A split second before I swipe my card at the Hermès boutique, I hear my unborn son's scream inside my head.

"Mom, don't buy this useless designer bag! The zombie apocalypse is only a month away! This is inedible, and it can't be used as a weapon either. What's the point of buying it? Buy essential food! Sell that limited-edition sports car at home and trade it for a bulletproof armored vehicle!"

My hand trembles, and the purchase order worth millions scatters across the floor.

The sales associate looks at me with disdain and says, "Ms. Webb, if you don't have enough funds, you can always come back another day."

I ignore her and immediately turn around to call the owner of the wholesale market.

Without wasting any time, I order, "I need 10,000 pounds of potatoes and 5,000 pounds of beef. Make sure it's the kind with the fatty parts! I want it delivered immediately!"

From this moment onwards, the socialite Phoebe Webb who only knows how to shop is gone. In her place stands a survivalist obsessed with preparing for the end of the world.

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.

When I got home and looked at the multimillion-dollar imported lawn and exotic gardens, my heart bled.

None of this junk would be edible or stop a zombie.

"Cody, tear it all out."

The butler, Cody Hewitt, who was mid-snip with his shears, flinched and nearly took off his finger.

"Mrs. Gibson, Mr. Gibson had these tulips flown in specially from overseas…"

"Rip them out!" I snapped, tossing my Hermès Birkin onto the ground. "Am I the lady of this house, or are you? I don't like flowers. I've developed a pollen allergy, okay?"

Cody looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but he eventually waved the gardening crew over to start digging.

Watching those gorgeous, blooming flowers get yanked out by their roots, I had only one thought—potatoes.

We had to plant potatoes.

They had a high yield and were highly filling.

Right on cue, the commander in my belly chimed in, "Mom! Those floor-to-ceiling windows have got to go. They're too fragile. A zombie could put its head right through them. You might as well just leave the front door open and put out a welcome mat."

I looked up at the massive panoramic glass. I used to think it looked bright and sophisticated. Now, all I saw was a fatal flaw.

"Replace them! All of them! Use bulletproof glass and steel rolling shutters!"

I immediately called the best security firm in the city.

Hearing my requests, the agent thought I was converting my house into a bank vault.

"Ms. Webb, a security setup of this caliber is usually reserved for—"

"I'm paranoid and afraid of burglars, alright? Money is no object, but I have one condition. It needs to be finished in three days."

The moment the security company heard money was no object, they shut up and sent a construction crew to start working overnight.

Karlie and her usual entourage of friends showed up to enjoy the spectacle.

They stood outside the perimeter fence, laughing hysterically at the muddy craters and the greenhouse frames being erected in the yard.

"Oh my god! Phoebe, have you completely lost it? Farming in a mega-mansion?"

"Is Mr. Gibson divorcing you? Are you trying to build a fallback plan?"

"This isn't a mansion anymore. It's a pigsty!"

I was in the middle of tilling the soil. Hearing their jeers, I drove the shovel into the ground, scooped up a massive clod of fertilizer-laced mud, and hurled it right at them.

"Ah! My dress!" Karlie shrieked, leaping backward, but she still got pelted with mud splatter.

"This is private property. Get lost!" I yelled, brandishing the shovel like a wolf defending her kill.

Karlie's face turned purple with rage. "Just you wait, Phoebe Webb! When Gabriel gets home and sees what you've done to this place, he's throwing you out for sure!"

When Gabriel came home that evening, he was visibly shaken.

I had ordered the workers to smash the original biometric lock on the front gate and replace it with a heavy, old-fashioned mechanical padlock that weighed dozens of pounds.

The yard was a minefield of trenches, and the living room was packed to the ceiling with crates of cup noodles and survival crackers I'd hoarded online.

There wasn't even room to walk.

He stood before an expensive rug pinned beneath boxes of survival crackers, his expression darkening.

"Phoebe, what is all this?"

I rushed over, dragged him into the bedroom, and locked the door behind us with an air of absolute secrecy.

"Honey, I need to tell you something huge. The apocalypse is coming."

Gabriel stared at me, his eyes full of complex emotions. He reached out and felt my forehead, but I had no fever.

"Who told you that?" he asked.

"Our son," I replied, pointing at my belly.

Gabriel sighed and took my hands in his. "Phoebe, have you been under too much stress lately? Let me take you to see a therapist tomorrow."

