Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
THE man known as Chaos had entered Peachmont High School through a back door. It hadn’t required a key or a crowbar. All that was needed was a chain of mildly catastrophic events causing the lock to fail and rendering the security system inoperable.

His footsteps echoed throughout the halls, and his boots squeaked on the tile floors. “Why do empty schools always feel like a haunted, abandoned mental institution?” Chaos whispered to himself. The idea was probably left over from the irreparable psychological damage done around four decades ago, when he suffered through the horrors of high school.

Chaos’s penlight flickered across painted concrete brick walls, illuminating flyers for chess club and theater tryouts. He found his destination, language arts room 347, at the end of the hall. Chaos opened the door, went straight to the teacher’s desk, and started rifling through the drawers, searching for papers belonging to the fifth-period class. He opened the period five folder and thumbed through it until he found Keeper Chance’s story. It had an 80 percent grade, and written in red pencil was Great effort!

Chaos read the story and rolled his eyes. “Puh-leaze!” He was hardly the literary type, but he knew a slapdash job when he saw one. The paper was solid C material, and this teacher’s comment was completely insulting to Keeper’s lack of effort.

Chaos put the paper back inside the folder and left room 347 in search of precalculus, room 102. He had already hacked into the school’s systems and seen Keeper Chance’s schedule, report cards, and individual grades for assignments and tests. For that matter, he had been following Keeper’s educational career for quite some time, but there had been a particular comment on a recent report card, from this year’s math teacher, that interested Chaos. Keeper seems to rush through and finish early but doesn’t take the time to double-check his work.

Chaos was confident that Keeper didn’t need to double-check his work to know he had a solid 75 percent on a test. Based on Chaos’s observations, Keeper Chance could have finished a math test early, without double-checking, and received an A+ if he wanted.

Chaos found room 102. It wasn’t an internal room, so he turned off his penlight before he entered, not wanting to be seen through the windows. The moon was bright enough that he wouldn’t need the extra light.

Chaos followed the same motions as he had in room 347. He found the test, looked it over for corrections, folded it, and placed it in the messenger bag he wore across his chest. He couldn’t help but smile as he put the desk back in order, then left the math room in search of the nurse’s office.

Yes, indeed, Chaos had a good feeling about Keeper Chance. Not that he’d ever actually met Keeper. “Soon enough,” Chaos said to himself as he headed to the front of the school. “Soon enough.”

The nurse’s room was just past the main office. One door in and one door out.

Chaos searched through his bag and removed a screwdriver, along with a new door handle. It looked the same as the one currently on the door, but it had a lock that operated through an app.

He set to work removing the handle from the nurse’s door and replacing it with his own. He was halfway through tightening the new handle into place when headlights from a car flashed through the windows behind him. Chaos immediately flattened himself on the floor and waited. It was hard to say if it was school security or the police. Was it a routine drive-by, or had someone come to investigate the broken alarm situation?

The water fountain twenty feet away began to groan. Sparks shot from the wall where it was mounted, and water spouted out of the fountain’s bubbler, spilling over the side and causing a pool to form on the floor.

“Get it together, Chaos,” he whispered to himself. “You control chaos. It doesn’t control you.” Chaos closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

The headlights disappeared. The sound of car tires faded into the distance. Chaos picked himself up, dusted off his coat, and pushed his half cape back behind his shoulders. The smell of smoke from the sparks began to fade, but there was no hope for the water fountain. There would be a major mess to clean up in the morning.

Chaos finished his handiwork on the nurse’s door, placed his tools back in his bag, and tested the handle.

“Excellent. Phase one complete.” Chaos looked at his watch. It was getting late, but that was no reason to not exit through the cafeteria in hopes of finding a post-midnight snack. He didn’t have to start watching the Chance house on Willow Street for another few hours. He wanted to be sure Keeper made it to the last day of school before spring break.

At 7:20 a.m., Chaos stood outside, in the shadows of parked cars, watching the front door to a small two-story house. The house was built in the fifties, like the rest of the little bungalows lining the street. Four steps leading up to a covered porch. Two floors, pitched roof, paint starting to peel off the wood siding. No garage. Street parking only. It was like stepping back in time.

Chaos shivered as a lone voice escaped the confinements of the home’s walls and filled the still air. It was the type of voice that clawed at eardrums and made your stomach go sour. “Did you brush your teeth? Did you use toothpaste? How much toothpaste? Enough to actually clean your teeth? Did you wash the sink out when you were done?”

There was never a reply to the voice. Mostly because there was never an opportunity.

“Don’t just walk out that door without taking the garbage. Don’t drag it across the floor. Pick it up. And don’t just throw it in the can. Put the top back on. Stop slouching!”

The front door opened, and sixteen-year-old Keeper Chance emerged with a bag of garbage. He was still growing at a pace that assured him his pants would always be too short and his shoes too small. He was lean, with dark blue eyes and unruly, wavy black hair. His jeans had seen better days, and he wore an inside-out gray T-shirt under a red sweatshirt. A well-used backpack hung over his shoulders.

The screen door closed behind him. His nana’s face appeared behind the screen.

“I’m watching you,” she said. “Don’t forget it.” The front door slammed shut, followed by the sound of a lock being turned.

Keeper took the garbage bag around to the side of the house and placed it in the can. He stood motionless for a moment, debating what he was about to do. He pushed any doubt aside, bent over, and rummaged through the garbage, pulling a partially consumed fish carcass out. Keeper gagged and tried to blink back tears. He took a plastic freezer bag out of his pocket, slid the half-eaten fish in the bag, zipped it closed, and placed it in his backpack. He turned on his heel and walked down the street toward the bus stop. His shoulders were back and his head up, thanks to years of Nana’s thoughtful reminders, but his eyes were narrow slits of annoyance.

“Wait for it,” Chaos murmured as he repositioned himself between two large holly bushes for a wider view of the street.

Sure enough, Keeper Chance returned. This time in a crouch, skillfully weaving his way between hedges and parked cars until he made it to his nana’s ancient, but perfectly maintained, Caddy. He took a secret copy of Nana’s car key out of his pocket and inserted it into the car’s keyhole. He carefully opened the driver’s door just enough to slip the fish carcass out of the baggie and under the driver’s floor mat. He closed the door, inserted the key again, relocking the door so Nana would be none the wiser until it was too late, and crept back the way he came.

Chaos couldn’t tell if Keeper Chance was smiling, but it didn’t matter. Chaos was smiling enough for the both of them. It was a wonderfully evil smile.