The key wasn't in his house. Anywhere. He'd searched it from top to bottom. Ripped out drawers and dumped them out in the middle of the floor. Empties cabinets and boxes, checked between the couch cushions. It wasn't there.
The girl in the hospital had to have it, then. As much as Derry hated to go back, he needed that key. He needed Broken Drum's dream journals. Maybe Broken Drum would have another key. Hertley's Swamp was closer than the hospital. Check there first, and if that was a bust, then he would go deal with the crazy chick.
He forced himself to wait until mid-morning to drive the long road to Hertley. After flashing his ID as a resident of Hertley, the military guard let him through the gate. Every mile or so, the state had posted big warning signs on the razor-wire-topped, seven-foot-high fence that lined both sides of the road twenty miles from the swamp. Derry had heard rumors that the fence completely surrounded Hertley.
Nobody knew how many of the so-called 'swamp cannibals' lived out in the preserved land. The Swamp Baby had been shut down, like all the other businesses on that stretch of river. Even river travel was banned. Luckily, the river was small and not much more than a third-rate tourist attraction. He'd closed the Swamp Baby right after the government moved their armed forces in. Not being able to sell to his competition had burned him financially, but not so badly he couldn't recover. The government had offered to buy homes and businesses in Hertley so the residents would move out, but only the younger residents had accepted the pittance and left. The older ones were stubborn old coots who didn't care if the devil himself walked out of the swamp.
It was their land, their pappies' land, their pappies' pappies' land, and they wasn't leaving!
Broken Drum slipped under the radar, since he didn't own property or have a driver's license. He still squatted on Suwannee's land.
Main Street was quiet, nearly deserted. The salon was closed, the windows boarded over and bright signs warning against trespassing. The same went for the convenience store and the mini-mart.
The storefront daycare was still open, although when Derry glanced in the window as he drove past, he only saw a glimpse of a couple of kids with a single adult. The woman looked out as he drove past.
He saw her face for just an instant. At the moment he turned his attention to the road, a dog bolted in front of his car and met a painful death beneath the wheels of his Honda.
Two or three people emerged from the remaining businesses on Main Street. Grizzled old men came out of the hardware store and a middle-aged woman edged out of the diner. The woman came out of the daycare.
Grimacing, Derry got out and looked back at the mangled mutt on the asphalt. Blood spread in a crescent around its body, mingling with the oil and exhaust coating the dusty pavement. Iridescent swirls glittered in the dark red blood. The dog's hind leg twitched once, twice before going still.
"Damn it," he muttered. He looked around at the few people on the sidewalk. They stared at the corpse, mesmerized. The blood spread further and further than Derry thought possible.
Everything was absolutely silent. Even the new dinging crosswalk signals that the town had put in six years ago were quiet. Nobody said a word.
"Um, anybody know who's dog it was?" Derry asked. Chill bumps rose on his arms. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Suppressing a shudder, he rubbed his hands up and down his arms briskly. "Anybody? It's got a collar on."
When no one answered him for the second time, Derry got a little freaked out.
"Okay, I guess I'll just take a look."
The five spectators inched forward, craning their necks so they could see from the curb.
Sickos.
Derry squatted next to the broken, dead dog. Poor thing. He wasn't an animal lover, but nothing deserved to die this way, nearly bent in half at such an impossible angle. Sightless damaged eyes stared up at him. The guts hung out of the ruptured belly. Gingerly he reached out one hand for the gleaming silver tag hanging from the collar. A millisecond before he touched the metal, the dog snapped at his hand, the bloody teeth skinning the outer edge of his palm.
Derry hollered out in fright and scuttled backwards.
The dog was dead. Dead!
Yet it snarled and barked and snapped in his direction like it was rabid. It tried to twist its broken, twisted hind legs around, but something was wrong with its back as well.
Shit. Something was really, really, fucking really wrong with Hertley. The people on the sidewalk were watching in fascination. Even the kids in the daycare were clustered at the window, watching him with eerie cold eyes.
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