The Chaos Function

by Jack Skillingstead

  Hours passed, and still no water or food. Still no communication. And no other vehicles had departed or arrived. Standing on the rickety chair, Olivia watched people move past windows in the sprawling ranch house. Darkness descended, lights came on, and window blinds closed. Olivia turned on the lamp and lay on the sofa bed. She sensed that something bad was going to happen.

  What was Brian doing, she wondered. By now he must have called the police, but they may or may not be looking for her. Olivia was a thirty-year-old woman, gone for less than two days. Even if they believed Brian when he told them her absence was suspicious, what could they do about it? If Brian had been watching from the window when the men took her, he would have called the police immediately, and the bastards would never have gotten her to Sanctuary.

  No, the cavalry wasn’t coming. Olivia was alone.

  You are not alone, Rohana had said to her once when she came into Olivia’s room and found her sobbing for her mother. She sat on Olivia’s bed and stroked her hair. That one time, Olivia had allowed her stepmother to comfort her. It hadn’t been a miracle. The whole relationship hadn’t flipped. But it did change. For a while it was different. Now, lying alone in her little prison shed, Olivia could almost feel Rohana’s hand. That memory was a good one, even if afterward Olivia had worried that her acceptance of comfort from Rohana had been a kind of betrayal of her real mother.

  Her mouth was dry. Hunger gnawed at her, but she doubted she’d be able to keep anything down, even if they gave her food. She stood on the chair and probed the skylight, sliding her fingertips over the box frame. It was completely sealed, no nails or screw heads accessible—not that she had anything to use as a screwdriver, not even a dime in her pocket. Rain started. It pattered on the roof. Olivia’s face looked back at her from the black mirror the skylight had become. Raindrops squiggled over her features. Frustrated, she jumped down, picked up the chair, and flung it at the skylight. It bounced off the frame and almost hit her on the rebound.

  * * *

  Around eleven o’clock, things finally started happening. She heard voices in the yard. From the fanlight she watched more than a dozen people, umbrellas in hand, cross the yard to the barn, where light now blazed every time the door opened. The doctor appeared on the porch of the ranch house. In his right hand he held his medical kit. Following the others to the barn, he moved haltingly, picking his steps carefully, probably worried about his shoes in the wet sod. He looked like a man crossing a minefield of dog shit.

  Martin and Andrew emerged from the house wearing blue robes. The robes looked ceremonial. Olivia thought of death cults. “Oh, fuck me.”

  Jacob, though, did not appear.

  The rain fell steadily, making the wheelchair and walker impractical, so two young men picked up Martin and carried him. A very large man with a long biker-beard carried Andrew in his arms like a troll with a wizened damsel. Others followed with the wheelchair and walker.

  They all disappeared into the barn.

  Olivia got down from her perch. She felt shaky and scared. There was nothing in the shed she could use as a weapon.

  Wait.

  Hinges anchored the desk surface to the wall and the two supporting legs folded in, to free up space. Olivia knelt in front of the desk and examined one of the folding supports. Only a sliding hinge held it to the underside of the desk. Olivia wrenched and twisted it. The support cracked partially free but refused to completely break off. She worked it aggressively, wrenching the support back and forth, twisting it.

  “Fuck you,” Olivia shouted at it. “Fuck you.”

  She climbed back on the chair to see if anything else was happening. A figure came walking toward the shed, head down in the rain.

  Olivia jumped down and grabbed the support again, wrenched at it with crazy-person force—and it snapped free. She staggered back and crashed into the wall. The support was a hollow metal tube, disappointingly lightweight. She held it up. Use it as a club, or a spear? She touched the jagged end that had twisted free of the sliding hinge. Spear. Definitely spear.

  A key scraped in the lock.

  Olivia turned with her half-assed spear gripped in both hands, lips skinned back, feral and terrified in equal measure.

  The door opened.

  Dee said, “What are you doing?” She was alone and unarmed, holding nothing but the key she’d used to unlock the shed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Helping you.”

