The Beginning of An Apocalypse

The two of them looked through the empty alleyway in front of them. Cassie–Cas Tyler looked down at her brother Marcus who groaned as he saw their new ‘home.’ Cas tried to put a smile on her face and keep it there. Not only for her little brother.

She wrapped her arm around him and got them both to walk into the alleyway. “It’s only for a little while,” Cas told him.

“I know that, but this is the seventeenth alleyway we’ve slept in in two months,” Marcus said. “Why can’t we go out of town and find some abandoned building or something? A place with rooms,“he asked. He forced her arm off him and walked in to find a place to sit that wasn’t wet.

“I’ve gotten a job that will bring some money in. Then maybe I can get you into school,” Cas said.

“I would rather have us an apartment or a house,” Marcus said. They’ve been homeless for almost a year now. And he was sick of it. Cas was sick of it too, but this was the best she got. She was trying to do better and she would. She just needed some more time.

“School is important,” Cas told him. She had already finished school, but she was almost twenty and finished school before they ended up homeless. Marcus is only sixteen, he had just turned fifteen when their parents disappeared. They filed reports and did everything they could, but their parents were gone. No bodies to bury. No one is there to protect them but themselves.

Cas was still living at home when their parents disappeared. She had tried to keep the house, but her parents were already in so much debt, she couldn’t do it. They lost their home, their parent’s car, everything. They could have used their parent’s money if that wasn’t cleared out too.

Marcus said they would never do that. That the police should continue to look for them, but Cas didn’t know.

Cas dropped her bag to the ground where she eventually sat down next. Marcus was coloring in his notebook that Cas had stolen from the store she worked at previously. Marcus liked drawing pictures of what they saw. At that moment, he was drawing the dumpster he was lying beside. He drew trash overflowing and falling over a shadow of a person.

“Who’s the person?” Cas asked.

“Whoever looks at it,” Marcus said and continued coloring with his pencils. He wasn’t much of the speaker, but that was normal in a kid his age, Cas guessed.

“I talked to Shane yesterday, and he said that he may have some things he can give us,” Cas said.

Marcus widened his eyes in an attempt of an eye roll, but way too obvious. “Hey,” Cas said. “He’s trying to help us.”

“He likes you is what he is doing,” Marcus said. Cas denied him even though he wouldn’t give it up. Even if Shane did, she didn’t know if she felt the same. She didn’t have time for that, she thought. She had so many things to do that didn’t involve love. It involved meals, money, and Marcus having the life he should have had. She needed to push everything else aside and she did.

“Anyway, I’ll talk to him when I go to work tomorrow and see what he’s got for us.” Cas wasn’t one to take things from people, but she was running out of choices. Shane Willgate worked with her at her store. He was the manager and not the kind that thought he could boss people around and was always right.

Cas watched as Marcus continued to work on his drawings. She watched as he fell asleep with his pencil in his hand and notebook on his lap. She took his pencil and his book and set them down beside him. She grabbed her jacket and put it over him so he would stop shivering. She sat there beside him and looked up at the smokey San Francisco sky.

She didn’t see many stars, but the ones she did she smiled at. She could look up at the sky all night and not get tired of it. Until her body forced her to get some sleep.

“This one seems interesting,” Cas said. She grabbed the book from the shelf and walked over to show it to Marcus.

“What is it about?” Like most siblings their opinions in genres and fashion and anything are different. And their different opinions on things weren’t always the best thing in the world.

“It’s about a girl and her best friend is destined to be this great magical king and queen, but they don’t think that’s true. Not only because they would have to marry each other, but because the girl wanted the throne and the boy didn’t.”

“That is boring,” Marcus said. Marcus turned away and went to find another aisle of books. He grabbed a book from the crime and mystery section and showed it to her. “It’s about a girl who goes missing and the older brother is trying to find her. I read this before, it’s a really good book.”

“Sure,” Cas said. She put her book back and put the book that Marcus had back. “Let’s just pick out a book before I go to work. I have enough for a book worth twenty dollars but nothing above. One book to keep and we can have three books to borrow for the next few days.”

“Most books aren’t twenty dollars unless they are new,” Marcus commented. “And these are used books.”

Cas bit back her urge to say she was sorry to have to do this. That they couldn’t get new things. But she did not need to explain why, he knew just as much as her. And no matter how many times she explained why it didn’t make anything easier. For either of them.

Cas didn’t try to work out any more change. She grabbed never the twenty dollar bill from her pocket. In the process, she knocked out a chain that she kept in her pocket. “You dropped something,” Marcus said. He leaned down and grabbed what could only be a neckless, off the floor.

