The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 683

Thick black smoke shot into the sky, climbing fast and spreading overhead. Gray-white smoke followed, then came bursts of black-and-red flame.

Fire erupted from the summit, shooting dozens of feet into the air as clouds of smoke billowed higher and higher.

Molten lava sprayed in every direction, arcing through the air like a massive fireworks display.

Flames, smoke, and lava poured from the mountain without mercy. It looked like some monster buried beneath the earth for ages had finally broken free and turned its fury on the tiny humans below.

The volcano had really erupted.

For a moment, everyone froze.

"Move." Zeph's low voice snapped them out of it.

Nicole immediately called Poppy and Cola back into the vehicle and told them to buckle up.

Panic broke out along the road as people rushed for their cars. The more frantic they became, the worse things got. Several vehicles crashed into one another in quick succession, adding even more chaos.

Zeph stayed calm. He quickly steered around the wreck and kept going as fast as he safely could.

Nicole looked back. Volcanic ash had already swallowed half the sky, while glowing red lava seemed to claw across the horizon.

This was the first volcanic eruption she had ever witnessed. Even from dozens of miles away, the air felt hotter and heavier, and the landscape in the distance seemed to ripple in the heat.

If they could still feel the ground shaking from this far away, the eruption had to be massive. If the lava kept spreading, the people evacuating on foot might not make it out in time.

Nicole took a deep breath, forced herself to stay calm, and focused on their surroundings.

People on foot and in vehicles were all rushing away, desperate to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the volcano.

No one wanted to go through another smog disaster.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nicole spotted several helicopters in the sky. She couldn't tell whether they were privately owned or government aircraft.

At this point, people were using anything that could move by land, sea, or air. Everyone was doing whatever they could to stay alive.

"Oh my god! What is that?"

Someone behind her shouted, and a second later, screams broke out all around them.

Nicole spun around, her eyes widening.

A towering wall of dust was racing across the landscape, hurling dirt, rocks, and dead branches through the air. It swallowed forests and hills as it came barreling straight toward them.

A dust storm.

Everyone stared in disbelief.

They were far south, nowhere near a desert. Years of disasters had dried up rivers, killed forests, and stripped away huge amounts of soil, but even then, a storm like this shouldn't have been possible here.

There was no telling where the hell the dust storm came from.

It was almost as if it had raged all the way south, determined to swallow everything in its path.