Resolved Question: Should this be a prologue, or a very very short Chapter 1?

The sleek G Coupe Infiniti noiselessly rounded the road corner and crept alongside a flooded gutter. dirty muck sprayed the Athens Blue exterior and spilled onto the decaying road in a gurgling, bubbling rush; the driver cursed below his breath in annoyance and tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles grew white, feeling beads of sweat trickle down his forehead. For years he had done his job, prowling the city at night, searching, and never had he felt such dread. He glanced at the mangled row of cars lining the curb with a pounding heart. And I thought this town wasn’t civilized, he thought with a wry grin. Something flickered in his rearview mirror. A chill went up his spine. The warehouse was a grimy building made of dark brick, towering behind a chain-link fence and casting eerie shadows over the slums. Doors and rusted balconies decorated the side- but what everyone noticed were the four beacons that rested silently on the roof, high enough to touch the stars. It was legend that during the third World War, the beacons lit and an alarm sounded, noisy enough to be heard at the ends of the earth, when the country was below siege. Since then, it had lain vacant, closed off and protected by the police. And something moved there now. The man slowly turned off the ignition and swung the door open, not bothering to close it again. He crouched low to the ground and sidled across the road, darting behind an abandoned ‘92 Cadillac. He craned his neck over the hood and strained to look in the dim moonlight, one hand lightly resting on his leg. Seven figures quietly picked their way across the stretch of field and crowded outside of one of the warehouse’s crumbling walls. Excited murmuring reached the man’s ears- light voices full of playfulness, a nice of voice that seemed alien, yet at the same time flooded his mind with memories of a beautiful young adolescent, of an olive-skinned face that framed her smiling green eyes. A bittersweet grin spread across the driver’s face. Exactly as it was meant to be. He reached in his pocket; his callused fingers met the familiar icy steel. The gun clicked. ---------------------------------------------------------- I've heard by many people that prologues are generally disliked by editors, and being an unpublished author writing for the forst time, I want to know what I should do as this piece. Should I use it as a very short chapter, the first part of Chapter 1 explaining what happened, or just a prologue in hopes that the writing is good enough to hook them in and be read?

7 Mar 2010, 12:05 pm | click here to view more