The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 794

Chapter 794

The thugs had it all figured out.

Before they could make their move, gunfire erupted. Automatic fire swept back and forth across the group.

The attackers couldn’t see in the dark, but Nicole and the others wore night-vision goggles. Their shots found their targets with deadly accuracy.

The men fell one after another before they could even draw their weapons.

Nicole opened the electric fence’s gate and stepped out, sword in hand.

A few were still alive. They pleaded in terror.

“Please, don’t kill me! Have mercy!”

Standing in the swirling sand, Nicole gave them a cold smile. In the darkness, she looked like death itself.

She drove her blade into every one of them, even those who already lay still. She wasn’t taking any chances.

Then she headed for the camp a little over half a mile away, with Zeph beside her in the darkness.

The camp was close enough for the gunfire to carry, even over the howling wind. It was in chaos. Men and women shouted over one another, their panic turning to blame.

“What do we do? What do we do now?”

“I told you to leave them alone! Anyone could see they weren’t people we should mess with.”

“You think they had a choice? Without food and water, we’re all dead! If we’re gonna die either way, we might as well take a chance!”

A woman burst into tears. “My husband’s out there! What if they killed him?”

“My brother went, too!” the man arguing with her snapped.

After that much gunfire, there was little hope of anyone coming back.

The man stopped pretending otherwise. “Let them come kill us! If we don’t die now, we’ll die when the land sinks anyway. Might as well get it over with.”

They took the gamble. Now they had to face the consequences.

The woman kept sobbing. “But I don’t wanna die. I’m pregnant.”

None of them wanted to die. They still had so much life left to live.

But after nine years of natural disasters, they had nothing left in them.

They once lived in wealth and comfort. Now, they had to kill for a drink of water.

If those people came to kill them, at least it would all be over.

Nicole

gave them a chance because so few people survived the collision of the tectonic plates, and because the government bases spent years fighting to keep those survivors alive.

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They threw that chance away.

She could choose not to shoot, but once she opened fire, there would be no third chance.

Nicole fired into the tents, then tossed in an incendiary grenade. The gasoline-fueled fire burned for a long time before the flames finally died out.

Nicole counted the bodies. She didn’t leave until she accounted for every last person.

By then, it was late, and she was exhausted. She left the bodies outside the RV where they lay, went in, showered, and fell into bed.

By the time she woke naturally the next morning, Zeph had already cleared them away.

He didn’t bury them. He simply dumped them back at their camp.

The plateau was dry, with drastic temperature swings between day and night and fierce winds that whipped up sand. There was little chance of the bodies spreading disease. If more survivors passed through, the remains would serve as a warning.

Several groups arrived over time. Their delight at spotting the RV faded when Nicole met them with a cold, unwelcoming stare. 1

They looked around for a place to camp, but once they spotted the dried-out bodies nearby, they quickly

moved on. 1

Life on the plateau was hard. The sun was brutal, and the air was dry and full of dust. They ran the humidifier and air purifier every day.

Even this miserable way of life wouldn’t last much longer.

The land kept sinking. Wooden stakes slid into the ground far too easily, and all it took was a firm stomp to

feel how soft it was.

Every morning brought the same relentless wind and swirling sand. They could barely see a thing.

The basin stretched beyond the horizon, with no mountains to use as landmarks, but Nicole was certain the ground was sinking.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she felt a faint jolt.

It was barely noticeable, like the sudden twitch of a leg as she drifted off to sleep. Sometimes she almost thought she dreamed it.

Nicole grew more uneasy by the day. Even Poppy noticed something was wrong.

Every day, Poppy patrolled the basin on the electric scooter. With all that sand and gravel and so little moisture, the ground should’ve been rock hard.

At first, the ride was so bumpy that it left her backside sore. Now, it seemed to get smoother every day.

Poppy stopped the scooter when she spotted a green shoot among the dead grass.

It was the dry season, but new grass was sprouting.

She pulled it up and took it back to Zeph

D

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