drocca

Loans: 0. Business deals: 0. Years broke: 1. Insta-City grew so fast that any financial issues quickly disappeared; the only concession I had to make over a typical city was to legalize gambling (which only lasted the first four years). Though there was a massive deficit ($30,261) for 1950, which depleted our finances from $38,015 to $7,754, that deficit quickly shrunk to just $8,980 for 1951. Though we endured 1952 with $1,226 of debt, we had a surplus of $15,071 for the year and thus had $13,845 in the bank starting out 1953. From there we continued making surpluses, and were able to start our mass transit system in 1957. By the 10th anniversary, 1960 I had $296,824 in the bank. All six service categories (education, health, police, fire, roads, and mass transit) were maximally funded by 1958. In 1952, I was offered a military base and a toxic waste dump. However, with the deficit quickly turning into a surplus that year, they were not taken. This was possible because of the explosive growth of Insta-City. Initial growth was slow, of course, and only 19,177 brave souls moved into Insta-City over the course of 1950. In 1951, 38,978 moved in, finishing the year at 58,155. About 30-40 thousand people moved in each year thereafter, and we finished the first 10 years with a population of 339,998. Another advantage of the optimized zone layout was that unemployment was nearly nonexistent. Crime also dropped to 0 after the police were maximally funded starting in March 1953. As you can see in the attached screenshots, taken on Jan. 1, 1955 and Jan. 1, 1960 (5 and 10 years, respectively), the initial growth was quite haphazard, with buildings popping up randomly. Population (R, C, I) - EQ - Health - Crime - Unemployment - City Funds as of Jan. 1 of each year: 1950: 0 R, 0 C, 0 I - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 1951: 19,177 R, 1,623 C, 7,904 I - 53 EQ - 59 H - 0% UE - 11 Crime - $7,754 1952: 58,155 R, 7,161 C, 27,592 I - 54 EQ - 59 H - 0% UE - 12 Crime - $-1,226 1953: 96,423 R, 11,160 C, 46,249 I - 56 EQ - 59 H - 0% UE - 13 Crime - $13,845 1954: 130,511 R, 17,213 C, 64,450 I - 57 EQ - 59 H - 0% UE - 0 Crime - $42,751 1955: 169,115 R, 26,526 C, 73,232 I - 62 EQ - 61 H - 0% UE - 0 Crime - $82,954 1956: 207,146 R, 33,209 C, 95,121 I - 63 EQ - 62 H - 0% UE - 0 Crime - $153,116 1957: 250,769 R, 44,601 C, 104,768 I - 65 EQ - 62 H - 0% UE - 0 Crime - $236,251 1958: 274,917 R, 79,026 C, 83,902 I - 66 EQ - 62 H - 1% UE - 0 Crime - $246,988 1959: 305,707 R, 107,005 C, 89,237 I - 68 EQ - 63 H - 0% UE - 0 Crime - $266,636 1960: 339,998 R, 126,228 C, 91,980 I - 70 EQ - 63 H - 0% UE - 1 Crime - $296,824.

-Start date: January 1, 1950. -37 nuclear power plants, 36 incinerators, and 320 water pumps. There are power, water, and road connections to all four bordering cities, because I suspect neighbor deals will provide us with some vital simoleons. (I used the power to the masses cheat because I didn't want to take up the space and pollution of 80-100 coal power plants that will close in 15 years anyway) -65 police stations and one jail. -4 schools, 3 hospitals, 3 libraries, a museum and a city college. -A 270-tile (27x10) airport and 184-tile (46x4) seaport. -11,714 acres of parks. Believe me, this was not fun laying them all down. -544 subway stations and a grid of track connecting them all. However, these are UNFUNDED because if they were funded, it would bankrupt us in Year 1. Once the city hits ~300,000 people these can probably be funded. It would cost an extra $100,824 per year to fund this system! -$38,015 in the bank and a $35,472 yearly deficit. As taxpayers move in, neighbor deals develop from our initially massive excess of power, water and garbage disposal, and gambling revenues add up that yearly deficit will undoubtedly shrink significantly, but I'm expecting to take a loss of at least 20 grand in 1950. I'm guessing we're going to have all business deals at some point, maybe a loan, and maybe a call to Cousin Vinnie.

Here is the basic layout for Insta-City.

How much can you do on Day 1 with a city in SC3000U? Normally, when we build a SimCity, we grow them out little by little, laying zones and infrastructure in response to demand (and possibly our budget). But, obviously with the use of the i am weak cheat, how much of that can we have when the city is established, and how fast will the city reach maturity? And will this even work without running out of money from monthly costs? Will I need to take out a loan? I'm basing Insta-City, and therefore the resources I need, on Karaglanis, a city I just made that has a population of about 1.4 million and great stats (crime of 3, workforce EQ of 139, workforce LE of 89, and a well-balanced R/C/I mix). Ideally, the finished product will be similar to Karaglanis, but with a more symmetrical, optimized zoning pattern (since it's all laid out on Day 1). Karaglanis has unemployment of 0, so that means there are ample C/I blocks to balance out the R's. Starting from January 1950, it took Karaglanis until July 1994 to reach 1 million population and until about 2014 to reach its peak of 1.4 million. Karaglanis is laid out in a 14x14 grid pattern, with 8 4x4 zones in a typical block (though some blocks have less if bifurcated by a highway or include a buffer zone between R/C and I). Parks filled out the remaining areas, giving very high to astronomical land value across most of the city. There's also a very small amount of light/medium residential and commercial right on some of the coastline and near the university district, but this won't be taken into account. The idea is for Insta-City to recreate Karaglanis as closely as possible, but with development as quickly as possible and a further optimized zone layout. A 14x14 block actually takes up 16x16 due to the roads, and a large city size is 256x256 tiles. Therefore, Insta-City will be built in a 15x15 layout with 225 potential 14x14 blocks. Infrastructure we CAN have on Day 1: -All zones with parks. Believe me, I am NOT looking forward to laying down over 10,000 acres of parks on Day 1. (There were 630 4x4 R plots, 439 4x4 C plots, and 316 4x4 R plots. That's 79 14x14 R blocks, 55 14x14 C blocks, and 39 4x4 I blocks). In practice, due to the need for first-responder stations on some blocks, each of these numbers will be slightly higher. -36 nuclear power plants -340 water pumps and all water pipes. -36 incinerators. -A grid of police stations. This is a monthly cost, but we'll need it because initial development could occur anywhere. -Airport (268 tiles). It probably won't develop for a couple years. Won't fully develop for a much longer time. -Seaport (212 tiles). What we CAN'T have on Day 1, because it will bankrupt us quickly with the monthly costs -Schools. Karaglanis had 110. I'll have to leave room for them, but will have to build them gradually as population (and tax revenues) increase. -Hospitals. Karaglanis had 61, but they'll have to be built gradually. -City colleges. These 20 will have to be built gradually as well. -Museums. There were 40. -Libraries. There were 40. -Subway infrastructure. Each 14x14 residential and commercial block had four stations, located next to the road on either side of the northernmost and southernmost 4x4 zone. connected by an underground grid of rails. This is a huge monthly expense. We can put the stations and rails down on Day 1, but we can't fund it until we get to probably 300,000 people. Again, it's an all or nothing thing because of the haphazard nature of the initial development. For the various schools, hospitals, etc. we will have to designate blocks for them. A 14x14 block bifurcated by an avenue can hold 16 3x3 buildings and 6 libraries. We have a total of 231 3x3 buildings, That means we need to designate 15 of our 14x14 blocks to these services. -We will be using the power to the masses cheat but ONLY to get nuclear power. We're starting in 1950 and Karaglanis used 450,104 mwh of power per month at full development. That would take 76 coal plants, but only 29 nuclear plants. We theoretically could use microwave/fusion plants with this cheat, but that would be too cheaty (and Karaglanis, which I developed to the in-game date of 10/26/2025 to represent the present day, doesn't have fusion plants - too early - and just got microwave plants in 2023).

