Chapter 8

Billy loaded his third memory card into his camera, and Melissa drove the van across the street, parking in the driveway of a three-story mansion. The mansion had an elongated shape, much wider than it was deep, with a car port on the left side. The mansion’s condition was better than average for the town, with a very dirty but structurally intact roof. Ivy and plant overgrowth surrounded the mansion, which had a dark green shingled roof and ashlar stone walls. The windows were all intact. There was an overgrown fountain in the front. All five explorers, including Megan, elected to go into this one.

“Remember Tim Karaglanis from the computer factory? The mansion we’re about to go in used to belong to him. This was one of the biggest and most expensive houses in all of Izzy. It’s in such good shape for a few reasons. It was only used for a few years; Tim had this mansion custom built around 1984. Tim always believed in keeping things clean and taking care of his stuff, so he kept the house well-maintained. He used quality materials, there’s no builder-grade stuff here. That’s all real stone, real old-growth wood, marble imported from Italy. A lot of people went to this mansion, not just the elite but normal, everyday people. I went here a couple times, once not long after it opened and the second time about a month before the volcano. I actually have probably 30 or 40 pictures taken of this mansion taken, inside and out, in February of ’87 when I did a news story on it.” said Melissa.

“Can I see the pictures?” asked Billy.

“I don’t have them with me, but I’ll get those pictures to you.” said Melissa.

“You should scan them in and upload them onto the internet.” said Billy.

“I’ll do that. Great idea.” said Melissa.

The condition of this mansion contrasted with the one next door, which was about the same size and had noticeable roof leaks and broken windows. The explorers reasoned that the mansion next door probably wasn’t totally structurally safe.

Approaching Tim’s mansion, the explorers saw that the entrance was by the carport. The 5-car garage had separate berths, with separate doors, for each car; the berths were connected at the back by a hallway. The fourth garage door was open, while the rest were closed.

The explorers looked at the cars. In the first berth was a burgundy Mercedes-Benz 560SEL sedan. It was very dirty, and had flat tires, but still looked restorable. Billy looked at the interior to try to determine its model year; it was black leather and looked immaculate. There was a CD player in the dash, but it could be aftermarket. The airbag in the steering wheel wasn’t.

“Driver airbag. It’s at least an ’84.” said Billy.

“Unless he had it imported from Europe.” said Melissa.

“Whoa, I forgot about that.” said Billy.

Billy opened the driver door of the Benz. The interior smelled like a strange combination of mold and leather. The production date said January 1986; Billy relayed this information to the other explorers.

“We don’t care.” said Dirk.

In the next berth was a large white Ford conversion van. Melissa opened the back doors of the van to show its interior. Again, the interior smelled like mold and leather, but looked untouched. An NES hooked up to a 27” CRT TV in the second row attracted all of the explorers’ attention. A few boxed cartridges, all early “black box” titles, sat on a small shelf next to the TV.

“Wow, an NES in a van. I would have loved that as a kid.” said David.

“Did you have an NES as a kid?” asked Billy.

“Yes, but I got it in 1988 for my 7^th birthday, so um… a year and a half after the volcano.” said David.

The third car was a vintage candy apple red Corvette Sting Ray convertible.

“DUDE!” said Billy. He made sure to video every detail of the ‘Vette. Though its chrome was tarnished, and its paint faded, it was still in salvageable condition. Its tires had deflated from decades of sitting.

“You know the owner and this car’s still fixable. You should get it taken out of here and restored.” said David.

“I’ll contact Tim about that now. Once it’s restored, you’re all more than welcome to go for a spin in it. Ever been in a vintage Corvette?” asked Melissa.

“I have, a couple times. A ’69 in high school, and a ’66 last summer.” said Billy.

“This one’s a ’67 with a 427 Big Block in it.” said Melissa.

“You sure you can handle all that power?” asked Dirk.

“I’ve driven this very car before.” said Melissa.

“Yeah, but now you’re old and your reflexes aren’t as good.” said Dirk.

“Not cool.” said David.

“Just kidding with you, Lissa.” said Dirk.

After admiring the car for a few minutes, Melissa reminded everyone that time was running out during the day. The last berth was empty, so the explorers walked through a side door into a laundry room. The floors felt rock-solid. There were still clothes in the dryer, and new clothes hanging on a bar above the washer and dryer.