He didn't believe me.

Fair enough. If it were the old me, I wouldn't have believed me either.

"Yeah, I knew Dad's inner materialist wouldn't buy it. Forget it, Mom. As long as he stays out of our way, we'll handle this ourselves."

I nodded and looked up at Gabriel. "Honey, just think of it as prenatal anxiety. Doing all this makes me feel safe. Can you just let me do my thing?"

Gabriel looked at me, then out at the absolute disaster zone of a house, and finally gave a helpless nod. "Fine. As long as you don't tear down the roof, knock yourself out."

With that, he stepped out onto the balcony to call a prominent psychiatrist.

"Hello, Dr. Sloan? My wife's anxiety has flared up pretty badly. She's convinced the world is ending.

"Yeah. I wanted to know how I should handle it.

"Just humor her? Okay, I understand."

With Gabriel's approval, I grew even bolder.

But while he wasn't stopping me, his wallet wasn't a bottomless pit either.

My previous buying spree had already maxed out the supplementary credit card he'd given me.

The remaining balances for the construction crew and the supply orders were still gaping holes in my budget.

Gabriel was swamped at work lately, and I felt bad constantly asking him for cash. After all, in his eyes, I was just having a massive episode.

I turned my attention to the walk-in closet.

Inside was a whole wall of jewelry and hundreds of designer bags.

"Mom! That green bangle! The one Grandma left you? That thing can fetch two whole crates of antibiotics in the apocalypse! Sell it!"

I hardened my resolve and packed all my valuables into a large suitcase.

I used to cherish these things as if they were life itself. Now, they were nothing but dead weight.

I dragged the suitcase to the biggest pawnshop in the city.

To liquidate it all as fast as possible, I didn't even bother haggling, accepting whatever the owner offered.

Just as I was stepping out with several new bank cards, I ran right into the ever-present Karlie again.

She was at a cafe across the street, having high tea with a few other socialites.

Seeing me exit a pawnshop, her eyes lit up brighter than a laser show. "I knew it! The Gibson family is definitely going under! Phoebe's already selling off her jewelry to run away!"

She had such a loud mouth that she practically wanted the whole street to hear.

I couldn't care less. Right now, every minute was precious.

Armed with cash, I used my old coworker's connections to score two industrial-grade, high-capacity generators on the black market.

Along with them came hundreds of barrels of diesel.

The fuel reeked. The moment it was rolled into the villa's garage, the neighbors blew a fuse.

The property manager, Billy Deleon, showed up with a few security guards. He aggressively demanded that I remove the fuel barrels, citing safety hazards.

"No way! Nobody touches my fuel!"

I stood firmly in front of the barrels, throwing a total tantrum like a madwoman.

We wouldn't survive without power, and the cold storage wouldn't be able to keep the meat fresh. The electric fence also wouldn't be able to run.

"Ms. Webb, if you insist, we'll have no choice but to call the police," Billy said, looking thoroughly exasperated.

Just then, a black Maybach pulled up to the entrance.

Gabriel was home.

He looked at me standing there like a bristling cat, then at the sweating Billy.

"What's going on here?"

Billy looked like he'd just seen his savior. "Mr. Gibson, your wife has stockpiled a massive amount of diesel in the garage. It's against regulations."

Gabriel rubbed his temples and walked over, pulling me behind him. "I have a use for this fuel. I'll arrange for professionals to handle the explosion-proofing. If anything happens, I'll take full responsibility."

Billy stood frozen for a second. Since Gabriel had spoken, he didn't dare say another word and could only slink away.

As I looked at Gabriel's broad shoulders, my eyes grew a little misty.

He turned around, took one look at my disheveled face, and let out a soft sigh.

Then, he clapped his hands together.

A driver pulled up in a wildly aggressive, matte-black SUV.

It looked more imposing than an armored personnel carrier. It was entirely encased in steel plates with glass as thick as bricks.

"Here's the… bulletproof vehicle you wanted," Gabriel said, his tone laced with a profound sense of exhaustion. "I have no idea who you're trying to defend against, but if you're going to play this game, you might as well go all out."

I rushed forward and threw my arms around him, wiping my tears and nose right onto his bespoke suit.

"Honey! You're the best! When the zombies get here, I've got your back. Anyone tries to bite you, I'll blow their brains out!"

Gabriel's body stiffened for a second before he patted my back. "Well, thanks in advance."