Night Blooming Jasmine

Teen runaway Jewell is hitchhiking across the U.S. to her grandmother's place in small-town Sloan, Nevada, just outside Vegas. Jewell soon encounters a young, paranoid man with the chosen religious name of Caleb, who is taking an unusual cargo to a professor of anthropology at U.C.L.A. After a late-night car wreck, Caleb leaves Jewell with a bulging backpack containing an ancient book, a strange "human" skull, and a dying request from Caleb, who explains to Jewell about the existence of vampires and his role as a willing "slave" in protecting them and guarding the skull of the first known vampire, which he possesses. Now seeing an elaborate tattoo covering Caleb's balding head, he reveals the vampire's sudden betrayal against him when his "secret mark", the tattoo he received in part as a test of loyalty, begins to show. Keeping Caleb's secret, an uninjured Jewell makes it to Sloan and finds her grandmother, better known as "Gram's, an ex-Vegas showgirl, now living out her retirement in a small apartment above a storage shed facility she manages. Later that night, a young man, Jed, shows up in a moving truck, needing to store his things in a shed. Finding out the truck needs a major repair, Jed holes up in the local motel until nightfall, then returns to the shed to let out what's locked in. Jewell, still hiding the skull and book and very nervous from her previous encounter with Caleb, takes the ancient book to a Las Vegas library and seeks advice from a supervisor, who, upon examining it, reveals it's a rare, priceless diary filled with supernatural lore, detailing the origins of the first vampires that appeared during the black plague. Not realizing what Jewell has, the supervisor takes it upon himself to notify Gram's, who finally gets the whole story and puts Jewell's mind at ease, while Jed continues his nightly visits to unlock the sheds. Seeing Jed one night, Jewell watches him plant several shrubs with lush white flowers near the interstate. Curious to know why Jed explains to her the flowers are a hybrid breed of Night Blooming Jasmine, that only certain "people", even from miles away, can smell their scent. Within days, residents of Sloan change not only their sleeping habits but also where they sleep. Speed traps are set up on the interstate and tourists vanish, while Gram's comes to realize coincidences with the diary are now a reality, including a second bizarre test of loyalty that connects Jed and Caleb both with a former slave mentioned in its pages. Cut-off from the outside and in hiding, Jewell, Gram's, and the two remaining residents can only watch helplessly as most of the storage sheds are emptied out and inhabited by a new breed of night people. With daylight, their only Allie, and Jed deprogrammed in a very unusual manner, the last residents of Sloan learn secrets that will protect them and find resources that will ultimately destroy the new evil taking over their town. A sense of normalcy is restored. But something has survived: The single white blossom of a small, tenacious flower... Night Blooming Jasmine