The Beginning of An Apocalypse
Eleven

Cas walked past so many abandoned cars, purses, and luggage that she had lost count. But she didn’t lose count of the bodies. The bodies were scattered around. The ones that were still in their cars. The ones hanging off the bridge only by a little. The ones who died on the ground trying to get away.

It smell of death was inescapable. There was not a single place that was hidden from that rotting smell. She’d never smelled something as sickening as this. She never saw something as horrible as this.

She had been able to force herself not to take in any of the bad air, but that could only last sometimes. She had already puked and she felt like she still could.

Cas didn’t understand how the government and the military could leave these people like this. She got them scared, but she was sure there had been much more dangerous things and scarier things that happened that they wouldn’t mind doing this in. Was there something she didn’t understand?

“Marcus!” She shouted letting the mask fall from her mouth for only a second. Cas held the mask to her mouth and she continued to walk. She knew eventually that they would find her or realize she was gone. The sooner she got Marcus the better.

Even if that meant giving her position away by shouting his name.

Cas kicked around the things that stood in her way. She looked into every car she could get to. She ignored the bodies and ignored the fact that they could have been and were probably killed by Marcus.

The more she walked in silence the more her mind wondered. Not about Gabriel and her suspicions about him. Not about Marcus and how this could happen to him. What’s going to happen to him?

She started to think about what this meant for the world. So many people died. How would that affect the next few years of the world’s life? A single person had caused an unknown number of casualties. A single person caused an entire panic to spread.

What would the world be like?

Would it be a v-shaped recovery and soon everything would be fine and everyone would forget? Would people hold onto hate for the people that caused this? Some people already have conspiracy theories. People have already blamed others when they didn’t even know who was on this bridge and what had happened.

She eventually got out of her loop of thinking and went back to find Marcus. That was the priority.

“Marcus!” She shouted.

She continued to walk and was forced to stop when she heard something behind her. She turned and flashed the flashlight at the edge of the bridge by a car. She never liked heights and being here only made her more paranoid. Maybe it was the knowledge that they weren’t on real ground. They could fall through and look down by the sides.

The sound she heard was not from her paranoia. She heard something real and she knew it was beside her. The question was, was it going to harm her?

“Hello?!” Cas said still keeping the light pinned behind the car that had the noise coming from it. “If someone is there, tell me now.”

No one said a word. There was no animal or human. No ghost or lost baggage that finally gave way. Nothing showed their face. So what made the noise?

Cas looked back from where she came, she couldn’t see the start of the bridge anymore. In the 1.2 miles of this bridge, she was somewhere almost close to the middle. The chilling thought that it was too late to turn backcrossed her mind and held onto her for longer than she would have liked it to.

Cas checked every angle around her that she could before she went back to the car. She screamed at herself not to go, but she also screamed that her brother may have been the one making the noise. She was told Marcus was very sick, he could have easily just passed out or is hiding as he had been for the hours of him being stuck on this bridge.

“Marcus,” Cas said softly. With the thought that Marcus could be behind that car and she couldn’t leave him there.

Remember, she warned herself, don’t touch him.

She had no intention of dying from a single touch. Not thought about dying period. And if she were to go and Marcus was to survive what then? Marcus needed her now and he would need her then. At least she believed so.

Cas took slow steps forward. She started to see the surroundings of the car much better than she had before. She saw the tan color of the car. She saw the small stuffed panda bear toy on the ground that was covered in dirt. She saw her panicky breaths in the air.

“Marcus,” Cas said again.

She would do anything for him to crawl out of there instead of her having to go behind there and find one of two things. Her worst fear or more concern.

She forced herself past the first half of the car and soon she was standing so close to the side of the bridge. Another deep breath and a count to three and she flashed the light at the other side of the car. The darkness was illuminated and she was able to see what or who was there.

The backseat car door was open and nothing else was there. The dirty concrete road with nothing on it. Marcus was not there hiding. There was no sign of anyone ever being there besides the car being there.

Cas felt disappointed but her chest felt almost lighter at the same time. She wasn’t ready and she knew that.

Cas walked up to the open door and looked inside. There were three pizza boxes inside, but they weren’t open. Whoever was in this car must have been bringing pizza home to their family. She assumed so anyway.

She stepped away from the backseats and went to open the front door. She looked for anything useful. Cas couldn’t help but think she was in a movie that took place during the apocalypse. She remembered watching many of those dystopian-apocalyptic shows and movies with Marcus. He loved them.

She wondered what he thought about all this. If he could even think at all.

She found a jacket hidden between the chair and an armrest. It looked almost to be Marcus’s size and it was nice. She grabbed it and held it in her hands. She looked in the glove department and found a box of spoons, two blue face masks, and a bunch of past bills. She took the masks and stuffed them in her pocket.

In a place and time like this, she was sure she would need them.

Cas closed the door lightly and decided it was time to get back on her search. She looked back the way she came before she kept the light in front of her feet. When she was in the center of the bridge she continued to walk forward. After passing two cars she shouted for Marcus and kept that in a loop.

Within walking twenty feet she saw two bodies and three spilled purses and trampled-on clothes. The smell was still there, but for some reason, Cas felt like she could breathe again. Her stomach felt unpleasant but it wasn’t at all like it was at first.

She almost hated how she was starting to get used to the smell.

“Marcus!” She called out. She stood there and waited for a reply. She didn’t know if Marcus could speak, but she knew he could move and he could make some kind of noise. She saw it from the videos that Gabriel had shown her. She knew he had some sort of communication skills, at least he had some.

“Marcus!” She shouted once again. “Where are you?!”

The noise came at her and almost defended her after not hearing anything besides her voice for a while. The noise was that of a dog barking at her. A strong deep bark that was coming closer to her every second. She could tell it was a bigger dog from the sound of its barking.

Cas took steps backward and looked back every few seconds to make sure she didn’t trip over anything or bodies. She looked back and she saw the dog for only a second before it was on her. The big Leonberger dog jumped onto Cas. Its claws dug just above her sides.

Cas didn’t know this dog and what he or she could do. If the dog would attack her and since it was probably scared just like everyone else here, it could do anything. She dropped her flashlight and it hit the ground.

She didn’t know if she had screamed or not, she could barely hear anything. All she could see was the shadow of the dog and its feet as that was the only thing that the light was shining on.

“Get–” She grabbed onto the dog’s arms and with all the strength she had, she pushed the dog. “–Off!”

Cas was free from the dog and able to breathe again. She was able to hear her painting breaths as well as the dogs.

The dog stood there and stared at her. The dog continued to bark at her but it didn’t attack her or jump on her again.

“Go!” Cas shouted. She carefully leaned down to grab her flashlight and got back up quicker. She took two steps back before she even dared to shout again. “Get off this bridge! Go!”

The dog only barked at her.

“Did you not hear me?!” Cas shouted. “I said get out of here. Go! Go!”

The dog didn’t spend any more time barking at her. It looked behind Cas and within the few seconds of her shouting and in between her heavy breathing, the dog strolled off. Cas collapsed on the ground not being able to take it anymore.

The flashlight stayed there on the ground beside her hand. Her other hand rested on her chest as she tried to take a deep calming breath. She needed to get her heart rate back down and get her breathing normal. She needed to remember why she was here and get that completed.

It was just a dog, she told herself. A scared dog that had probably lost the only family it had.

They were all scared. Animal and human alike.

Cas pushed herself up and got her flashlight. She brushed herself off and looked ahead of her. Marcus had to be here, she told herself. She was almost there. She felt it.

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