Free Chaos Theory by Graham Masterton

screens. Through the screens he could see that it was hot and sunny outside, and that scores of people in black robes were silently gathered under large black sunshades.
    ‘Chaos,’ said a disembodied voice. ‘Chaos, and old Night.’
    He began to feel uneasy. Something was wrong. He started to walk along the corridor more quickly, the soles of his shoes scuffing on the floor.
    Jenna. Somebody was threatening Jenna . . .
    He reached a door and tried the handle. It was locked. Jenna . He rattled the handle hard but it still wouldn’t open.
    He hurried to the next door. That, too, was locked. Jenna where are you? Jenna!
    He heard a click. The first door had swung open, all by itself. He stared at it, afraid to go back, afraid of what he might see. But he went, very slowly, as if the air in the corridor were as thick as warm glue.
    He reached the open doorway and looked inside. The room was crowded with dozens of different chairs: some modern, some antique; some Oriental, some Western.
    ‘You see,’ said the disembodied voice, ‘all of these chairs are empty now. And why?’
    He turned towards the window. Jenna was standing there, with her back to him, looking through the pierced screen. She was wearing a black robe like the people outside.
    Jenna!
    He started to move towards her, but as he did so she slowly turned around. At least her body turned around, but her head had been completely severed, and it tilted sideways and fell. He could see her face staring at him as it dropped to the floor. Her lips were moving as if she were trying to call out to him – trying to tell him something important.
    Her head hit the floor with a spattering of bright red blood, and rolled underneath one of the chairs.
    Jenna!
     
    He felt long cool arms entwined around him, and he heard a woman saying, ‘Hush. Hush, Noah. It’s only a dream.’
    He opened his eyes. His eyelashes were wet, as if he had been crying. He turned his head and saw that Silja was lying close beside him.
    ‘Silja?’
    ‘Hush,’ she said, stroking his forehead. ‘You were shouting in your sleep. I only came in to calm you down.’
    He didn’t say anything, but allowed Silja to shush him and stroke him. She was naked apart from a tiny pair of white panties. She was so pale that her skin was almost luminous in the darkness. Her shoulders were wide and angular, but her breasts were small and rounded, with a visible tracery of blue veins, and nipples that were tinged with only the faintest of pinks.
    ‘You were dreaming of Jenna?’ she asked him, touching his eyelids with her fingertips.
    He nodded. ‘I can’t understand why those men thought they had to kill us. Neither of us knew anything about their goddamned medallion.’
    ‘Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you do know, but you just can’t see it. Maybe it has something to do with that suicide bomber. You should talk to the woman he tried to kill – what was her name? Why did they want her dead?’
    ‘Adeola Davis. She’s famous. She’s some kind of freelance peace ambassador – flies around the world trying to persuade the Palestinians not to blow up the Israelis and the Israelis not to shell the Syrians and the Syrians not to invade Iraq. And so on.’
    ‘You should try to get in touch with her. Maybe she knows what you know.’
    ‘OK, I’ll try, right after I’ve talked to Mo.’
     
    Silja stayed in his bed for the rest of the night but he didn’t try to sleep any more. He was afraid to. He sat in his armchair by the window watching her. She stirred only occasionally, and once she whispered something in Finnish.
    He thought she looked beautiful. Everything about her was striking and appealing. Her narrow hips, her long toes, the hollows above her collarbone. At another time, he thought, under different circumstances, they could have become lovers, if only for a few weeks. But he knew that he couldn’t have made love to Silja without seeing Jenna, and that poultry knife sliding across her