Bryce and she had been dating for a month now. He was the local locksmith and sweet as the day was long. He adored her and would go to the end of the world for her. He was also a big guy who would beat the crap out of Tom if he thought he was bothering Hannah.

  Hannah grabbed the door and, as it opened, she noticed her name wasn't on it like it usually was. A sensation of anxiety hit her as she walked inside.

  Her colleague, Michelle, smiled when she saw her. "Hey, Hannah. Right on time. I have a meeting in two; could you make the coffee, please?"

  Hannah scoffed, "Coffee?"

  Michelle nodded and smiled. "Yeah, you know the brown substance we all love so much in the mornings and that makes us turn into monsters if we don't have."

  Michelle laughed and walked past her holding a stack of papers in her arms, then disappeared into her office.

  "Coffee?" Hannah mumbled to herself, wondering. "Why would she ask me to make her coffee?"

  Hannah walked to her office door, then paused, her hand on the door handle.

  Why is my name not on the door? Why does it say Rhonda Bunin on this door? Who is Rhonda Bunin?

  Hannah pushed the door open and found a strange woman inside her office, sitting behind her desk, looking at the screen on her computer.

  "Excuse me?" Hannah said.

  The woman looked at her, then smiled. "Yes, Hannah?"

  "I'm…I'm…" she said, pointing at the door. "Something must be wrong with the sign…who are you?"

  The woman wrinkled her nose. "Are you all right, Hannah? You look all pale. Did you say you don't know who I am?"

  "Well…yes…"

  "Are you joking or something? Don't go around pulling jokes on your boss. Go make the coffee; we really need it."

  "Coffee? But…I…I'm an accountant."

  Rhonda burst into laughter. "Good one, Hannah. Really. Now go take care of the reception desk. Can't you hear the phone is ringing?"

  Chapter 3

  Bushlake, June 2016

  Was I fired and no one told me? Was I degraded and I just don't remember?

  Hannah sat behind the counter at the reception desk, staring at the phone while it kept ringing. A sign on the counter had her name on it. A picture on the desk showed her and Tom in a warm embrace. The screensaver on the computer was a picture of her swimming with dolphins in the Keys.

  This can't all be Tom, can it? It has to be something else. Amnesia? Stress related amnesia?

  Rhonda opened the door to her office and peeked out. "How are we on that coffee?"

  "I…I…I don't know," Hannah said.

  "The phone is ringing," Rhonda said, then wrinkled her forehead. "Are you all right, Hannah? You look a little…off."

  "I…I…I don't think I am," Hannah said and got up from the chair. "I think I need to see a doctor."

  Rhonda nodded. "Okay, then take the day off. We'll cover the phones."

  Without as much as a thank you, Hannah stormed out of the office and into the parking lot, panting, wheezing, hyperventilating, and feeling like she had to throw up. She leaned on the car, bent over, but nothing came out.

  What the hell is going on here?

  Once she felt a little better, she got inside the car. She sat for several minutes in the car, staring at the building in front of her that she called her office. That she used to call her office. Right now, she had no idea what it was. Or who she really was. There was no way she would have forgotten that she was a receptionist all of a sudden. How could you not remember a thing like that?

  Am I losing my mind? Is this what it feels like?

  Hannah grabbed her phone and went through her wallet. She pulled out three credit cards and her driver's license. They all looked like they used to. Same name, same picture, same numbers, and same home address. She then went online on her phone and ran through her emails, then the news. All the top stories were the same as the night before. Still talking about the election, still the same candidates, still the same mumbo-jumbo. Nothing new or surprising. She remembered most of the stories from the night before when she watched the news right before going to sleep.

  There are no missing days. You haven't been unconscious. Could you have been drugged?

  "Bryce," she said. "Bryce will know. We spent the evening together last night eating that take-out burger from the diner. Yes, he might be able to clear things up for me."

  Hannah went through her phone looking for his number, but couldn't find him. Stupefied, she called his home number that she remembered because it was almost the same as her parent's number, except for the eight at the end.

  Hannah's heart was throbbing in her throat as she waited for his answering machine to pick up. In his message, Bryce usually referred people to his cell number, in case of a locksmith emergency.

  It picked up and Hannah prepared herself to hear the soft voice of Bryce telling her he wasn't home but to leave a number or call him on his cell.

  But it wasn't Bryce's voice that filled her ear. It was someone else's. A woman, telling her that she had called Joyce and that she wasn't home but after the tone, she could leave a message.

  Hannah's heart stopped. Just for a second, but it literally stopped.

  "What the heck?" she asked and looked at the number she had called. It was the right number. She tried again, then again, and finally one last time before she growled and threw the phone on the seat next to her.

  She started the car and drove across town till she reached the building housing Bryce's shop. Only it didn't. The sign told her there was a locksmith there, but his name was Tom.

  Tom Harding.

  "What the heck?" she asked again, rolling the window down to better see. That was when she spotted Tom coming out from the shop wearing overalls, tools in his hand.

  Hannah gasped and wanted to drive away when he spotted her and waved. Approaching her with a big smile, he yelled, "Hey babe!"

