Sun streaming into his dorm room awoke Drake. He sat up, shut the blinds, and lay back down. Halloween was over and, despite Tonya’s dire warnings, he had survived. Too bad Priya’s triumph had been spoiled by a bomb scare.
After they were ejected from the cemetery, the party had moved into a field just beyond campus where carousing had ensued until the cops dispersed them for trespassing.
“Are you up, Zain?” There was a lump in his roommate’s bed, but that didn’t guarantee anything. The guy was such a slob that Drake regularly spied lost props and camera equipment poking out of the bedding.
A quick check of the clock explained Zain’s absence. It was 11:00 a.m. and Zain, unlike Drake, was a morning person. It was a good thing he was such a good sound editor, otherwise Drake might not forgive his cheerfulness about attending 8:00 a.m. lectures. By 11:00 on a Sunday, he could be anywhere.
Drake’s phone buzzed with a text from Zain: Apocalypse now! Cafeteria. Bring cameras.
Drake would rather go back to bed, but Zain’s message sounded urgent. He threw on jeans and a t-shirt and went to the elevator, promising himself coffee. Oh, celestial elixir! The magical brew would open his eyes and restore his wits for whatever Zain was talking about.
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THE SCENE IN THE CAFETERIA was beyond anything Drake had imagined in his wildest movie scenarios. Troupes of students brandished trays at the cafeteria ladies, who defended the food with ladles and long-handled pots. Young men and women were shrieking and stealing bananas, leaping up and down in triumph like it was Planet of the Apes.
A handful of campus police clustered together, but instead of stopping the thieves, they stuck their hands into heating trays and pulled out handfuls of bacon. The eating wasn’t split exactly along student/employee lines. In some instances, cafeteria staff gorged themselves on sausages, while students walked out in open-mouthed disgust.
Drake pulled out his NEX-VG30H. He had to capture this carnage and stream it live, now!
Zain stood on a table, panning with his camera and tripod.
Drake yelled up to him, “It’s the Super Bowl of food fights!”
“It’s no food fight Duck, it’s destiny. Cue the suspenseful music. Here comes the trailer.” He put on a horror narrator voice: “In a world gone topsy-turvy, it’s a showdown between the hungry, and the voracious. Cafeteria!”
Drake would have found it funnier if the fighting weren’t so intense. Zain was standing back and recording while staff broke wooden spoons over students’ heads. Shouldn’t somebody break up the fight?
A skirmish between servers in hair nets and students waving plastic trays drew his attention when a muscle-bound guy stepped up waving a baseball bat. This looked bad, and the authorities were too busy stuffing their faces to notice.
“Hey!” said Drake, “Put the bat down!”
The guy’s shoulders were so broad he’d be tall sideways. He stepped up to the cafeteria ladies and swung the bat like a gorilla. The cafeteria ladies stood between him and the bananas.
“Outta my way,” said Gorilla Guy.
“Please. Talk this out. Tell the ladies what you want.” Drake held his palms up in the universal sign for please Gorilla Guy, don’t split my skull with that baseball bat.
“I want the food, all the food.” Gorilla Guy smacked the bat into his hand and stepped up to Drake, squaring his impossibly broad shoulders.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“No, it’s mine!” shrieked one cafeteria lady, launching a flying tackle at Gorilla Guy and knocking his legs from under him. A moment later, she was sitting astraddle him with the bat raised over her head, smirking. “Who’s calling the shots now, you snotty rich kid! I’m sick of you, all of you!”
A handful of servers converged on Gorilla Guy to hold him down. They chanted “Hit the rich kid! Hit the rich kid!”
“Whoa, whoa,” Drake said to her. “Think what you’re doing. He looks like a killer but he’s somebody’s child. You can’t just bash his brains in.”
Drake stepped close and tried to get at the bat, but she took a swipe at him. Her prey tried to sit up and throw her off, but she laid the bat across his throat and pushed down with all her weight until he couldn’t breathe.
“Stay still. All the food is mine!”
Gorilla Guy stopped struggling. She raised the bat up, ready to deliver the death blow. Her eyes were frosted blue.