October 24th came around, and the plans were the same as they had been four weeks earlier: meet at the McDonalds on the west side of Kallal City at 7 am. This time, Melissa was there first, at 6:35. Billy was next, at 6:38. He got his things out and got into Melissa’s van, just as he had four weeks earlier. “Hi, Billy.” said Melissa. “What would you like to explore today?” “Hmmm… we’ve seen a movie theater that sold airag, a hospital that was turned into makeshift apartments, a mansion with a shrine to ducks, and an apartment with a full collection of National Geographics. Everywhere you look, this place has personality. So, I have nothing to suggest, it’s all good.” said Billy. “I was thinking we head toward the volcano observatory and power plant. There’s a really interesting story I have to tell about it once everyone gets here.” said Melissa. A lime green 2012 Chevy Camaro SS arrived at 6:44. It was Dirk, sporting a visible scar on the left side of his forehead. Ugh… thought Billy, as Dirk walked toward the new van. “Hey guys!” said Dirk. “Hello, Dirk!” said Melissa. “Hey, Dirk.” said Billy, with annoyance in his voice. “I’m glad to see you made a full recovery.” At 6:48, a white 2014 Toyota 4Runner arrived and parked next to the Odyssey. A young man got out of the driver’s seat, Drew got out of the passenger seat, while Roger and Mikayla got out of the back seats. Drew introduced the unknown man. “Billy, Dirk, this is Philip. We’ve been friends since high school. He wanted to come on the trip with us.” said Drew. “Hi, Philip. Nice to meet you. Have you ever been to Izzy?” asked Billy. “No. I’ve always wanted to go. Melissa’s told me it’s a surreal place.” said Philip. “To say the least.” said Billy. “We’re just waiting on David and Megan.” said Melissa. Billy decided to show them his birthday weekday trick. “Melissa was born on April 28, 1964, a Tuesday. Roger, November 25, 1966, a Friday. David, September 30, 1981, a Wednesday. Dirk, April 18, 1990, a Wednesday. Drew, July 18, 1992, a Saturday. Me, December 24, 1995, a Sunday. Mikayla, April 1, 1996, a Monday. Megan, October 28, 1998, a Wednesday. If we had a Thursday baby, we’d have every day of the week.” “Believe it or not, I was born on a Thursday. August 26, 1993.” said Philip. “Ayyy, nice. Nice truck, too.” said Billy. “I’m driving it into Izzy, so you’ll be seeing plenty of it.” said Philip. Everyone was on time, for once; David arrived at 6:54 and Megan at 6:57. After they met the new party members, Melissa made her announcement for the day. “Today we’re going to be focusing on the northwest section of town, nearest the volcano. Most of this area was developed in the ‘70s, so these buildings were mostly 15 years and younger when the town was abandoned, quite a few were brand new. That being said, this section of town is in the worst condition, overall. It’s on the volcano itself, so there’s lots of unstable ground that’s shaken and shifted a little with each eruption. Add to that that many of these weren’t the best quality buildings – a lot of the ’70s houses didn’t use the best materials – and we’re going to be seeing quite a lot of collapse here. Hard hats, masks, and the no entry alone rule are going to be strictly enforced today.” Billy stuck with the Odyssey’s passenger seat; Melissa drove, David and Mikayla got in the middle row, and Megan got in the back right. Philip drove the 4Runner, with Drew in the passenger seat, and Roger and Dirk rode in the back seat. “I’m going to tell you a story that few know about Izzy. Billy, you might want to get your camera out.” said Melissa. Billy got his camera out and started filming. “Right now, we’re headed up to the old coal power plant in Izzy. It seems odd that Izzy would have still had a coal plant in 1987, but there’s a multitude of reasons. For one, our mayor had an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality, he wasn’t one to go on to pursue change for change’s sake. The mountain kept the pollution away from us, so there was no real pressing need for a cleaner power plant. I remember that the Izzy mayor said in the ‘60s to the mid ‘70s that ‘Izzy has no plans to go nuclear’. Eventually public pressure to ‘get with the times’ got him to change his mind, and in 1978 he announced that a nuclear plant would be built. The plan was for the plant to break ground, I think, in 1981 or so and be done somewhere around 1987 – right when the volcano actually ended up happening.” said Melissa. “How close were they? Are we going to find an almost completed nuclear plant up there?” asked Billy. “They never actually considered building it where the coal plant was, or on the mountain. They didn’t want to deal with the chance, however remote, of the volcano erupting and causing a meltdown. They had a site on the east side of town picked out, well out of the range of any eruption. They broke ground on the plant at that site, which was a few hundred feet away from a neighborhood, after they took a vote and found that 88% of the people were in favor. But of course, someone had to whine, and one of the residents filed a lawsuit, which put the plan on hold.” said Melissa. “Wait a minute, so you’re telling me that one lawsuit meant the town was still on coal instead of nuclear? I understand the town would have still been evacuated, but what effect would still having an operational power plant have had? And why didn’t they just quickly throw the lawsuit out as frivolous?” asked Billy. “Certainly, having power would have eased the evacuation and prevented that big plant explosion. It might have been kept on for a few months in case the volcano conditions became safe again. As for resettling the town, it’s possible that a portion of the town farthest from the volcano could have been resettled, but 70, 80 percent of it would have still been blocked off. Ultimately, for most of the town, it just wasn’t safe to resettle for over 30 years, and by then it had just deteriorated too much. As for your other question, it was already borderline on the plant being open by March of ’87 anyway, they did throw out the lawsuit as frivolous, but it still put construction behind several months, we were looking at late ’87. The plant was almost done, but they demolished it in 1994 due to the risks involved of keeping an unfinished nuclear plant around.” said Melissa. Soon, the explorers were back in Izzy, the 4Runner following the Odyssey. After entering the town, they drove north up an avenue that first ran through about 2/3 of a mile of a large high-tech industrial district before crossing into a commercial district. The avenue ran up a gradual slope – the base of the volcano itself. By the time they got to the commercial district, they were probably 300 feet higher in elevation than when they’d entered the town. As they got closer to the volcano, the buildings seemed to get in worsening condition, with most having severe foundation issues and about half in various states of collapse. “I’d guess the ground has moved over the years under these buildings.” said Billy. Then, they got to two buildings, each 38 stories tall – the Izydorczak Twin Towers. Although the small office building next to them was half collapsed, the towers – and their turquoise steel frame – looked to be dirty but intact. Both vehicles stopped, and the explorers got out. “The Twin Towers of Izzy. Raise your right hand if you want to explore it now, left if later.” said Melissa. All but Philip and Dirk raised their right hands. “All right, let’s see it.” Buckled concrete and “drifts” of earth pushed against the base of the towers, as if they were trying to pull it down to the same fate of the surrounding buildings. “How could the economy of a city this size support two office buildings this big?” asked Dirk. “Really, it couldn’t. This building was built in 1975 and wasn’t expected to be full for 20 or 30 years. It was meant to be Izzy’s answer to the World Trade Center, both in the type of businesses it attracted and as a tourist attraction.” said Melissa. “I read that it was also supposed to be a symbol of Izzy, that iconic building that dominated the skyline.” said Billy. “We were very proud to have it. It was just as much about the symbolism as the building’s use itself. It filled up faster than expected, it ended up full for several years preceding the volcano. For one, Izzy may have had 60,000 people, but it had the international trade presence of a typical city two or three times its size. Also, just like the real World Trade Center, a rather large proportion of the tenants weren’t strictly involved in world trade. Half of the south tower was a hotel. The newspaper, where yours truly worked, and the TV station were located here, because it was the tallest building in town and thus, they put the TV tower atop it. And of course, the usual touristy stuff like a mall and an observation deck.” said Melissa. “Didn’t you used to work in the real World Trade Center too? I’ve heard the layout of this one was based around it.” asked Billy. “Yup, same construction type and same banks of elevators that serviced different floors, but there were a few differences.” said Melissa. The explorers walked inside the lobby of the north tower through a revolving door. The still-intact lobby was 4 stories high, with gold marble floors broken up by green carpet pathways. The interior walls – which surrounded the building core – were finished in mahogany wood paneling. Large brass letters, each about 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, which said “IZYDORCZAK TRADE CENTER” in a Times New Roman font, hung on the wall about 10 feet above ground level. 16 trees – four on each side, in planters, were still in perfect shape – obviously fake. Large fountains at the north and south end of the lobby, two identical sculptures – obsidian globes, with outlines of the continents carved into them, on marble plinths – and various paintings hung on the interior walls completed the décor. Billy filmed the lobby. “It’s obvious they spared no expense on this place.” “The company that developed it actually had to file for bankruptcy because it didn’t make money fast enough, because the economy was in a recession in the ‘70s. That’s why they turned the south tower into a hotel, as a last-ditch effort. After about ’82, this place made money hand over fist.” said Melissa. Billy looked at the directory, located on the wall underneath the word “CENTER”. The “T” in the word Directory was askew, the only sign of decay in the building. Everything interesting seemed to be on the upper floors of the building – the lower and middle floors were financial and insurance companies. Honda of Helmintoller’s regional headquarters were on the 28th floor. Nelson Exotic Meats, 26th floor. Mongolian-Helmintoller Import Alliance, 29th floor. And, of course, the Izydorczak Inquirer on the 34th and 35th floors, with WIZY-TV – and the mall on the 36th and 37th floors, and observation deck on the 38th. As Billy examined it, Melissa came over. “Here’s the building directory. When you’re done in the lobby, you can come over here and see what you want to explore in here.” said Melissa. “I want to see the TV station. We haven’t seen one of those yet. But I don’t really feel like climbing 35 floors.” said David. “We’re not in a hurry. We can take our time, visit other stuff on the way.” said Melissa. “TV station! Ooh.” said Billy. “Anyone that wants to go to the top of the tower, come with me. It is a 35-floor climb.” said Melissa. Billy, Roger, Dirk, and Philip decided to join Melissa on the climb. “I’m going to go get a 6-pack of waters.” said Billy. “Everyone else going up, you get water too.” said Melissa. The explorers turned on their flashlights to illuminate the dark stairwell. By the time they got to the 35th floor, 18 minutes later, Melissa and Philip still had the energy to go much farther; Roger and Dirk were a bit winded; and Billy was sweating bullets and hunched over, needing only another floor or two for him to flop on his butt and take a break right there. Billy staggered through the lobby, went down a hall to the right, and finally sat on an overstuffed