The next room was the kitchen. The paint was peeling, and the ceiling material was starting to flake off, but the most notable thing about the room was a half-eaten McDonalds cheeseburger on a large, ornate wooden table.

“I knew there wasn’t much time to get out, but a half-eaten cheeseburger? I guess when they said abandoned in a few minutes, they meant it.” said Billy.

“We had to abandon quite fast. Do you want to hear my story from the evacuation?” asked Melissa. Every explorer gave an enthusiastic yes, and all sat down at the plush red chairs around the table. Billy asked if he could record Melissa. “Absolutely.” she said.

“It was a Saturday night, March 28, 1987 just after 10 pm. I had just sat down to watch the new episode of Golden Girls, when suddenly I heard a loud rumble, and everything started to vibrate a little. I dropped the TV remote and looked outside. There were huge red rocks, maybe the size of a car, shooting out of the volcano. The emergency broadcast system suddenly came on, and in big red letters on the screen it said, ‘ALL RESIDENTS OF IZYDORCZAK, EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.’ An announcer said that everyone needed to get as far away from the city as possible, that lava was going to start flowing down the mountain. I grabbed my wallet, left my house and ran across the street to check on my neighbors.” said Melissa.

“I would have gotten the **** out of there.” said Dirk.

“I knocked on one door and screamed ‘GET OUT! GET OUT!’ with the ground still vibrating and the volcano still spewing red hot, car sized rocks. I don’t think anyone was there, and there were no fatalities so if they were there, they made it out. I knocked on the next door, screaming some things that probably weren’t the most G-rated. There was a family inside, they were sleeping. They woke up, heard the volcano, and ran to their car to evacuate. By now there was starting to be a little traffic on the road. I ran back inside my house, opened my garage door, and got into my car. Billy, in case you’re wondering, it was a white 1986 Honda Accord LXI sedan. I put my seat belt on, turned up the heat, because it was below freezing that night. Then, I turned on the radio to 102.5, normally they played soft rock-type music like REO Speed Wagon and Peter Gabriel but that night they were saying on continuous loop, ‘ALL RESIDENTS OF IZYDORCZAK, EVACUATE THE CITY IMMEDIATELY. USE A CAR OR MOTORIZED VEHICLE.’ I barely got two houses down, and there was a woman running down the street, holding a baby, right next to my car. I yelled over to them to get in, I stopped the car, they got into the passenger seat and the woman tells me how her husband had the family car that night, and was thanking goodness that I picked her up.” said Melissa.

“I can’t imagine! So, you had to leave everything behind, wondering if a flaming hot rock was going to crush you to death at any moment.” said Megan.

“It was. The baby and the mom were crying. Everyone in Izzy was using the roads, so traffic was moving, probably, at 1 or 2 miles per hour on average. Walkers were piling into cars. Another walker opened my back door and got in. About 15 minutes later, everyone had gotten into a car, mine probably had 10 people in it, but the traffic was still backed up. People were driving through yards, which ended up only causing more gridlock. Some of the people in my car were telling me ‘go through the yards, go through the yards’. All the lights in the houses were left on, and some of the doors were left wide open.” said Melissa, pausing for a few seconds.

“Then, probably 45 minutes after I left the house, there was a loud boom, the car shook a little bit, and all of the lights went out. A few minutes later, I saw a fire truck cutting through people’s yards, with its lights on, going up the hill. I’m thinking ‘what are you doing, you’re going to get yourself killed’. Then we started seeing the news helicopters flying toward the volcano, and by midnight or so we were getting updates on what was going on over the radio. They were saying that there was a ‘lip’ on the volcano that had kept the lava from going into the town so far, but the eruption was very unpredictable. It was the longest 3 hours of my life driving out of that town, until I finally got on the interstate. Once I got onto the interstate, traffic sped up to about 20 miles per hour, but it took me until about 4:30 in the morning to get to Kallal. We tried 3 hotels before we found a Days Inn that had vacancy, they were all packed with other Izzy evacuees. The hotel workers were under emergency orders to give us free accommodations. They put me and my group of about 12 people in two rooms. I had to stay in that hotel for 5 days before one of my sorority sisters from college called me up and said I could be her roommate; she took on the mother with her baby as well. This was on a Thursday, April 2. I finally moved out on June 30, when my insurance check came in. The mom and the baby stayed until August, I believe. I offered to let them move in with me in June, but they said they already had their things moved in with my sister.” said Melissa.

