The Book (working title)

Prologue

Dominic read the last page of the thick hard cover book. He breathed a heavy sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Exactly like the others. Explains them perfectly,” he whispered, slamming the book down on the concrete table in front of him.

The small redheaded man standing next to him flinched at the sharp sound. He was a frightened, trembling man who looked completely out of place standing next to the tall, dark, classic-looking Italian. “What does this mean, sir?” he asked timidly.

The Italian hesitated a moment choosing his words carefully. Then he smiled to himself. “It means, Rufus, that from now on, we must keep a very close eye on Mr. James Tyler,” he told him icily. Then he pulled a .38 Smith and Wesson and a silencer from the inside pocket of his jacket. He quietly spun the silencer onto the end of the semi-automatic and brought the nose of it up to Rufus’s forehead, right between the eyes. “I’m so very sorry, man. But I no longer have any use for you.” With that, he pulled the trigger and walked out of the room, as if he hadn’t just taken the spark of life out of someone’s eyes.

Chapter One

“Goodnight, Daddy.” Jesse Rene Tyler kissed the top of her father’s head. “I love you.”

“Love you too, honey.” He told her without even looking up from his laptop. Jesse had gotten used to how absorbed he got into his stories over the years. In fact, she was glad he was writing again. It was the first time he had in three years. When her mother died, it was as if he’d completely forgotten about his career. But now he was back on track and she was proud of him for it.

Jesse smiled down at her dad gave him a small hug. I wonder what his latest adventure is about… she thought. Mr. James Tyler never, ever let anyone see what he was working on until the first draft was finished. Then only she was allowed to read it. Before, when she was younger, her mother proofread his novels. Told him when things didn’t make sense, when things were spelled wrong. Now that she was gone, that was Jesse’s job and she upheld it with honor.

She turned from her dad and his work and headed down the hallway to her bedroom. When she flipped on the light, she got the strangest feeling. Like something just wasn’t right. One look around the bright green and purple painted room and she threw the thought from her mind. She was just being silly. Pulling off her clothes and putting on some PJ’s, she flipped out the light and climbed up to her bunk bed up by the ceiling. The bottom bunk had been removed and in its place was a small desk surrounded with shelves full to bursting with tons of fiction novels, including all nine of her father’s. The little space was closed in by a shiny blue beaded curtain. It was her favorite part of the whole room.

Jesse was a compulsive reader. Her dad always told her that she got it from him, that it was genetic. She didn’t disagree. Whenever he wasn’t working, or cooking, or spending time with his daughter, you could guarantee that he was reading something somewhere. Jesse was exactly the same way. During the school year, she averaged a book a week. During the summer, two to three. At first, her friends had made friendly jokes about her and were constantly asking her how she could read so much, but over the years they had become used to her strangeness and she was grateful for it. Without them, high school would be a nightmare.

She reached over and turned out the orb light that hung from her ceiling. It took her a little while but eventually she fell into a deep sleep, then, into a very strange dream. She was laying in a dark, freezing cold room. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her body, sitting up. I can’t see a thing, she thought. Then she looked down at what she was sitting on and saw a small square of light on a cement floor. Looking upward, she found the source of the light. A small window in the ceiling like a medieval skylight let in a tiny patch of moonlight. Standing up, she wondered if she was dreaming or not. It all felt so real. She felt around and found that the room was very small and that there was no door. She started to wonder how she got in there. What was she thinking? This was just a dream, a very, very weird dream.

Then came a noise. She jumped and clutched at her heart. It came from above her. Instinctively she looked up and didn’t remove her eyes until she was sure there was nothing up there. After a few minutes, her neck started to hurt and she gave up. A half an hour past. Then an hour. Then she started to become really frightened. It was clear that she wasn’t dreaming and there was no explanation to how she’d gotten there, or how she could get out. A few times, she considered calling out for help, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. She started shaking with the cold. All she was wearing was a short sleeve T-shirt and a pair of shorts, what she had gone to bed in.

She reached forward and walked until her hand hit a wall, then she turned around and slid down it to a sitting position on the floor. That was where she started to think about everything. She was really stuck here. There was no way out that she could find and it didn’t look like anyone was coming for her. She thought about her dad and what he would do when he found that she was missing from her bed in the morning. Thinking of him made her even more scared. Tears came streaming down her cheeks as she thought about what would happen to her.

She didn’t know how long it had been before she heard a noise again. There was something moving about on the ceiling; or, rather the roof. She heard something like a grunt and then a scraping sound.

Jesse jumped to her feet, eyes glued to the window in the ceiling. Then, very much to her surprise, a face appeared in the window. And, of course, she screamed bloody murder.

Immediately the face said, “Shhhhh!!!! Stop screaming! I’m here to help you, not hurt you!”

She gathered herself together and breathed deeply. “How do I know I can trust you?” she asked. There was no way for her to know if what he was saying was true or not.

“Well don’t you think if I was the one who put you in here, I would use the door to get to you?” He had a point. But then again, she never did find a door.

“There is no door, at least not that I can find.”