chair inside a large weather forecasting room, which had dark blue walls, a dark blue carpet floor, and a tiled ceiling. On one wall of the room was a map, on white paper with black text, about 8’ wide by 6’ tall, with an outline of the city on it. At the top of the map, it said “Sunday Forecast”. Various numbers and letters were printed on the city area itself. “Am I seeing this right? High of 41 east side of town, 28 up toward the northwest?” asked Dirk. “Don’t forget the winter weather advisory for the west side of town only. Also, based on the elevation, I’d expect maybe a 3-4 degree difference, not 13.” said Billy. “I’d say it averaged out to more like 7, but it was very unpredictable. Also, the volcano was the only mountain for 60 miles, so clouds would lose their moisture over it, so it rained a lot more in this part of town than out east. Also, the snow would stay on the ground here into April sometimes, it was always gone by the end of March in the rest of town.” said Roger. “On the night of the volcano, I remember driving down from my house where there was a foot of snow on the ground, to the valley where it was 100% clear.” said Melissa. “Speaking of the volcano, look.” said Billy. A two-foot-tall sign on a wall said, “VOLCANO ALERT CONDITION” – from safest to most dangerous, it said “SAFE”, “NORMAL”, “CAUTION”, “ALERT”, and “EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY”, in Helvetica block letters. An arrow pointed at “SAFE”. “Wow, didn’t even have time to change it.” said Billy. On the other side of the room were the guts of the weather operation; a supercomputer doubled as the desk, with the computer unit itself being located under the left side of the wooden desktop. On the desk was the computer’s monitor – a 15-inch Commander unit – as well as a Commander keyboard. The camera was mounted atop a small pole facing the screen, and another keyboard, labeled “CAMERA CONTROLS” featured various buttons and switches, as well as a joystick. Several monitors were still hanging on a bar suspended from the ceiling, about 4 feet above the desktop. After resting for about ten minutes, Billy got up and began to film the room, making sure to include several seconds of footage of the volcano alert sign as well as the office chair that had been at the computer/camera desk, now lying on its side several feet away. “I think this was abandoned so fast that whoever was sitting here just yeeted the chair in their haste to get out.” said Billy. “That’s exactly what happened.” said Roger. The explorers went into a room to the right, a conference room. The room’s floor to ceiling windows illuminated the large cherry-wood table with well-padded chairs that had cherry wood frames and thick green cushions. All but Billy turned off their flashlights. There were two doors leaving the room; the one they’d just entered, and another at the other end. On the wall opposite the windows, between the doors, was a large whiteboard. On top of the whiteboard, in green marker, was “3/29/87”. The stories, written in blue underneath, included “WRESTLEMANIA”, “ACADEMY AWARDS”, and “THATCHER TRIP TO MOSCOW”. But what caught everyone’s attention was the 14th story: “CADILLAC MASSAGE PROMOTION FAILS”. “Wait a minute, what’s this Cadillac massage story? I seem to remember hearing my dad talk about that years ago.” asked Billy. “It was actually the last story I ever worked on in Izzy. I was in my office a few hours before the eruption and wrote it. Basically, the Cadillac dealer here in town was giving out free massage certificates for test driving an Allante. It didn’t go well.” said Melissa. “Let me guess, a lot of people in their 20s who could never afford a Cadillac test driving them for the massage? Also, Cadillacs back then sucked.” said Billy. “Precisely.” said Melissa. A piece of paper, hung in a frame on a side wall, listed station policies. After filming the whiteboard and room surroundings, Billy went to it next. Aside from stuff like not using profanity or showing graphic violence, one of the rules stood out: Reporting that is detrimental to morality and interpersonal relations, such as polarized political reporting or excessive “bad things happening to good people” reporting, is not allowed by this station. Billy read this out loud. “So, people were left in the dark about reality?” asked Dirk. “No, but we didn’t follow the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ mentality, and we didn’t try to dress it up as entertainment.” said Melissa. As Melissa, Roger, and Philip finished looking at the conference room, Dirk got bored and started looking at the window, which directly faced the volcano and northwest section of town. “Bruh. It’s all collapsed at the top of the hill. Didn’t you say you and David lived up there?” asked Dirk. Melissa and Billy went to the windows. They could see that a large house near the northwest corner of town – the mayor’s house – was reduced to little more than matchsticks. While most of the buildings in the immediate vicinity were similarly collapsed, areas further to the east – near where Melissa and David lived – still had mostly standing buildings, although about 25% were in a state of complete collapse. As Billy videoed the damage, Melissa charted out in her head a path that she could use to get the explorers into that section of town. After the conference room, the explorers went back through the weather room into another room with a studio – the overall look was similar, except instead of a weather screen, there was a window behind a news desk, with a view of a downtown section of Izzy. Retractable shutters, which would go over the windows when a view was not desired, were open. “How did that weather map work, anyway? Was it all black and white or was there some sort of computerized color?” asked Billy. “The outline, which we saw, was printed off on a giant dot-matrix printer, and the colors representing temperature and icons representing precipitation, wind, and that kind of thing were overlaid by a computer.” said Melissa. “High tech stuff for 1987.” said Philip. The news desk was fairly typical, with the grey desk featuring seats for three, facing a camera with a teleprompter next to it. At the back of the room was the control area, which featured a switcher labeled “TAPE”, “LIVE FIELD”, “LIVE STUDIO”, “WEATHER”, and “EBS”, and “V” connected to a similar setup as the control area of the weather room. The “V” switch, which was red instead of the white of the other switches, was pushed inward. “I’m going to guess this is where the alert went out.” said Billy. “Yup, it was broadcast from this exact room. They had a special tape that if you hit “V”, it would play the Emergency Broadcast System tone, followed by a pre-recorded message telling the people to evacuate the town. They had to test it once a month, you’d press the button for a test and hold it down for 5 seconds for an actual emergency announcement.” said Melissa. “Was this the only time they actually activated it?” asked Dirk. “Yes, although we came very close on August 16th, 1986. There was a minor earthquake under the volcano, luckily it stopped at the last second before anything happened.” said Melissa. “How did that change the way people acted?” asked Billy. “The scientists of the time were saying it was the biggest event in thousands of years and probably a one-off thing. People acted the exact same afterward.” said Melissa. “Wow, the warning went out from this very room, probably the most intact room in all of Izzy.” said Philip. The next room the explorers went in was the tape archives room, located in a large windowless room. As the explorers turned on their flashlights, all they saw were brown metal floor to ceiling shelves. There were 13 aisles of shelves in total, each aisle going about 40 feet back. On the fronts of the aisles were dates, written in Sharpie; 11/25/1946 – 8/31/1951 on the first shelf, labeled “Shelf A”, to “11/19/1986 –“ on Shelf P. Shelves Q – Z were empty. “They’d be full by now.” said Melissa. Billy seemed to get lost in the rows of tapes, each labeled with a date and time. There were the kinescope film reels of the 1940s and ‘50s, then the station had apparently switched to 2” quadruplex tape on October 3, 1958. Then there were the rows of tapes, which dated from September 27, 1965, to about 1970, with “COLOR” written in big, rainbow-colored letters on the spine. Billy seemed to bypass most of the U-Matic tapes – dated from August 5, 1974, to February 24, 1985 – to look at the lonely last few Betacam tapes on Shelf P. Only the very top rack of Shelf P had any tapes on it, which extended about two-thirds of the way back from the front of the room; the remaining 9 racks were empty. “I got you something.” said Billy. In his hand were the tapes for April 28, 1964, November 25, 1966, and September 30, 1981. “Aw, thank you! But I can’t take it. We must leave this place as we found it for now, but don’t worry, we’ll get these tapes all digitized.” said Melissa. Billy put the tapes back. After about 10 minutes in the room, the explorers were ready to move on to another area. “Do you all want to see my old office?” asked Melissa. “Is the sky blue?” asked Billy. “This way.” said Melissa. The explorers went back out through the newsroom, then the weather room, then back into the conference room where they used the other door, which led into a large room that covered the whole west half of the floor. This room had a stark appearance, with no ceiling and white tile flooring; the building clouds visible through the windows further compounded the bleak aesthetic. Rows of identical computers sat on long tables, in the style of an open-plan office, with identical Aeron-like chairs behind them. Various papers and decorations sat next to each computer, which had a number on its monitor. Billy panned his camera across the vast room. “There’s got to be 2 or 3 hundred computers in here.” he said. “The Inquirer was the only newspaper in all of Helmintoller that was fully laid-out by computer at this time.” said Melissa. “Can we see your desk?” asked Billy. Melissa led the explorers to desk 126, located on the north side of the building, facing the volcano. “Do you mind if I film your desk?” asked Billy. “You’re more than welcome to.” said Melissa. Around the desk, there was a Kappa Xi Delta medallion, a picture of Melissa and her parents, a cross, and a printed-out news article on the desk, written at the top of which was “FIRST DRAFT - DUE BY APRIL 1”. “RAX FAST FOOD RESTAURANT TO HAVE MORE STYLE IN JULY” Other than a couple of editor’s notes, the article looked almost ready to print. “Wait a minute, Rax… sounds vaguely familiar… no, I don’t think I remember them.” said Billy. “They were really good, they started out with roast beef but expanded into salads, Mexican and Chinese food later on.” said Melissa. “What? Roast beef and Chinese food under one roof? Sign me up! I don’t think I’d like the solarium they added in, though. Never was a fan of bright sunlight.” said Billy. “All I know about Rax are those Mr. Delicious commercials. Those were weird.” said Dirk. “Funny thing is, I liked those commercials. They’d work so well in today’s world.” said Roger. The explorers continued to explore the tables, Billy panning his camera across them. On table 131, the first bit of ‘bad’ news, aside from the volcano, appeared. “At Least Seven Sailors Killed in Iranian Attack on Tanker”. “That’s really sad, hope their family and friends are doing well nowadays.” said Billy. The explorers left that table to go to others. Going over to some more computers, Billy found the automotive journalism section. Dirk walked over there with him. They found the glowing early reviews of certain cars humorous. “The new Volkswagen Fox brings a new standard of refinement to inexpensive cars.” “The Chevy Beretta has sleek styling.” “The sporty Renault Alliance Convertible” “Geeze, did they have no standards for cars at the time?” asked Dirk. After a little more exploring the computer room, the explorers decided to leave and go to the next destination. “My old house?” asked Melissa. “Let’s do it.” said Philip.