  He stuck his head inside the car, his breath smelling like coffee and cheese when he spoke. Hannah felt like throwing up again.

  "Hey, sweetheart," he said. "About tonight. I was wondering if we could hang out at your place again? I have a movie I wanted to see."

  Part 1

  The Green Swamps

  Chapter 4

  Bushlake, October 2016

  The water was murky, the sky gray and heavy above. It was hot, but the weather was starting to cool down as they approached autumn. Rooney James liked autumn. Most people in Central Florida did. The summers were way too hot for fishing, he believed, well, for any outdoor activity, to be frank. Today it was in the upper seventies and the air nice and fresh. During autumn there were so many fish in the Withlacoochee River, he could catch enough to have a nice dinner for him and Joanne, but he would usually also be able to give a few to Doris at the Hayseed Cafe and make her day.

  Rooney liked to make Doris's day—no pun intended.

  Rooney threw out the line and heard the splash. He took in a deep breath of the moist air. It wasn't the fishing that he liked the best about the Green Swamps, also known as the liquid heart of Florida. It was the silence.

  Rooney sighed and closed his eyes for just a second to take in the quietness of the swamps. The tall trees with their above-ground roots along the river’s shore seemed to be sighing along with him. He thought of Doris and back when they were younger. He thought of the child they never had, that her dad forced her to get rid of and the following drama between their families as they were forbidden to ever see each other again. He had been eighteen, she was only seventeen. They did it for his sake, they said. Kept quiet about it. Even the chief of police back then, Rory Hanson, had been involved.

  "We’ll keep this to ourselves," he had advised during a meeting with their parents. "No one needs to know. We want to keep Rooney out of jail."

  They had done it to protect him. He knew they had, but it had felt like worse than jail to be sent away at a time when Doris needed him the most. They had made him sign a contract with the air force and he didn't come back till ten years later, after being wounded in Afghanistan, only to find that Doris had married someone else. In his sorrow, he had hooked up with Joanne, the town's only nurse. She was sweet and she wanted him, so he ended up marrying her. Now, five years later, he couldn't find enough excuses to get away from her, to stay out of the house they bought on Third Avenue. Everyone expected them to have children soon after they married, but the little ones never came, and Rooney wasn't expecting them to do so anytime soon.

  The rod was moving and Rooney began to pull in the line. "Gotcha," he said as he pulled what looked like a Bass out of the green water. It was a big one, a Largemouth. He put it in the bucket next to him in the small boat, along with the two others he’d caught earlier.

  "Now only one more, then I’ll be happy," he said and re-hooked before he threw the line back out. "Just one more."

  Not that he was in a hurry to get back. It was Sunday and the clinic was closed. Joanne was off from work and would be home from church in about half an hour. He didn't really want to go home.

  Rooney lived off his disability pension and, even though it wasn't much, it was enough for him. Not that he couldn't work, he just didn't really want to. In his teenage years he had dreamt of becoming a carpenter, but now he didn't dream anymore. There was no reason to.

  As usual on Sundays, he would probably end up eating lunch at the Hayseed Cafe and stay there way into the afternoon.

  "Come on, little fishies, come on. Give me a big one for Doris, will ya'? Make her really happy."

  As if they had heard him, he felt something big grab onto the line. The rod dipped. He tried to reel it in, hoping it wasn't another gator because then he would only end up losing his fly. There were so many of them. He and his buddies went gator hunting every now and then. He would never forget Doris's face when he brought a twelve-foot gator back to town and told her she would get the meat to serve at the café. They ate fried gator bites every day at the café for three weeks after that. It was a true feast.

  "All right, little friend, I'll reel you in," he said while fighting with the rod. This was a heavy one, but it didn't seem to be pulling away like the gators usually did. It was big, but he could reel it in nice and easy like it wasn't even fighting him.

  "This is a huge fella," he said as he spun the wheel and saw the rings in the water it left when moving under the surface, coming closer and closer. He pulled it further, yet still, no part of it had come out of the water. He leaned forward to better see when the water parted and it surfaced.

  What is that? Oh. Oh, my word. Oh, dear God. Please say it ain't so!

  Chapter 5

  October 2016

  "I’m sorry to have called you in on a Sunday, Doctor. I know you have church, but I had no idea what else to do."

  "It's okay, Mandy," Dr. Watts said. "Just show me to the patient."

  Mandy closed the door behind the doctor and locked it as was procedure at the facility. She had worked at Whispering Pines for almost a year now, filling in on the night shift now and then.

  The hospital was located right outside of Bushlake and it took her only five minutes to get to work. It was convenient and worked well as an after school job, while she finished high school. Working with mentally ill patients was hard work, she had realized, even though she was only there a few times a week. There were two nurses on duty today, but they weren't coming in until after church. Mandy worked the night shift and wasn't off until noon. There were two on the night shift, she and Corey, who ate chips all night and drank Coke while listening to heavy metal. He was also from Bushlake and, like her, he wanted to get out of there as soon as he was old enough. Mandy dreamt of going to Orlando, maybe going to college and she had the grades all right, but her parents didn't have the money. Now she was working to save up for it, but she knew she’d have to rely on scholarships to reach her goal.

