The Book by M. Clifford Page A

hidden driveway, yanking him back to the present. Their bumpers stopped inches apart from one another. The owner of the Jaguar ignored his recklessness and headed in the opposite direction without a worry in the world. Holden shook his head clear and took a deep breath before releasing the break and pressing the accelerator, throttling his memory further into the events that had taken place at Winston’s home a week after their first meeting.
    That day had also been murky. Chicago clouds interrupted the sky with cumulus resentment, as if waiting for the moment to pour out their wet revenge on unsuspecting citizens who were enjoying life too much. When Holden arrived at Winston’s home, the man led him quietly throughout the large estate, pointing out the many locations where he would like added protection. While the estate was luxurious and divided into many bewildering rooms, it was all very typical. That is, until Winston brought him down to the cellar.
    From first glance, the cellar appeared to be fitted for a lavish wine collection. The brick ceiling was vaulted and the long walls were lined with empty racks that jutted out at even intervals to create many rows. But something was odd about them. They were shallow, almost too shallow, and seemed impractical for displaying wine. It almost seemed that these little alleyways created by the empty rack system were used to store food or containers of some sort in expectation of an apocalyptic disaster. Whatever the items were that the man had been storing in the cellar prior to Holden’s arrival, they had been moved. The entire cellar was bare.
    Holden began sketching out a plan for the arrangement of the piping system on his Book with a sharpened fingernail. Winston watched as the sketchy lines quickly transformed to a well-drafted blueprint with dimensions and line weights and interrupted by placing a hand over the screen. “This room is quite unlike any area you have ever done before,” he said, with unease. “And I find it necessary to request that you triple the average number of sprinkler heads.”
    Holden grinned at this. He had seen such reactions before from people who were obnoxiously protective of their home, regardless of what he said to set their mind at ease. Although it made logical sense in Winston’s mind to cover the basement with an overkill of sprinkler heads, Holden’s experience was to always keep the spray radius simple and orderly. Winston’s reaction to Holden’s grin was unforgettable. The man stated that he wanted saturation; that not a centimeter of space should be dry if a fire began. He then squeezed Holden’s hand to punctuate his declaration. Holden remembered that this articulated gesture gave more substance to the discovery he would find later that day, because the items that the shelving had been built for were not as plain as fine wine or containers of food. No, it was something far more precious to the man. Something that could touch water, but not fire.
    After the complicated structure of plans had been devised, Winston trudged back up the stairs, leaving Holden in the cellar to map out his array of sprinkler heads. The space was vast and hauntingly empty, like a train station without smoking engines, and Holden had difficulty finding the existing water system. He began his usual reconnaissance mission of following the piping in the ceiling and was soon forced to twist Winston’s old appliances from the walls and peek behind closed doors. It was then, when he found a closet with a short door that angled sharply from the handle to the hinge, that he stumbled upon the source of the elderly man’s insatiable need for protection.
    The space beyond the door was misleading. It resembled a long hallway but it led nowhere and was lit by a single bulb that hung like a specter at the center of the tight space. The wall opposite the door was lined with plastic boxes stacked waist-high and draped in a thick, tangerine tarp. Curious despite