Chapter 1

Before I could even leave the mall, I heard my baby's voice in my belly again.

"Mom, buying food isn't enough! We need a generator! We need antibiotics! Honestly, a couple of shotguns would be even better."

My knees buckled, and I nearly wiped out on the polished marble floor.

Was my unborn child trying to get arrested?

Once I was safely inside my car, I took a deep breath and patted my stomach. "Baby, stop scaring me. We live in a society with laws."

"I'm not scaring you! In my last life, I was barely a fetus in your belly when the zombies turned us into an all-you-can-eat buffet! My skull still hurts from them biting me!"

The imagery was a bit too vivid.

A wave of goosebumps broke out across my skin.

To prove this voice wasn't just a symptom of a mental breakdown, I decided to test him. "Fine. What's your dad's safe combination?"

That safe was Gabriel Gibson's absolute sanctuary. No one knew the code but him.

"Please, that's easy. It's 0925 plus your birthday. Dad's a hopeless romantic. His passwords are so predictable."

I immediately called Gabriel's assistant, made up an excuse about needing some documents, and tried the combination.

A heavy click echoed. It opened.

The last string of my sanity snapped.

It was all real.

In a little over a month, the world would be completely done for.

Without wasting a beat, I pulled up my phone contacts.

I still had connections from my old logistics job, so I dialed my former warehouse supervisor directly.

"I'm renting that 50,000-square-foot cold storage unit. Let's start with a three-month lease.

"Yeah, for meat. A lot of meat."

After hanging up, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal and headed straight for the city's largest wholesale farmers' market.

The place was a chaotic, filthy mess of shouting vendors, rotting vegetables, and murky puddles.

Standing by a pork stall in a Chanel haute couture suit and three-inch red bottoms, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

The locals looked at me like I'd escaped from an asylum.

"Sir, I'll take this half-hog. And those ribs over there too. Wrap them all up."

The butcher froze, holding the cleaver midair. "Lady, are you throwing a massive wedding or something?"

"No, I'm eating them myself."

I didn't have time for small talk, so I just scanned his QR code to send the deposit. "I'm buying up every fresh hog in this market. Have them delivered to my cold storage. If I'm short a single ounce, we're going to have a problem."

As I was supervising the workers loading the carcasses, a camera flashed nearby.

I turned to see Karlie McMillan holding up her phone, looking incredibly smug.

She was Gabriel's distant cousin, someone who always fancied herself a high-society heiress and viewed me as a country bumpkin.

"What are you doing here, Phoebe? Did the Gibson family go bankrupt? Is that why you're sourcing unhygienic meat from a slum like this?"

She pinched her nose, looking thoroughly disgusted.

I ignored her, hoisted an abandoned sack of pork belly myself, and tossed it into the trunk of my Porsche.

"Get out of my face if you want to live."

Karlie was taken aback by my intensity, but she quickly recovered with a cold sneer. "Keep acting. I'm posting this on Instagram right now so everyone can see the pathetic state of the lady of the Gibson family."

In my stomach, my son scoffed. "What an idiot. When the zombies hit, her marbled fat is going to be their absolute favorite. Talk about a prime cut."

I choked back a laugh.

Just then, my phone vibrated with a message from Gabriel. It was a screenshot of a bank deduction notice. I had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Right after that, Gabriel called. "Phoebe, did you just buy an entire cold storage unit of pork?"

He didn't sound angry. He just sounded bewildered.

"Yes. I have a craving for braised pork. Is that a problem?" I shot back righteously.

Silence stretched over the line for three seconds.

"No. Whatever makes you happy. I'll wire you some more money just in case."

As the line went dead, a warm feeling washed over me.

Apocalypse or not, I definitely married the right guy.