  Olivia looked past her. The rain fell dark and steady.  That was all. “Really?”

  “Yeah. We’re getting you out of here.”

  “We?”

  “The friend I mentioned.”

  Olivia moved to the door, still gripping the table-leg spear, afraid of tricks. Not that they needed to trick her out of the shed. The men could simply drag her out to the barn. Even Dee could have dragged her.

  “We have to hurry.” Dee turned her back and walked away. Olivia stepped into the downpour, looking around in case there was someone waiting to club her over the head. The sod, saturated with rain, squelched around her shoes. Cold mud soaked her feet. She looked toward the barn. Light seeped from the hayloft. What were they getting ready to do in there, with their ceremonial robes and syringes?

  The sound of a car door opening drew Olivia’s attention. The passenger door of a little yellow Toyota pickup truck hung open.

  “Get in,” Dee said, her words strained and tight, and she ran off toward the gate.

  Olivia approached the pickup and looked inside the cab. Her Aleppo stalker sat behind the wheel. Crazy Hair Alvaro. He said, “Please get in now. Before I change my mind about this.”

  The gate rattled to life, rolling on its track.

  Olivia ducked into the cab, still holding her pathetic spear, and pulled the door shut. Alvaro started the engine. He worked the clutch and powered them in reverse, the light truck slewing, throwing clods of muddy turf past Olivia’s window. She braced her hand on the dash and planted her feet. Alvaro slammed the clutch into first gear and churned them toward the open gate. They passed through and skidded to a stop.

  The gate started rattling shut. Olivia got out and stood in the rain. Dee slipped through the closing gate. The barn doors opened. People and light flooded into the yard. Men ran toward the gate, shouting.

  “I broke the key off in the power box,” Dee said, “but it won’t be that hard for them to open the gate. All they have to do is disengage the chain drive.”

  Olivia started toward the gate with her table-leg spear.

  Dee pawed at her shirt sleeve. “We have to get out of here. What are you doing?”

  “Making it harder.”  The gate finished closing. Olivia drove the flimsy spear into the chain drive and wrenched it.

  “Good idea,” Dee said.

  Angry, shouting men had almost reached the gate.

  “Get in.” Dee pushed Olivia into the cab.

  A gunshot rang out. Olivia stiffened, flashing back to the Old City. Dee piled into the cab next to her, shoving Olivia against Alvaro. He accelerated them up the dirt road, ramming the shifter into Olivia’s hip.

  “Goddamn it,” Dee said. “I’m hit.”

  “What, what?” Alvaro sounded frantic.

  “Keep driving,” Dee said.

  “Is it bad? Where are you shot?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “There’s a hospital in Idaho Falls.”

  “Forget it. We have to save the Shepherd.”

  “The Shepherd?” Olivia said. “I thought Jacob was the Shepherd.”

  “Not anymore,” Dee said. “Now you are.”

  Part II

  The Power

  Eleven

  The Toyota pickup raced away from Sanctuary, Alvaro hugging the steering wheel. Wiper blades swiped the windshield, and the headlight beams followed the twisting road, veering between dense woods. With every turn, Olivia was squished between her rescuers.

  Dee groaned, clutching her leg below the knee.
“Damn it.”

  “Flashlight in the glove box,” Alvaro said.

  Olivia popped open the glove box, grabbed the flashlight, and thumbed it on. At calf level a dark stain spread around two holes in Dee’s pants.

  “I need to see the wound,” Olivia said.

  Dee pulled the pant leg up to her knee. Two neat holes drilled through the meat of her calf.

  “It looks clean,” Olivia said. “In and out.”

  Dee looked at her. “You know gunshot wounds?”

  “I’ve seen a few.”

  The truck jolted over a pothole and Dee winced. “What’s happening with your leg?” Alvaro said.

  “In and out, like she said. Clean. But it hurts, and I’m bleeding all over your raggedy truck.”

  Alvaro said, “There’s a first-aid kit behind the seat.”