“Let me drive us out of this town and then I’ll let you drive.” said Melissa. “Okay.” said Billy. Melissa got in the driver’s seat of the van, Billy got in the passenger seat, David got in the rear left seat, and Megan in the rear-right. Because of David’s long legs, Melissa scooted the seat a couple of inches forward. She turned on the headlights for the first time that day as the sun sank below the horizon. Billy took a bit more video of the shadowy buildings in the fading light before putting all of his equipment in the glove box – his cameras, laptop, and cell phone. About 10 minutes later, they got to the edge of town, and Melissa stopped the van, got into the passenger’s seat, and Billy got in the driver’s seat. “I’d rather be a little farther from this airbag.” said Billy, pulling out. His sternum was about 11 inches from the wheel. “It won’t hurt you. The closer you are to it, the less force it will go off with.” said Melissa. As the explorers drove out of town, Billy said “There’s so much I want to take out of this town. Nature’s taking over quickly. Never thought I’d see so much out and out structural collapse after less than 35 years of decay. We watch reruns of ‘80s shows, and older, on TV. We listen to ‘80s music, and older, every day on the radio. And a house built in the ‘80s isn’t old, and a person born when Izzy was abandoned isn’t even old enough to be president. What really gets me is that you were an adult in Izzy living on your own and now you’re still young enough to be adopting a kid, yet the town looks so wretched.” “Builder grade, ‘60s and ‘70s junk.” said David. “Speaking of which, what’s the details on your adoption, if you don’t mind me asking?” asked Billy. “It’s a boy whose parents died in a car crash on April 22nd. They weren’t wearing their seat belts. I’m bringing him home on Thursday, his 2nd birthday.” said Melissa. “That’s so sweet of you.” said Megan. “That warms my heart so much, but that’s a 54-year difference between you and that kid… normally I’d be against that, but you’re in perfect health, have a heart of gold, have a Top Safety Pick rated vehicle… yeah, I think you’re going to be around 50 more years.” said Billy. “I’d love to live to be 200.” said Melissa. “I’m sure everyone would, except Dirk.” said Billy. “The idea of adopting after your kids grew up was relatively popular in Izzy. Life expectancies started going way up, so the idea of someone being 45, 50 years older than their kid became more reasonable. Some friends of my parents adopted a 6 year old when they were about 50, this would have been in 1980 and they’re still living. It was called double-decker parenting. They used, and still use, the 80/40 test; you have to have an 80 percent chance of living till the child is 40.” said Melissa. The explorers continued down the highway. The conversation turned to Megan asking “what would you do if you woke up in 1986 in Izzy?” “Hmmm… I guess I’d go to the video arcade down the street from my house and play some I’m Sorry.” said David. “Oh, that Japanese video game that made fun of the Japanese prime minister… Takata or something like that?” asked Billy. “Not sure, I just know they had a machine.” said David. “I’d go to one of those house parties that seemed to be so popular.” said Megan. “I’d love to get the chance to drive supercars all day again. That was a lot of fun.” said Melissa. Billy saw a pair of headlights coming straight toward the van. He cranked the wheel hard to the right and slammed on the brakes. BOOM! The mysterious car hit the front left corner of the van, ripping into the front end, crushing the suspension and dislodging the engine, before the high-strength steel in the door sills stopped the car in its tracks before it could intrude into the cabin. The airbag that Billy had feared deployed, hitting him in the chest and face; all eight of the van’s airbags would deploy as it came to a crushing stop, spinning violently to the side. Although he was wearing his seat belt, Billy was sent flying like a rag doll, his 200 pound weight causing his upper body to sink deeply into the steering wheel airbag and his legs to sink deeply into the knee airbag in kind. Melissa’s body did the same thing with the passenger front and knee airbags, and David and Megan moved well forward in the crash, nearly hitting the front seats. As the now-totaled van came back onto its wheels, it made a sickening sound, every body panel shaking. As the van came to a stop, its interior lights activated. “Is everybody okay?” asked Melissa. “I think so. I have a big cut on my chest from the seat belt.” said David. “I’m fine, just very shaken up.” said Megan. “I can tell you one thing, if it were 1986 I would be dead right now. That was intense.” said Billy, struggling to catch his breath amid all the airbag powder. He sat, stunned but unharmed. He looked to the left, finding a large, white wall of air; the van’s side curtain airbag, which was still firmly inflated. He tried to lift it up, but it wouldn’t budge. Melissa called 911. “We’re on the Izzy Expressway, about 25 miles from Kallal, in a wrecked 2018 Honda Odyssey. A car just hit us head on and – OH MY GOSH, IT’S ON FIRE! I GOTTA GO!” The car that hit them was on fire. Melissa slid her hand behind her side curtain airbag to reach her door handle, opened it, and slid on her back underneath the airbag before running over to the car; out of habit, she re-closed the door. Billy pushed the front passenger airbag out of the way and opened the glove box, grabbing his cell phone, before reaching under the curtain airbag himself. Feeling around for 15 to 20 seconds, he finally located the door handle and opened it, pushing the door open with his legs as he slid on his back under the side curtain airbag. “Who does this car think I am? McKayla Maroney?” asked Billy. Billy emerged to find Melissa pulling frantically on a man who was trapped in a Pontiac Firebird, flames coming from the mangled engine compartment just a few feet away. The steering wheel and dashboard had been pushed to within a few inches of his chest, and the door opening had shrunk by more than a foot. The man was whimpering “Help, help, I don’t want to die.” “Dirk?” asked Billy, running over to the car to help Melissa, as David and Megan opened their doors and crawled out. Just as Billy made it to Melissa’s side, she mustered one big burst of strength, dragging Dirk through the broken window and out of the car. She heard a crack – she hoped she hadn’t broken a bone as she dragged Dirk across the pavement and away from the car. Billy tried to grab Dirk to help, but Melissa was moving too fast. Dirk screamed the whole way, a howl that didn’t seem to be humanly possible. “Melissa, Melissa… you saved my life.” said Dirk. “One of you get my first aid kit. It’s in the very back of the van.” said Melissa. David grabbed the kit and rushed it to Melissa, as Billy and Melissa stayed by Dirk’s side. Billy used the bottom of his shirt as a makeshift tourniquet to stop a severe bleed from Dirk’s leg, before Melissa wrapped it in gauze. Once Dirk was out of danger and stabilized, Melissa called her husband and daughter to pick up herself, Billy, Megan, and David. She told her husband to bring a shirt for Billy and to cut the tag out. Billy brought the first aid kit over to David, cleaning and dressing the cut on his upper chest. “Are you mad at me?” asked Dirk. “I’m not mad at you at all. Just worry about getting better.” said Melissa. Away from the fire, Melissa and Billy could smell the alcohol on Dirk’s breath. They didn’t say anything. “Thank goodness he was wearing a seat belt.” said Melissa, to the rest of the explorers. After about 20 minutes, the ambulance’s sirens were audible. Billy grabbed his camera and equipment from the glove box and filmed the ambulance as it approached. The ambulance stopped, and three burly EMTs got out and loaded Dirk into the ambulance. One of the EMT’s asked if anyone else needed ambulance transport, but everyone refused. The ambulance then headed back toward Kallal. Billy filmed the scene. The Firebird was now fully engulfed in flames. “This is the Firebird that hit us head on. It was driven by Dirk, who I suspect was driving drunk. As you can see, totally dark, not another car in sight. It’s 8:41 pm on September 27, 2020. And here’s the van that saved everyone’s lives. Word to the wise, buy a Top Safety Pick. Just… wow. I can’t believe I walked away from this unhurt. That front end is demolished.” Within a few minutes, Roger, in the 2020 Accord, and Melissa’s daughter Mikayla, in her own 2018 Accord, arrived at the scene. While Melissa and David went with Roger, Megan and Billy went with Mikayla. Billy took the shirt, which said “Kappa Xi Delta Burgerfest 1985” and put it on, then grabbed his Halcyon and various artifacts from the rear cargo area of the van and put them in Mikayla’s car. Melissa introduced all three of the explorers to Mikayla. Before Roger, Melissa, and David left, Billy walked up to Melissa, tentatively, with his arms in a hugging position. Billy and Melissa hugged goodbye. “Thank you for the trip, and I’ll see you at Part 2.” he said. Roger left with Melissa and David as Billy walked back toward the van. “Thank you for taking such good care of me in that crash.” said Billy, hugging the front door of the van. “What are you doing?” asked Mikayla. “Your mom’s van just saved my life.” said Billy. Mikayla came over to look at the totaled van for a minute, while Megan sat in the back seat of her car, before both went back to the car. Inside the car, after initially letting Mikayla know that Dirk was alive and conscious, Billy still couldn’t stop talking about the crash. “I thought I was going to die. When I saw the lights, I was doing 87 miles per hour.” “One more and you would have been able to time travel.” said Mikayla. “Haha, I don’t think a 2018 Odyssey has a flux capacitor. That was only on DeLoreans. Anyway, I had to have been doing 70 when I hit. Those airbags all blew up around me and felt like pillows. Didn’t hurt at all. Felt like a bouncy castle.” said Billy. “Yeah, a $50,000, one use bouncy castle.” said Mikayla. “That smells like burning rubber and chemical.” said Billy. “I’m glad I got a glimpse of the ‘80s, but I’m glad our car safety standards are a lot better now. I hope Dirk survives.” said Billy. “Me too. Looks like his car was just big enough and safe enough to keep him alive. It’s a miracle.” said Mikayla. “And the seat belt. I bet if none of us were wearing our seat belts, all 5 of us would have died.” said Billy. “Well, one good thing out of today is that I got to meet you. You’re just like your mom, kind and fun to be around.” said Billy. “I agree.” said Megan. “You know, I’ve always wanted to go to Izzy myself. My mom’s told me about it since I was a little kid. She said when I was an adult she’d take me, but we never got around to it.” said Mikayla. “Why didn’t you go on this trip?” asked Megan. “I figured there was limited room, and I’ll go when it’s my time.” said Mikayla. “Well, we’re out one person, and personally, I would love it if your whole family came.” said Billy. “I’ll let Mom know. Dad could probably drive as well.” said Mikayla. “David has a big SUV, and he’s born in ‘81. I could run the idea by him as well. By the way, when were you born? I can tell you what day of the week it was.” said Billy. “April 1, 1996, in New York City. It was a Monday.” said Mikayla. “No… you are not younger than me. I’m December 24, 1995, it was a Sunday, at a now abandoned hospital in Wheatley.” said Billy. Mikayla finally arrived back at the hotel parking lot; Billy and Megan each got in their cars and drove home. “How was your trip?” asked Billy’s dad. “Pretty good, saw a lot of things.” said Billy. “Like what?” asked the dad. “I’ve just been in a major car crash. I want to go to bed.” said Billy. “What? A major car crash? What happened?” asked the dad. “Remember when I was terrified of airbags as a little kid?” asked Billy. “Yes.” said the dad. “Well let’s just say, I’m alive because of the driver’s airbag in Melissa’s 2018 Honda Odyssey. We were on the interstate and that mean guy I told you about last night was driving drunk on the freeway and hit us head on. Melissa was letting me drive her van.” said Billy. “I’m glad you’re okay. Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital? I wouldn’t recommend sleeping after a traumatic event.” asked the dad. “I feel fine.” said Billy. The next day, Billy got a notification on his Helmstagram account from the original group of explorers. All of the explorers, including Dirk, were in the group, but Roger, Mikayla, and Melissa’s son Kyle had been added. By the end of the day, everyone but Dirk had agreed on an October 24th date, to give Dirk time to recover. Billy called up Melissa that evening. “Why are you inviting Dirk back?” he asked. “I figured I’d give him a second chance. He took a pretty serious hit in that crash.” said Melissa. “Do you realize he could have killed us all? If you have a failing, you’re a pushover.” asked Billy. “I have Roger there to keep an eye on him the whole time.” said Melissa. “Don’t you want to not be constantly criticized? ‘Melissa’s old!’ ‘Melissa hurt my arms!’ You saved that man’s life and he just complained. Please, let him go!” said Billy. “I’ll have to monitor how he acts over the next few weeks, but my husband’s going to watch him like a hawk. Any problems, he’s yanked.” said Melissa. “Sounds good. I just realized something. If it hadn’t been for the 1983 renovation of your sorority house, we might all be dead right now. They used top quality materials and renovated the house top to bottom just a few years before the volcano. That meant that the house still had enough strength to hold on when Dirk damaged it.” said Billy. “The van, too. I reviewed every aspect of the crash test results before I bought it. It looked perfect. I’m so glad it protected you so well.” said Melissa. “I still smell like airbag.” said Billy. “We’re going to see Dirk in the hospital tomorrow at 6 pm if you want to come. I can pick you up. I just got my new silver 2021 Odyssey Elite this morning.” said Melissa. “Let’s do it.” said Billy. Melissa, Billy, David, and Megan arrived in Melissa’s van, while Roger, Mikayla, and Drew, Mikayla’s brother, arrived in Roger’s Accord. David sported a couple of bandages on his neck. Dirk lay on a hospital bed, his upper body inclined at about a 20 degree angle, both of his legs in casts, a machine monitoring his vital signs. “How are you doing, Dirk?” asked Melissa. “I’m in more pain than I’ve ever been in my life.” said Dirk. “I hope you get to feeling better as soon as possible.” said Melissa. “You’re not mad at me? After I almost killed us all? I’m a screw-up!” asked Dirk. Melissa walked to the head of the bed, standing at Dirk’s left side. Billy followed, standing at his right. “You made a mistake. No one got killed over it, just a couple of cars totaled. None of us had any worse than minor injuries. Learn from your mistake, but don’t think that you’re a screw-up over it.” said Melissa. “I always kind of wondered what it would be like to experience how safe today’s cars are. Glad you’re alive. Hope you make a 100% recovery.” said Billy. “We’re all just glad that everyone is alive and okay.” said Mikayla. “I have the best mom in the world. Dirk, I’m glad you had her there for you.” said Drew. “Me and Melissa and some of the explorers have been talking, and we’ve decided that we’re going to allow you to go on our Izzy trip planned for October 24 if you’re feeling well enough. If you’re not, we’ll make another visit next spring. But I’m going to keep my eye on you like a hawk. One snarky comment, one mistake, you’re out.” said Roger. After a few more minutes of talking, a nurse came in to the room, and the rest cleared out. “Can I ask you something in private, Melissa?” asked Billy. “Absolutely.” said Melissa. “Do they know that Dirk was drunk when he hit us head on?” asked Billy. “They took a blood test, but his blood alcohol fell below intoxicated levels. 0.074 at the time of the crash, I think.” said Melissa. “And why was he going toward Izzy at that hour?” asked Billy. “He said he was a ghost hunter. I guess he might have been going back for that.” said Melissa. “I think something fishy is up with Dirk’s story.” said Billy.

