Hunger is an endless threat ten years after the end of oil. The manufactured goods from the old times are deteriorating beyond repair. Deer have been hunted to extinction. Even their clothes are tattered and thin. Worst of all, the weather grows hotter and hotter, the world around them drier and drier.

When battered strangers arrive at the burned-out neighborhood down the hill, Dev and Sierra have to decide: help them, let them be, or drive them away? Their daughter's life may be at stake—but so is their own humanity.