t talk about that.
    The men stand and head towards the study. Once they’ve switched on the battery to the surveillance camera, they’ll have the ability to watch whoever’s on the other side of the door from six different angles. I stand, too.
    “You needn’t follow them, Lucy. Stay here with Diane and me.” I know Mom only wants to protect me from whatever gruesome monster they’ve imagined in their heads. Whatever horrendous creature has grown in the world at large these past sixteen years, but no creature, aside from a horse, has ever come to our property. The men who come riding on the stallions are allowed to stand on our land because the cowboy rebels have something we are desperate for, information on the state of the world.
    I sit back down, putting my head in my hands. Concentrating, I strain to hear the men in the other room talk. I look at Mom and Diane, wondering why they aren’t the least bit curious to see who is on the other side. Maybe the cowboy knows of a clean food source.
    The study becomes loud and animated with the men’s voices.
    “I don’t care, I want to hear what this guy has to say!” Mark yells.
    “There’s nothing he can say, and he might put our plan in jeopardy. We have no idea what he wants!” Dad shouts back.
    I look at Mom biting her nails as the tension cuts through the room. We never fight like this at the compound.
    “Maybe Mark’s right, we should at least find out, shouldn’t we?” asks Forest. Dad slams something down, the remote control to the surveillance