Chapter 4

The letter warned them that a highly infectious zombie virus was about to sweep the nation.

To a normal person, such a letter would be discarded as a prank.

But I knew the Millers. Their paranoia was a sickness.

Sure enough, the moment they read the letter, they wept tears of joy. It was as if all their years of being called crazy had finally been validated. They immediately rushed to inspect the hidden bunker they had spent decades building.

They walked into their dusty old basement, cleared away the heavy junk concealing the floor, and unlocked the heavy steel door requiring a passcode, fingerprint, and retinal scan.

But just as they opened it, Marcus, who had been tailing them in the shadows, struck. He knocked them both unconscious with quick, non-lethal blows, did absolutely nothing else, and left.

When Arthur and Martha finally woke up, they frantically checked their bunker supplies.

They found the hair-triggers they had left on the doorknobs and the meticulously aligned dust lines completely undisturbed.

They fell into a tense, terrified silence.

I knew exactly what was going through their minds.

*Had someone bypassed their security?*

*Had the food been poisoned or replaced?*

*The fact that the markers were untouched—did it mean the intruder was a professional?*

In the end, they stared at each other and reached one paranoid conclusion: "This bunker is compromised."

They abandoned their lifetime project without hesitation. In a panic, they hired local contractors to weld two extra layers of steel plating over their house's main doors and rushed to grab whatever random supplies they could find.

Chloe watched all of this play out with a smug smile.

She genuinely believed this was the secret weapon that had kept me safe and comfortable in the previous timeline.

She had no idea that the people Marcus hired to "install" the extra steel doors had already planted hidden cameras throughout the house.

The Millers hadn't even finished stocking up when the outbreak hit.

Overnight, the world fell into silence. The streets were littered with the dead.

Richard and Eleanor FaceTime'd me, panicked, asking where I was. They wanted me to cross the golf course to join them so we could pool our resources.

I played the part of the dutiful, loving daughter. I told them I was completely safe, and that I had already stocked their kitchen with a massive supply of food the day before. I begged them to stay inside and lock their doors.

This was only the beginning of the end. While I didn't know the exact details of what happened to their mansion in the previous timeline, common sense dictated it wouldn't fall this early.

I pulled up the live camera feed of the Miller homestead.

On screen, Chloe was lounging on a lawn chair, lazily licking a popsicle, while Arthur and Martha were sweat-drenched, desperately barricading the windows.

"Arthur, Martha, stop stressing," Chloe called out, trying to sound sweet. "You're dripping sweat. Here, have a popsicle."

She was trying to play the loving daughter, to get on their good side.

But the moment they heard her voice and saw her smiling with a half-eaten popsicle, they snapped.

Arthur’s face turned bright red, veins bulging on his neck. He lunged forward and slapped the popsicle right out of her hand, sending it flying.

"You brainless brat!" Arthur screamed, his voice cracking. "Do you have any idea what's happening out there? All you do is eat, eat, eat! The world is ending and you're already treating it like a vacation? Are you trying to starve us to death?!"

They were already on edge after losing their main bunker, and facing the apocalypse with limited supplies had pushed their paranoia to the brink.

Chloe’s carefree attitude was the spark that set off the powder keg.

Chloe froze, her jaw dropping.

She had always hated the Millers for raising her in poverty, and finding out she was a billionaire's daughter had turned that resentment into pure rage.

Her instinct was to strike back. But she caught herself just in time.

She realized she still needed them to survive the winter.

Her face contorted as she forced down her anger, muttering under her breath, "I'm sorry, Arthur. I'll do better."

"But don't worry too much. The apocalypse only lasts six months. We can easily make it through."