Chapter 21 The explorers left the church grounds and drove northward along the avenue that ran along the west side of the northeastern portion of the city. The road was in oddly good condition, and Melissa got the van up to 40 mph, just 5 mph shy of the original speed limit. Billy was changing out his SD card when he felt the van suddenly slow. ‘Oh, no!” he yelled, nearly dropping the card. His camera swung so far, it came within two inches of hitting the dash. He hurriedly changed the card and looked up. Instead of the landslide he’d been expecting, he found a power pole fallen across the road. “Wait a minute, why was there a power line here? Wouldn’t the one at the north side of town be enough?” asked Billy. “It was a backup power line. We had the same mayor for the last 40 years before the volcano, and he was a real stickler for making sure that everything had a backup, that nothing ever broke.” said Melissa. “I guess something broke here.” said Billy. “Well, 33 years without maintenance will do that.” said David. “I guess that would explain why Mr. Virgo always drove Mercedes. Precision engineering.” said Billy. “Wait, how do you know what the mayor drove?” asked Megan. “My dad’s been in his car. Two of them I think, back in the ‘80s, I want to say ’81 and the mid-80s. I know he was 20 the first time.” said Billy. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” asked Melissa. “We have to meet your dad.” said David. As Billy called his dad to meet them at the hotel, Melissa turned the van onto the road a block over and drove at about 15 mph. Billy put the phone on speaker so that the explorers could say things to his dad, but they didn’t even get past the hellos before the explorers reached their next destination: what appeared to be a heavily decayed car factory. All agreed to let Billy’s dad go and explore the factory first; after all, they’d see him in person in a couple of hours. Melissa drove the van onto the grounds of the 50,000 square foot abandoned building, which, if viewed from above, would be shaped like a “V” with about a 30-degree difference between the angle of the legs. The smokestacks on the roof had an ever-so-slight lean to them, and a few bricks were missing from the façade. Ivy and overgrowth hid some of the brick building, but the roof, which was about 20 feet high, peeked over the overgrowth, revealing a section of missing roof about the size of a small home near the rightmost section of the building. There were a few smaller holes in the roof, concentrated on the right side of the building. About 80% of the windows were broken in the sections the explorers could see on the right side, but only about 30% on the left. The explorers walked up to the building’s entrance, finding a Yugo still parked in a spot near the entrance. The red Yugo was in oddly good condition; the paint job had been destroyed by pollen and dust, and the tires were deflated, but the vehicle itself was mostly intact, with the windows all still in place and the interior undamaged. “Wow, a YuuY! I’ve never seen one of those before in person.” said Billy. “Did they build the Yugo locally here? Because it’s parked awfully close – wait a minute, YuuY?” asked David. “Yeah, it’s a meme on this YouTube channel called Less Doug DeMuro. It’s hilarious, but not for kids because the humor is R-rated. Anyway, what kinds of cars did they build here?” asked Billy. “Haha, YuuY, I like it. And they built stuff here that you wouldn’t want to drive, mostly microcars, stuff that would have been even smaller than the original Volkswagen Bug. They were mostly super-cheap cars for export and little Jeep-like vehicles. They got their start in World War 2 building military vehicles, then once the war was over, they kept building them under the name “Izzy Buggy”. They also built a few other little cars, most of them went to foreign countries as cheap transportation for people who may not have had a car before. I want to say a lot of these cars went to Europe between the end of World War 2 and about 1960, then they started to focus more on the Izzy Buggies. Anyway, Mr. Virgo was none too happy to have dirty industries in town, so he really pushed education and taxed the heck out of dirty smokestack industries even back in the 1940s. Eventually, all the dirty industries left. Factories that met pollution standards, like this one, could stay, but those in charge gave low taxes and all the benefits to the high-tech industries like electronics and biotech. Most of the factories left, like this one, which moved out around 1973.” said Melissa. “Wow, so this place has been abandoned even longer than everything else?” asked David. “Nope. Something else moved in.” said Melissa, as the explorers finished walking toward the entrance doors. “Petrone Pharmaceutical Research” read Billy, on the still-intact glass doors to the building. Although the lobby looked largely intact, the doors were locked. Melissa started walking to the right; the rest of the explorers followed her. They tried one door about 30 feet down. Locked. They found the next door, about 30 feet down from the last, but overgrowth blocked access to it. The explorers could see no more doors and lost a little hope. They reached the section with a missing roof, but the walls were still in place. “I guess we’re going to have to miss this one. I wanted to see it too.” said Melissa. “Look.” said Billy. A 15-foot-wide section of the side wall, previously obscured by trees and plant growth, was gone. Getting in, between all the overgrowth and fallen bricks, would be a challenge. The explorers peered into a wrecked conference room; a tree grew where a water cooler had once been. Megan decided to stay out. “When you get to the left side of the building, I might go in.” she said. The remaining explorers carefully started walking through the maze of trees, thorny plants, and fallen bricks to get into the building, hard hats on. Billy tripped on a brick, instinctively putting his arms out as he began to fall forward just five feet from the threshold of the floor, before he felt something yank his arm. “Melissa?” asked Billy. “No, it’s me, David.” Billy dusted himself off. “Thank you, Dave.” The explorers continued into the building, arriving in the destroyed conference room. An analog clock on the wall was permanently frozen at 5:21. The roof over the front half of the room had collapsed, and sun blanketed the moldy white front wall and dark wood conference table with brown leather business chairs trimmed with brass. The entire room looked like it would have had a sterile, minimalist look. “This reminds me of, like an old financial company office or something.” said Billy. “Yeah, I remember a few rooms that looked like this in my financial days.” said Melissa. The explorers went through a door and found themselves in what felt like a completely different building. The floors and walls looked clean enough to eat off of in the corridor, which was pitch-black; flashlights revealed it to have tan walls, a tan ceiling, and gold carpet. The lobby, with a few fake plants and couches, was visible in the distance; blue doors led to rooms. “I’ve never seen a building look this bad in some sections and this good in others. Look.” said Billy, opening a door labeled “Mixing Tanks”. Inside the room, there were six stainless steel tanks each about the size of a house water heater. A poster with instructions and warnings stuck to the wall beneath a section of collapsed roof. Despite the fact that the paint and drywall was stripped to the bare walls and the room looked like a terrarium, complete with a 5-foot-tall tree, the tanks were still shiny. Back in the corridor, two ceiling tiles were missing. David looked up. A couple feet above the ceiling level, there was a strange looking rail. “Didn’t you say this used to be a car factory?” asked David. “Yes. A fairly small one.” said Melissa. “I found something that might have been part of it.” said David. Billy looked up at the rail. “Judging by the position of this rail in the building, I’d say that was a conveyor rail for cars.” “I think it might have been, they only made about 1,000 cars here per year.” said Melissa. The explorers turned to go in a room labeled “Research and Development”. The first thing they found in there was a whiteboard that had detached on the left side and fallen to the floor; beside some chemical formulas, there was a chart that said “Myocarditis Deaths, 1984-1986”, and beside it “Myocarditis Deaths on Drug MC-83, 6/2/86 – 1/30/87”. The data suggested that the drug was effective, reducing deaths by about 25 percent. “I wonder what a Z-score of -4.06 means.” said David, to himself. “It means that, statistically, this drug has been found to be effective with near certainty. Typically, when the Z-score is more than about 2, that means that there’s a statistically significant difference between two data sets. Melissa, do you know if this drug ever came to market?” asked Billy. “If it’s the drug I’m thinking of, it was called Zyboost and came out in probably 1989. Development was set back a few months, if I remember correctly. My grandfather on my mom’s side took it for 27 years and it helped him make it to 100.” said Melissa. “100? That’s a long life. I hope you make it to 120.” said Billy. “Thank you! I hope you do too! I’d like to live as long as I can, because I just adopted a 2-year-old whose parents died in a car crash.” said Melissa. “Oh, wow, that’s awesome of you.” said Billy. The explorers noticed that it was getting darker inside the room as the light from a broken window at the back of the room faded. “Should we call it a day?” asked Melissa. “Yeah, let’s call it a day. My flashlight just died.” said David. Melissa lead the way for the explorers out of the building; David and Billy stuck close by. They walked back to the van and met up with Megan. “My back hurts.” said David.

