***
The cars were bumper to bumper, forming a circle around the resource station. The guard post was empty, and Brooke could see a large crowd gathering around closed doors.
Brooke could hear faint shouts and chants. People were screaming, waving their hands, and pounding the doors and barred windows to obtain the life-sustaining water inside.
The cruiser's engine idled. Brooke weighed her options. She could risk stepping outside and fighting the angry hordes or head home. But if she left, there wasn't likely to be another resource station that wasn't in similar condition. She was already here, so she might as well take advantage of it.
The chants and shouts grew louder. Her shoes crunched the gravel. Brooke stayed on the perimeter of the crowd. She didn't want to get trampled if things turned south.
An employee of the water station climbed up to the roof. He held a bullhorn and attempted to calm the rioting mob below.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please, form an orderly line, and we will distribute one pint of water per household,” the employee said.
“One pint?” a member of the crowd yelled.
“That’s not enough to keep my family hydrated for a day!”
“We need water now!”
“How do you expect us to live off that?”
Sweat and dust were caked thick on people's faces. The heat from the clear California sky beat down on all of them. The same conditions that had made this place such a beautiful destination for so long now made it a sandpit of hell.
The mob advanced on the building. Hands grabbed at anything they could pull or tear from the structure. The front door started to buckle. The crowd pushed again, straining to break inside.
Then a gunshot echoed through the air, and the crowd panicked. People sprinted in different directions, running over each other in the process. The employee on the roof swayed, clutching his stomach. A red stain leaked onto his shirt. He collapsed and fell from the roof.
The remaining members of the crowd swarmed the employee’s body. They stole his keys and flooded the station. Once the doors were open, Brooke hesitated.
Before she could make her decision, sirens blared in the distance. The police would be here any minute, and anyone still at the crime scene would be detained.
Brooke sprinted for her cruiser just as the police cars arrived at the entrance of the resource station.