  "It started just before nine o'clock, Doctor," she said, trying to keep up with the doctor down the hallway.

  "The patient, Delaney Harrison simply started to cry out, like really loud, wailing loudly. And we couldn't get her to stop."

  Doctor Watts stopped in front of the door to the common room. "You called me because she was crying?"

  Mandy shook her head and opened the door. "No, I called because everyone was crying. All of our patients started to weep all of a sudden. Delaney was just the first one. It soon spread like wildfire and now we can't get them to stop."

  The doctor walked inside and the sound of weeping hit them both. Everywhere he looked were patients sitting in wheelchairs, on couches, in chairs, weeping, crying, wailing like little children.

  He covered his ears and looked to Mandy. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know what happened. We had just gotten them all up and finished breakfast when it started. We tried to roll people to their rooms, but as you can tell, you can still hear them. It didn't make them stop."

  The doctor put down his bag on a table and opened it. "I'll have to give them something as a sedative," he said. "This is highly unusual."

  "I know. That's why I called you."

  The doctor walked to one of the patients and knelt next to her. Tears were streaming across the woman's face like she had just lost someone dear to her.

  "Maybe I should start with Delaney Harrison. You said she started it all?" he asked.

  "Sure," Mandy said and walked ahead of him down the hallway and opened the door to Delaney's room. It was always with her heart in her throat that Mandy entered Delaney's room, or even faced her since they had once been friends. They had been in the same grade in school and known each other since birth. To see her like this, in this strange state, made her so sad. It also told her how fragile life really was and how she should appreciate everything she had. Who knew when she might lose it herself?

  If I stay in this forsaken city after high school, I might as well.

  Delaney was still weeping as they entered. The doctor looked at her, felt her pulse, but she didn't react and certainly didn't stop crying. Dr. Watts then grabbed her arm and gave her an injection and, finally, after a few seconds, she stopped crying and slumped back in her chair with a sigh.

  Mandy breathed with relief when the crying finally stopped. "Thank you, Doctor."

  "It is quite odd," the doctor said. "Delaney usually never says a word anymore. Why the sudden crying?"

  Mandy shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe she had a nightmare?"

  As the doctor was about to leave, Delaney suddenly grabbed his arm and held him tight. Mandy gasped when she could see his skin turn white from the pressure of Delaney's fingers. They had to be alert in case patients became violent, which happened from time to time. Then they were instructed to call for Chief Boulder.

  As the doctor tried to get loose, Delaney suddenly opened her eyes and spoke with an odd voice; sounding like it was coming from deep within her throat, a lot deeper than usual.

  "You ain't gonna like where this is going. You ain't gonna like it!"

  Chapter 6

  October 2016

  Like any usual Sunday morning, most of the citizens in Bushlake found themselves inside the small white building with the tall steeple that housed the First Baptist Church of Bushlake.

  That went for me as well. I was sitting next to my uncle, chief of the Bushlake Police Department, and its only officer.

  When I was only thirteen, my parents both died in a fatal crash on Interstate 75. After it happened, I lived with my grandmother and uncle. Being the local chief of police, he had been a very strict but also very caring uncle to me. Just like he was to the citizens of Bushlake. He kept things calm in the small town and gave people the sense of security they needed.

  "So good to see you, Stephanie," Joanna James said as the sermon was over and people started to walk out.

  "How's that throat of yours?"

  I smiled. "Couldn't be better."

  "Good. Gotta keep you well enough to write those stories for the paper."

  "Of course," I said, even though it was six months ago I had been to Dr. Watts's office with my throat.

  I looked at my watch. Pastor Bryan went half an hour over time today and after lunch at the Hayseed Café, most of my day would be gone. I was off today, as I was most Sundays. I had left a very lucrative and steady job at the Orlando Sentinel to work freelance for Florida Today, covering stories from the countryside in and around Sumter County. It wasn't a very busy job or a very smart career move, but it was necessary.

  Sunday was the day I usually spent with my grandmother. It was because of her I had come back to Bushlake a year ago, after almost fifteen years in Orlando. She was getting old now and needed my help. I wanted to be able to enjoy the last years with her. My uncle and I had lived with her after my parents died and she was the closest to a mother I had. Coming back was quite a change for me, coming from the big pulsating city to well…this place.

  "So, I heard Tom brought in some fresh hog this morning," Uncle Tim said. "You having that for lunch?"

  I chuckled. We walked into the aisle, slowly following after Joanne James. We were always the last to leave the church.

  "If Doris hasn't overcooked it as usual," I said.

  "It's not that bad," Tim said. "Doris is a good cook. Not as good as her mother was when she ran the café; no, she was a great cook, but Doris isn't too bad either."

  "I guess that depends on who you ask," I said.

  "Well it's grub, ain't it?"

  I looked at Tim and smiled. He had gained a lot of weight the past year or so but was still tall and agile. He could outrun me at any time, even though he was now in his late forties and I was in the beginning of my thirties.