The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 676

Of course, Marcus and Sven were suspicious. Both of them were sharp as hell. The only question was what exactly they suspected.

Zeph figured they wanted to know what disaster was coming next.

In the past, Villa 50 always seemed to prepare before anyone else even realized something was coming. But lately, even they had stopped making any obvious moves.

Nicole leaned against him. "So what do you think will happen next?"

"I don't know." Zeph kissed her forehead. "As long as we're together, we'll deal with whatever comes."

Satellites kept falling from the sky with no rhyme or reason, like some out-of-control kid swinging a hammer at random. How many fell, where they landed, what they hit… None of it followed any pattern.

The neighborhood stayed lucky and wasn't hit again, but the city's waste-to-energy plant wasn't so fortunate. A satellite crashed into it and started a massive fire that burned for two days straight.

The streetlights never came back on. No one knew if they ever would.

That night, the four of them sat on the roof eating barbecue under a sky full of brilliant stars.

Poppy was eating grilled squid when her eyes suddenly widened.

"Zeph, look! A meteor shower!"

Zeph looked up, and his expression changed instantly. "Move!"

Nicole instinctively followed his gaze. Red streaks cut across the night sky, growing larger and brighter as they came closer...

They burned a deep red as they tore across the sky, seeming so close that Nicole could almost feel the heat against her skin.

They grew larger and larger, seeming to race straight toward them until they filled more and more of the sky.

Then Nicole blinked, and somehow they looked distant again.

The four of them shot to their feet, abandoned the barbecue, beer, table, and chairs, and sprinted downstairs before scrambling into the vehicle.

"Buckle up," Nicole reminded them.

The seats were reinforced against explosions and designed to absorb heavy impacts.

Afraid Cola might get hurt, Zeph picked him up and strapped him securely against his chest.

One violent impact after another shook the ground. Even the 15-ton Marauder rocked beneath them.

The barrage lasted more than ten minutes. Sometimes, the crashes sounded far away. Other times, they were terrifyingly close.

Their hearts pounded with every tremor.

Nicole and Zeph locked their fingers tightly together, neither of them daring to breathe too deeply.

Then everything went quiet, as if nothing had happened at all.

No one moved right away. They stayed inside the vehicle for another half hour before finally getting out.

The neighborhood radio channel had already erupted into chaos. Some people said an entire cluster of satellites had fallen. Others swore another earthquake had started.

"What the hell? Is the whole planet about to blow up? Just kill us all and get it over with!"

"Maybe aliens are attacking us. We're dead. We're definitely dead!"

People argued back and forth, but underneath it all was fear. Everyone was terrified.

Nicole frowned and said nothing. The uneasy feeling in her gut only grew stronger.

An hour later, the radio crackled. Marcus was calling.

"It was a cluster of satellites."

Something in his voice immediately put Nicole on edge. "Where did they come down?"

"Mount Graypine."

Mount Graypine? Nicole's heart sank.

According to geological surveys, Mount Graypine was an ancient extinct volcano, billions of years old. As far back as recorded history went, it had never erupted. For thousands of years, it had simply been a scenic landmark.

But was it really extinct? Or had it only been dormant all this time? And if it was dormant, could impacts that violent possibly wake it up?

After ending the call, Nicole couldn't shake the tight feeling in her chest.

Zeph looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"Mount Graypine, the place where we went to gather herbs back then, is an ancient volcano. That cluster of satellites just slammed into it over and over."

No one knew what would happen next, so anything they could move was coming with them. She even stripped out the doorframes and windows, along with the planting containers and anything else that might still be useful.

For once, Nicole didn't forget about the rabbits. She carried a cage into the backyard to get them.

But Ash and Snowy were nowhere to be seen. Their offspring had disappeared, too.

She assumed the impact had scared them into hiding and searched the entire yard, but there was no sign of them.

Still unwilling to give up, she started digging through a pile of dry hay in one corner.

That was when she found the tunnel.

The rabbits had dug straight through the wall and escaped.

After all the years she had fed and protected them, the ungrateful little traitors actually ran away.

No one knew what disaster was coming next. If she left them out there, they would either end up in someone else's stomach or die in whatever catastrophe hit next.

After all the years she had spent raising those meat rabbits, Nicole couldn't bring herself to abandon them.

Sure, she had eaten plenty of their offspring.

But she never planned to eat the original pair. They had survived all these years of disasters together.

Still, Ash and Snowy had clearly made up their minds. There wasn't a trace of them anywhere nearby.

Nicole considered bringing Cola over. With his nose, he would probably be able to track down every last rabbit.

After thinking it over, she decided against it.

If they made it, maybe they could help keep the species going. If not, there was nothing she could do.

Nicole had barely made it back to the front gate when Jeremy, Hughie, and the others came over to talk about evacuating.

"Nicole, where are we supposed to go if we leave?"

At the same time, Sven opened his own gate.

"Yeah. If we're leaving, where exactly are we going?"