Timmy turned it over with a stick and considered taking it home to show his father the odd stripes on its belly, but decided against it. His friend Matthew kept a good ten feet from the snake even though it lay smashed and dried up in the afternoon sun. He thought it might be playing dead, waiting for him to come closer so it could sink its fangs into the soft flesh of his calf. He knew better. This was a snake pancake for the buzzards to nibble on once they spotted it from the air. But he thought it might be one of those snakes. One of the Keeper's snakes. Matt was only nine, and according to the legend, the Keeper would only come for you when you turned eighteen. Nevertheless, he wasn't taking any chances.When he got home, Matt Cooley told his father, who was a sheriff's deputy, about the snake. His father patted him on the shoulder and assured him the Keeper was just a myth, a local legend, but Matt wasn’t so sure. 2It was nearly midnight when Ashley Monroe woke to something wet sliding across her ankle.
