Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 334

Chapter 334 Strange Activity On The Ridge

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Jonna slowed as she passed the greenhouse, catching raised voices through the fogged-up panels. She pushed the door open, and warm, humid air rolled over her, thick with the smell of turned soil and green growing things.

“Someone took them, I am telling you!” Willow snapped, hands on her hips.

Ryan let out a long-suffering sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Willow, it wasn’t us, and you/lock up the greenhouse every night!”

Willow threw a shovel down with a clatter. “I had three rows of carrots I was harvesting next week! Now wo of the rows are gone!”

“I know, I know.” Ryan scratched his head. “But maybe you already harvested them? Danielle and Uncle Nate put some carrots out in the mess hall a few days ago-”

“That batch was from two patches over!” Willow cut in, pointing sharply toward the far end of the greenhouse. “Not the same rows!”

That’s when Ryan spotted her in the doorway, and his whole face lit up. “Oh, goodness – boss, you’re back! He craned his neck, looking past her. “Where’s the team?”

Willow’s head whipped around, and the moment she saw Joanna, all the fight went out of her voice. “Boss!” She crossed the greenhouse in three quick strides and threw her arms around Joanna in a hug that nearly knocked the wind out of her.

Joanna laughed, hugging her back. It still caught her off guard sometimes – how far Willow had come. The girl who’d once flinched at raised voices and hid behind Joanna’s shadow back in Aurora was gone. In her place stood someone who ran her own patch of the greenhouse like a small kingdom, who argued fiercely for what was hers, who stood taller and steadier than Joanna had ever seen her.

“They’re not with me,” Joanna said to Ryan over Willow’s shoulder. “They’re helping with something in Dillon.”

Willow stepped back, beaming, some of her earlier frustration already forgotten. “Make sure you stay for dinner tonight if you can. We harvested the beets yesterday – borscht’s on the menu!”

“I’ll try my best,” Joanna said, smiling.

They talked a little longer – Willow rattling off which patches were doing well, a complaint about frost getting into the far corner despite the heating lines, a promise that she’d figure out the missing carrots one way or another – before Joanna finally excused herself and continued on toward the tunnels.

The stairwell down was carved straight into the earth, reinforced with salvaged steel and packed dirt smoothed flat by earth-ability hands. Joanna descended into the cool, dim quiet of the underground bunker, her footsteps echoing off the container walls that lined the tunnel like a buried street.

Rows of supplies stretched out in either direction – crates of preserved food, barrels of water, shelves of tools and medical supplies, all neatly labeled and organized. The sight never failed to steady something in her chest. It was still plentiful, still deep enough to outlast a siege if it came to that.

But the truly remarkable part wasn’t the quantity. It was the source. At least ten percent of what filled these

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Chapter 334 Strange Activity On The Ridge

Finished

shelves now had been grown, built, or made right here on the base – not pulled from her storage space, not scavenged from dead cities. Her people had built this themselves. In a year, this base should be completely

sustainable.

Joanna left the storage bunker behind and followed the tunnel further, the ceiling rising into the wider chamber where the vehicles waited – rows of trucks and jeeps lined up and ready, fueled and maintained for the day the base might need to empty out fast. If it ever came to that, her people could load up here and drive out the far side of the ridge, well beyond the base if a battle over took place there.

Normally the exit was quiet – just a single bored guard posted at the mouth of the tunnel, where the earth ability users had sealed the opening down to a narrow grated window, thick bars crossing the gap.

But as Joanna approached, she saw four figures instead of one, all crowded close to the grated window, peering out through the bars into the gray light beyond. Levi stood with his arms crossed, flanked by two guards, and Jolie beside him, their heads bent together in low, quiet conversation as they stared out at whatever lay past the ridge.

Joanna’s face broke into a smile. “Jolie!”

The group turned at her voice – and the smile faltered on her lips. Every face that looked back at her carried the same tight, uneasy mix of concern and worry.

Jolie stepped forward first, her expression carefully composed but her eyes tight with worry. “Boss. I was just about to call you, actually.”

“What’s going on?” Joanna moved closer to the grated window, following their gazes out toward the ridge. Nothing but gray rock and drifted snow stretched into the distance, silent and still.

Levi uncrossed his arms, his jaw set. “Something strange has been happening out there. One of the perimeter guards flagged it about two weeks ago – noticed a group of survivors moving along the ridgeline, maybe half a mile out. Six, seven people, packs on their backs, moving slowly like they were exhausted. Figured they were just passing through. Wasteland’s full of people migrating toward whatever rumor of shelter they’ve heard.”

“That’s what we thought too, at first,” Jolie added. “But they didn’t just pass through. They walked the same stretch of ridge, and then they disappeared into a rocky crevice near the far side – this narrow split in the rock, barely wide enough to fit through single file. And they never came back out. Not that we saw, anyway.”

Joanna’s brow furrowed. “Okay. So maybe it’s some kind of shelter. A cave system.”

“That’s what we figured too,” Levi said. “Except it happened again. Same group – or close enough to tell it was the same faces – about a week later. Same route, same direction, same crevice. Then again a few days after that.” He held up a hand, ticking it off. “We’ve counted it now. Five separate times. Always the same handful of people, always packs, always that exact same path, like they’re following a line only they can see.”

Jolie’s jaw tightened. “We sent a patrol out there to check it out. No shelter, no cave, nothing. No sign of life at all – no footprints past a certain point, no disturbed snow, nothing. It’s like they just disappear into thin air.”

Joanna felt a small, cold knot form in her stomach. “You’ve had eyes on it every time?”

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