Bunker Betrayal: Zombies Arrive

The moment the zombie apocalypse hit, my husband turned our basement into a doomsday bunker.

But my best friend died getting me inside, and my husband was killed on a supply run.

Before dying, he yelled through the steel door, warning:

Don't come out! It's crawling with zombies! Stay inside and live a good life with the baby!

I stayed in that dark basement for three months.

When supplies ran out, I tried to escapethrowing myself against the heavy iron door.

What greeted me wasn't zombies, but sunlight.

No apocalypse. Standing there were my husbandalivekissing my best friend in a wedding gown.

And me, in a hazmat suit, holding a wrench, looking like something from the depths.

It was all a liea twisted plan to trap me while he ran off with her.

Just as I prepared to fight back, I heard a tiny voice in my headfrom my own womb:

[Mom, I'm from the future. The zombies are real. The outbreak is in one week!]

"Zombies?"

When I spat the word out, Marcus looked at me as if Id just told the funniest joke in the world.

"Only an idiot like you would fall for that," he sneered. "It was just some bullshit I made up to lock you in the basement."

"Honestly, I was hoping you'd starve to death down there, you and the baby. One neat package, no mess for us to clean up. I have to admit, you're tougher than I thought, crawling out of there with that parasite in you."

My mind went completely blank.

"How can it be fake? I saw a zombie bite Veronica's neck with my own eyes. There was so much blood"

I looked at Veronicas neck. The skin was smooth and flawless. There was no gruesome wound, only a fresh, red hickey.

I was utterly lost.

"Hahahaha!"

Veronica couldn't hold it in any longer, doubling over with laughter.

"Aurora, pregnancy really has made you stupid. You can't even tell the difference between a zombie costume and a packet of fake blood?"

She swiped through her phone's photo gallery, showing me the screen. On it was a picture of a hyper-realistic zombie suit.

Marcus wrapped his arm around Veronica's waist.

"Vivi and I have been together for a long time. You were in the way, so we came up with this little plan to get rid of you. Get it now?"

It was all an act. A meticulously staged play to make me believe the world had ended.

For three agonizing months, every single day had been a torment of guilt, blaming myself for their deaths.

Now, thinking back, I felt like the biggest fool on earth.

"Marcus, this is false imprisonment! I can sue you!"

"Sue me?" Marcus pointed smugly to a small memorial niche in the corner of the room. Inside, there was a black-and-white photo of me. "You've been missing for three months. Everyone thinks you're dead. We even held a funeral for you."

"Legally, you don't exist anymore. You don't even have the standing to sue."

Veronica sidled up to me, her voice a menacing whisper. "Your sprawling downtown apartment, the dozens of luxury cars in the garage, the company you worked so hard to build it's all in our names now."

"If you know what's good for you, you'll walk away and disappear. Don't make a scene. If you cause any more trouble, we'll just call the cops and tell them you've had a psychotic break. We'll have you committed, and you'll never see the sun again."

Marcus let out a fake sigh, his voice dripping with false sincerity.

"Aurora, you can't blame us. You can only blame yourself for being so gullible. Who actually believes in a zombie apocalypse?"

"But, for old times' sake, I can be generous. You can have the basement."

My hand tightened around the wrench. A single thought consumed me: to smash it into their two hideous faces, to drag them down with me.

But just then, a soft, tiny voice echoed in my mind again.

[A fully-equipped, zombie-proof doomsday bunker, free of charge? This is a jackpot! Mommy, take the deal!]

The sudden voice startled me, but I realized it was coming from the baby in my belly.

"You're my child?"

[Yes! I traveled back from the future! The zombies are real! We need to hurry and stock up on supplies. There's no more time to waste!]

But I had just learned the apocalypse was a lie. How could I believe it again so easily?

The voice grew urgent.

[If you don't believe me, Mommy, go to a lottery vendor right now!]

After a moment of hesitation, I walked to the convenience store at the entrance of our gated community. Following the numbers whispered in my mind, I bought a ticket.

At 7 PM, the winning numbers were announced.

They matched my ticket. Perfectly.

The jackpot: one hundred million dollars.

[Now do you believe me, Mommy? I really am from the future, and the zombies are really coming!]

[There are six days and twenty-three hours until the apocalypse begins. We need to use this money and start hoarding! I want to eat ham in the future, not zombie jerky!]

In that moment, all doubt vanished. I believed every word from my unborn child.

And I began to look forward to that day.

Marcus, I hope you don't regret today's decision when you find out the zombies are real.

The irony was that Marcus, in his effort to make his lie believable, had spared no expense on the basement.

The concrete walls were reinforced with steel I-beams. The entrance was a custom-made blast door with three deadbolts and a fingerprint scanner. It had a state-of-the-art air filtration system, a groundwater collection system, and a backup generator.

The prison he had so carefully designed for me had just become my five-star shelter for the real end of the world.

Seven days. It wasn't much time, but it was enough.

With the winning lottery ticket in hand, my first thought was to get my parents. In an apocalypse, blood is the only thing you can trust.

But when I used my key to open their front door, I froze. The entryway was cluttered with shoes I didn't recognize. The family portrait on the living room wall was gone, replaced by a wedding photo of Marcuss parents. If my key hadn't worked, I would have thought I was at the wrong house.

