The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 695

Beatrice, Diana, and Poppy found several medicinal herbs, but nothing that could help prevent infection. Even so, they packed some away. They might still come in handy later.

There was also some dried food, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, moss, and a few other scraps. Anything better had probably already been eaten by the gang.

They each took what they could carry and changed into the cleanest clothes they could find.

Water mattered most. A person could last days without food, but not nearly as long without water.

The misery of nearly dying from thirst was still fresh in their minds, so they found several bottles and filled every one they could.

The two surviving women followed them into the storage room and started packing as well, trying to stay on their good side as they worked.

"You three are incredible. Can we come with you?"

Diana glanced over and lifted the bloodstained knife in her hand. "I'm not your mother. I don't owe you protection. If you wanna stay alive, stay out of my way."

The two women immediately fell silent, though their hands never stopped stuffing supplies into their bags.

All three of them were still sick, and carrying too much would only slow them down, so Poppy packed lightly.

Before they left, she went back to the cell where she had been held and cut through the chain on the door.

What happened to the women inside after that was up to them.

They had barely reached the cave entrance when they realized that although the sandstorm had stopped, the sky had turned dangerously dark.

Soon, rain came pouring down.

Whatever relief they felt disappeared at once. They were all still sick, and Diana's wound made the situation even worse. If it got soaked, the risk of infection would climb fast.

Poppy suggested, "Why don't we wait until the rain lets up?"

So they waited for two hours, but the rain only grew heavier.

It poured as if the sky had split open, sending endless sheets of water crashing down until muddy yellow runoff surged across the ground in every direction.

As the rain kept falling, small creeks swelled into raging streams thick with mud and sand.

The endless sea of sand had turned into a world of water.

Poppy watched runoff rushing down the distant slopes, dragging loose dirt and chunks of earth with it. There was more of it by the second, and the water was getting thicker and muddier.

Diana, who could feel a fever coming on, immediately sensed something was wrong.

"We need to get out of here. Now."

Nicole studied them through the binoculars several times, but none of them were familiar.

Over the past few days, she searched countless bodies, passed plenty of survivors, and even ran into criminals who tried to rob her. Not one of them was someone she was looking for.

The ground beneath her feet was growing softer by the minute. The heavy rain blurred everything around her, and traveling any farther became almost impossible.

The tightness in Nicole's chest became harder and harder to bear. With no other choice, she returned to the storage space to rest.

She took a sleeping pill before she finally managed to fall asleep.

Several hours later, Nicole woke up, ate something, put her raincoat back on, and left the storage space again.

She nearly stepped off the edge and tumbled down the mountainside.

The ground beside her had collapsed. Half the mountain was simply gone.

The rain had weakened considerably, but it still showed no sign of stopping.

Nicole carefully made her way down the other side. When she reached the foot of the mountain, she found that the road had vanished completely beneath the floodwater.

Murky water stretched as far as she could see. It was impossible to tell how deep it was, much less where the road ended and the river began.