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DIMENSIONS
DIMENSIONS
A STANDALONE STORY
By Krystyne Price
Copyright © 2018 by Krystyne Price
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America
First Edition, 2018
Krystyne Price
98-820 Moanalua Rd, I 5-1 Ste 745
Aiea, HI 96701
www.KrystynePrice.com
Please don’t forget to feed the author with a review on Amazon or Goodreads! Let everyone know what you think of the book!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WEBSITE
PLEASE REVIEW
PROLOGUE
“Sure is lucky for us they had this fire right when we were here with the Extinguisher.” Vincent Tanner stepped back, wiping sweat from his brow. Before him was a skyscraper which was really only the charred shell of one now. “Without this baby,” he said, slapping the hull of the large, red vehicle next to him, “I don’t know that they would’ve gotten that fire under control.”
“The benefit’s even greater, boys,” an older man said as he approached the three standing together. “Thanks to our timely arrival, not one life was lost.”
“Any injuries, Father?”
“No, Steve, no major ones. Some smoke inhalation, one gal has a broken finger, bumps and bruises, that sort of thing.”
“You know, I liked being out there lending a hand. It’s a lot different than just the demonstrations we always do.”
“I know, Johnny.” John Tanner, Sr. clapped his son on the back. “A bit of adventure, that’s what you guys crave.”
“Got that right!” John, Jr. smiled. “Well, I guess we’ll give them a while to settle things down here before we talk to the chief about the county purchasing this baby.”
The four men all looked up at the oversized, yet streamlined, giant red truck which held ten thousand gallons of water and had the longest rescue ladder of any other, capable of reaching the twentieth story of a high rise. In addition, it had a sort of air elevator system allowing it to rise even higher yet, which was how so many had been rescued from this particular blaze on the island of Manhattan.
“We might wind up with more than one contract for this today,” John said reflectively. “They’ve seen it in real action.”
“You know, it might not be a bad idea to start using all the equipment we manufacture in real situations like this. Not only would we be helping to save lives, but we’d wind up proving without so much as a word why the local organizations need specialty equipment like this.”
“That’s not a bad idea, son, but this was just a lucky break. We can’t get to most events like this in time to make any difference.”
John Tanner’s sons were lost in thoughtful silence for a moment. Then, without warning, a shot rang out. There was so much noise and shouting nearer the skyscraper they doubted the firemen heard it, but they sure had, and hit the deck.
“Was that meant for us?” Steve asked of no one in particular.
“Could be any number of reasons, but we’re not taking any chances. Get back to the limo; I’ll have a word with the chief to let him know where to contact us about the Extinguisher.”
“Be careful, Father,” Vincent said, the concerned look on his face mirroring that of his brothers.
John nodded and rose to his feet, eyes moving everywhere at once as he made his way toward the fire chief not ten yards away. His sons ran for the limousine parked about half a block down and were nearly there when they heard another shot ring out. They stopped and turned on a dime as one unit.
Their father hadn’t quite made it to the chief. He turned to them, eyes, wide, and sank to his knees. He looked down, moving his hand to his stomach. When he pulled it away, it was red with blood.
“Dad!” Steve cried. “Nooo!”
CHAPTER ONE
The day dawned bright. She was excited as the streaming sunlight woke her gently, warming striations of her face through the vertical blinds covering her bedroom windows. Lazily she rolled to her side and glanced at her digital alarm clock. It wasn’t yet seven. She had the whole day to finish her third book. She smiled, blue eyes wandering around her richly appointed room. The native Malay print on the far wall especially caught her attention. Imbued with all the colors of the spectrum, it told of the stages of life, and was a piece of which she was quite proud, having only just bought it the week before.
It was funny, she mused, how her books were slowly creeping into her life. Characters seemed to run together from those she made up to those she knew. Things she talked of in both the first and second books had found their way into her home, into her life – such as the piece of art her eyes now took in. She supposed there really wasn’t any surprise there. Most writers imagine themselves talking with their characters, or at the very least hearing them, and for many, their lives did become intertwined with their subjects in some form or another.
Her mind wandered back to the thrill she’d felt when her first book had not only been published, but had become a best-seller. She hadn’t intended for it to happen. Indeed, she’d never really thought of what she wrote as best-selling material. Yet it had happened, even to the point where the book-based movie was now being made. Overnight she had become a success. Contrary to popular opinion, it hadn’t been easy.