My in-laws shot up from the couch, grabbing a broom and swinging it at me.

"You curse! Weren't you already dead? What are you doing back here?!"

I dodged the blow, my voice ice-cold. "Where are my parents?"

"You have the nerve to ask?" my father-in-law spat. "You worried them sick! They're locked up in a psychiatric hospital!"

My mother-in-law shrieked, "If I had a disgraceful daughter like you, I'd go crazy too!"

CRACK.

Perhaps it was years of pent-up rage finally exploding, but I slapped her across the face.

Without another glance at them, I spun around and sprinted out the door, heading for the hospital.

The moment my parents saw me, they froze, their faces a mask of disbelief.

"Aurora is it really you? You're alive?"

A lump formed in my throat, a thousand words stuck in my chest.

As we sat down, I finally learned what had happened over the past three months. Marcus had told everyone I'd run off with another man, even claiming the baby wasn't his. Then, he'd somehow obtained a death certificate for me, legally seizing all my assets before marrying Veronica. The double blow of grief and betrayal had broken my parents' health.

And Marcus, seeing his chance, had forged medical documents and had them committed.

I told them everything: the elaborate lie, Marcus and Veronica's betrayal, and the coming apocalypse. As I finished, my heart was in my throat. After all, Id already been imprisoned for three months because I believed in this very story.

To my surprise, my dad shot to his feet, his eyes resolute. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go buy supplies!"

Seeing my stunned expression, my mom smiled.

"Sweetheart, you're our only daughter. Who else would we believe? And if the apocalypse doesn't happen, we'll just sell the supplies at a discount!"

The baby's voice piped up in my head. [Grandpa and Grandma are the best! Let's go, Mommy, we only have six days and twenty hours left!]

There was no time to lose. I took my parents straight to the city's largest warehouse supermarket.

Drawing on his experience running a factory, my dad ordered tons of rice, flour, oil, and frozen meat under the guise of a corporate purchase. Worried about spoilage, I bought mountains of instant noodles, self-heating meals, and compressed biscuits. Mom gathered vitamins, first-aid supplies, toiletries, and even quietly added several boxes of baby formula and diapers to our cart.

The next day, Dad brought in a construction crew and secretly dug an escape tunnel from the other side of the basement out to the woods behind the property.

The entrance to the bunker wasn't far from Marcus's villa. Veronica and Marcus stood on their porch, watching truck after truck of supplies being unloaded, their faces etched with mockery.

"Aurora, are you really making that dump your home? Planning to hide in there with those two old geezers for the rest of your life?"

Marcuss eyes gleamed with amusement. "I think she's really lost it. We made up some stupid story about the end of the world, and she's gone so deep into character she thinks she's the star of a prepper novel."

Veronica was shaking with laughter. "It'll be hilarious when she's squatting in the dark, eating expired ramen after blowing through her parents' retirement savings, while we're upstairs eating tomahawk steaks."

I stared coldly at the two clowns.

Five days.

In five days, the luxury cars, designer brands, and social status they cherished would be nothing but scrap metal.

And the magnificent villa they were so proud of would become the coffin they had chosen for themselves.

Ignoring them, I helped my parents move the last of the supplies into the bunker. The space was vast, more than enough for the three of us. I thought we had prepared for everything, but my baby's voice, sharp with urgency, spoke again.

[Mommy, the day the zombies appear, there will be a massive rainstorm! The bunker is low-lying! Buy sump pumps, now, or we'll all drown!]

A jolt of fear went through me. I quickly checked the weather forecast. Sure enough, a severe storm warning was predicted for five days from now. I immediately ordered four industrial-grade, high-power sump pumps. Dad also had his crew dig a concealed drainage channel around the entrance overnight.

The construction noise woke Veronica. She stood on her balcony, filming us with her phone.

A sense of dread washed over me.

Sure enough, half an hour later, I came across a livestream. In it, Veronica was pointing her camera at our bunker entrance, her voice dripping with scorn.

"Hey everyone, check this out! My best friend had a little breakdown and now she thinks the zombies are coming. She's not just hoarding supplies, she's digging trenches! It's so ridiculous."

The stream's viewership skyrocketed. The comments flew by.

[Someone's read too many apocalypse novels. Does she think this is fiction?]

[If my neighbor hoards grain, I hoard guns. My neighbor is my granary. If zombies do show up, the streamer can just go raid them.]

Reading the comments, my palms grew sweaty. My parents' faces were grim.

"Just having supplies isn't enough," my dad said. "When the world ends, there's no law and order. A stash like this is just a death warrant."

But all we could find were knives and axes, useless in a real apocalypse. As we sat there, worried, the baby spoke again.

[Mommy, go find Uncle Nash! His family has the 'big toys'!]

Nash? My sharp-tongued high school classmate who'd gone abroad to work in private security and international trade?

[Yep! Contact him now, Mommy! Before it's too late!]

I sent him a text.

[Nash, can you get your hands on anything for self-defense? The world is ending.]

He replied instantly.

[Lost a game of truth or dare? Or did you get hacked? The end of the world? You might as well tell me the aliens have landed and they need gift cards.]

My heart sank. But then my phone buzzed again.

[Why'd you go quiet? Are you actually in trouble?]

[Send me your address. Now.]