Welcome to the city of Izydorczak, or Izzy for short. No one ever uses the full name of the city, it's always Izzy. Anyway, Izzy was founded in 1924 on the plain adjacent to Samberg Volcano, believed to be dormant for thousands of years. Izzy was in the middle of nowhere, about 60 miles from the nearest people, and its mayor and leadership worked hard to ensure Izzy was a "little slice of heaven" in central-west Helmintoller State. Izzy was, from the ground up, a city ahead of its time; designed around the automobile, which was quickly becoming a norm during the Roaring Twenties. By the 1950s, Izzy was topping ranking lists of "best places to live" in the state, and things only got better as time went on. Although Izzy was far away from the rest of civilization, there was an airport that could get you to any major city within 500 miles and well-maintained interstate highways. There was no mass transit, but none was needed; Izzy's population had reached over 60,000 by the 1980s, but the well laid-out road grid system and low density residential zoning meant that traffic flowed well. Izzy was a pioneer of "slugging", which worked very well due to the low crime rates and kind nature of Izzy residents. As for education and health, by the 1980s Izzy had an average EQ in the high 180s and a life expectancy in the low 90s. Industry was exclusively high-tech, and Izzy was known as "Silicon Mountain", in reference to its bustling computer industry. Izzy had very high adoption rates of cable, home computers, video game systems, and early internet services, no doubt helped by the fact that many of these things were made locally. But Samberg Volcano was waiting to destroy this little slice of Eden. On March 28, 1987, the volcano erupted without warning. Fortunately, the city was spared major damage, but the power plant was destroyed. Seismic activity at the volcano continued, and the town was evacuated within 3 days. By April 1, 1987, only about 700 people remained in Izzy, using generators and well water. These people soon congregated in the southern part of the city, away from the volcano, but all left by the mid-1990s as seismic activity in the volcano continued, with further major eruptions on February 16 and May 28, 1992, and December 19, 2005. Luckily, none caused serious damage to the town. The volcano finally calmed down in 2018, with a few intrepid explorers going into the town in the interim. Now, over 33 years after the town was abandoned, two former residents and three explorers go into the town to see what's left and what over three decades of decay has done. Melissa, a woman who was born here and was forced to leave town as a young adult, leads the expedition armed with a treasure trove of stories about daily life in the town decades ago. Billy, a 25-year-old man with Asperger's syndrome, has extensively researched the town for about 15 years and has had a dream to go there, and he's packed to the hilt with cameras to document every inch of the ghost town. David is a 38-year-old born in Izzy who doesn't remember it; this is the first time he's been here since he was 5. Megan is a 21-year-old trying to get started in the world of urban exploring, and Dirk is a 30-year-old man who thinks he can find ghosts in the ghost town. This could end up becoming a novel-length thing. If it goes well enough, I could edit it, add to it, and try to get it published. Oh, and Billy is loosely based on myself, I'm 27 and have Asperger's and am very interested in ghost towns. Enjoy these '80s pictures of Izzy. (Yes, they were technically taken in-game on 1/1/50).

Chapter 20 is out, and a very happy 57th birthday to Melissa!

Chapter 20 The explorers left the apartment, met up with Megan in the parking lot and got back in the van. Melissa drove the van down the avenue, until they reached an avenue-avenue intersection. Ahead of them was a steep, 20-degree slope. The road condition still looked reasonably good. “Imagine trying to get up that slope in a cheap ‘80s car like a Chevette.” said Megan. “I’ve been in a Ford Pinto going up this hill. Not fun, you have to floor it the whole way and it still got down to 15 mph. This was after it was known that they were explosive, too. Not fun.” said Melissa. “Do you think your van could get up there easily?” asked Billy. “No problem. Want to go up the hill?” asked Melissa. The others agreed, and Melissa drove the van up the hill, turned around at the crest, and drove back down, effortlessly. “Cars have come a long way.” said Billy. After proving the Odyssey’s prowess, the explorers went to a Baptist church. The church had several buildings, in various states of disrepair; a fire-hall like building was completely collapsed, and a small chapel was on the verge of collapse, but a gym building, and two other brick buildings still looked to be in relatively good shape. It was a sizable church, probably with a congregation numbering near a thousand, as well as a school, as evidenced by an overgrown sports field with a collapsed restroom building next to it. “This was the General Baptist Church of Izydorczak, the largest church in Izzy. I went here for the first 23 years of my life.” said Melissa. “I’m surprised this is the largest. I would have expected a megachurch somewhere. I’ve seen a lot of churches here, though.” said Billy. “Nope, we had 204 churches in Izzy. There would always be something going on at one near your house. Izzy was about 97% Christian, and probably close to 90% of people would be at church on any given Sunday morning.” said Melissa. “I know I go every Sunday. I would’ve probably enjoyed it here.” said Billy. “I would have welcomed you with open arms.” said Melissa. Melissa parked the van, and the explorers got out at the gym building. The building, which had a circular medallion at the top that said “1985”, was missing most of its roof shingles, but the building itself was still relatively intact. Some of the windows were blown out. “We only had, I think, 4 services in this gym. The building was brand new when it was abandoned, we’d just inaugurated it on March 1. Two years to build it, used for just a few weeks. I remember we had a $400,000 fundraiser to build this gym, I donated a grand myself. At least we know it was well built.” said Melissa. The gym’s wood floor was only buckled slightly. The red paint on the cinderblock walls was still mostly intact, and the school’s mascot, the Cavaliers, was still painted at the ends of the basketball court. About 400 chairs were set up for the March 29, 1987 service, which never came. There was little to the room that wasn’t visible from an overview look, so the explorers moved on to a hallway that served as a reception area. “Had this building been abandoned just half a day later, it would be in a lot worse shape. On this table, they always set out donuts and coffee.” said Melissa. A stack of church bulletins was on the wooden table, all dated March 29, 1987. “Can I have one?” asked Billy. “Yes, but just one.” said Melissa. Billy looked at the church bulletin, which was a six-page hamburger-style folded, stapled document typed out on a typewriter. The first page had statistics: membership of 626, last Sunday’s attendance of 831, peak attendance recorded August 3, 1986 at 1,017. Turning the page, Billy could see that the sermon planned for March 29th was “spiritual rebirth”. “How odd that the sermon would be on ‘rebirth’ the day after everyone in Izzy was forced to go through a major change, a rebirth in a different sort of way. Almost poetic. I think that God was trying to send the people of Izzy out into the rest of the world at large, to make it a better place.” said Billy. “I’d like to think so myself.” said Melissa. The next page of the bulletin listed upcoming events, and there was at least one for each day of the week: Monday’s homeless shelter ministry, Tuesday’s visit to the retirement home, Wednesday’s youth and college ministries, Thursday’s community lunch, and Friday’s game night. There was a total of 12 events one could go to – and even 3 job openings. “Someone could have practically lived here if they wanted to.” said Billy. “A few people did, mostly retirees or college students on summer break.” said Melissa. The explorers continued to find a plaque still hanging on the wall, intact, revealing the name of the gym as the “Jim Utz Memorial Gym”. Underneath was a short description of Jim Utz’s life. JAMES RICHARD UTZ – April 2, 1934 – October 8, 1984 Jim Utz was a life-long member of General Baptist of Izzy and brought a great deal of joy and comfort to everyone he encountered during his 50 years. He was often among the first faces our church members saw as a greeter and stood out as an especially kind member of our church. In addition to his impact at GBI, he also worked as a therapist and took great pride in his work. We dedicate this gymnasium to his memory. Dedicated Sunday, March 1, 1987 “That’s terrible, he died at only 50 and then his memorial plaque was only seen for a month.” said Megan. “What did he die of?” asked David. “Bowel cancer. My dad knew him for a few years, maybe about ’80 to ’83 or so? He looked for Jim again in the late ‘80s, looking to reconnect, but Jim had been deceased for a few years and he didn’t know because he’d been off at college, he’d been at a campus ministry but out of church.” said Billy. “That’s really sad, your dad was a blessed man for having known Jim though.” said Melissa. The explorers left the gym and went to the chapel. The chapel’s white paint was heavily chipped, the windows were all gone, and the whole structure leaned to the right at about a 5-degree angle. The building looked ready to keel over to the right and fall. “I presume you don’t want to go in this one, Megan?” asked Billy. “I don’t even want to get within 50 feet of it.” said Megan. “Yeah, this is a bridge too far even for me.” said David. “I guess it’s just me and you, Melissa.” said Billy. Billy and Melissa carefully walked into the chapel. “Do they have no standards on what they’ll explore?” asked David. The interior of the chapel was wrecked. The dark green carpet floor was cracked down the middle, leaving the left side of the floor intact, but the right side angled downward at about a 15-degree angle. The wall covering was nearly gone, leaving only a few bits of plaster and paint exposed amid the bare lath. The multicolored pieces of a stained-glass window were strewn about the choir’s area at the front of the chapel, amid a baby grand piano and digital organ. Near the broken windows, there was grass, 4 inches tall in some spots. Church bulletins were piled up against the right-side wall, next to a small end table; both had fallen whenever the floor had caved in. “Stay to the left.” said Melissa. There wasn’t much of the chapel they could explore; the stairs to the basement and upper level would have required walking over the obviously unstable floors on the right side of the room. Nevertheless, Billy got to a spot near the middle of the left wall and filmed the entire main room and what he could of the balcony. Looking back, both could see that the balcony was visibly sagging, and a section had fallen on the right side. The Bibles in the pews, which were wooden with upholstery the same color as the floor, were still largely intact, shielded from the elements by their pockets. Billy sat down in a pew and said a prayer for the explorers’ safety on the trip and thanked God for the opportunity. Melissa put her left hand on Billy’s head and joined him in prayer. About 15 seconds after the prayer was finished, Billy heard a cracking sound under him. “Oh, s- no!” he yelled, springing to his feet. “We gotta get out of here.” Billy looked down, finding the pew he was sitting in to be intact. Nevertheless, he and Melissa worried that there might have been hidden damage. Both quickly left the chapel. Back outside the chapel, Melissa and Billy re-grouped with the others, and they headed to the church’s main building – a sprawling, one-story building with orange roof tiles and a tan stucco exterior. Most of the windows were intact, and the building still seemed reasonably structurally stable, with the roof worn in spots but no visible holes. The explorers, including Megan, walked in through a bashed-out door window. Near the bashed-out window, moss grew on the burgundy carpet. On a marble countertop, there was a stack of church bulletins, although wind had blown a few of them off and scattered them on the carpet. About half of the white ceiling covering was missing, mostly closer to the entrance. An analog clock had stopped at 11:08. The rear wall of the lobby was painted with a cross and “GBI” above it. Two couches and two chairs were arranged, facing each other; the wooden end tables next to them were empty. Billy filmed the room, paying particular attention to the “GBI” painting before the explorers moved on to a supply closet to the left of the lobby. The supply closet, despite being less than a fifth the size of the lobby, proved to be far more interesting. Along the right wall was a stack of Bibles, 27 high and 15 wide. Somehow, they were all still standing perfectly still, despite the mess in the rest of the room; church bulletins, various religious books and games for Sunday school were scattered haphazardly. There were no holes in the ceiling or walls, and no wind in the room, which had a stale, musty odor. “I think they fell.” said Megan. “Well, what kept the Bibles standing?” asked David. “Divine intervention.” said Billy. Looking closer, the explorers could see that a stack of miscellaneous books that had fallen had stopped just an inch from the Bibles. While Billy filmed in the room and paid close attention to the dates on the scattered church bulletins – looking for the oldest he could find – Melissa waxed nostalgic on the games. “I remember the Noah’s Ark Operation game. We played it every so often when the lesson would be about the book of Genesis.” said Melissa. “We played this Trivial Pursuit Bible Edition game in my Sunday school, too.” said Megan. Billy saw a bulletin dated September 18, 1977 and decided to dig for older ones. June 2, 1968, January 4, 1959, July 22, 1956… all had the same general format as the 1987 ones. Then, he found the October 29, 1939 bulletin. “In a city were everything was ‘new’, here’s a rare artifact – a church bulletin from 1939, 48 years before the volcano.” said Billy. The bulletin was hand-written, and just one page. The attendance of 76 had been struck through and corrected to 77. The little errors on the page – no comma between Wednesday and November 1, Margaret spelled “Margeret” – also helped to paint a picture of a fledgling church in a fledgling town in the distant past. The lesson, on Habakkuk 3 – extolling that God always triumphs, even in bad times – wasn’t dressed up, just the scripture and some pastor’s notes. The church had two community lunches that week, as well as a radio broadcast of Sunday’s message the following Monday. While Billy busied himself collecting statistics from old church bulletins, the rest went into the sanctuary, finding it to be in somewhat worse condition – with a couple of small roof leaks. The carpet was forest green, contrasting with the burgundy in the rest of the church. The elevated stage platform at the front of the room was collapsed, the supports having rusted and crashed to the actual floor. The black lacquer Steinway piano had fallen with the stage but stood upright and intact on a flat piece of fallen stage. A Vox organ was not so fortunate; caught between two sections of stage collapsed at different angles, it had fallen on its front and was probably a total loss. Again, there were no pews, just the foldable chairs they’d found in the gym building. “Unusual design choice.” said Megan. “At one time, all the carpet was green. Some time in the late ‘70s they put the red carpet in the rest of the church but kept the carpet in here green.” said Melissa. The explorers spent about ten more minutes in the Sunday school classrooms and nursery at the back of the building before Billy left the closet and caught up with the other explorers. “What’d I miss?” asked Billy. “Not much, since the church was abandoned on a Saturday a lot of the stuff would have been put up, and the Sunday school classrooms don’t look all that different from school classrooms.” said Melissa. The explorers left the building and went to the back of the church campus, finding a sign that said “Mansion”. The mansion itself was nowhere to be found, having been crushed into matchsticks by a landslide that had come from the hill above. “I think this would have happened after one of the later eruptions, because I’ve never heard of any landslides happening during the initial eruption. I always heard they started happening years later.” said Billy. “Some of them happened within a couple days, but you’re right, every successive eruption and seismic event caused them. That’s one of the reasons it was so unsafe to come here until recently. There haven’t been that many landslides, luckily.” said Melissa. “I guess, since we haven’t seen any buildings destroyed by them until now.” said Billy. “There are a few in the northwestern part of town, and maybe a couple more in this part of town, but I’d say maybe 20 or 30 in the whole city.” said Melissa.

