Quest for Hunger
by Robby Glen Garner

Ron Jon surpassed the expectations of all when he declared his dedication to the cause of the moment.  "There's a great Mexican restaurant down this way." Or so he told me. But he was with us, so I tried to lay low.  I didn't wear any jewelry or color or even a hat.  Since we were there in numbers, it was much harder to go unrecognized. The trick was to seem like you lived there. So we all got out and started making our way towards the mall.

We walked across the vast parking lot towards the entrance. We went inside. There was a vendor selling hot dogs from a stand. "How many of these things have I eaten this week already?" As if to no one, I reached up to pay the vendor and took my change. 

"Where is this?" I tried to find the others but they were on the far side of the cell phone counter buying things.  So I waited there, eating hot dog, as I watched them carrying on and joking with each other.  The wall near the elevator was rusted in several spots. When the elevator doors opened, it was rusty as well. I suppose the ocean air was salty enough to do this over a period of time.  I thought about a pretzel I had once before. Right now there was too much to see and do to be sitting around worrying about the air. Then all hell broke loose.

The attack helicopters came thundering up, just outside the building. Heavy gunfire could be heard. A woman rushed to pick up her little girl as a rack of spam nearly squashed her on it's way toward the floor. 

We were working our way down the isle towards the Radio Shack when something exploded and the concussion literally knocked me unconscious.  I woke up an hour or so later and the hot dog stand was still there, but everyone else was gone. It was so quiet that I could hear the rubble settling.

After making my way across the broken bits alone, I encountered the throng of people who had taken refuge on the other side. I was alone in a thicket of people who were making their way back inside the stores and along the way to the food court.  I could smell something very good to eat.  I wished I had taken time earlier to grab another hot dog.

There was broken glass everywhere. Everyone who could take shelter had taken shelter, and the rest were either dead or terrified.  I felt like I was moving in slow motion. The people around me were murmuring to each other about something. I saw Ron Jon on the other side of a pile of bricks, with what looked like a rifle and a black case of some kind in the other hand.  It was starting to get cold as the sun was going down. I looked at my watch and it was broken.

"That's not your cheese," a man yelled as he chased a woman with a flashlight. The smell of hot pizza was overpowering.  It almost sounded quiet then except for the resumed tinkling of plates and glasses and a dull roar of conversations. I kept moving towards the farthest queue. There was no pepperoni left, but they had sausage and gound beef.