  Olivia twisted around. The ranch house lights flickered between trees and, with the next sliding turn, disappeared. She rummaged behind the seat. Among the bungee cords, painter’s tarp, cans of oil, and loose tools she found a white metal box with a green cross on the lid. She placed the kit on her lap, flipped open the latches, and raised the lid. The inventory was basic and depleted. Butterfly bandages, gauze, a few sterile wipes, roll of white tape, a small pair of scissors. “There’s not much here,” she said.

  “Just bandage it.” Dee sounded strained.

  Olivia handed her the flashlight and started pawing through the med kit. The truck jolted and bounced. “Can’t you slow down?”

  “They can still stop us,” Dee said.

  Alvaro concentrated on the road. “This wasn’t a good idea.”

  “You said yourself there’s no choice,” Dee said. “With Andrew in charge, we’re on the wrong team.”

  “It’s not supposed to be about teams. I shouldn’t have left Jacob back there.”

  “If he’s even alive.”

  “What a fucking mess,” Alvaro said.

  Olivia stripped open a packet of antiseptic wipes. She dabbed the bullet wound, and Dee jerked her leg away.

  “Shit. That stings.”

  “Hold still.” Olivia pressed a couple of square bandages over the entry and exit holes and wound gauze around Dee’s calf, using the whole roll, and taped it off. “I think we should take you to a hospital.”

  Dee shook her head. “We can’t chance it.”

  “Shit.” Alvaro stood on the brakes and the truck skidded to a stop, throwing Olivia against the dashboard and Dee against Olivia.

  A horse and rider blocked the road. The rider’s rain poncho made him look vaguely like a figure out of time. He trained a pistol on them. The road was narrow and the woods marched right up to the edge on both sides. The truck’s wipers clacked metronomically.

  Alvaro said, “That’s it.”

  Dee rolled down her window. “Caleb, is that you? Let us by.”

  “Can’t do that,” the rider called back. With his free hand he raised a walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke into it.

  “We have the new Shepherd,” Dee said. “There isn’t any reason for the ceremony. Andrew’s wrong.”

  “Bullshit,” Caleb said.

  Alvaro tapped the steering wheel nervously. “They’ll get that gate open pretty soon.”

  Dee reached over Olivia and squeezed his shoulder. “We’re going to make it.”

  Alvaro shook his head. “We don’t even have a weapon.”

  Olivia felt trapped between the two of them. “What were they going to do to me back there?”

  “Kill you,” Alvaro said. “They were going to kill you in the ceremony of transference.”

  It hit her like a punch in the mouth. “Why?”

  “They don’t want you to have the power,” Dee said. “They want it for themselves.”

  “I don’t have any power.”

  “You have all the power in the world,” Alvaro said. He didn’t sound thrilled about it.

  “If all they want to do is kill me, why doesn’t this guy on the horse shoot me right now?”

  “He won’t,” Alvaro said. “He’d be afraid of disrupting the transfer.”

  “What power? What transfer? What the fuck are you guys talking about?”

  Dee nodded. “Alvaro’s right. He’s afraid.”

  He’s afraid? Olivia’s mind raced. How the hell did she get here, trapped in a car with two lunatics? Sure, they helped her escape from some scarier lunatics, but still. One thing Olivia knew from years of covering chaotic situations, situations when the world stopped making sense, was that you had to figure out what the new rules were—because there were always rules. And the sooner you knew them, the greater your chance of survival.

  “You’re saying he won’t shoot me here and now, no matter what?”

  “No,” Dee said.

  “He definitely won’t!” Alvaro said.

  Olivia said, “Well, somebody shot you. That bullet could have hit me instead.”

  “Whoever fired that gun wasn’t authorized. It wasn’t security, trust me. And no one else at Sanctuary should have been armed.”

  Olivia decided to take a chance, since the alternative, clearly, was that they would haul her back to the ranch and kill her. “Do you have something sharp?”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind.”  The first-aid kit was still in her lap. Olivia raised the lid and rummaged until she found the scissors. “Open the door. Let me out.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” Alvaro said.

