Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 353

Chapter 353 The Moles On The Move

Finished

“The same ridge,” Joanna said quietly, the pieces slotting together with uncomfortable precision. “Whatever’s in the air, it’s not just affecting the bushes. Maybe it is in the soil. The worms. Anything feeding

that ridge is getting contaminated.”

Ryan’s expression had gone grim. “Which means the ants might be dealing with it too. Could be part of why they’ve gotten more aggressive something in their environment’s changing, forcing them to expand territory faster than they normally would.”

Joanna looked back at the mole, patient and resigned, utterly unaware that his colony’s dying/brothes might be the first real clue to understanding everything else unraveling around her base.

“Ask him,” she said, “exactly where on the ridge those worms came from. I want to know if it’s the same spot the bushes are.”

Raven relayed the question, listening intently as the mole’s response came through. “He says he doesn’t know if it was the ants that poisoned the worms. But it’s higher up than the spot where the bushes were further up the ridge, past where we were standing.”

Joanna frowned, filing that detail away. “Strange,” she murmured. Two separate contamination points, maybe three if whatever had been used on Jolie was different again. Nothing about this was adding up into a single, simple threat anymore.

She turned her attention back to the mole, decision settling into place. “Raven, tell him I’m willing to take his colony into my base. All thirty of them. But in exchange, they’ll need to work – specifically, in the garden area. Pest control. Grubs, larvae, anything eating through the crops.” She glanced toward the ridge, already thinking ahead. “Spring and summer are coming. Those insect problems are only going to get worse, especially with whatever’s happening out here throwing everything off balance.”

Raven translated it carefully, and a back-and-forth followed – the mole asking questions through a series of low, rumbling sounds, clearly working through what exactly this arrangement meant, what safety looked like, what “garden” even was to a creature that had only ever known tunnels and dirt. Raven answered patiently each time, relaying details about the base, the warmth, the protection, the steady food source that wouldn’t require risking his remaining colony against an army of ants and a hungry snake.

Finally, the mole’s weathered, scarred head dipped low in something that looked unmistakably like

agreement.

Joanna allowed herself a small, relieved breath, then pulled a stack of crates from her space, setting them down carefully in the snow.

Over the next few hours, one by one, the moles emerged from their tunnels – wary, blinking uselessly in the daylight, guided gently by Raven’s steady translations and the patient coaxing of their own chief — and were loaded carefully into the crates for transport. Thirty scarred, exhausted survivors, carried out of a dying colony and into something that, for the first time in longer than any of them could remember, actually resembled safety.

By the time they reached the base, Willow was waiting at the greenhouse entrance, already having gotten word from Levi about her newest, strangest addition to the garden team. She peered into the first crate, blinking at the dog-sized, dirt-crusted creature blinking blindly back up at her, and let out a startled laugh.

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