Two Years ago:

The beginning of the Planique infection:

Day 62

*

I pressed my arms against the windowsill and then rested my chin on top of them. The early morning light did nothing for me anymore. People were leaving. I couldn't blame them. Maybe the evacuations became my daily entertainment, and that was why I stayed by the closed windows. The mosquitoes couldn't get inside this way, but my neighbors—I felt my heart leave with each one of them.

The last on my street was Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. They had lived in the house next to ours before my parents even bought it. They were fossils, but I called them that with all of the care and love I had in this world. Mrs. Jenkins babysat me before I started school, and her husband taught my older brother how to drive when our parents weren't looking. He had only been twelve at the time, but these old cooks gave us excitement when we only saw boredom.

But they were leaving, forever vanishing from my life because who knew when we'd see old friends again? Half of the city was sealed off. The pocket of horde infections overpowered the police; when would those walls break down? It'd barely been three months since the outbreak began, and I had already witnessed three live broadcasted suicides and two riots, and during one of my mornings, I saw my ex-best friend get killed by her boyfriend.

We were just kids. She was gone, and that asshole, I never remembered his name, was out there with the other infected people.

It was just the heavy, terrifying reminder that none of us were safe in this world.

My mother's screams bounced off the kitchen walls. My eyes widened as I popped up away from the window and stood in the middle of our living room. The cream walls and pink faux plants felt like they were closing in on me, pushed by the sounds of my mother's terror. I gulped, rolling my fingers into tight fists. "Mom?" I whimpered.

There was stumbling; it sounded like someone had fallen over. Hands slapped against the floor; I recognized the pings of palms hitting cool tile. Then silence gripped our family home. For heartbeats on end, I only heard myself, my heart, and my internal screams.

What was happening to my parents?

"Mama?" I called out to her again, but she didn't respond. Instead, my dad came out in the doorway. His head was down so that I couldn't see his face, and I was only able to focus on the gray hair on top of his head. I gulped. "Pa?" I said to him.

His shoulders twitched, and his right moved forward as the left aggressively moved back. His chuckle followed right after. Then his eyes—lifted his head and stared at me with what was once bright green and loving eyes, now turned black with soot and splattered red. He grinned, and all I saw were his purple gums.

"Naomi, do you understand what is happening?" he asked.

I whimpered, slowly sidestepping to the front door.

He clicked his teeth and passed his hand over his red flannel. "This is meant to happen, you know. We'll restore Earth to the beauty it was long ago. Humans can't live anymore. You know that, don't you, Naomi?"

My hands slid along the wall. The doorknob was close. I knew I could twist it fast and run out. My father was older, so I knew I could get away. I had to.

Until I moved far enough and could see the corners of the kitchen his body covered. Blood pooled onto the white tiles. My mother's. It leaked from the sleeves of her soaked sweater. Her face turned upward as her neck twisted in an unnatural curve. Her eyes bulged out of her head, and her curly hair stuck to her face.

Tears poured out of my eyes as I screamed. "Mom!"

My father laughed. "It's easy, Naomi, just gotta give in!"

I forced myself to move. I turned to the front door and yanked it open. My father's rushed, pounding steps matched my raging heartbeat as they echoed behind me. This was it. I was dead. I was more than dead. It was over.

"Get down!" someone shouted. Jorge.

My eyes widened as my older brother ran up the front walkway. I did as he said, dropping and rolling to the right on my knees as Jorge jumped through the front door. I listened as I heard him crash into our father.

"She needs to die, Jorge!" our father shouted.

"Fuck that! You can't do this!" my brother screamed, but his voice was strangled. Angry, yes, but he was crying. It was in every sharp inhale, every hiss. I heard tears.

When I got the courage to look, I turned. It felt like the rush of fear blood away from my face.

Jorge had our father's chin in one hand, pushing and forcing his head into the floor. Our father had his teeth clenched, and saliva sputtered onto his cheeks. His hands reached for Jorge's neck. "You're fighting the inevitable!" he shouted.

"You killed mom!" Jorge screamed, balancing his weight against our father to apply more pressure. Our father grunted, strangled, as his eyes cried black tears. "You killed our mother, and I'll be fucking damned if you kill Naomi too!"

I hiccupped, torn, struggling with the crashing emotions in my chest. I lost our mother, my best friend, the woman who always cradled me at times like this, and she fell to the hands of our father, her high school sweetheart, the sweetest man in the neighborhood who would take off his sweater for someone who needed one.

Planique destroyed my life.

And ripped away Jorge's humanity as he screamed and pushed our father's head so far back that the sound of snapping bones echoed in the sudden silence.

Jorge fell back, panting as he cried. Then he ran to me, holding me in his arms before he pulled me down the front yard. The Jenkins hadn't left, having stayed to listen to our screaming house. When they locked eyes with my brother, he shouted at them. "Avoid the I-90. There are pocket swarms! Stick to the roads for as long as you can and don't, for the love of everything you fucking love, don't open the windows! If they bite you, that's it!"