“Well that’s kinda the idea.” Apparently this guy had all the answers! But in all seriousness, there was really no other choice. She had to trust him. If not, who knows how long she’d be stuck in there.

“Alright, alright. I trust you. Now how are you going to get me out of here?”

“You look slim enough. I think you could fit through the window.” He told her confidently. Or maybe it was more arrogant than confident. Whichever it was, she didn’t have the time to sit and think about it.

“Yeah and how am I going to get up there? Hmmm?”

“Got it covered.” He pulled out a rope from somewhere on the roof and dropped it down through the window.

It fell on the floor at her feet and she looked down at it unbelievingly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” There was no way on earth he could possibly pull all of her weight through that tiny little window.

“Nope, this is a pretty serious matter. I wouldn’t kid about it.” He gave her a crooked smile. Jesse just glared at him. “Come on, all you have to do is grab the end of the rope and hold on. I can do the rest.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty darn.” There was that smile again. It seemed there was nothing else she could do. So rather reluctantly, she grabbed hold of the rope and wrapped her legs around it tightly. “You got it?” her mystery rescuer called down to her.

“Yeah,” she managed to grunt. He would have to pull pretty fast to get her out of there. She wasn’t sure how long she could hold on. The guy started to pull upward, slowly but surely. Finally, after a few long minutes, she was grabbing his hand through the window and he was pulling her outside. She put her knees on the edge of the roof and hoisted herself the rest of the way up.

Panting, she brushed herself off and thanked her savior. She looked around her to see where the heck she was. As she suspected, they were on top of a building. It was in the middle of a quiet little town that was apparently asleep at the moment. There were no cars, no lights, and no noise at all. There were a few buildings around the one they were currently occupying and some houses on the outskirts of the town. The whole thing was barely a mile wide. “What is this place?” she asked.

“This,” he said, spreading his arms wide, “is Cloud Sparks, Nevada. Population 920.”

“Nevada!” she gasped. She had no idea she was so far away from her California home in Napa Valley.

“Yep. Home of some of the craziest people you’ll ever meet.” He informed her somewhat proudly. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but whatever. She was only worried about getting home.

“So what now?” she asked. Looking at her rescuer for the first time she realized that he wasn’t too much older than her. Maybe 18 or 19. Couldn’t be any younger than her own seventeen years. She was surprised to find that he was so young. He was about 5’11” with short brown hair and big green eyes. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but she found herself thinking that he was rather handsome.

“Well I guess we should start with getting off of this roof.” His words snapped her out of her examination of him.

“Yeah, that might help.” She smiled up at him. He was a good five inches taller than her. “What’s your name?”

He hesitated, like he had to think about it for a second. “I think it would be better if we remained anonymous to each other.” He looked away uncomfortably. His words made her really think about what was going on. None of it made sense. She went to bed then woke up in a dark, cold, concrete room. Then some guy who wouldn’t tell her his name shows up like a knight in shining armor to rescue her.

“What’s going on here?” she asked.

He glanced at her for a second then looked back down at his feet. “I, uh…can’t exactly tell you. It’s too dangerous right now.”

“Wait a second. You mean to tell me that I was dragged out of my bed into some strange town hundreds of miles away from my home and stuck into this room only to be rescued from some guy who won’t even tell me his name, and I don’t get to know what’s going on? I think I deserve at least that much.” She took a deep breath and sat down putting her head between her knees. She was becoming dizzier and dizzier by the minute.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked timidly.

She looked up at him again. “No, I’m not!” she snapped. Then she realized that it probably wasn’t his fault that she was there. She shouldn’t be taking her frustration out on him. “Look, I’m sorry, okay. Can we just get out of here?”

“Yeah, come on.” He gave her that crooked smile again. Something about it captivated her. He really wasn’t bad-looking. He held out his hand to her and she took it.

They walked over to the side of the roof and looked down. “This is how I got up here.” he said, pointing down to a fire escape that looked like it had seen a little more than a few years. It must have been what caused the scraping sound she’d heard.

“You sure this thing is safe?”

“I look alright don’t I?” he asked, smiling. She couldn’t help but giggle.

“Yeah, I guess,” she told him, but she wasn’t really sure if she believed it herself. “You go first.”

“Okay.” And he started to descend down the steps. She waited for him to get a little ways down before following. Finally, she took a deep breath and stepped down onto the first ledge. A few agonizingly terrifying moments later, they stood at the bottom of the building.

“Now what?” Jesse asked again.

“Now I take you home.” he said simply. He led her to the front of the building where there was a little green Saturn sitting on the side of the road. He opened the passenger side door and waited for her to get in. She hesitated for a moment thinking about when she was little and was told not to get into a car with a stranger. She looked up at the stranger’s confused face and got into the car. Right now, she was out of options. It was better than being stuck in this town all night and besides, he had rescued her from that awful room.

The mystery man went around to the driver’s side of the car and got in. He turned the engine over and drove out of the town. Jesse didn’t know exactly when, but eventually she drifted off into a deep sleep.