"What other woman do we know speaks Spanish? Is Dora the Explorer out there?" Nate demanded, restless now. His sweaty palms were gripping the doorway like it was a lifesaver and Nate a stranded sailor. Ben couldn't help but notice how frightened he was underneath the layers of sarcasm that dripped from his voice. "If it's not my freaking mom, who else could it be?"

Ben remained silent. The woman at the door certainly sounded like Nate's mother. But she appeared to be nothing short of a ravenous beast. She was wearing the dress Ben had helped Nate pick out for her at Kohl's for her thirty-seventh birthday-- bright pink and orange with enough pizzazz to blind a golf cart driver while she walked across the street. But it was torn and bloody as if the creature on the doorstep had ripped the dress and the skin right off Tia Lucha and thrown them over itself like a jacket.

Ben felt like he was going to throw up. "God, Nate. If that's your Mom, she's Infected. Oh God, Nate."

"What the hell are you talking about? Take your glasses off. They're screwing with your eyesight."

"You were the ones who told me to put them on, you as--"

The creature slammed its fist into the door, and Ben flinched at the sound of his aunt's bones shattering. He closed the shades, inadvertently alerting the woman of his presence. Her voice-- its voice -- began its feverish babble. "Boys! Let me in, boys! I just need you to let me in! Nate! Let me into the house, Nate!"

"That's my mom out there! What the hell are you talking about, Ben?" Nate's own voice was beginning to take on similar qualities. Feverish. Crazed. Hysterical. And Ben knew he wouldn't be able to think straight with two Spanish hysterics yelling at him. Not with them both changing from their native language to English the more afraid they became, not when he'd barely gotten over the shock of the extent of his parents' safety precautions.

"Nate, pull yourself together, and don't open that damn door! Come see her! That's not your Mom!"

Nate was shaking his head now, violently now. "No! I can't see her. Are you insane?"

"Are you?" Ben replied incredulously. "First you think I'm wrong, and then you refuse to see that I'm right! That's not your mom, Nate, because your mom isn't infected. She isn't. Remember when my mother called? She said everyone at Getter was putting their space suits on, and that they'd all be safe. That screaming thing out there? Not your mom. I swear."

As if to punctuate his sentence, the creature rammed another one of Tia Lucha's limbs into the door. Nate's entire body nearly crumpled, and he leaned over as if he'd been the one hurt. Ben could visibly see his perverted jokes and witty statements rushing away from his mind like the blood from his face. He knew a knot of indescribable emotion, nondiscriminatory panic, was settling into his cousin's stomach as it was in his own. Nate lost all of the qualities that made him Nate right then and there, with his Infected mother at the door, the emergency manual off to the city dump, and the unwatched Marvlo movie still paused upstairs just before the scene where Alien Girl Number Two lifted her shirt over her head. And all Ben could do was watch.

Ben knew he had to get his cousin out of there-- and fast.

"Nate. The tunnels."

"The tunnels...right. The tunnels." He dragged his feet away from the door and slinked upstairs. Ben waited for him in the kitchen, filling his father's old messenger pouch with an unopened bag of cool ranch Doritos, two apples, and six water bottles just to distract himself. To get his hands to stop shaking, his heart to stop thumping wildly in his chest. Oh yeah, and to prepare for the trip into the tunnels, too. That, too.

Nate returned with Ben's backpack slung over his shoulder and puffy eyes. Pushing past his cousin, he purposefully stomped as took the steps into the attic two by two. Ben could hear the bookcase scratching against the floor only moments later, drowning out the incessant cries of Nate's mother. He grabbed the candy cane scented Purell and went up.

By the time Ben had made his way to the head of the stairs, Nate was already messing with a keypad in the center of the wall. Seeing Ben, he scrubbed furiously at his nose and face. He coughed once, cleared his throat, and began, "We don't have the combination. Probably in the emergency manual."

"Mmhm," his cousin agreed, pretending to preoccupy himself with his foggy glasses. He turned to the computer and silently scoured the drawers for something to place the videos onto so they could watch them later. The only thing Ben could find was his old dinosaur flash drive from fourth grade which he'd used to store images for his midterm project. He almost smiled at the memory, but his face quickly fell once he remembered that it was his Aunt-- his Tia-- who had helped him place those pictures onto the drive. Quickly, he shoved the tiny stick into the computer and watched as the screen flashed awake.

Hurry up, dumbass. Nate can't ever see this flash drive, he thought to himself as he fumbled with the mouse. He dragged the emergency folder from its place in the files tab and dropped it onto the flash drive. Nate was still entering random codes into the pad when he pulled away from the computer.

"Did you--um, did you get the code?" Ben asked nervously. "Try your birthday."

"I did." Nate's voice was flat enough to make Ben flinch. "Your birthday, too. The anniversaries of our parents' weddings, my parents' own birthdays, six zeros, one two three four five six--"

"Your parents are the sentimental ones, remember? It's Getter. G-E-T-T-E-R. 4-3-8-8-3-7. I'm sure."

Nate didn't question Ben as he punched the code in. A thunk resonated from the wall, and the wooden pane on which the keypad rested slowly began to lower into the floor. Behind the moving wall resided a large tube-like structure with the words EMERGENCY printed in bright red along each of its sides. Ben reached for the handle, yanking the front half towards him and Nate. The two stepped inside with no witty comments, no sex jokes, no lopsided smiles. No anything. The only reassurance they had about stepping into the tunnels was that screams of Tia Lucha were inaudible as Nate shut the door and the tube began to fall through the floor, into the kitchen, and finally below sea level.

