The Book: chapter 49

The choking stench of burned plastic and scorched wood clung to the hairs at the back of his throat, suffocating him despite the breathing apparatus. Smoke stains curled in jagged black tongues up the ruined plaster and the kitchen was reduced to a skeletal husk, its guts hollowed out. The floor was a wasteland of debris—charred furniture and shattered glass that crunched under heavy boots. He would never get used to the residual smell of burnt meat. The pet rat had been lucky. It was the first thing he’d taken out of the house. If the little fella had been locked in his cage, he would have perished, for sure. But he’d managed to scurry below the smoke level and burrow beneath a damp hand towel.

Firefighter Jake Holloway adjusted the strap of his helmet and scanned the wreckage. It was a miracle anyone had made it out of there alive. According to the reports, the woman—Alice Grant—had been pulled from the blaze barely breathing, burnt and suffering from smoke inhalation.

Jake had seen a lot of house fires. He’d seen buildings gutted beyond recognition, families standing outside in their pyjamas, watching their lives collapse into smouldering rubble. He’d seen death, too. Blackened bodies curled in on themselves, the air around them sickly sweet with the scent of burnt flesh.

This place was no different. And yet, something didn’t add up.

His boot struck a loose floorboard, and he frowned. Crouching down, he shifted aside a piece of charred wood.

He saw a book.

It shouldn’t have been in this condition. Nothing apart from a very lucky rodent could survive this. Everything around it had been obliterated, yet the book remained untouched, as if it had been positioned there after the flames had died. But Jake and his team were the first to enter the building, so that couldn’t be.

He’d never seen anything like it. The leather cover was smooth beneath his gloved fingers, and the gold lettering gleamed under a fine layer of ash.

He read the title: The Book. It was hardly inspiring, but he was curious enough about its condition to open it as if an explanation for the impossible might be written there.

He skimmed the first page and gave a slow, easy chuckle. ‘Well, I’ll be damned. That’s ironic.’ It was a memoir about a fellow firefighter.

Well. Hello handsome.

Jake thought he heard something. He whirled around, but nothing was there. He laughed. The aftermath of these places could give you the willies, right enough.

The book was heavy, unnervingly cool against the residual heat clinging to the air. He turned it over, expecting the spine to crack or the pages to crumble, but they didn’t. It was unharmed. Plain as all hell, and old, but in perfect condition.

He considered leaving it, tossing it onto the debris pile with the rest of the wreckage. But an overwhelming craving came over him. He felt attached to this odd book. He needed to take it. The way it sat waiting was uncanny. It was there for him. He felt it. And it had survived when nothing else had. Maybe it was fate—a strange little mystery to tell the guys back at the station.

He glanced around. They weren’t allowed to take spoils from a burnout. In a twenty-five-year career, he’d never so much as considered it before—not for diamonds or money, but he wanted this old book that had probably belonged to somebody’s grandad. He had to have it—just this once. Nobody was watching.

With a shake of his head, Jake tucked the book into the waistband of his turnout gear and left the wreckage, unaware of the faint, rhythmic pulse that rippled beneath the leather cover—like the satisfied heartbeat of something reptilian that had just eaten.

I see you, Jake. I like you, big boy.

The Book Here's the Amazon link for The Book. Available on KU and Audible, as well as eBook and Paperback  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F2J7QYCQ