The sunset was greeted with another aftershock. This one was milder than most, barely causing the piles that used to be buildings to shift and rattle. The shelter was rigged from blankets and tarps, far too small for the dozens of injured that lay around it.

A couple of firefighters, a nurse and an EMT staffed this shelter. Staffed isn’t the right word. They had found their way to this bit of open ground, and cobbled together the shelter as the injured began to arrive.

Everyone knew that there had been a quake. No one knew much else. Rumors abounded. California had fallen in to the ocean. The Chinese had nuked St. Louis. Terrorists, no, Mexicans, no, the wrath of a vengeful God.

Some supplies had been scrounged up, and the uninjured were put to work gathering more. It would be a cold night, and no one had yet seen any sign of police or rescue workers. One of the piles of rubble must have had a fur store in it since several volunteers had returned with armfuls of mink and ermine coats. The staff tried to ignore the pockets bulging with jewelry as they put the warm coats to good use.

A couple of old men, vets of the Vietnam War, they claimed, were setting up a latrine arrangement and some teen aged girls were using a table that they had found to put out a buffet of the food that was available.

The babies didn’t cry at the aftershocks any more. There had been so many, some almost as bad as the original quake. The little ones were all cried out and the toddlers just sat with a hollow stare in someone’s arms.

The sky was full of smoke and dust. All the fires locally had burned themselves out but several tall columns of smoke could be seen in the distance, out by the airport and the industrial park. A dog would bark in the distance, and others would howl a response.

They were getting hungry.