The red numbers in the image indicates where the chapter takes place. 

Chapter 3

The airport terminal building, made of concrete, still looked relatively stable. Most of the windows were still in place, but some were broken out, their tempered glass piled up along parts of the perimeter of the building. Melissa went to the back of the van and grabbed a mask and a walkie-talkie for each person; each explorer donned their mask and put their walkie-talkie in their pocket.

All five opened a front door that said, “Airport Employees Only” and walked in.

The interior of the terminal was huge, probably at least 150 feet wide and 80 feet deep, with a 20-foot high ceiling. Dirt, leaves, and bits of fallen plaster from the ceiling covered the red-carpet floor. Above, the plaster came off the roof in some places, revealing the concrete roof underneath. The floor was at ground level and rock solid. About every 30 feet or so, there were concrete pillars. A hallway came off each end of the room; the left one was labeled Food, and the right one Services. A metal fence, about 5’ high was about 15 feet in front of them; looking to the right they saw the main entrance to the terminal, a pair of doors between the railing and front wall. A baggage claim conveyor belt was in the middle of the room.

Only a railing separated the check-in area from the rest of the terminal. The explorers observed that that would never fly in the present day.

The back wall facing the runways was mostly windows, but there were sections of wall, with peeling beige paint, at regular intervals; about 10 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling wall, then 40 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling windows, in a repeating pattern. On each section of wall, there was a number – from 1 to 3 – and a large board which would show flight details. Board #3 had fallen and was laying, broken, at an angle propped up on a chair. Banks of large beige leather chairs, probably about 80 per section, were adjacent to the back wall, covered in the same detritus that covered the floor. There were also small booths where airport employees would check tickets.

All the explorers, except Billy and Dirk, took a wide-shot picture of the terminal; Billy took a video of the room, panning his camera from left to right. Dirk got out his EMF meter, scanning for ghosts. Melissa explained the purpose of the airport. “This airport took people to other small airports within a few hundred miles or to the big international airports in Helmintoller and Cormack City. People wanting to take a vacation overseas would normally take a flight of about an hour to Helmintoller City and then catch their main flight there. During peak tourist season, sometimes there would be 5 or 6 flights a day to and from Helmintoller City alone. But it never was a particularly busy airport, if a plane was coming every hour then it was a busy day. The big jet planes, like 747s, never flew here. We’d mostly get the smaller turboprop type planes, 50 or 60 passenger tops.”

“Did you ever catch a flight out of here?” asked Billy.

“A few times. I went to New York City in ‘74, to the U.S. Virgin Islands spring break of my junior year of college in ‘85, and a couple of local flights in between. My dad also brought us here in 1977 when they expanded the airport. We didn’t take a flight then, but it was a source of local pride for us to finally have an up-to-date airport.” said Melissa. Dirk walked off during Melissa’s speech, scanning his EMF meter around the room, but it wasn’t indicating anything.

Melissa kept an eye on Dirk as she and the rest of the explorers went to the back of the room. Staying several feet back from the board in case it fell, they read it. A line of “CANCELED” notices ran down the right of the board. Even a chair said “CANCELED”, one of the decals having come off and landed on it.

“People weren’t very worried about their flights. The minute the volcano hit, all of that got canceled. I remember hearing that they sent everyone at the airport home. There was an inbound flight, they diverted it to Cormack.” said Melissa.

Billy wiped off one of the cleaner looking chairs and sat down. “Still comfortable after all these years.” he said. David tried one out too, coming to a similar conclusion.

Dirk was near the opposite wall of the terminal near the ticket check-in booths, so the group went that way. The outside of the booths was fairly non-descript; faded white letters said HELMINTOLLER AIRLINES, EXPRESS AIR, AIR IZZY. Another flight information board, bigger than the ones near the other wall, hung between the Helmintoller Airlines and Air Izzy booths. Megan found a door that led to the interior of the booths.

The interior of the Helmintoller Airlines booth was a small room, a square about 10 feet on each side. A desk at the front of the room had an old Macintosh computer on one side, connected to a printer on the other. Somewhat protected from the main terminal area itself, the room was remarkably clean; the red-carpet floor still felt in good shape. A paper on the table said, “LIST OF SCHEDULED FLIGHTS: MARCH 28-30, 1987”. The first four flights, the last of which had left for Helmintoller City at 9:00 pm on March 28, were checked off as departed. The 5^th to 11^th flights, which would leave at various hours on the 29^th and 30^th, were marked through with a red line, the red Sharpie still laying a few inches away. Tickets for the next flight had been printed. It was a connecting flight from Izzy to Helmintoller, which would then leave for Orlando, FL. The date on the tickets said “SUN MAR 29, 1987 6:00 AM”

“What you are seeing is several canceled vacations. I hope all these people eventually got to go where they wanted to go.” said Billy, filming the papers close-up. They might have data he could put on Wikipedia or something.

