Caligatha

Chapter 1 - Tomb

After a sleepless night communing with his dead wife, Eric watches the world pass from the backseat with heavy eyes.

He'd sneaked out and borrowed this very truck, driven for an hour to the mausoleum, and unsealed Sofia's visage from the nutrient vat within her marble obelisk.

And for what? He wasted precious time. Every second spent awake brings her nervous system further beyond repair.

Eric jolts as Crane abruptly swings the dilapidated pickup into a small parking space, a perfect cube cut out of the pristine white walls of a loft. The exterior seems unaffected by time, save a broken front door and excess foliage draping through the bedroom's shattered glass window. A single tendril reaches past the balcony railing and sways in the breeze just above their windshield.

Crane gave them nothing. No directions, allowed little gear. The only radio is in Crane's ear.

Eric traveled to tell Sofia that Crane had become obsessed with these unexplained missions, but she sensed his despair before he uttered a word.

Another year, Sofia had said, struggling to part her cracked lips. Just keep paying the jackals. One more year.

So he'd spent the time lying instead. He told Sofia how close Crane was to having a cure, how he was saving enough money to buy the mausoleum from the jackals, until she'd lost the energy to listen. He resealed the obelisk while she slept, leaving her to an even deeper sleep, and stepped into the graveyard, passing the more peaceful dead to meet the dawn with a heavy heart.

One more year.

He forces himself to dispel the memory of her hairless scalp and gaunt face.

Pay attention.

He scans the loft. Eric has been through hundreds of these abandoned homes. Here, there are no stinging nettles or jumping cholla planted along the pathway to deter unwelcome guests, just an interior full of robust flora. No one is squatting inside.

In the backseat by Eric, Mae slips a flashlight attachment onto her rifle.

Eric grips the shotgun on his lap, watching the back of Crane's head. Already strapped to Crane's back is a flattened bag. A flashlight is holstered to his hip. Otherwise, he's empty.

"No one's home," Eric breathes.

Crane doesn't take the bait, doesn't mutter a syllable about what's inside.

He'd called this a typical sweep. More of the same bullshit.

Before, Eric intercepted shipments of medicine or performed solitary reconnaissance, at least pocketing whatever currency he found to pay the jackals.

There was nothing here. These modern lofts were the disemboweled remnants of urban convenience. Looters passed through decades ago like a swarm of ants, picking every bit of human gristle in mere days and leaving flimsy architectural bones for a more patient earth to digest.

One more year.

Crane presses his fingers to the radio in his ear. "Go," he says, and the three head to the front door.

The doorknob is missing, and the door shudders against the light breeze, groaning on its loose hinges. Without warning, Crane throws it open and steps into the dark.

Eric clenches his jaw at the reckless entry, but he and Mae follow, stumbling over the twisted remains of a screen door that's made its way indoors. Mae stifles a curse and turns on her light.

Inside, the loft is like every other abandoned home. Overturned, rotting furniture awakens in their beams, spindly shadows stalking them step by step on the yellow, water-stained walls. To their left, open kitchen cabinets and broken bottles. The skeletons of what might have been a family of possums draped across an island countertop. To the right, a face-down bookcase and the sunken frame of a sofa. The floor is plastered with so much old paper it's formed a brittle second layer over the hardwood.