A few minutes late, but happy (or not) 31st birthday to Dirk - born April 18, 1990. Melissa's is on the 28th of this month, she'll be 57.

Chapter 19 The explorers got back in the van for another short trip, this time to a 6-story black building that had once been covered in smoked black glass panels. The ground around the building was covered in a layer of glass that was an inch thick in spots. “Can I talk to you for a second, Billy?” asked David. Billy and David began whispering to one another. “What do we do if those vases are worth a million bucks?” asked David. “Melissa’s not going to like this, but I want a cut of the money they’d be worth.” said Billy. “I was thinking something like 5% of what they’re worth.” said David. “Per person or for everyone?” asked Billy. “For everyone.” said David. “As much as I’d love the nearly 20 grand, I think that’s a bit excessive. I’m thinking more like 1 or 2%. We’d still each be getting several grand.” said Billy. “Hmmm, I think we could still do better. I guess we could start at like 3 or 4% and go down from there if we need to.” said David. “The truth is, it’s probably not worth millions. So, we’re probably only going to make a small chunk of money.” said Billy. “Do you guys feel comfortable exploring this building?” asked Melissa. “Heck no.” said Megan. “I reckon I’ll give it a try.” said Billy. “It’s borderline, but I’ll go in.” said David. The explorers looked in the parking lot of the building, trying to figure out what type of building it was. The highly functional design and nice cars in the parking lot – a mid- ‘80s Toyota Camry there, a W123 Mercedes E-Class there, a 3rd gen Firebird there – suggested an office building, but through the windows, they could see a lot more couches and chairs than in most office buildings. Nevertheless, the explorers reasoned that it probably just had a lot of conference rooms near the windows. “Anyone want to guess what this building was?” asked Melissa. “Some sort of modern, swanky office building?” asked Billy. “No.” said Melissa. “Lifestyle store, like what were those stores called, Design Research?” asked Billy. “Guess again, but there was a DR in this town, it’s on the itinerary for tomorrow.” said Melissa. “I don’t know, maybe some type of high-tech research building.” said David. “No. It was a set of trendy apartments. Think a New York City apartment, expensive, but you were in the middle of everything. Lots of artsy types lived here.” said Melissa. As the explorers walked toward the building, they found a pile of furniture – the contents of a living room. Looking up, they could see the cause: a section of flooring on the sixth floor that had tilted downward, allowing the contents to slide off. The 37-mph impact with the concrete of the parking lot had caused the items to become mangled – a couch’s black steel frame had been bent into a steep “V” shape, with the cushions scattered about. Bits of a 32-inch TV’s plastic casing lay strewn about, with the CRT assembly face-down on the ground, broken, with circuit boards and wiring sticking out. The books scattered around it was the only way that the explorers could tell that a pile of wood planks had once been a bookshelf. Somehow, a Macintosh computer had survived intact, still sitting on a cushion from a mangled office chair. Underneath a wood plank, Billy spotted a piece of paper. Looking closely, he could see the word “die”, so he pulled it out, careful to avoid the pieces of tempered glass from the building or the toxic chemicals from the TV tube just three feet away from the paper. Billy filmed the letter on the paper before stepping back from the building and sharing the letter with Melissa, David, and Megan. I’m about to die. It’s 10:26 pm, March 28th. People are running around, it’s total chaos out there. My husband and kids left and are somewhere in the crowd, but I fear that it’s a fool’s errand. The volcano is spewing huge chunks of rocks into the sky and it’s only a matter of time until it explodes and everyone in a 5 mile radius is killed. I’d rather spend my last moments in my house than trapped in traffic with screaming people all around me. Wally, Kristin, and Quentin, if you survive, just know that I love you, always and forever. Stay strong. A tear came to Billy’s and Megan’s eyes. Though they knew there were no fatalities, the thought of a mother facing what she thought was certain death for her and probable death for her family made them shudder. “Did you know of any people that stayed behind for a while, and what made them finally leave?” asked Megan. “I have a full evacuation report at home, I’ll bring it next trip. I think it was about 5 to 7% of people stayed behind initially, but most left after the power plant exploded about an hour after the eruption and all the power went out.” said Melissa. The explorers walked into the lobby of the building, carefully avoiding the shards of glass. Moss covered the ground inside. Water damage had worn most of the walls to their bare frames, revealing the building’s steel frame with wooden floors. The ceiling above was noticeably bowed where the wood was rotting, but rusting steel beams kept the ceiling from collapsing completely. There were a few paintings on the wall, but most had fallen down; only an abstract painting of a silhouette of the city still hung up. “I saw online that the glass walls started collapsing in 2004. I saw a picture taken on March 24th where they were all still up, by July 2nd they were down. So, some storm in the spring of 2004 probably took it down. I think I heard that water got in between the big glass panel and the roof and that’s what caused them to fall out.” said Billy. “Yeah, I always heard from my friends living there that the roof was a pain to maintain, between it being flat and loaded with snow in the winter, and the gasket clips. A sleek building, but too much was sacrificed to aesthetics.” said Melissa. Behind a desk, there were some letters still clinging to a wall that said “BLE E PAR M TS”. “Bleecker Apartments, named after the New York street.” said Melissa. “Built in 1973 and looks like ‘70s architecture. Anyway, I hear there’s a room in here that has a whole lot of National Geographics. Third floor, unit K I think.” said Billy. “Not sure if it’ll be safe, but we’ll try.” said Melissa. “I ain’t going above the first floor of this one.” said David. “That’s fine. If you change your mind, let us know.” said Melissa. Melissa led Billy to the stairwell, which provided the only respite from the winds from outside. The steel stairs were still relatively stable, though the top of the stairwell’s roof was collapsed several floors above them. They arrived at the third floor, into a square-shaped room about 15 feet on each side, and examined it, looking for holes and the layout of the steel beams. The red Berber carpet floor and the room were surprisingly intact, and the floor felt stable. There were no decorations in the room. The apartment units were labeled with 6-inch-high metal letters I, J, K, and L, next to their respective doors; while I and K had fallen, J and L were still there. Melissa carefully opened the door, which led into the apartment’s kitchen and dining room; Billy waited outside as Melissa tested the floor. “It’s fine over here to the right. Stay near the dining table. The floor is gone over to the left.” said Melissa. The kitchen appliances had disappeared into a large hole, about 12 feet by 6 feet, that extended from the roof to the 2nd floor. At the edges of the hole, the steel crossbeams were broken and distorted. The explorers carefully walked around the far end of the dining table. The floor was made a light oak wood, and the yellow walls had maps on them, much like an old Subway restaurant. A couple of dead ferns were in the room, along with a globe with a gold-plated base on the table. A 6-foot by 4-foot printed framed color photograph of a lush mountain jungle, labeled “Mountains of Cherrapunjee, India, October 3, 1980”, still clung to the wall farthest from the floor collapse. Holes in the walls allowed the neighboring rooms to be seen. Billy stood at the far wall, next to the photograph, and took pictures through the holes of the neighboring rooms, then walked over, stood about 3 feet from the hole in the floor, and got a video of the dining room, making sure to zoom in on the picture. As Billy turned around to film the hole, Melissa walked behind him, making sure he was in arm’s reach. A huge pile of appliances had fallen into the hole. A refrigerator lay with its door open, facing upward. It was unclear what floor the fridge had come from, but there was still food inside, with several egg cartons, condiments, and ground beef rolls still visible. There was evidence of lettuce and some vegetables’ packaging, but the vegetables themselves were long gone. In total, Billy counted 5 fridges, 5 ovens, 5 microwaves, 5 dishwashers, and myriad other appliances; the pile looked to be at least 8 feet tall in areas. Above it, there was a large hole in the roof, about half the size of the hole in the floor. “This building is swiss cheese.” said Billy. The living room was in somewhat better condition, with no holes in the ceiling or floor, though the dark maple flooring was buckled and warped in places. With no windows, the room felt somewhat sealed from the outside world. In the near-left corner of the room, a wooden, Art-Nouveau style couch with cream yellow cushions faced a large entertainment center with a big-screen Mitsubishi TV. Inside the entertainment center was a VCR, a large VHS camcorder, and a Sega Master System, along with a few various knick-knacks – another globe and a couple of tribal masks. A shelf next to the entertainment center, built into the left wall, had VHS tapes. Billy analyzed the collection, finding no recent big-name Hollywood releases, just documentaries, some TV shows with historical themes, a few older epic movies such as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra and Citizen Kane, and films of the resident’s travels. All were meticulously organized, and Billy made sure to get a close up of the shelf in his videos before grabbing his walkie talkie. “David, there’s some really cool stuff up here. All kinds of rare VHS tapes, artifacts from overseas, and National Geographics. Third floor, unit K. Do you want to come up?” asked Billy. “Are the floors stable?” asked David. “We’ll come get you. They’re sketchy in one room, but in the big, interesting room they seem fine. Melissa, can we go get David?” asked Billy. “Where are you at, David?” asked Melissa. “Lobby, near the stairwell.” said David. Melissa and Billy walked back down the stairs before carefully guiding David around the far side of the dining room table and into the living room. David’s eyes were immediately drawn to a desk on the near-right corner of the room. Billy finished looking at the VHS tapes; the first row had 37 tapes, with trip dates from 1963 to 1987, on all continents except Antarctica. “I wonder how they got trips from the ‘60s and ‘70s onto VHS? Slides, perhaps?” asked Billy. “Back