I cried. What could I do? I squeezed Jorge's hand as he pulled me to his old Honda. Practically tossing me inside, he slammed the driver's side door shut and stared at his fingers. He shook so much that the blood under his nails spread to his palms. "Don't open the windows," he whispered to me. "If they bite us, that's it."

"Jorge," I whimpered. "What's going to happen now?"

He started the car. "We're going somewhere safe, and no matter what happens, I swear to you, Naomi, I will protect you. Te prometo, Naomi."

***

I did the one thing I always did when things got emotional—I rushed across the rest of the gym and grabbed Enrique in the tightest hug. He tensed for a second as I swung my arms up around his neck, but the moment passed as quickly as it had settled upon us. With his head pressed into the curve of my neck, I held him tighter. He did the same to me.

"I'm sorry," I whispered because what else could I say? I had no idea he was in emotional pain, hiding it so well behind his smile.

"It's okay," he said, breaking our hug and putting me at arm's length. A weak smile tugged at his lips. "When Planique hit, I thought Yolanda followed our infected sister. I didn't know about this cult shit. Nor do I know if she's even alive."

Jorge stepped towards us. "She is," he said, and both Enrique and I quickly looked at him. He nodded. "And if you guys don't decide what you're going to do or we don't leave this school, we'll see her and everyone else in less than an hour."

What? How? My hands slid away from Enrique's shoulders. "How do you know?" I asked my brother.

His dark, infected eyes flicked at me. "They just passed Gordo's burger spot on the far south side. They aren't on foot either, so with cars, an hour."

***

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! This wasn't good at all.

The three of us ran back to the lab. Becky had already found a phone book to contact other campuses, so it only made sense that she'd make the calls in the room with the only functioning phone. Yet, before we could completely enter the room, Becky met us in the doorway. I leaped against her, afraid, worried, as if whoever Yolanda would be traveling with was already outside.

"What's happening?" Becky asked, holding my shoulders as her head shifted, as if she looked at Jorge and Enrique. "Could you guys hear me all the way over there?"

"No," Jorge said. "We came because we need to move out."

"No, no, no." Becky broke our hug and put me in front of her. I caught the flush in her cheeks, but this wasn't terror, like mine. She was excited. The growing smile on her face proved it. "We can't leave now, I made contact."

"How?" Enrique's brows pinched. "With who?"

Becky hurried back into the lab. She grabbed the phone book she'd placed next to the microscope. Flipping through the pages, her finger stopped somewhere in the middle. Then she fanned for us to walk over to her. "It's a campus like two hours away. They're just like you, Rick!"

He stopped at her side, squinting as he looked down at the numbers. "Becky, that's some suburban community college."

"Yeah, well, they're just like you." She gave Enrique the smuggest smile. "They've got a nice size time collecting mosquitoes and creating serums. Theirs plus the two you made could really be it. This is our hope!"

"That's nice," Jorge grumbled, running his fingers through his hair. I caught the infected skin just under his hairline and I frowned. Was it spreading throughout his skin like tht, beyond his eyes? Our gaze met and he side. "We can meet up with this place after we leave."

"We can't," Becky said quietly. "They said they're on their way. Maybe a little over an hour if they drive fast; it's not like there's traffic outside."

Shit. "No, Becks, we need to leave," I said as I frantically pointed back out in the hall toward the college's front windows. "The cult is coming."

"Huh?" Becky shook her head. "How do you know this? That's not right, that's—"

"Collective intelligence, Rebecca." Jorge's tone dropped as he walked over to the phone book and closed it. No one said her full name anymore...

"I can see them." His infected eyes passed over us. "And it's not like they're going to stop for food."

"Right, and how do you know if any of them," Enrique pointed back at the phonebook, "were a part of this cult or not?"

Becky frowned and nervously twirled her fingers in front of her. "I asked."

"Pendeja, she asked." Enrique threw his arms up over his head.

"Oh, Becky." I grabbed both of her hands. "What if this is a part of the trap? They're coming for us because of Jorge."

Jorge dropped his head briefly as my mind calculated every negative outcome. If the cult members arrived with just infected, we were fucked. If the people Becky just talked to were also obsessed with Planique, we were double fucked. My heart sped in my chest as I couldn't see a way out of it. I swore I hadn't felt fear like this for over a year—then came today.

"Naomi." I looked at my brother as soon as he said my name. "Becky didn't do anything wrong. Cult members never travel without the infected; those coming don't seem excited about tricking a random woman. She's fine; not sure about the people she called."

"They can help us," Becky squeaked.

"Can we even help ourselves?" Jorge's brows creased with emotion. "If we stay, we need weapons, gas cans, bags—"

"I got it! I can do it!" Becky grabbed my hands tightly before running out of the room. "I'll grab us everything we need!"