  “You guys just said he won’t shoot me.”

  Dee hesitated.

  “Let me out,” Olivia said. “I’m not running away.  Where would I go?”

  Dee opened her door and maneuvered around, giving Olivia room to climb past her. “What are you going to do?”

  Olivia ignored her. The summer rain fell cool and steady, made a crackling sound in the woods. She held the scissors in her closed fist, only the tips sticking out. Walking toward the horse, the bright headlights behind her, she kept her hand turned back, hiding the scissor tips. What if Dee and Alvaro had it all wrong? What if this guy decided to put a bullet in her? Trying to predict what a frightened man with a gun will or will not do was never a smart play.

  “Now you stop right there,” Caleb said.

  “I want to give up. I want you to take me back.” She moved closer.

  “Huh?”

  “Those two”—Olivia nodded back at the truck—“they made me leave.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Caleb sounded uncertain. He pointed the gun away.  They were right: He was afraid of her, or at least afraid to shoot.

  Close enough now to make her move, she struck out with the scissors, driving the sharp tips into the horse’s haunch. The animal reared, squealing in pain. Caleb held on, just barely.  The horse, scissors jiggling loosely in his haunch, charged into the woods.

  Sorry, horse.

  The pickup’s engine revved. Olivia looked into the woods. It was pitch-black between the trees. If she ran, would she be able to get away? Doubtful. They were too close to the ranch and probably too far from any outside help. But she had been sitting in the back of the van when they brought her here and hadn’t seen what lay beyond the woods.

  This might be her only chance.

  Alvaro got out of the pickup and stood watching her. “You have to come with us. We’re miles from anywhere except the ranch. They would catch you before you could get out of the woods.”

  Olivia thought about the barn, the old men in their ceremonial robes. She walked back to the truck and climbed in, putting Dee in the middle. Alvaro dropped into the driver’s seat and hit the gas. They roared out of the woods and fishtailed onto the county road. Alvaro punched it. The lights of a house twinkled in an otherwise dark and empty field.

  “Who has a phone?” Olivia said.

  “There’s no connection out here,” Alvaro said.

  “Somebody give me a phone.” She needed to talk to Brian. “Come on.”

  No one spoke.
/>   Olivia snapped, “Give me a goddamn phone.”

  “Alvaro?” Dee said.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the road. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

  Dee produced a basic disposable unit, 2D function only, and handed it to Olivia, who pressed the on button. Zero bars appeared. She dialed Brian anyway. Nothing happened. After a couple more tries, she gave up—but kept the phone, clutching it in her lap. Sooner or later civilization would turn up again.

  Alvaro glanced in the rearview mirror. “Nothing yet.”

  Olivia held the phone tightly.

  Dee touched her hand. “You want to call your boyfriend.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” Alvaro said.

  Fuck. You.

  Dee said, “If you bring him into this, you’ll put him in danger.”

  Olivia stared out the window.

  “She won’t listen to you,” Alvaro said. “She’s stubborn.”

  “You kidnapped me,” Olivia said. “Now I’m supposed to just completely trust you?”

  “We helped you escape.” Alvaro’s voice was flat, with barely contained impatience. “Dee got shot helping you. Yes, I expect you to trust us. At least for a little while.”

  Olivia studied his profile. “I’ve seen you before. In Aleppo. It was you following me from the hospital, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were supposed to grab me in Syria, is that it? But you missed your chance, so you had to do it here?”

  “No. I wanted to warn you. I was afraid of what Andrew and his people would do if they got to you first. Jacob told me what happened in the madrassa. I didn’t believe him. How could the link have migrated to you, an outsider? A woman. It didn’t make sense. I wanted to see for myself. But I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Jacob. It’s that I didn’t want to believe him. At night I came to your room, but when I heard you get up, I ran.” He bit his lip. “I’m a coward sometimes.”