The money brought her peace of mind, at least, where her finances were concerned. Yet still she lived in her one-bedroom apartment. There was no need to go crazy buying million-dollar homes, no matter how much money she got for each book. The truth was she was more than just a little reluctant to go spending all the money in one place. After all, today’s gem could very well wind up tomorrow’s lump of coal. She would ride the wave for as long as it lasted, and she would still have the fruits of her efforts to show for it.
If Lightning Strikes had been a hit on bookstands throughout the world, its sequel, Red Lightning, had been even more so. It never failed to enthrall her how people everywhere were not only reading the books but putting up websites about the two that had been published, with bulletin boards
, blogs, and even their own stories they called fan fiction. Based on her characters and the situations she’d created, other people the world ‘round were writing their own stories. Her publisher had warned against taking such work too lightly, for it was breach of copyright at its finest.
But she couldn’t deny the budding writers out there a chance to grow, to develop their skills. Granted, some of it was so bad you’d think these people had never set foot in a classroom. Grammar, punctuation and even intelligent story lines were murdered disingenuously. But every now and then she would come across one that held great promise and so, apart from sitting and writing her books all day, she took time out under a pseudonym to encourage them and even offer to help. She didn’t consider herself an expert by any means, but she supposed she must be doing something right with all the recent success.
She had just made up her mind to get herself up and into the shower when the phone blared at her from the nightstand. Groaning, she reached out and grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Is this the author Jane Marsh who writes the Lightning books?” She listened, realizing she did not recognize the voice on the other end.
Better to lie? Or better to tell the truth? “Yes, this is Jane Marsh. How can I help you?”
“How soon will you be finishing your third book?”
She frowned, pushing herself up to a sitting position. “Excuse me, who are you?”
“You might call me a friend,” the man’s thickly accented voice replied. “Please answer the question.”
“If you’re a friend, what’s your name?”
“I am afraid I cannot give you my name at this time. Please, when is the book to be completed?”
“I’m planning on finishing it today. What’s this all about?”
But all she heard was a dial tone. She shook her head as she replaced the phone on its cradle. No matter how she wracked her brain, she couldn’t place the voice, though something far back in the corners of her mind niggled at her that she did, indeed, know who it was.
It was thus perplexed that she headed for the shower.
* * *
The morning had passed. Soon her mind had forgotten the caller well enough to where she’d been able to nearly finish the third book, Thunder and Lightning. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, eyes glued to the screen. Her mind was elsewhere. Inside the book, inside what was happening. Living and breathing the world she’d created, existing inside the bubble that took her away from the mundane and transported her to a place she herself longed for.
It was a world of heroes and those in distress. A place of incredible technology and emotion. It was the world in which she felt most comfortable. Her life had known many bumps in the road, as had the lives of many, she supposed. When things had been too rough during her childhood, she had retreated into her mind, into places that were more exciting than a four hundred-person town in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa. Into places where people were strong and virile, ready to lay their lives on the line at a moment’s notice for each other. Into places where she was liked, loved and protected from the hand or the belt, from the verbal and emotional abuse suffered at the hands of her stepmother.
Those forays into her own mind had served to get her through her childhood and come out remarkably sane at the other end of it. College had been a means of escape. She had no desire to go, for it seemed it could offer her nothing practical. Yet gone she had, and had switched majors three times before graduating with a business degree. Business was the last thing she wanted to go into. Business was boring, as far as she was concerned.
At thirty-three years of age, she had finally begun working on that which had plagued her all her life: her desire to write. As a child, she had filled reams upon reams of spiral notebooks and three-ring binders with hand-written stories based on television shows or original characters she herself had made up. In fact, the heroes of the Lightning series had been created more than twenty years prior as she sat alone, locked in her room as punishment for some grossly exaggerated misdeed, with nothing but a pencil in her hand and a blank piece of paper in front of her.
That was when her characters had been born. John Tanner, the benevolent and wealthy father whose love and generosity knew no bounds. Steve, John’s eldest son, stunning and kind, though always a bit aloof and somewhat of a hard ass. Vincent, the middle son, as beautiful as he was creative. And Johnny, also known as John, Jr. Johnny was the greatest mystery of all to her, and she supposed he represented herself a bit in a way. Not one to let others get too close, she came across as funny and outgoing, with no one realizing the extent to which she held herself in check. So it was with Johnny, who – or so the story went – was only named after his father when their late mother had despaired of not having done so with either of the first two.
