The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 700

The rescue area was crowded with people waiting for missing family members. Anxious and desperate, they surrounded the staff, asking the same questions over and over.

The murky floodwater was especially dangerous. One cut from a rusty piece of metal could easily lead to tetanus.

That was exactly how Zeph had been infected in his previous life.

Nicole pulled on a one-piece rain suit and a pair of knee-high rubber boots. When a rescue team returned, she took the chance to ask, "Hey, where have you guys been searching these past few days?"

The rescuer gave her a general idea of the areas they had covered.

"Miss, it's too dangerous out there. You should stay here and wait. Otherwise, you might not find the person you're looking for and end up needing us to rescue you, too."

It happened all the time. People ignored the warnings and went out searching anyway, only to get stranded or injured themselves.

In the end, the rescue crews had to risk even more to bring them back.

Nicole immediately shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere. I was just asking."

As soon as they left, she walked straight out of the camp.

Once she reached a deserted spot, she pulled out her phone and opened the local map. She marked the areas the rescue teams had already searched so she could rule them out.

She studied the terrain, estimated the direction the sandstorm had come from, and tried to work out where Zeph might have been blown.

With nothing else to go on, she decided to start there.

Mud covered everything. Every step sank unevenly into the ground, and the slick surface made it easy to lose her footing.

One step landed in a shallow dip, while the next nearly plunged her into a deep pool.

That was how badly the landscape had deteriorated. The terrain had changed so much that it was barely recognizable.

Nicole used her trekking pole to test the ground ahead and moved forward at a crawl.

After several days of nonstop search and rescue by the Glenmere authorities, fewer and fewer survivors were still stranded outside. Nicole walked for more than two hours without seeing anything except muddy water and bodies drifting past.

Around noon, she came across a group traveling on foot. They were relieved to see her and immediately asked for directions to the rescue area.

They had run into one another when the sandstorm hit and stayed together for shelter. Since none of them had lost their belongings, they managed to survive by rationing what little food they had.

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