And Another Thing

Does anyone know what to make of this website?  I found it today and it just gives me a, frankly, bizarre feeling.  Don't know why, though.

saintsimonfl.org

This Neck of the Woods

Lydia and I left for the woods at about 11 AM yesterday.  Our goal was simple.  We intended to find that building that Lydia thought she had seen on the night of the murder.

As soon as we got into the park we quickly walked as deep down the trail as possible (her leading the way) and then left the trail for the thick forest.  We had walked in silent most of the way, but once we left the trail Lydia spoke.

"Watch out.  If you see any black spots on the foliage or any animals acting weird, try to move away from them."

"Why?"

"There's a type of fungus that lives out in these woods.  Only place in the world it's known to grow.  The park service is able to keep it away from the trail, but past that, it grows wildly."

"Okay... but fungus is like mushrooms, right? So it's harmless."

She scoffed.

"Let me tell you this much.  Whenever an animal dies in this forest, if you dissect it and look at its brain, there's strange... growths all over essential parts.  Those that control perception, for one thing."

"I wonder if our murder victim had those growths."

"Don't know.  Let's walk."

I shut up after that.  The rest of the walk was quiet.  There were far less strange spots in the woods than I had expected to see, but there were still enough that I wanted to stay cautious.  Once the time reached about 1PM, Lydia spoke again.

"Oh my god.  It's still here."

I looked up and it felt like the air had been punched out of my lungs.  Before me stood a grand building.  It looked like a hotel, in a "U" shape with a courtyard in front of us and the entrance on the other side.  A fence surrounded it, and a carpark, with cars(!), sat on the right side.  The ground it covered was all paved.

The lights were on, but nobody seemed to be home.

"Is this the same...?"

"Yeah."

We walked slowly towards it.

As we approached the fence, the hotel's image flickered, like a mirage, and then it was gone.  There was only forest.

"What the fuck!" Lydia yelled.  "You saw it too, right?"

"I did, are you okay?"

"Fuck, I thought we had proof!  What the hell just happened?"

I was thinking.  There were two possibilities.  One, that the hotel somehow disappeared, or two, that something caused both of us to think that we had seen the hotel.  Privately, I preferred the second option, even as I reassured Lydia.

Once she calmed down, we turned around and left.  It took another two hours to get out.  We got in our separate cars and went our separate ways.  I'm waiting to hear from her about what our future plans might be.

There's one thing that bothers me, though.  Even if the hotel is a mirage of some sorts, how did we walk straight into the woods for two hours?  The park isn't very big and we should have hit water after thirty minutes.

-Callie

Trent, and Decisions

 Trent's been on my ass about this blog lately.  He seems really, really angry that I'm talking about this stuff at all.  Not the "I don't know what any of this is" that Lydia described the cops showing her.  I mean real, palpable anger.  He hasn't spoken to me in two days, after telling me to delete it and "keep my nose where it belongs".  I will not delete it.  This is where I belong.  I am a resident of this town, same as him, and we all deserve the truth about any danger in our community.

To that end, I will be going to Dexter's Park tomorrow.  Lydia is coming with me.  We had to wait for a time she was off-work, so she doesn't have to follow her standard route.  We're going to do a deep search, looking for that hotel-type-building she described.  We'll prove she's not making it up or crazy.  We'll prove there's something going on here.

I'm not sure what else I should do in the meantime.  There seems to be a lot of angles to this investigation, and I think they might all lead to the truth at the center.  They just follow different paths.

I could talk to Trent, try to figure out what's eating him up so much.  Of course, that might just lead to more anger and distrust.  I could check the beach as well as the forest (or even rent a boat and go out a ways, to see if I can find anything out there- I doubt it, though).  That will take a lot of time and might be a big nothing, but if it's not, who knows.  Or I could search the internet to see if anyone else has any information about this town.  I didn't find anything the first time, but you never know.

If I have any followers and this isn't just a vanity project, please give me a suggestion.  There's too many options and I don't know what the best use of my time is here.  It's essential that I don't waste it.  There's a killer to find.

Masterpost

Two people I've shown this blog to have told me that the format makes it a little confusing to read and stay caught up with.  To that end, I'm making a masterpost with a "table of contents" linking to each other post.  As I update the blog, I'll update this post as well.

1. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/murder-in-st-simon-florida.html

2. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/lydia.html

3. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-interview.html

4. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/confession.html

5. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/and-nothing-on-twitter.html

6. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/trent-and-decisions.html

7. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/this-neck-of-woods.html

8. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/06/and-another-thing.html

9. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/07/so-far.html

10. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/07/sorry-yall.html

11. https://somethinginstsimon.blogspot.com/2021/07/dreams-and-i-found-lydia.html

OTHER WEBSITES

1. saintsimonfl.org

2. https://twitter.com/saint_florida

That's all.  I'll be adding to this regularly.  Also, when I went back to look at it I saw some strange sort of text at the top of my first post, like some kind of glitch.  I can't seem to edit it either.  The weird part is that I feel like I've seen that same glitch before somewhere.

