The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 669

Chapter 669

One of the anchors finally snapped, and the entire rooftop glass enclosure came crashing down. Sheets of glass shattered across the roof.

Nicole and Zeph immediately got up and rushed to the backyard to check.

Fortunately, the backyard greenhouse used a different support system from the one on the second floor. None of its anchors were exposed, so it was still secure.

The greenhouse was fine, but two rabbits had been scared to death.

A few days later, Sven’s glass enclosure collapsed, too.

Luckily, he’d had the sense to move all the vegetables from the rooftop to the backyard ahead of time.

One by one, the other glass enclosures around the neighborhood started collapsing as well.

Nicole and Sven had built theirs early, back when glass was still relatively affordable. But the homeowners who copied them later paid outrageous prices for theirs, only to watch it all shatter into piles of debris.

Some people couldn’t take it and burst into tears on the spot.

“I can’t do this anymore. What’s the point of staying alive?”

It was too hard. Just too damn hard.

Others were more optimistic.

“What are you crying for? It protected us for months. Just think of it as money spent to stay alive. The people without glass enclosures made it this far, too. Our houses can hold up a little longer!”

Every morning, the first thing they did after waking up was go upstairs and check the roof.

Over breakfast, Nicole asked, “Should we dig a basement, too?”

Zeph thought about it. “The acid rain should be ending soon. There’s not much point now. If things get bad, we can always sleep in the vehicle.”

Nicole had no objections.

The Marauder could even withstand TNT. If necessary, they could just cover it with acid-resistant material.

For the first time in a long while, it felt like they might actually make it through.

Over the next two months, several more rainstorms came and went, but none lasted long. Then they got two full weeks of sunshine, with blue skies and white clouds they hadn’t seen in what felt like forever.

After that, a few more showers passed through, and every pH reading came back normal.

The authorities officially announced that the acid rain was over.

Countless survivors emerged from their basements, thin as skeletons, and stood in the sunlight. Some cried. Some laughed.

The acid rain had stripped the land bare, but the authorities kept treating the soil in hopes of making it usable again as soon as possible.

Many survivors brought out the soil they had saved earlier and started planting again, setting battered containers on their rooftops where the plants could get some sun.

Surface water was still contaminated, and the neighborhood well still couldn’t be used. But now that the acid rain was over, Marcus disbanded the water-hauling team. From then on, each household had to get its own water.

To avoid drawing suspicion, Zeph drove out every few days and came back with water.