Maybe if you follow the monster down the dark hallway, you'll find some clue about why there's a malicious hunchback cousin, a chubby monster, and a now-dead insect janitor in your great uncle's basement. There's also a good chance you might trip and crack your head open on something in the dark, but hey, you're a gambler.

You navigate the pitch black hallway by feel, doing your best not to put your hands on the slimier parts of the wall. It's a losing battle, so you eventually stop caring and confidently grope your way along the filthy walls. Once this is all over, you'll want to invest in a drum of Purell.

The tunnel seems to go on forever. A good twenty or thirty minutes into your wandering, the paved floor gives way to tightly-packed soil, and the grimy walls turn to rock with wooden support beams every ten feet. Maybe that's how your great uncle made his fortune: a gold mine under his mansion. Or did the mansion come first?

You put the question aside as you spot a glimmer of light a short distance away. You rush forward and find the monster you were following. Said monster is still engrossed with the Koufax card you gave him, rubbing it slowly against his cheek and emitting a soft, mewling noise. He also seems to have found a lantern and a canary to bring with him, both of which would be very handy items to have. You very carefully grab the lantern and bird cage, hoping that the monster won't mind you taking them. Sure enough, he doesn't seem to notice the rapidly diminishing light as you walk away with your new spelunking tools.

Your progress down the tunnel goes much faster with the lantern. You wonder about the canary, though. It seems awfully quiet.

Oh poop, you think (and do) to yourself. You turn around and run as fast as you can the way you came. Along the way, you pass the still preoccupied. Maybe his love for that baseball card will protect him from the toxic mine gases.

Even running as fast as your stubby legs can carry you, it takes almost an hour to escape the dark tunnel, race down the better lit, but still filthy, tunnel, and return to the mansion proper. You arrive just in time to disrupt Pendleton Queez's Powerpoint presentation on the importance of establishing a living trust. He and your relatives are curious about your filthy clothes, along with the lantern and dead bird you've been hauling around. You explain as best you can that there's a system of tunnels under the mansion, filled with monsters and defensive relatives, and that the canary may have saved you from certain asphyxiation. Meanwhile, your aunt Phyllis examines the canary.

"Um, it looks like this canary died from bird flu. How long did you say you were carrying it around?"

Plenty long, as it turns out. Still, it's a pretty mild disease to catch in most cases, right? I don't know, but the way your lungs suddenly explode as you try to remember the symptoms, I'd say "no". It turns out that you contracted a whole new strain of bird flu, one so rare that they name it after you. In the weeks that follow, the media focuses on your case and whips the population into a huge panic. All told, two more people die the same way, then another animal-themed flu appears and the cycle starts over. Oh, don't get me started on the media.

You're still dead, though.

BIRD FLU? SOMEONE CALL FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE! START OVER!!!