that Mr. Neeley is actually on Miles Clifton's side. Jessie wakes up the next day and manages to escape his apartment through a window. Jessie convinces local newspapers and radio stations to attend a press conference on the steps of the Capitol building. Baffled by Clifton's sudden closure, they decide to check it out. When the media arrives, Jessie begins to explain the situation but faints due to diphtheria, which infected her before she left Clifton. At the press conference, she learns the man she thought was Isaac Neeley is Frank Lyle, a scientist and business partner of Miles Clifton; the real Isaac Neeley had died a few years ago in a car accident. Jessie is taken to the hospital, and after the health department and state police are notified, Clifton and his allies are arrested and Clifton Village's residents are evacuated. When Jessie awakens in the hospital, she sneaks out of her bedroom and finds Miles Clifton talking about the diphtheria outbreak in Clifton Village to news reporters on TV. It turns out that the entire plan was a science experiment where they would plant diseases in hopes of those with stronger immune systems to survive. This was done to try to create a stronger human gene pool that would be able to resist disease without the aid of medicine; the tourism was just a cover. She discovers that all of the children of Clifton Village have been brought to the hospital, as most of them had become very sick. Her parents have not been arrested like many of the other Clifton adults, but they will have to convince the authorities that they didn't put any of their six children in danger. Jessie protests that her parents were good parents, but no one listens to her except a journalist. Jessie's parents are allowed to only visit, but it is eventually decided that the Keyser parents may regain custody of their children. After Clifton Village closes, Jessie, her family, and the rest of the Clifton residents will live in 1996 with the rest of the world. Plagiarism allegation Simon & Schuster, who published Running Out of Time, noted that the film The Village (2004) had a number of similarities to the book.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1280048,00.html|title= Stolen idea in The Village?|work=Guardian}}</ref> The film's plot also features a village whose inhabitants choose to live in a manner reminiscent of the 1800s, when the year