In a way, Jane figured each of these men were her in some way or another. Or at the very least, someone she had longed for as a child. A father who would stand up to the insanity from her stepmother rather than let the woman have her way where Jane’s rearing and far-too-frequently cruel punishment was concerned. Certainly John Tanner would never have allowed that kind of abuse of one of his children, for he loved his sons as much as life. And John was modeled after her own father in a way, a widower who’d been left to raise children on his own. Though in Jane’s case, she’d been the only child, and her father had remarried. Not so with John, who’d never been able to get over losing his beloved wife to a drunk driving accident.
Steve. What could she say about him? Perhaps every young teen’s ideal love interest. Face finely chiseled with striking dark blue eyes and wavy black hair, he was quick with a smile and seemed to take the cares of the world upon his shoulders. Yes, idealistic indeed. But none could be labeled more so than Vincent. She’d dreamed of him being even more stunning than his older brother. His skin was smooth, completely unblemished and his eyes, large and the color of warm honey. His hair was chestnut brown, showing auburn highlights in the sun. He could sing, he could play the piano and he could paint. Vincent was definitely her artistic side coming through.
And then there was Johnny. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, it hadn’t struck her until adulthood how similar in look she and Johnny were. He was tall and loved to run. He was interested in the stars and planets, a secret hobby she had always enjoyed, though had never really done much with to date beyond reading. Johnny, she supposed, was a made-up brother she longed for. Two half-brothers doted upon by her stepmother to the exclusion of her altogether had planted inside Jane the need for a brother who would be there for her. Someone who would play with her, talk with her, protect her and take her to the stars. She was most fond of him by far and had often imagined adventures the two of them would go on.
Jane sighed as the final chapter of her book came to a close. Those beginnings of the Tanners and their world had been many years ago, when she’d been younger and much more idealistic. Real Life wasn’t nearly so. In a way, she imagined she was still doing what she’d done back then: using her mind, her fantasy world and her made-up characters to live a life she couldn’t hope to live here on this planet. She’d never seen anyone as gorgeous as these four men – for after all, the apples never fell very far from the tree – and even her secondary characters were brilliant and good-looking, each in their own way.
Then again, she hadn’t been getting paid for it as a child. Jane grinned. To be able to make money from living in the world of her books was more than she’d ever dreamed possible. Which was partially why she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. She began to think that was what had given birth to the ‘bad guy’ in her second book. Vasan was half Malaysian, half Chinese. He was harsh and ruthless, a necessary evil to counteract the good of the family who had come through tragedy and survived in the first book. To Jane, Vasan represented Real Life. Intruding upon the serenity of the Tanner family estate, the success of their lives, always trying to undermine their every philanthropic move, he was definitely someone Jane both admired and feared.
Thus the lines of fantasy and reality had begun to blur. And as she typed the final words that would bring this chapter of the Tanner family’s life to a close, saving the patriarch’s life in spite of the bullet he’d taken to the abdomen, she sat back and wondered about the man who had called earlier asking when her book was going to be finished. She sighed and shrugged it off as nothing more than an ardent fan wanting more of the same. Jane hit the print button and her printer whirred to life. She decided it was time for some lunch. After all, it took a laser printer a long time to spit out two hundred pages.
CHAPTER TWO
“Yes, it’s all finished and printed, Marge.” Jane fiddled with the paper box she’d put her manuscript in, snapping the heavy rubber band surrounding it. “I don’t know why you won’t just let me FTP it or at the very least, e-mail it. This whole hard copy thing is so outdated.” Jane listened and laughed out loud at her publisher’s response. “No, it doesn’t mean you’re old! Anyway, I’ll be there at three, as promised, okay?” She listened and nodded. “Okay. Bye, Marge.”
She moved to her closet and threw on her favorite black sweater over the tee shirt that said I Smile Because You’ve All Finally Driven Me Insane and grabbed the box. The afternoon was warm enough, but if sessions with her publisher were any indication, it would be cold by the time she extricated herself from the older woman’s office tonight. Marge was funny as hell. But beneath her sarcastic wit and polished humor was a savvy, smart-as-a-whip woman in her late forties who’d been in the publishing world since she was seventeen. Jane knew she couldn’t have asked for a better mentor or, as she thought on it, a better friend. Marge had gotten her through the madness of becoming an overnight star in the world of the written word. She didn’t know what she would’ve done without her humor, her patience and above all, her encouragement.
In the Between Time
Talisman
Dimensions