The tunnels were unknown territory, just waiting to be charted. But neither Ben nor Nate was willing to take on that responsibility. The prospect of getting Infected was frightening, but nothing is more frightening than the unknown. Nothing other than perhaps, like Tia Lucha, the known. The Epidemic screwed with the boundaries of fear and safety, the hour and the millisecond, the known and the unknown. All were things to be wary of.

🕒 ☢️ 🕒

The highest point above sea level in Florida is Britton Hill with a pathetic elevation of ninety-five meters. Most of the state is on the verge of being submerged; one tsunami could completely devastate any city of God's choice. So it didn't surprise Ben when the elevator tube stopped in a pitch black area that reeked of seaweed and dirty salt water. A low rushing sound echoed from all directions, and occasionally, something slammed against the walls surrounding them. Ben patted his pockets for a flashlight he knew he didn't have.

"Well shit," he murmured. "Did you bring a flashlight?"

Ben presumed Nate was shaking his head. "I thought the tunnels would have lights."

"Yeah, me too. Have your phone?"

After a long second, a pale glow emitted from the screen in Nate's hand. He pushed his sweaty fingers against the screen, swiping up to get to the control center to appear on his screen. When it finally did, he pressed the flashlight icon and lifted his phone to illuminate the dark area.

"My God," Ben whispered. "How the hell...?"

The tunnels were made of the same translucent, plastic-like material of the elevator tube. Sluggish, sand-colored water closed in on all sides, and a single leak would let in enough water to drown Nate and Ben within seconds. Green, red, yellow, and blue lines ran along the floor, splitting off into different directions near the dead end a few yards away. On stepping out of the elevator tube, Ben noticed a key was printed on the wall. The word north was written in red, south in blue, east in green, and west in yellow. He reached forward to run his finger along the plastic wall when--

Thump.

"What was that?" Nate asked panickedly, his voice echoing off the nearly empty tunnels. "Is someone else in here?"

"Considering the fact that I screwed up and shared the entrances to this place with everyone in a five hundred mile radius, probably." Ben's heart was beating unbelievably fast in his chest, but he continued to be as sarcastic as possible. If Nate was going to freak out and be the wuss he'd always known Ben as, then he had to step up and be the...well, the Nate.

Wuss Nate didn't even roll his eyes. He looked as though he was on the verge of breaking down, so Ben added, "We're fine. It's probably just the fish, dude. This water around us? That's the ocean. Saltier than even you. We're fine. Let's just hurry up and get out of here. I'm sure my parents would've taken into account the fact that I would lose the journal by now, and they have a backup plan."

All Wuss Nate responded with was, "I lost the journal, not you."

Silently, anxiously, Ben took the phone from his cousin's sweaty palms and shone the light farther into the tunnel. The dead end looked to be the most ominous thing either of them could see, a choice that could either lead them to the Haven or get them lost in the tunnels forever. The more he focused, the more Ben could hear another sound above the rushing water and obnoxious fish-- a spraying noise, as if gas was forcefully making its way into the tunnels. Before he could figure out what it was, a small black dot on the ceiling above his head beeped. He coughed as he was blasted with a wave of cold, clean oxygen.

"Goddamnit!" he shouted, waving his arms around and sprinting away from what he presumed was the oxygen generation system.

"Ben!" Nate called. His voice was no longer feeble and wussy as the rays from the flashlight in Ben's hand began to fall away from him. He stepped forward in the tunnels and ran towards his cousin before he could be left in the midst of the stifling darkness.

"Goddammit! Goddammit!"

"Ben, come back!" He was moving farther and farther away as if he was trying to run from all of his problems. From worries and the feelings that only Wuss Nate was allowed to have.

Everyone was running the day the Epidemic started, whether it be mentally, physically, or even emotionally. It was as if they all believed that the more milliseconds they spent running, the less significant and painful the passing time would feel. But no one can truly outrun anything or anyone without running into something else.

Ben only realized this when he found himself staring straight into the face of a heaving Indian girl only thirty yards worth of tunnels away from the entrance that led to his house. Fecks of rainbow-colored glitter concealed in the frizzy braid on her shoulder, and her rumpled outfit suggested she'd been running just like him. He staggered back as possible situations flashed in front of his eyes. She could be Infected like Nate's mom; she could be on the verge of insanity like Wuss Nate; she could pull a gun on Ben and order him to lead her to the Haven he didn't know how to get to.... But the biggest problem he'd run right into was the fact that he knew her. He remembered her.

She'd been the one to ruin his life all those years ago.

"Margot!" a male voice called from behind Margot Fonteyn Iyengar. That was her name.

"I found someone your age! And he's not Infected yet!" Someone. She found someone. Did she not remember? Could she have forgotten about him?

Nate own echoing voice came from behind him. "Ben! Where the hell are you?"

Ben couldn't move. He couldn't speak.

Margot Fonteyn Iyengar narrowed her eyes at him as they flickered recognition. Oh God. "Wait...Ben? Ben Healy? Is that--?"

Turning on his heel, the spectacled boy sprinted off in the other direction. More than the ambiguity of the tunnels, more than the fact that Nate was no longer acting like himself, more than the fact that the only nonperishable he'd brought was a bag of Doritos, Margot Fonteyn Iyengar frightened the shit out of him. And sometimes, when you're scared, the only thing you can do is run.