“Wow, that was very noble of you to do that! So, you were an angel even back in 1987.” said Billy. He wanted to ask what sorority Melissa was in, being a college Greek himself, but decided to save the question for a more opportune time.

“Yeah, I don’t think I would have stuck around. You’re a better person than I am.” said David.

“Wow.” said Megan.

With that story told, the explorers continued exploring the mansion. The large, fully equipped kitchen had about 50 linear feet of dark granite countertops and a huge stainless-steel fridge.  Lining the countertops were a gas range, an oven, a microwave, two sinks, an electric food processor, a coffee grinder with bags of premium Colombian coffee beans still next to it, a coffee maker, a blender, a juicer, a waffle iron, a Crock Pot, a trash compactor, a pressure cooker, an industrial-grade dishwasher, a meat grinder, and a deep fryer.

“Holy cow, I would love to have this kitchen in my house.” said Megan.

“Somebody ought to fix up this house.” said David.

Billy went to open the fridge. “Remember what happened in the airport.” said David. Billy decided against opening the fridge and decided to look in the pantry instead.

The next room was the living room. Dead house plants sat at every corner of the room. In the center of the room, there were three large, plush leather couches facing a TV that was 10 feet tall and probably 5 feet thick. Next to the TV was a large stereo, with a shelf by it with about 60 CD cases and even more cassettes and vinyl records. Large speakers were next to the plants. The remotes for the TV and sound system were on an end table.

“Oh, I bet a CD in this room would have sounded like being at a concert.” said Billy.

“Actually, the early CDs sounded kind of tinny. A vinyl record would have been your best bet.” said Melissa.

Then, David noticed something at the back end of the room – a Rembrandt etching. He called the explorers over. After poring over the etching closely, it was determined to be a reprint, but it had a date of 1717 on it – meaning it could still be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

“How much is it worth?” asked Dirk.

“50 bucks, maybe. They made thousands of these.” said Billy, lying to keep Dirk from trying to steal it.

Melissa whispered something in Billy’s ear. “Tim kept the real valuable stuff in the party room, so everyone could see it.”

There was also a fully upgraded Commander Dostim Plus computer on a desk in an alcove in the back of the room, about 10 feet to the right from the Rembrandt reprint. The setup was much like the one in the office at the computer factory.

“Figures, the head of Commander has a Commander computer.” said David.

“There are a lot more Commanders in here.” said Melissa.

After finishing the living room, the explorers reached a huge, 3-story tall room with a grand staircase. A catwalk, going from one side of the third story to the other, hung above them. A now-deactivated fountain sat in the middle of the room, directly in front of the front door, with painted porcelain sculptures of ducks on plinths. There were tracks running along the bottom of the fountain. Presumably, when the fountain was in operation, the ducks would appear to be gliding on the water. Abstract paintings hung on the walls, and huge, 3-story tall windows covered the front wall of the foyer, bathing the room in natural light and allowing the explorers to switch off their flashlights. Sconces hung on the walls on all three floors would have provided light decades ago. The atmosphere reminded of a trendy office building lobby.

One of the windows was cracked, revealing that the windows were made of laminated glass. All the sconces were still in place, and the ceiling and underside of the catwalk looked structurally intact.

“That’s the importance of keeping a structure sealed. Once windows break or holes form, that’s when decay begins. Usually, that’s a lot sooner than 33 years.” said Billy.

A pair of glass doors on the right-side wall of the foyer led to a large room with a dried-up swimming pool, perhaps 30 x 50 feet, in it. The walls were painted with palm trees and blue sky to simulate a beach, and wooden beach chairs, with small end tables next to them, sat around the pool on the Tuscan red cement floor tile. There were several bars stocked with soft drinks and bottled water around the pool.

“Must have been nice to be able to swim 365 days a year.” said Megan.

Melissa pointed to a spiral staircase in the corner of the room. “See that staircase? That led to an area dedicated just to parties and entertaining. When I went here the last time, a month before the volcano, Tim claimed that about one-third of people in Izzy had been in the house. That’s something like 20,000 people in three years.”

“He must have thrown parties here every day.” said Billy.

“More like an open house. The place was pretty much open on the weekends, you did have to be accompanied by a staff member if you wanted to go outside the entertaining area though.” said Melissa.

 “Wait a minute. If this place was abandoned, suddenly, on a Saturday night, then why isn’t there leftover food and stuff like that here?” asked Billy.

