The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 277

Chapter 277

By the time Nicole and Zeph made it back to the 18th floor, both of them were drenched in sweat.

Nicole went into her storage space to shower before bringing the dog over to Zeph’s apartment for dinner. 1

Cola and Poppy had been stuck indoors all day. Even with the cooling fan running nonstop, they looked completely wilted, their heads drooping without the slightest appetite.

Nicole honestly felt no different. 1

Lowering her voice, she asked Zeph, “How about potato salad?”

Since Nicole was the one managing their food supplies, Zeph had no objections. “Sounds good.”

She pulled out a large sack of potatoes from her storage space and showed Zeph how to mash them properly. 1

Since they were making a huge batch, they dumped the potatoes into a large basin after mashing them and mixed everything together at once. They set aside enough for the three of them and stored the rest back in the storage space.

The cold, creamy potato salad finally made the heat feel a little more tolerable and brought back some of their appetite.

Cola couldn’t eat anything too heavily seasoned, so Nicole mixed goat milk into his kibble and added a piece of chicken breast for him.

For several days straight, the 18th floor turned in more than 100 pounds of rats every single day. Before long, people downstairs started noticing something was off.

“Strange… Why are there fewer rats lately?”

The traps affected anything within roughly a 100-feet radius, and once exposed to the sound waves, the rats instinctively fled upward toward the higher floors.

Since the rats could swim, the ones around Building 1 quickly got replaced by others coming from

nearby areas.

Soon, the residents on the other floors began noticing the same thing.

Sure, the red-eyed rats were vicious, but as long as people avoided getting bitten, they still had a chance

to catch them and use them for food.

Right as everyone was trying to figure out what was happening, the city released another public announcement stating that researchers had successfully developed large-scale rat traps, and extermination teams would soon begin operating throughout residential districts.

The news immediately triggered a ridiculous scene.

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Groups of survivors blocked the entrances to their apartment complexes and refused to let the extermination teams inside. 1

They didn’t care whether anyone else lived or died. What terrified them was the thought that if all the rats disappeared, they would lose one of the few remaining food sources keeping them alive.

Even the neighborhood committee workers couldn’t reason with them. 1

Unfortunately for the survivors, blocking the entrances accomplished absolutely nothing.

The extermination teams carried industrial-sized traps with an effective range of more than 300 feet, so the workers would simply pretend to leave before quietly circling around and activating the traps outside the complex instead.

The results were immediate.

The floodwaters suddenly filled with drunken rats swimming in crooked circles while the workers calmly scooped them up with nets and dumped them into iron cages.

Eventually, the survivors realized what was happening. Some of the bolder ones even drove motorboats over to beg the workers for the rats, their voices trembling with desperation.

“You’re taking them all away. How are we supposed to survive?”

The workers didn’t dare hand any over because quite a few people had already died after eating rat meat that hadn’t been prepared properly.

The meat needed specialized high-temperature sterilization before it was safe to consume.

Even so, the workers understood how desperate everyone had become, so they kept their voices as calm and gentle as possible to avoid provoking conflict.

If tensions started rising too much, they simply backed off first.

After more than two weeks of nonstop extermination campaigns, the number of red-eyed rats across Westbridge dropped sharply. Even with the traps running all day, most people could only catch ten or twenty rats at most.

At the same time, neighborhood committees began distributing industrial-strength poison specially developed for the giant cockroaches.

Nicole picked up several portions while turning in rats, and the stuff worked unbelievably well.

Before long, the giant cockroaches had been wiped out completely.

The 18th floor celebrated the victory, while the rabbits became the only unhappy ones since they now had no choice but to go back to eating grass.

Meanwhile, the extreme heat showed no signs of easing. 1

Every day in Westbridge felt like living inside a giant steamer. The survivors suffered like meat slowly

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being cooked alive as they spent their days crying, cursing, and struggling through the misery.

Scorching temperatures, water shortages, food shortages, and constant hunger had become part of daily life.

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