Scene 1: The Watcher in the Margins
Back in the clubhouse, the lantern flickered low, casting long shadows across the worn wooden floor and the pile of age-yellowed papers now stacked like swamp treasure around them. The kids didn’t talk much. Not out loud, anyway. That kind of quiet comes when you’re holdin’ someone’s story in your hands—someone long gone, but not quite disappeared.
Lila Rae had taken to reading Lester Duval’s journal like it was scripture. She sat cross-legged on a folded blanket, the old man’s looping script reflecting in her glasses as she flipped slowly through pages full of notes, weather reports, and sketches of machines no child ought to understand but every one of ‘em somehow felt.
Josie sat across from her, elbows on her knees, chin resting on clasped hands. Every now and then, she’d ask a question, but mostly she just listened. Sometimes listening tells you more than words ever could.
Lila Rae turned the page, tapped the edge of a passage with one finger.
“Saw them again—third time this week. Same boat, same slow crawl. They never wave. Just watch.”
Kenji leaned in. “Who’s he talkin’ about?”
“Don’t know,” Lila Rae said. “But he wasn’t paranoid. Look here.”
She flipped ahead and read again:
“They filed permits last year. Said it was for water testing. But I’ve seen the stakes—gridded like a mine. They’re not testin’ water. They’re chartin’ the bones.”
Cricket squinted. “What kinda bones?”
“Swamp bones,” Josie muttered. “Things that don’t want diggin’ up.”
The journal went on—each page a little more frantic, a little more afraid.
“The dredge wasn’t for navigation. It was for access. They were after something. Maybe oil. Maybe sinkwood. Maybe worse.”
“I told the council. I told the parish. Nobody cared. Buddy said to let it go. But I can’t. Not when the trees are singin’ in the night.”
That line made everyone look up.
Kenji cleared his throat. “He was hearing it too. Same as us.”
Tadpole, who hadn’t spoken since they returned, tapped the journal. Then, in his soft voice, he said, “Read the date.”
Lila Rae adjusted her flashlight. “July 12th… 1968.”
“That’s the day he vanished,” Kenji said.
Nobody moved for a long while. The lantern popped softly, throwing sparks.
Josie finally stood and stretched the stiffness from her back. “If folks in town knew him, we’ll find ‘em. Maybe they got more pieces.”
Bo grunted. “You think the bait shop fella’s still breathin’? He looked older than tree bark.”
“He remembers somethin’,” Josie said. “And we’re gonna ask.”
She picked up the photo of Lester and Buddy again—the one they found near the crates. Lester stood tall, not like a madman, but a man with purpose. With the kind of eyes that saw farther than most.
“We follow what he left,” Josie said. “Every page. Every step.”
The others nodded.
Outside, the sun had dipped low, setting the moss aglow with golden fire.
Inside, Lester Duval’s story had just begun to rise.
Scene 2: The Bait Shop Ledger
The next morning rolled in slow and humid, hangin’ in the air like a wet shirt clingin’ to your back. Josie and the crew made their way into town just as the sun climbed over the treeline, spillin’ honey-colored light across the cracked sidewalks and leaning telephone poles.
They weren’t dressed like kids out for candy or comic books. These were kids with mud still on their boots and questions settin’ heavy in their pockets.
“Try not to look suspicious,” Bo muttered, brushing dried leaf bits from his sleeve.
“We’re twelve,” Cricket said, “everything we do looks suspicious.”
Kenji adjusted his backpack like it carried dynamite instead of notebooks. “You realize the courthouse doesn’t open till nine, right?”
Josie tipped her chin toward the bait shop on the corner of Main and Cypress. “We ain’t headin’ to the courthouse yet.”
The old bait shop hadn’t changed since Josie was in diapers. Paint peeling like sunburn, screen door screamin’ with every open, and a bell above it that sounded like it’d seen war. The place smelled of damp wood, pickled eggs, and catfish stink—but in a comforting sort of way.
The bell clanged as they stepped inside.
Behind the counter sat Old Man Reggie, looking just like he had last time—grease-stained cap, eyes like worn marbles, and a jaw that only moved when he had somethin’ worth sayin’. He didn’t look up from his newspaper until Cricket “accidentally” knocked over a jar of nightcrawlers.
“Oops.”
Reggie grunted.
Josie stepped forward and pulled the photo from her satchel—the one with Lester and Buddy, standing proud in front of the dredge. She laid it on the counter.
“I think you knew him,” she said.
The old man didn’t answer right off. Just looked down at the picture. Long and hard. Like he was seein’ ghosts and tryin’ not to flinch.