The student lay there, eyes wide, hyperventilating.
“Do you have children?” Drake asked.
She blinked, and the frost cleared from her eyes. She looked around as if noticing the bizarre scene for the first time. Her mouth fell slack. She looked at the student beneath her and startled, then leaped off, coming toward Drake, bat in hand.
“You’re up next.” She handed him the bat and strode off, tossing her hairnet to the floor. “I quit!”
She ran out the emergency exit and Drake watched her flee past the statue of Sir William Mackenzie and out of the courtyard.
Opening the door had set off an alarm. Over the racket, nobody could hear what anyone shouted. With no chance of arguing for peace, Drake looked around for hotspots where he should intervene.
Zain never stopped filming, even as students threw themselves on the edibles from all sides and cafeteria ladies tried to beat them back with wooden spoons. The students outnumbered staff, so why were the servers risking injury to defend the university’s food? The answer came when he saw them gorging themselves as well. That is, the ones who seemed crazed, with frosted eyes like Professor Rudolph.
Drake noticed a clear-eyed server taking advantage of the chaos by scooping cash from the till. Most of the campus police were too busy stuffing their faces to uphold the law but Drake found one lucid officer and pointed the server out.
The first bagel flew over the officer’s head while he was crossing the floor, phone to his ear as he reported the situation. A second bagel hit him full in the face.
The cafeteria erupted into a blitzkrieg of flying dishes and utensils as students fought their way to the hot tables. The serving staff, like medieval defenders under siege, used long-handled spoons to catapult showers of hot oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and fried tomatoes at their enemies. This tactic, intended to repel students, instead attracted them. Platoons of students laid down their arms and started lapping porridge off the floor like puppies.
A pair of girls started to fight over the last bagel on the floor. The brunette yanked the blonde by her arm and spun her to the ground. Drake stepped in and snatched the brunette’s bagel right out of her mouth. He tossed it away to end the fight, but similar skirmishes erupted all around. Kids were kicking, shoving, punching, and biting each other over the dregs of food.
Six police officers rushed in with Tasers, starting a stampede out the emergency exit.
“Zain! Zain! Get out before you get trampled!”
He could shout all he wanted but there was no way Zain could hear him over the alarm and the crazed mob. The unrelenting noise was making Drake’s head throb, on top of the caffeine withdrawal. He needed coffee!
Between the din and the lack of morning caffeine, Drake’s headache was an icepick to the temple. Knowing he shouldn’t, but too tempted by the scent of java in the air, he made his way gingerly into the fray. What an addict. All he could think of was that first sip.
He advanced toward the hot drinks, but didn’t like the frosty-eyed looks the servers were giving him. Especially that blonde hefting a big ladle. She shook it at him, guessing his desire.
Behind her, in a steamy row, awaited the coffee carafes. He had lost all desire for food. Who wouldn’t, after watching students gulp it off the floor doggy style? What he desperately needed was to grab an extra-large java.
“Easy there. I just want a coffee,” he told the blonde. He reached into his pocket, making no sudden moves, and pulled out a meal plan card. “I’ll pay for it. See?”
She didn’t look impressed but lowered her ladle a bit. “The coffee is mine.”
“Let’s do this nice and slow. Want to take my card?” He extended it, a peace offering amidst the melee.
She paused, and they locked eyes, gazes unwavering as laser beams as she pivoted 180 degrees around him with her ladle raised, looking for an opening. Now Drake stood with the coffee carafes behind him, she with her back to the cash register.
“I’m just going to take one cup.” He took a step backwards. She didn’t move so he turned around and filled a large cup.
The back of his head exploded with pain. He staggered around to face his attacker.
“Nice try.” Her ladle was slightly dented where it had connected with his head.
“What was that for? I was paying for it.”
“Sure kid, except this card is out of credits.” She held it up like a trophy. “Put down the coffee or taste my ladle again!”
That did it. Drake picked up fistfuls of sugar cubes and pelted them at her. She held her hands up to fend them off. He snapped a lid on his coffee and ran.