“A few people got together about a week after the volcano, went back in and cleaned it up, because there would have been rotting food. As I understand it, they only spent a few minutes in there.” said Melissa.

“Why would they care about rotting food if the town were totally abandoned? And why didn’t people just move out?” asked Billy.

“Because, at that time they thought the evacuation was a temporary thing that might last a year at most, and Tim didn’t want vermin in the house for when he moved back in. But, even getting that food out was a risk, people actually coming to move stuff out would have been a huge risk.” said Melissa.

Upon finding out there had been a party going on the night of the volcano, Dirk began scanning his EMP meter around the room for ghosts. It was empty yet again.

After finishing the pool room, the explorers went back into the lobby. Melissa tested the stairs, just in case of hidden damage; they were rock solid. The rest of the explorers climbed them and went to the right, going into the entertainment room.

The L-shaped room was quite large, larger than the pool room. There were stone brick walls and plush carpeting. There was a roller-skating rink covering about 40 percent of the room, at the top of the L; the wooden floor of it was slightly warped. A shelf adjacent to the rink had skates still on it. In another section of the room, there were several arcade machines lined up against a wall – Out Run, Commando, Pac-Man, Arkanoid, Galaga, Dragon’s Lair, Demolition Derby, Donkey Kong, and a few more obscure games. All were sit-down or converted to be sit-down, with plush leather chairs behind each machine. The machines, while covered in dust, otherwise looked exactly as they had over 33 years ago. Next to the arcade machines were two TV’s, one hooked up to an NES and one a Sega Master System, and a computer desk with a fully upgraded Dostim Plus. There was a shelf on the desk, filled with Dostim, NES and Master System games. A pool table was on the other side, the sticks still hung up on their racks.

Billy and David looked through the arcade machines and video games.

“I didn’t know that Johnny the Duck was that old. I played it in the early ‘90s.” said David, referring to a Dostim game.

“I’ve just been so overwhelmed today… this whole town is a gold mine.” said Billy.

In the spur of the L, there was another kitchen, like the one downstairs, but with several buffet tables adjacent. They were still stained with the scars of the food that was in them on that fateful night. A long dining table, made of teak wood, had chairs for 20 people. Unfortunately, the only thing left at the table was a dead floral arrangement, its dried-out leaves reaching out of its container.

The explorers left the room, went up another flight of stairs, and got to the third floor. To the right, there were several rooms, labeled “Music”, “Theater”, “Gallery”, and “Jacuzzi”, connected by a small hallway. The explorers, except Dirk, all went to the music room first, which was a square, about 25 feet on each side, and featured a DJing booth in one corner, folded chairs against one wall, and a dance floor. The walls of the room were wood paneling, with minimal decoration, and the floor was wooden parquet. The CD player on the DJ booth had a glass window, so the explorers could see what was in there – a CD of “Rock Me Amadeus”.

Billy started to sing quietly to himself. “Amadeus, Amadeus…” before catching himself to film the room. His SD card was about 75% full, just from this mansion.

The explorers heard a muffled “DANGIT!” coming from a nearby room.

In the art gallery room, which was perhaps 25 x 40 feet and directly next to the music room, Dirk had discovered paintings by historic masters worth hundreds of thousands of dollars – but they were all sealed behind Plexiglas. There were perhaps 50 paintings in the room, which had blonde oak floors minimalist white painted walls with slightly peeling paint; a few of the paintings would have been small enough to sneak into his pocket. Melissa and David rushed into the room, leaving Billy and Megan, who stayed in the room a minute longer.

“What’s your favorite 80’s song?” asked Billy.

“Last Christmas by WHAM.” said Megan.

“Love that song too.” said Billy.

Billy and Megan caught up with the rest of the group in the art gallery. Billy didn’t find the artworks very interesting. “I never liked art class much.” he said as he filmed the room. Despite being the last in the room, he was the first out, heading across the hall to the jacuzzi room, which was rather unremarkable – it had a jacuzzi and a changing room. He only used a few seconds of his video on it before heading to the final room, a movie theater.

