Flicker Read Free Page B

system, maybe. He’s outnumbered.
    “Fine, we’ll gear up and go talk to him. Outside though, I don’t want to risk him coming in here,” Dad says.
    “What difference is it going to make now?” Mark asks. “Besides, look at him–he’s sitting in the grass. Not a threat to our security!”
    “It’s the principle of the thing!” Dad argues.
    The principle of what, I wonder, as Mom’s eyes fill with tears. The series of the evening’s events confuse me, and I want to understand what they’re talking about. I’m smart enough to know I can’t say a word when Diane’s present; she’s never understood what passes between Mom and me. I can’t imagine she’d start now after hearing the fight in the other room.
    The men walk back into the dining room, and Mom wipes her eyes. Ignoring her, Dad announces the plan as if he’d agreed to it all along, “Ladies, clean up the dishes, we’re gearing up to go out and meet this cowboy.”
    They head down the hatch where the bulletproof vests and artillery are stored. If this cowboy’s a threat or a looter-in-disguise, we have enough ammunition at our compound to start a war.
    A nuclear disaster or missile crisis isn’t what caused the people in our compound to bury themselves sixteen years ago. An outbreak became an epidemic, and eventually swept through the entire world, laying billions of people to rest within a few weeks.  That was how the blackout came to be. The virus couldn’t be contained or stopped, unless you were like us, protected in a self-contained bubble.
    “Diane and Lucy, we need to listen to the feed. We need to hear what the cowboy has to say.” Mom’s voice is urgent and it puts me on edge. I take a step towards her, wanting her protection.
    “No, Mark doesn’t want me to go – so I won’t. I don’t know why you’re so hell-bent on doing what you want all the time,” Diane hisses back at Mom.
    “What? You’re seriously going to bring up the greenhouse situation again? I told you a thousand times– I didn’t know the spray would kill the plants. I thought it would stimulate them.”
    Diane uses that against Mom every time they’ve disagreed this past year. Throwing Mom’s miscalculations of Miracle-Gro quantities in her face.
    “I’m going to clean these dishes. You do what you want, Cecily. You always do anyway.” Diane spits her words in Mom’s face.
    Mom doesn’t flinch, and instead she takes my hand. Relieved, I squeeze back. We aren’t affectionate, not in the way I’ve read about families being. The characters in the books I devoured as a girl received good night kisses and big-hearted hugs, but those aren’t a part of my life. Tonight though, things feel different. The food’s gone, there’s a secret plan, and an unexpected visitor has arrived.
    Diane grabs our bowls and walks into the kitchen. The moment she’s gone Mom takes me by the shoulders, and looks deep in my eyes.
    “Listen to me, Lucy. I don’t want to fight with your father, not tonight, so I need you to make me a promise.”
    “Anything. I’ll do anything.” I hold back the rest of my words; I’ll do anything just to know what’s going on.
    “Tonight, when the time comes, don’t drink anything. And don’t ask me any questions, even if you get scared. Can you promise me?” She shakes my shoulders, as though her force will make me answer faster.
    “Yes,” I answer and as I say it, I realize she’s asked me to do the very thing I don’t want.
    I make her a promise, and in doing so I forfeit myself.

 
     
     
     
     
    chapter four
     
    D ad, Forest, and Mark walk back into the house from the underground bunker, fully loaded as though this lone ranger has already declared war. They wear Hazmat suits and semi-automatic rifles hang on their shoulders, the same gear they wear every time they go to meet an outsider.
    They’ll do anything to keep us safe. I’m grateful to have been born in this compound with this family when I could have been