“Lester Duval,” he said at last, voice like gravel under boot. “Ain’t heard that name in a coon’s age.”
Bo opened his mouth to speak, but Josie gave him a look sharp enough to draw blood.
“We found his journal,” she said. “And the stash. Under the tree with the spiral. We know about the dredge. About the permits. We just don’t know why he disappeared.”
Reggie looked them over, one by one. Not unkind. Just tired.
“He didn’t disappear,” he said. “He got disappeared.”
The shop went quiet except for the faint buzz of the fluorescent bulb over the minnow tanks.
“They called him crazy. Town laughed. But I saw what they did. He tried to file reports. Letters. Sent one to Baton Rouge. Next week? They pulled the dredge. Said it was sinkin’ costs. Then Lester stopped comin’ around. His shack was empty. No note. Just gone.”
Josie’s voice dropped. “Who’s ‘they,’ Mr. Reggie?”
The old man tapped the photo, his finger resting on the second man—Buddy, smiling with grease on his coveralls.
“Ask him,” Reggie said. “Buddy still fishes out past Palmetto Bend. Lives in a blue trailer with wind chimes. Never told nobody what he saw, but he was there.”
Kenji scribbled the name and address into his notebook.
Reggie leaned back and let the silence settle again, like he was tappin’ the last of a memory loose.
“Y’all oughta be careful,” he said. “Some things the swamp hides on purpose.”
Josie picked up the photo, tucked it away.
“We didn’t go lookin’ to stir ghosts,” she said, her voice calm. “But we ain’t lettin’ them fade either.”
Reggie gave a slow nod, then reached behind the counter and pulled out an old, leather-bound ledger.
“Take this. It’s from ‘68. You’ll find his name in the gas orders. Lester Duval. Last one in that summer.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He slid it across the counter like it was holy.
Josie took it in both hands, like it was.
Scene 3: Faces in the Frame
The bait shop's porch creaked under their weight as they stepped back into the sunlight, ledger in hand and minds full of ghosts. Cicadas were already singin’ their noon song—hot, shrill, and endless. The kind that made everything feel just a little more haunted.
Bo tucked the gas ledger under his arm. “So... what now? We gonna go knock on some strange fisherman’s trailer door and ask about a forty-year-old cover-up?”
“Pretty much,” Josie said.
Kenji, walking behind, adjusted his glasses. “You know what this means, right? If Buddy was there when they shut Lester down… he’s the last person alive who knows the whole story.”
“Unless the gators know,” Cricket said. “Gators always know.”
Lila Rae stopped halfway down the steps and turned back to look through the dusty bait shop window. “Wait. There was a photo wall in there. Above the cooler.”
Josie paused. “Yeah?”
“I saw somethin’ when we walked in. Looked like the dredge. Just a glimpse.”
Bo groaned. “We just left, and now we’re goin’ back in?”
But Josie was already pulling the screen door open again.
The bell rang.
Reggie looked up from the jar of pickled sausages with one raised brow.
“We forgot somethin’,” Josie said.
She walked past the counter this time, straight to the wall lined with yellowing photos in warped wooden frames. Some were of big-mouth bass and awkward family fishin’ trips, others of long-gone bait shop owners and beat-up riverboats that no longer floated.
Then she saw it.
“There.”
She tapped the glass.
The photo was grainy but clear enough—Lester Duval again, standing with three other men in front of the dredge, all wearing thick canvas work shirts and caps. One of ‘em held a long steel survey pole. Another leaned against the winch.
But it was the man beside Lester that caught her eye.
Dark-skinned, lean, with a sharp jaw and wide shoulders. He wore a crooked grin and had one arm thrown around Lester like they were brothers born of different stories. Someone had scrawled names on the frame’s border in faded pen:
Lester, Nate, Hank, Buddy — 1967, Pre-Grid Survey
Josie tapped the glass. “That’s him. That’s Buddy.”
Kenji stepped beside her. “And the others?”
“Maybe the crew that pulled the rig,” she said. “Or the ones who helped build whatever’s under there.”
Reggie’s voice drifted from behind the counter. “Nate died in a boat fire. Hank moved north. Never talked to Buddy again.”
Josie looked over her shoulder. “You mind if we take a picture of this?”
Reggie shook his head. “Ain’t no one come askin’ about them fellas in decades. You kids are the first to even notice.”
Kenji snapped a photo with his pocket camera, carefully framed.
Reggie came over and stood beside them, peering at the image through cataract-clouded eyes.
“Heard Buddy still fishes most mornings. Keeps to himself. But if you come respectful, he might talk.”