Melissa responded to Billy, adding to his video. “Helmintoller Airlines was really good about giving refunds if I recall correctly. My mom’s friend had a flight canceled from the volcano, and she got her money back within a few weeks. So, they probably did get to make them up, but it might have been a year or two later.”

Seeing that the others were beginning to wait on him, Billy turned off the camera and went back toward the group. As they walked toward one of the hallways that led out of the main terminal room, Billy asked if it would be okay if he put video of the airline tickets on the internet.

“I don’t see why not. They don’t have any personal information and they’re 33 years old.” said Melissa.

“Why would you take video of airline tickets?” asked Dirk.

“I find the data interesting.” said Billy.

“Weirdo.” said Dirk.

“Some people like that kind of stuff. It’s not weird.” said Megan.

The left hallway of the terminal was lined with advertisements for various airlines. The ceiling was lower in here, but much of the drop ceiling had come down, littering the floor with the ceiling tiles, and leaving pieces of the ceiling framing hanging down. The explorers had to watch their steps to avoid slipping on the tiles; luckily, the ceiling was high enough that the framing hanging down was still above their heads. The metal roof itself was mostly intact but had a couple of small holes in it. The hallway itself was only about 25 feet long before opening into a large circular area with white tables and attached chairs in the middle, still arranged as they had been decades ago. The walls were beige, and the carpet blue in this area. Restroom doors were at the very end of the hallway. There was a large dome skylight above the tables. Most of the glass panes were intact.

“Whoa, they had a Queso Burgers here. I’ve always wanted to go to a Queso Burger again. I only went once, when I was like 7, and it was delicious.” said Billy.

“What’s a Queso Burger?” asked Megan.

“It was a burger place where you could get burgers with spicy cheese dip right inside the patties. I think it started here in Izzy in the ‘70s. When I was growing up, they were everywhere. It was one of my favorite places to eat, they were delicious. Then about 2005 or so they went out of business.” said David.”

“Maybe you should have eaten a few less of them.” said Dirk.

“Maybe you should be a little less negative.” said Melissa.

There were two other restaurants in the food court: Uno’s Pizza and Subway. While Melissa and Megan explored them, and Dirk kept “ghost hunting”, Billy and David went over to the Queso Burger. Aside from being very dirty and stained with rotting food, the serving troughs looked just as David remembered them. They opened a door and went into the kitchen. The scents of mold and rotting food wafted through the air. It smelled bad, but not overpoweringly bad. Then David opened a large fridge.

That was a mistake.

David and Billy quickly walked out of the room, recoiling at the smell of beef rotted decades ago and dead bugs.

“Serves you right, dumba**es.” said Dirk. David and Billy cleared off two chairs and sat down to catch their breath; Melissa and Megan walked over to them and stood nearby.

“Are you two okay?” asked Melissa.

 “Yeah, pardon my French, but that kitchen smells like s***.” said Billy.

After about two minutes, Billy and David got back up. Billy got out his camera and filmed the food court, making sure to get close-ups of the serving areas of all three restaurants and poking his camera into Queso Burger’s kitchen.

“I’m warning you, any prospective explorers, do NOT open anything in this kitchen.” said Billy.

The group then went to leave the food court area. Billy filmed down the hallway, choosing the return trip so he could better chart his course so he wouldn’t slip on any of the fallen ceiling tiles. After that, the group crossed the main terminal room again and went into the right-side hallway. In here was the non-food services of the airport: a rental car agency, a gift shop, and a money exchange. This hallway was, architecturally, a mirror image of the other, and the level of decay was remarkably similar.

Melissa, David, and Megan looked through the duty-free shop while Billy went to the rental-car agency counter and Dirk looked at the money exchange. The rental-car agency was rather plainly labeled, “Airport Rent-A-Car”. Billy perused the binder on the counter, finding a selection of Ford and Toyota vehicles, everything from Toyota Tercels and Ford Escorts to Lincoln Town Cars. Billy also peeked inside the booth and found a desk with a computer and a printer, much like he’d seen at the check-in terminal. He moved on to the gift shop and met up with those in there. Everything had been left on the shelves of the gift shop; T-shirts, cups, and various other souvenirs that said, “We call it Izzy because even we can’t pronounce Izydorczak”, along with various other corny slogans. The gifts were covered in a thick layer of dust, but somehow 98% of them were still on the shelves. Meanwhile, Dirk stuffed 50 dollars in his pocket from the money exchange – no one was the wiser.

The group had been in the airport for over an hour and were eager to start exploring the city itself. After finishing up with the airport exploration, the group went outside to find it noticeably warmer and sunnier than when they’d came into the airport.

That was a rather small airport, but I’ll take it, thought Billy, as they walked back toward the van. They’d explored only about 30% of the airport.

“SHOTGUN!” yelled Dirk. He climbed in the front seat of the van; Billy and David got the second row, while Megan took the third. In her mind, Melissa didn’t want Dirk getting the front seat, but she didn’t say anything. Melissa turned the van turned around and went back down Airport Road, making a left turn at the end of the road to go into the ghost town itself.