“What’s this?” Marcus asked. He looked at the pendant on it, it was a tree that was framed by a heart. “I’ve never seen it before.”

“It used to be moms,” Cas said. “I lost her bracelet that matched it.” Cas shrugged it off without much care. “You keep it for me for a while.”

“Cool,” Marcus said. He wrapped it up and put it in his pocket. He got the twenty from Cas and then they hugged goodbye.

Cas left Marcus at the bookstore while she went to work. She had bought him a book and given him the change for dinner later.

She didn’t work far away, it was a ten-minute walk away from the library. She mapped out the place so she knew the places she could go without being too far from her job or the shelters. She had her map of the area where she was labeled. With different colors, she dotted which parts were shelters, dangerous places, places to get food, and then lines for the different routes to work.

Cas walked into her job which was a small supermarket that was either busy or very slow. She went to find the breakroom where she sat there looking through the new announcements while she got dressed and waited for the clock to hit one for her shift to start. She saw people come and go through the breakroom as she sat there. She looked at the clock and saw it was 12:58. She put on her vest and tied her hair up in a ponytail as she walked to find the time clock.

She washed her hands and coated soap up to her elbows before she washed her hands. By the time she was done, there was only one minute left of her shift.

“Hey, Cas.” Cas jumped when she heard her name being called. She looked over and saw Shane coming over. The first thing she saw was a blur of ginger hair and beard before she saw that it was Shane.

“Hi,” Cas said. “How are you?”

“I’m doing alright. Just ordered a new shipment of fresh fruit and vegetables so the boss can stop breathing down my neck. How about you?” Shane asked.

“I’m fine, yeah,” Cas said. “Finally fresh fruit that I can take without worrying if I’ll get a disease.”

“Ha-ha, funny,” Shane said. “Of course, true but still.”

“Yeah… Hey, still got that box of supplies you promised me?” She didn’t want to sound desperate or anything, but it had been on her mind most of the day. Like a pirate looking for treasure.

Shane nodded and smiled at her. “Tell me when you are off because I have those extra carts of boxed food that wasn’t sold so we have to get rid of it. Plus, there are a few sweatshirts I thought you could use.”

Shane didn’t know that they were homeless, and Cas didn’t let him know. But he knew that they weren’t rich and that she was only just turning twenty and taking care of her sixteen-year-old brother all by herself. He did his best to help out.

“Thank you, Shane, seriously,” Cas said, “But don’t try to bother yourself too much with us. I can… I can handle us.” Before Shane could say anything more Cas ran to clock in and then run to find her register and start working.

Her day had gone typically well for her usual shifts. She had many impatient customers usually who wanted her to scan faster and some people wanted her to scan slower. Some people bought what seemed to be the whole store sometimes. But not today. Normal people with normal amounts of food.

Cas couldn’t help but feel jealous of these people sometimes. She thought about how they had enough to buy three hundred worth of groceries each week. She could have afforded that once too, she thought. Before her parents had gone, she had been saving her money and if there was no debt she had to pay, she would have been able to sell the house and buy a new apartment. She would be able to keep Marcus in school.

She would have been able to– Cas forced herself to stop thinking negatively and start thinking about now. Thinking about her job.

When her other manager, Ali told her she could go, she took off her vest and punched out. She went to the bathroom and then went to find Shane. Shane was in the office filing some paperwork that needed to be done before closing.

“Hey,” Cas said to get his attention. When he looked up at her she said, “I’m off now.”

Shane smiled and nodded. He set his pen down on the table and walked out with Cas behind him. Cas was taller than him, only a few inches, but she found it funny that she could see over his head while she walked behind him.

“Here we are,” Shane said. He had two boxes worth of boxed mac and cheese, and two bags of apples that were only slightly brown. There were even more than a few water bottles the in the box.

“Wow,” Cas said. She kneeled to look into the boxes. “Thank you, Shane. Wow.” Cas took the two boxes and hoisted them in her arms. The bottom box was clothing and the top was food and drink.

“It’s the least I could do,” Shane said. “It’s better than throwing it out.” Shane fixed his shirt’s sleeve and then ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. “I don’t want to let it go to waste.”

Shane’s over-explain sometimes was cute and made Cas’s day. She smiled back at him trying to show him she was grateful and that this was not something simple he could do. This was a lot. “I better get back to find my brother,” Cas said finally.

Shane nodded and waved her off. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Cas said. Cas walked till she got out of the store and down through the dark streets to find Marcus and give him an actual dinner for once.