Josie nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Bo scratched at a mosquito bite on his neck. “Why do I get the feelin’ this Buddy ain’t gonna be thrilled to see us?”
Reggie gave a dry chuckle and pushed his cap back.
“’Cause truth don’t usually knock before it comes in.”
Scene 4: Ghost Signal
Back at the clubhouse, the heat rolled in like syrup off the bay—slow, sticky, and thick with the weight of everything unsaid. Dragonflies buzzed low over the water, and somewhere off in the cypress, a bullfrog barked like it had opinions no one asked for.
Kenji was hunched over the folding card table they’d salvaged from behind Miss Della’s thrift shop, papers spread like a gambler’s hand. The old blueprints they’d found in Lester’s cache were fragile as pie crust, but he handled them like glass—tweezers in one hand, magnifier in the other.
Tadpole sat nearby, sharpening a stick with his ever-present pocketknife. He wasn’t reading. Just listening. Always listening.
Josie leaned over Kenji’s shoulder. “Whatcha got?”
He didn’t look up. “A lot of circles. And math. And lines that don’t make sense… yet.”
Bo slouched in the hammock, straw in his mouth and skepticism all over his face. “You sure you’re not just readin’ a swamp Ouija board?”
Kenji didn’t miss a beat. “That’s exactly what it is. A ghost signal. I think Lester was tryin’ to build one.”
Josie blinked. “A what-now?”
“A radio tower,” Kenji said, tapping a part of the map where a crooked triangle had been drawn near something labeled ‘Pine Hollow.’ “But not your regular antenna. This one’s grounded into the swamp. He was trying to use natural frequencies. Like a tuning fork, but stretched over miles.”
Cricket perked up. “Like when you blow over a bottle and it sings?”
“Exactly,” Kenji said. “The dredge, the signal tree, even the hum—that’s not just weird swamp noises. Lester was listening. And maybe sending.”
Josie sat on the bench beside him. “Sending what?”
Kenji shrugged. “Warnings? Coordinates? Or maybe just the truth, buried in a language only the bayou understands.”
Lila Rae had been scribblin’ in her notebook, copying lines from the ledger they’d gotten from Reggie. She held it up now.
“The company filed permits for a ‘temporary tower installation’ right before Lester vanished. Guess where it was s’posed to go?”
She pointed to the same triangle on the blueprint.
Kenji whistled low. “Pine Hollow.”
Bo sat up. “And let me guess—that tower? Never got built?”
“No record of construction,” Kenji said. “No follow-up permits. Just a notice sayin’ the project was abandoned due to ‘unsuitable soil conditions.’”
“Or too many questions,” Josie added.
Tadpole tapped the blueprint gently. “If the hum’s still comin’ from the east…”
Josie nodded. “That’s where we’re goin’ next.”
Cricket clapped her hands once. “Add it to the map. We’ll chase Lester’s signal ‘til the bayou spits it back out.”
Bo groaned. “Let me guess—we’re leavin’ at dawn?”
Josie smirked. “Soon as the frogs stop snorin’.”
Kenji folded the blueprint carefully. “If that tower never got built, whatever Lester buried out there might still be waitin’. Forgotten. Hummin’. Just needin’ someone to listen.”
Outside, the wind picked up.
And from somewhere deep in the trees, a low, distant vibration stirred the leaves.
Scene 5: The Trail Less Traveled
The next morning broke soft and gray, with a mist rollin’ in low and slow over the bayou like it was sneakin’ through on tiptoe. The kind of fog that makes you whisper even when you ain’t got nothin’ to hide.
They’d followed the trail out past the old duck blind, then veered east into a part of the swamp that even locals didn’t name—just pointed at and muttered things like “no good ground out that way” or “trees don’t grow right past them cattails.”
Bo was leadin’ this time.
Not because he wanted to.
Because the rest of them, even Josie, agreed he had the best sense for spotting paths that weren’t really there.
“Y’all sure this ain’t just a deer trail?” he grumbled, pushing back a curtain of ferns.
Tadpole, close behind, shook his head. “Too narrow. Too deliberate.”
“Feels like a place the swamp don’t want us,” Cricket added, arms tucked tight across her chest.
Josie said nothing, but her eyes kept scanning the trees. The canopy here hung lower. The moss was thicker, saggin’ like wet laundry across every limb. And the silence… it pressed on her ears like a warning not to step too loud.
Then Bo stopped cold.
“Well, I’ll be…”
The others nearly ran into him.