And Nothing on Twitter...

The Saint Simon Police's official twitter has absolutely nothing of note about the recent events posted on it.  Either they really are keeping this off the radar, or Lydia is right and they- somehow- forgot about it. I think the first theory is the correct one, frankly.  Either way, it's more work for me.

https://twitter.com/saint_florida

Confession

When I was talking to Lydia, I accidentally let some things slip about myself.  The deal we made was that, if I was to post about her and expose her truth, I needed to set the record straight about myself as well.  I don't really want to; none of it is relevant to this investigation whatever, but it's to prove integrity or something, I guess.  Here goes:

I lied to you about myself in my introductory post.  I only moved to this town about six months ago.

Why did I lie?  I guess for the purpose of storytelling.  I thought it was more dramatic if you heard the story of a woman who's grown up in a small, peaceful town and seen it suddenly change for the worse.  I thought people would care more about the story, and about what's been happening.  I thought people would be more interested in me.

The truth is, I'm kind of a burnout.  I lived with my cousin. Trent. in Baltimore City, drifting from job to job, never able to keep one.  You might remember him from my introduction.  When he got the opportunity for a job down here, emailed seemingly out of the blue, it was like a new chance for both of us.  He promised to let me come with him, but only if I managed to pick myself up.

I guess this blog is my attempt.  I just want to do something important, something meaningful.  I want to help people and I want to tell the story of what's happening here.

I spent the last few days considering quitting.  I was too wrapped up in the story about myself that I had created in my head; the naive ingenue who stumbles on something big.  But I think this project still has merit.  I think what Lydia told me about was interesting.  I'm not sure where to go next in my investigation, but I can't pack it up here.

So, yeah.  This is me.  All of me.

Callie Forrester, signing off.

The Interview

I met Lydia on the patio of a coffee shop known as "CuBrew" that sits further into the center of the town.  She had showered and changed clothes, I noticed, and looked significantly less haggard.  She admitted that she actually got off at two, but needed some time to get shut-eye before she could come here.  Fair enough. I bought us each a coffee, as a thanks for coming to meet with me, and got my notepad out as she lit a cigarette.  I started by asking her a simple question.

"What happened when you found the body?"

She instantly tensed up.

"I was just walking down the trail, as I do every night, and I heard a splash... like something had been thrown in the water.  I ran down to the shore to see it washing up."

The answer didn't make sense to me.

"And you didn't see anyone toss her into the water?  Just heard a splash?"

She looked nervous. "Yes."

I figured she was lying, so I didn't feel too bad about offering one of my own.  "The police told me that she had been in the water for days.  What aren't you telling me?"

Lydia was quiet for a long time.  I thought she was going to get up and leave, but she didn't.

"You won't believe me. I'll look crazy."

I sighed and shook my head.  "Lydia, I'm here to hear what you have to say.  Whatever that is."

"I saw a building in the woods.  It shouldn't have been there."

"A building?"  I leaned in, intrigued.

"It was like... like a hotel or something.  It was in good condition, and the lights were on inside.  There was a chain-link fence around it.  But I didn't see anyone around."

"Did you go in?"

"I tried.  I walked over to it and knocked on the doors.  It was quiet, and nobody responded, so I tried to open them but they were locked tight.  I had a feeling... like I was trespassing.  But I couldn't just walk away.  I tried to go up a fire escape, and found that the door was unlocked."

She stopped talking and took a drag on her cigarette.

"It opened, and swung shut behind me.  The inside was... well, it was like an apartment complex.  It reminded me of the senior-living place my parents live in.  But there was nobody around.  Until I turned around to leave."

"Go on."  I was vigorously noting down everything she said, my coffee forgotten entirely.  This was exactly what people would want to read about, and the weirdness hadn't sunk in yet.

"It was that girl.  The dead one.  She was standing there, in the hallway.  She ran over to me and just said 'help me', and then started to fall.  I grabbed her, and then I was holding her, on the beach.  She was dead, and looked like she had been for a bit of time."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah.  You see why I wanted to keep this to myself.  I don't want anyone thinking that I did this."

She flicked the ashes off of her now-finished cigarette and dropped the butt to the sidewalk, rubbing her heel over it.

Her statement had given me a question.  "Are you okay with me publishing this on the blog?"

She was reluctant, but we eventually worked out a deal.  The details of that deal will be in the next post, because I'd like to focus on the interview here.  I asked her why she thought the police were hiding the murder and she said she wasn't sure.  She said that when she went into the station yesterday to ask about the case that the investigators looked confused.  She talked to the detective she'd spoken with initially and he claimed to not recognize her.