The movie theater had a higher ceiling than the others, with a TV that was about 15 feet high and 20 feet wide on one wall of the room. Large speakers were at each corner of the room, and burgundy curtains lined the walls. At the back of the room was a refrigerator and a countertop, with a large bucket of various snacks on it. The refrigerator was labeled “Soda”, so Billy opened it, finding vintage cans of Coke, RC, ginger ale, grape soda, and iced tea. Billy filmed the room and interior of the fridge and then went to sit on one of the large, butterscotch-colored easy chairs facing the screen; there were 6 rows, with 6 seats each, arranged like stadium-style seating in a modern theater. He waited on the rest of the group.

After the rest of the group arrived, Billy and Melissa found a door to a small adjoining room. The room’s door was behind one of the curtains and painted the same color as the walls, but a hinge had been visible. Once the explorers were done with the movie theater itself, Billy pointed them toward the door to the adjoining room. The room was small and undecorated, with plain white walls and a plain green carpet floor. A Dostim Plus computer sat on a white table, connected by several wires to a large black machine designed to take film reels, which in turn connected to the television through several wires that ran through holes cut in the wall. The machine was called a “Tristar Film System”, and, of course, it was made by Commander Computer. It was sort of like a VCR that could hold the same film reels that a movie theater would use, and it could hold three of them; a large switch on the front controlled which of the movies would be played. “Lethal Weapon”, “Blind Date”, and “Mannequin” were the films in the machine.

“Blind Date. I fell asleep when I saw that movie.” said David.

“I’ve only seen Mannequin, in high school. Very ‘80s cheesy, don’t remember much else. Saw it in a marketing class.” said Billy.

“I’ve seen all three, and I’d have to say Lethal Weapon is my favorite.” said Melissa.

“You don’t strike me as the type who would watch Lethal Weapon.” said Dirk.

“Oh yeah. I love me a good chase in a movie.” said Melissa.

More ‘80s blockbuster films were stored along another wall of the room, but a ladder attracted the most attention. A pull cord was attached to a door on the ceiling that would lead to a “hidden” 4^th floor. Melissa knew what was behind it but didn’t spoil the surprise. She pulled the cord, and all but Megan climbed the ladder, one at a time.

“When I was in college, one of my sorority sisters told me about the ‘duck room’. I didn’t believe it, until I came here a month before the volcano.” said Melissa.

The room seemed to be a shrine to ducks; there were paintings of ducks, taxidermied ducks on the wall, duck sculptures, and hundreds of rubber ducks on shelves. In addition, there were records of the song “Disco Duck”, VHS tapes featuring Donald Duck, and pretty much anything else that was associated with ducks, whether real or cartoon. This room, which was about 2,000 square feet on its own, was jam-packed with duck-related memorabilia. The hardwood floor had a painting of a duck on it.  

“Someone likes ducks.” said Billy.

“Yeah, what’s with the ducks?” asked Dirk.

“Tim was born on January 12^th, Duck Day. As a kid, he used to get a lot of rubber ducks as presents. He sort of made it his thing. When he went into the business world, he put the duck thing aside, at least in the public eye. He thought it would be embarrassing, but word started getting around that he was ‘Duck Man’, and people thought it was an adorable quirk. People would ask to see the Duck Room; he was getting ready to put in a staircase and turn the room into a museum.” said Melissa.

“Yeah, but what the heck does January 12 have to do with ducks?” asked Dirk.

“It’s a holiday that started among the duck hunters of Izzy. Duck season is usually in the winter, and someone noticed that they always got the most ducks on January 12, several years in a row. That’s where it came from.” said Melissa.

“Guess they don’t celebrate Duck Day in your neck of the woods, because it’s huge where I am.” said Billy, as he made sure to film every inch and artifact of the room.

“I’m out of space on my SD card.” said Billy, with just 1 minute and 14 seconds left of video space on his card after filming the room.

“Do you want to finish the mansion or go somewhere else?” asked Melissa.

“Is there anything interesting left in the mansion?” asked Billy.

“Really, just a few bedrooms. We’ve done probably 70% of it. We can come back later if you want to see the rest.” said Melissa.

“Yeah, let’s head out.” said Billy. Everyone else agreed.

The explorers left the mansion over an hour older than they entered it. As they left, Billy asked the question that had been on his mind. “What sorority were you in, Melissa?”

“Kappa Xi Delta.”

“I’m a Kappa Man at my school, Southern Helmintoller University. I love KXiD, they are so nice.” said Billy. He did half of the Kappa Xi Delta hand sign with his right hand, and Melissa finished it with her left.

“Kappa Xi Delta there are lucky to have you.” said Melissa. Billy gave her a side hug.