What lay ahead wasn’t much—not at first glance. Just a sagging structure, half-swallowed by vines and lichen, leaning like it’d had a rough couple of decades. The roof was tin, rusted through in spots, with a patchwork of boards slapped over holes like a man had tried to outlive a storm with spit and nails.
But it was a house.
A shack, really.
One built by someone who knew how to live without bein’ seen.
“Think this is it?” Bo asked, though the answer dangled in the air already.
Josie stepped closer. A cracked mailbox leaned beside the door, long rotted shut. Scratched into the metal, just visible beneath a smear of rust, were the letters:
- DUVAL
Kenji let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. “It’s real.”
Cricket pushed the screen door, and it gave with a tired groan that sent two lizards skittering up the wall.
Inside, the place was musty and dim, but not trashed. Not abandoned like a runaway. Just… paused. Like Lester had stepped out for a walk and never came back.
A cot in the corner. A kerosene lamp on a shelf. A desk covered in dust and mildew, but still stacked with neatly bound notebooks and old coffee tins filled with pens, nails, and who-knew-what.
Lila Rae moved like she was walkin’ through a church.
Josie reached out and touched the edge of the desk.
It was solid.
This was where he wrote. Where he watched. Where he waited.
Bo picked up a faded tin sign from the floor, wiped off the dust. It read:
“If you find this place—then you were meant to.”
They didn’t say anything for a long while.
Just listened to the wind rustlin’ the cypress outside.
Like Lester was still here, sittin’ in that creaky old chair, just waitin’ for someone to finish what he started.
Scene 6: The Last Tape
The shack held its breath as the crew stepped inside, careful not to scuff the floor or knock a single jar from the crooked shelf. Even the air felt old—like it had been sealed in since 1968, carrying the scent of old coffee, pipe smoke, and a lifetime of plans scrawled in the margins.
Josie was the first to find the crate.
It sat under the desk, wedged between a stack of wooden crates and a kerosene heater long gone cold. She tugged it free, brushed away the dust, and lifted the lid slow.
Inside, it was like time had folded in on itself.
Blueprints—some matching the ones they’d found beneath the signal tree—rolled tight and bound with cracked rubber bands. A mason jar full of metal washers. A leather satchel of yellowing newspaper clippings, most of them about zoning permits, dredge contracts, and a company called BRM that kept showing up like a shadow behind every headline.
And then there was the recorder.
It was one of those bulky reel-to-reel players—sun-faded and rusting, but with its reels still wound, like a mouth full of secrets waitin’ to be heard. A folded scrap of paper lay on top, scrawled in thick black ink:
“Play this first. – LD”
Kenji crouched, fingers trembling just a little as he set the machine gently on the desk and examined the cords. “Battery pack’s corroded. But I brought the adapter from the clubhouse.”
He plugged it in to a portable battery pack they’d used for Kenji’s radio scanner. The old machine whirred to life, slower than it should, like it was stretchin’ after a long nap.
The tape began to spin.
Then the voice came, scratchy and low—but steady.
“If you’re hearin’ this, then the swamp still remembers me. My name’s Lester Duval. I ain’t mad. I ain’t run. I just stopped bein’ listened to. So I spoke to the only thing that would listen—the earth.”
The kids froze. The only sound was the creak of the recorder, spittin’ out a voice that’d been waitin’ forty years to be heard.
“I warned ‘em. Told ‘em what they were diggin’ toward. The sinkwood down there, the gas pockets, the way the ground sings if you listen right. They didn’t care. BRM just wanted access. Didn’t matter who they buried or what they silenced.”
Cricket clutched her necklace and whispered, “He knew. All of it.”
“If you found this place, you’re proof they didn’t win. There’s a pattern in the map. Follow the hum. The trees’ll tell you where the line ends. When you hear the shimmer, you’re close.”
The tape clicked off with a dull thunk.
And just like that, Lester Duval had spoken one more time.
Josie exhaled slow.
“He left us the truth.”
Lila Rae sifted through the clippings again, pulling out one with a grainy photo of the dredge crew from the same year.
Below it, a caption read:
“BRM cancels Pine Hollow Survey—‘Not Worth the Cost,’ says Rep.”
Kenji stood, voice hushed. “That tower we found on the blueprint... it wasn’t a failure. It was scrapped.”
Tadpole nodded toward the window, where the light was startin’ to dim.
“Guess we know where we’re headin’ next.”
Josie folded the blueprint and tucked the tape into her satchel.
“We follow the shimmer,” she said. “Wherever it leads.”
And as the sun dipped low over the bayou, the shack faded into shadow again—quiet, waiting, but no longer forgotten.