"Either that officer's been to acting classes or he really didn't remember me."

The conversation slowed around here and we exchanged information.  As we finished our coffees (and Lydia finished a second, and third, cigarette), she mentioned something else that I found interesting.

She told me that she's been having these dreams lately.  She knows she's dreaming every time but can't wake herself up, no matter what.  In each dream, she's running through the woods at night while a man chases her.  She doesn't see him but she knows it's a man, she says.  She also knows that he wants to kill her. She runs through Dexter's Park and no matter how far she runs, she can't find the way out anywhere.  Eventually she tires, or trips, or gives up, and the man approaches.  She can never remember his appearance.  He reaches out, knife in hand, and just as he moves to stab her, she wakes up.

Jesus Christ indeed.

I'm not sure where to take my investigation from here. I'm curious why the police don't seem to remember Lydia, and I'm very curious about this mirage she saw in the woods.  I noticed I've gained a few pageviews since my last posts; in case anyone reading is from out of town, I think I'm going to link to more information about the town itself in a future post.  Just so readers can have a fuller context and understanding of what I'm writing about.  If anyone out there has any thoughts or advice for where to take this investigation, I'd love to hear them.

But before anything else, I need to make a post regarding the deal I made with Lydia.  I just need to work up the nerve first.  To be honest, that's why I've been MIA the past couple of days. 

-Callie

Lydia

I had to work yesterday, so I didn't get to Dexter's Park until today.  I left for the park a bit before sunrise and made my way into it as the sky was brightening up.  It was pretty empty.  I didn't encounter anybody else on the trails as I made my way in, which honestly wasn't too surprising because it was almost ninety degrees out.  The other townsfolk probably had better things to do than giving themselves heatstroke.  Not me, though.  Like I said in my previous post, if there's something happening here, someone has to uncover it.

I was getting ready to call my trip a waste of time and turn back when I finally saw someone else wander into my field of view.  An exhausted looking park ranger who looked to be in her mid-30s and didn't appear to have slept for days.  I walked over and introduced myself.  She told me her name was Lydia.  I asked her if she was aware of the corpse found on the shore near the park.

"I found it" was the response.

I told her that I'm a journalist and asked to interview her.  She agreed to meet with me after her shift.  Eight PM tonight.

Below, I've attached some pictures of the park from this morning.

Murder in St. Simon, Florida

 .reset

3

2

1

.

.ERROR

.rese

.

.

The town of St. Simon sits on a small coastal nook about an hour's drive away from Tampa.  Surrounded by marshes and groves of palms, it's one of the Florida's best kept secrets.  Driving past the exit on the highway, one would likely assume that the town is abandoned, overgrown by nature, or maybe even non-existent.  Despite the privacy, however, St. Simon is not a small backwater comparable to most of the rural small towns in the south.  It is almost a miniature city, one that exists in its own world.  It has major roads and businesses, libraries and parks and public works, neighborhoods and apartments.  The world may have left St. Simon alone, but it went diligently to work creating its own.

This morning, at about 2:11 AM according to the police, the body of a young woman washed up on a stretch of the beach near Dexter's Park.  A ranger on night duty caught movement as a wave appeared to almost toss something onto the shore, and when he got closer he could see it was a body.  There was no identification on the woman and police say that she has no major distinguishing features.  She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and in excellent health.  According to the police, she had been stabbed in the back and drowned in the ocean.  They're keeping their leads to themselves at the moment (read: they don't have a damn clue where to begin).

Who am I, and why am I posting about this?  My name is Callie Forrester.  I've lived in St. Simon my whole life.  The most that's ever happened here is robberies, or so I thought.  Thing is, nobody seems interested in acknowledging this new incident.  The information that I have from the police comes from a cousin on the force.  There has been no press conference.  No media is reporting on the event.  When I asked my cousin if I could talk to somebody involved in this investigation, he became very tense and told me to drop the subject.  That he was only sharing it with me to vent and nothing more.

If there's been a killing in our town, people have a right to know about it in case the murderer intends to strike again.  If the police are keeping it a secret intentionally then there might be something with huge implications for our residents.  The people of St. Simon deserve to be safe.

To that end, I have started this blog to keep track of any events I manage to find out about.  I don't know if anybody from town will even find or read this, but I need to try.  I can't imagine that Trent, my cousin, will be all that thrilled to share anything else with me, so I'm going to be doing some digging of my own.  This weekend, I'm going to see if there's anything interesting in Dexter's Park and if I can figure out who that ranger that reported the body is.  Maybe they'll talk to me, if I help them realize that it's about safety.

Don't leave the edge of your seats, dear readers.  More information on the goings-on in this town will be available soon.

-Callie