The Delphi Tapes: Boone Springs
Episode 2
THE DELPHI TAPES
It’s 10:00 AM, August 4th, and I have a grisly hangover. I’m working my way up to walking to the diner for their greasiest skillet and a gallon of coffee. If I can make it without puking I’m counting that as a win for the day.
*BEEP*
Don’t get me wrong, last night was fun. After a long day in the city planning office, I walked over to Tiki Island and found a surprisingly lively crowd. Mostly young men with sun-weathered faces and a few families in booths. I sat at the bar and started drowning myself in margaritas. I had a salt mustache when a man with a warm smile and honey-brown eyes walked over. That was Ron.
Okay so Ron is a construction worker, and I’m hoping he can lead me to Mayor Barrow’s contractor. But we—well, we have a date this afternoon. It’s for work, technically. It’s not not professional. We’re going tubing down Boone Springs. So I’ll get to scope out the area and ask some questions about his work. Now I just need to get out of bed, find my bikini, and not vomit.
Oh, and with the planning office, I pulled land maps, zoning forms, and use records for the whole county for the last thirty years. Got through maybe a fifth of it. It’s a horrible slog and there are so many inconsistencies I can’t say what’s nefarious and what’s just negligent. I’m keeping a written record of what doesn’t match up. It’s mostly lot borders shifting without any documents verifying actual sales or transfers of the land in question. Plus names on deeds not matching the record books.
There is one document I plan to bring up to Wiley in our interview. An area zoned for conservation use suddenly switched to residential with no accompanying paperwork, and the buyer who went on to develop this area is an associate of Wiley’s. Hopefully I can find similar examples to build a narrative around. This can’t be an outlier.
The light is stabbing my brain again. Gonna go recover and get ready for my date.
*BEEP*
God it’s cold. The A/C is stuck and my hair is still soaking wet. Ugh.
I am back from the springs. Ron offered to pick me up in his truck but I opted to bike and get a lay of the land. The route to Boone Springs is a long, lonely, two-lane highway that turns into a dirt road once you reach the park. Pine farms create these long, dark corridors of forest even in the daylight. There’s some natural forest too, but it’s overgrown with mats of vines and these crazy saw-like plants, a demonic cross of cactus and palm tree.
There’s a little rental shack at the head of the springs and a trolley that takes you to the end and back. Ron greeted me with a firm hug. I clasped my hands together as we rode the trolley, running over the questions I needed to worm into our conversation.
“This place is huge. Is there a lot of protected land around here?”
“Uh, yeah, there are a few big parks like this.”
“Parks, like land that can’t be developed?”
Ron laughed.
“I’m screwed. You’re scoping out the competition?”
“Oh I’m sorry. I suck at small talk. I was just trying to ask about your work.”
“It’s the weekend. No shop talk, okay?”
“Promise.”
Goosebumps erupted up my legs as I stepped into the crystal clear water. I cringed and shivered when my back side sank into my inner tube, and Ron giggled until I splashed him. We sipped SweetWater IPAs as the spring carried us south. Cicadas hummed, frogs croaked, strange birds cried out. It was peaceful.
I had started to drift into a happy haze when I heard a huge splash to my right. I lifted my hand to splash back when Ron grabbed and stilled my fingers.
“Don’t move.”
He stared over my shoulder, where the splash had come from. I turned slowly and saw rows of blackish green ridges floating towards me, a tail swishing at their far end. I fought to keep a scream from leaping out of my throat.
We floated silently as Ron gently steered us toward the far shore. The gator wasn’t chasing us at any great speed, but it was still swimming steadily towards us. It could lunge whenever it wanted to. Are you supposed to punch a gator’s nose if it gets you? Or is that sharks?
Once we hit the reeds on the shore, Ron sprang up, dug his feet into the muddy ground and yanked me up with him. We dashed a few feet from the shore and watched as the gator settled into the reeds, watching us. I felt the blood rushing to my face and my palms.
Ron pulled my hand forward, and we slowly navigated the maze of saw-leafed plants and spiny cypress knees. Clouds had filled the blue sky with gray and great tapestries of Spanish moss further leeched away the dying light. The tube tucked underneath my arm kept slipping down my wet skin.
My nose bumped into Ron’s shoulder. I peered past him to see why he had stopped. The swamp seemed unchanged, ancient oak and cypress to our left, clear, alligator-infested water to our right.
A mosquito buzzed past my ear. I swatted at it, but somehow it stayed. It kept growing louder. And louder. My breath caught as I dug my fingers as close to my eardrums as possible, thinking it had somehow crawled inside, but I felt no wriggling feet or wings. Just the high-pitched, electric buzz.
Ron walked toward the water now, wincing like he heard it too. My feet easily followed. Something about that sound was so unnerving. It made my body feel wrong. It died away as we set our tubes back in the water. The gator was nowhere to be seen. We floated on.
“What was that?” I asked on the trolley ride back.
“Just a normal gator. We probably could have stayed in the water, but I didn’t want you getting eaten your first week in Delphi.”
“Well, thanks. Heh. I meant that weird, loud buzzing sound when we were walking.”
“What buzzing?”
“It was like a mosquito, or electricity, or…I don’t know. You had to have heard it.”
“You’ve never heard cicadas before? You really aren’t from around here.”
“Cicadas? There’s no way. This was way louder. Higher pitched too.”
“It was just cicadas, Amber. Trust me. You’ll hear them a lot when you get away from town.”
I sighed. I knew he was wrong, but I knew it was a fight I’d be better off losing. I placed my hand on top of his.
“Thanks for taking me out today. And keeping me from being gator food.”
With rough, cracked lips, he kissed me. It wasn’t great. He was overenthusiastic, and my thoughts were back in the swamps of Boone Springs. But I promised to grab a drink with him next week. Somehow I’ll get him to talk about his job.
Tomorrow, I’m sleeping in a bit. Monday is my meeting with Rep Wiley, and I need to be sharp. So far, I’ve skinned myself, been driven half-mad by the phantom drip in this room and nearly eaten alive by mosquitos and a gator. And I have no leads to show for it. Just a whole lot of odd.
You better have something for me tomorrow, Delphi.
*END OF TRANSCRIPT*
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