then, you had to send your slides to a professional service to get them onto tapes. Quite expensive.” said Melissa. “I wonder what this person did for a living?” asked Billy. “He was a history professor named Hubert Yarbrough. Apparently, he’d been teaching quite a while.” said David. Billy walked over to the desk area where Billy was. A plaque on the wall showed Hubert’s PhD diploma, dated June 7, 1957 from the University of Izydorczak. Based on the dates on his other diplomas – high school from 1946, bachelor’s degree from 1951, and master’s from 1953 – they were able to determine that Hubert was born around 1928. “Oh, Hubert Yarbrough. My parents were friends of his in the early-mid ‘70s, maybe about 1973-1976 or so. He used to live in a big house in Kallal, I went there a couple times. I should have some pictures I took when I was about 11 at home. I wonder why he moved to an apartment?” asked Melissa. “I would have no idea.” said Billy. Billy and David looked at the papers in his rolling desk. On one shelf were his notes – the lesson for “Geography 211 – Helmintoller Regional Geography II” for Monday, March 30th was to cover the southeastern portion of the state, a beach area with a relatively mild climate and booming tourist industry. Billy already knew the information; David knew some but learned a few new things. “Wow, I had no idea that Mafia control was that bad on Carroll Island. These notes say 400 percent rise in tourism from 1970 to 1985, because they got the mob problem under control.” said David. “I have a personal story involving that. I was on vacation for my 10th birthday, so this would have been the end of April 1974. We got a 5-star hotel that was the only hotel in all of Helmintoller to have an automotive theme at the time, my dad was, and is, still a big car enthusiast. We’re getting settled, we love this hotel, the beds are very comfortable, there’s color TV, all that. At about 6:30 that evening a big, muscular man comes in and says we have to ‘beat feet, now.’ My dad asks him for a reason and asks to speak to the hotel manager. The man says, ‘I’m acting on orders of the manager, get out now’. My dad refuses, saying that he paid for the room and that he’d call the police, but the man pulled a gun and forced us out, wouldn’t even let us get our things. We were left without money, without our IDs, anything. It took us two weeks to get all that back.” said Melissa. “Holy cow! I can see why no one would want to stay there! Word gets around.” said Billy. “They told us not to go to the news or they’d find us and kill us. Luckily, the government had a big investigation going by the spring of 1974. The government advised everyone to stay out of Carroll Island that summer. In August they launched their attack. I remember seeing the man who forced us out of the room on the news in September being taken into custody after a police shootout. He tried to shoot the cops, got shot in the arm, and arrested. They called me and my parents in as witnesses in the trials. The head of the Mafia got life in prison.” said Melissa. “What happened to the man who forced you out of the room?” said Billy. “He got 15 years I think but died in 1986, four days before my birthday, still in prison.” said Melissa. “And two days before the Chernobyl incident.” said Billy. After looking at the desk, the explorers turned their attention to several large bookshelves at the other end of the room. The yellow magazines filling two of the shelves were decades of National Geographic magazines, though some of the issues were missing from the top shelf on the first unit. The issues were meticulously organized in chronological order, all the way up to the April 1987 issue. “I think this man had a complete National Geographic collection, but I’m seeing that some of the pre-1905 issues were stolen.” said Billy. “Well, hopefully they went to a good home.” said David. “Ebay, probably. The first issues are worth thousands a piece, up through about 1905 or so they’re worth over 100 bucks each. I’d say a good 90 percent of the dollar value of the magazines have been stolen, even though 90 percent of the magazines themselves are still here. I’m a Nat Geo collector, so I know.” said Billy. Billy filmed the bookshelves in the room, both the National Geographic shelves and the others – which were filled with binders, gradebooks, textbooks, and travel guides. Then, Melissa and David turned their attention to the artifacts on the left wall. Billy grabbed about 15 issues of National Geographic, which dated to various years between 1902 and 1906, as well as a Montserrat travel guide. Just as he turned to put them on a table behind him, Melissa turned toward Billy as he tried to hide the magazines behind his body. “What are you doing? You know we don’t steal.” said Melissa. “What about the Halcyon? You let me take that.” said Billy. “No one owns the Halcyon. The company that owned it went out of business in 1997. But we need to get permission from the owner of these National Geographics.” said Melissa. “Killjoy.” muttered Billy under his breath as he put the magazines back. I’m going to get Billy these magazines, if at all legally possible, thought Melissa. The explorers went into the bedroom. The bed stood precariously against the edge of the floor, with shattered glass and a curtain draped over the bed. The explorers stuck to the inner part of the room, and even that seemed to be chancing it, as the steel beams clattered under their feet. On the inner left side of the room, there was an end table, with an urn on it. A plaque next to the urn said, “Margaret A. Yarbrough, March 1, 1931 – March 14, 1980.” “That’s terrible. He was a widower.” said Billy. “That’s probably why he moved here. Some of the people, maybe 20 percent, who lived here were widows or widowers, they just wanted companionship.” said Melissa.

Chapter 18 After the explorers left the restaurant, the next location was a peculiar residential setup. On one side of the block was an ornate mansion, standing four stories high and looking somewhat like a medieval castle. Melissa drove the van around to the other side of the block, finding a park and a set of low-income apartments. “That’s what I love about living in Helmintoller. There aren’t many places where there would be a mansion and lower-income apartments on the same block – what, there was even a covered walkway between them!” said Billy. “Which side do you all want to see first?” asked Melissa. “Since we’ve seen a mansion already, why not look at the apartments.” said Billy. Melissa parked the van in front of the apartments. The red-brick, 1950s-style apartments were two stories high and 12 units wide, with a balcony running across the front. They were crumbling, with numerous holes in the roof, overgrowth, and even a wall collapse which left the interior of unit 210 exposed. Through the collapse, the explorers could see the contents of the unit’s living room; a console television, a green plaid patterned couch, a plywood, wood-veneered coffee table with a book still on it, and some type of unidentified computer monitor. The roof was bowed downward over the room. Billy got a close-up shot of the exposed room. About a third of the cars were left in the parking lot, mostly 1970s models. Bricks from the wall of room 210 had crushed the front end and roof of a red Chevy Monza. A tree grew between the front ends of a white Ford Gran Torino and a dark green 1979-1983 Toyota Corolla. While Billy, David, and Melissa went into unit 107, Megan began to look at the old cars. “I wonder which came first, the mansion or these apartments? And how well did the living arrangement work out? I’ve seen a few of these mansions next to lower-income housing.” asked Billy. “Worked out quite well, actually. There was very low crime, and people were close with their neighbors. They’d often meet in the parks or in between the two buildings. A lot of times, the wealthier residents would help some of the poorer residents get jobs, and they also got to see things and do things that many others in their situation wouldn’t have, like get to go to a mansion from time to time.” said Melissa. The living room of unit 107 had peeling harvest gold wallpaper, surely a remnant from the 1970s. The ceiling above was bowed and was completely made of exposed beams and lath, the covering having flaked off years ago. The tan carpet floor had numerous discolored, wet spots, obvious evidence of water damage, but the floor was still stable. A couple of abstract paintings were the only decorative items, but the contents of the room were more complete. The room’s contents included a Magnavox console TV, an overstuffed red cloth couch, a plywood coffee table, a couple of bookshelves, a small Yorx cassette boombox, and a folding card table with a plastic chair behind it and a Commander V50 computer with a disk drive on it. The bookshelves included the household’s cassette and computer software collection – about 50 tapes in all, as well as 25 floppy disks. “What percent of people in Izzy had computers when it was abandoned? Seems pretty high.” asked Billy. “I would say at least 80 percent of households had computers. Maybe close to 90. It was almost considered a necessity. Between Izzy-Net and Commander marketing, even the working class usually had a low-end computer. I remember the saying being that you could get a used V50 for 50 bucks.” said Melissa. After doing his normal filming of the room, Billy became enamored with the computer and the books, while the others took a more general look at the room. Billy soon zoned out in a Time Magazine issue dated February 16, 1987. “Billy, do you want to see the rest of the house or stay in here with your magazine?” asked Melissa. “I’m too deep in this magazine.” said Billy. Melissa and David went on to the next room, a small bedroom, square, about 10 feet on each side. Billy continued to read the Time magazine for about thirty seconds, before putting it up and joining Melissa and David. The bedroom was in a similar condition as the living room, but the wallpaper was a baby blue. The blanket was crumpled up in one corner of the twin bed, which was centered in the room with its head area against a wall. “I guess someone was sleeping and left in a hurry.” said David. David got a glimpse of some magazines under the bed and took a closer look. “Oh, dear.” he said. “What?” asked Billy. “Adult magazines.” said David. “Uh, let’s look at the rest of the room.” said Billy. A poster of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had fallen off the wall and was rolled up and water damaged on the floor; posters for “Back To The Future”, Duran Duran, Devo, and Kelly LeBrock still barely hung on. A 5-foot-tall wooden dresser in one corner of the room had a 1970s-model, off-brand black and white 13-inch television on it. A small desk in the other corner had a lamp, a small AM/FM clock radio, and a chair. Textbooks, which included Gold level literature, Biology, Algebra II, and BASIC Programming were still stacked on the far side of the desk, above a folder filled with various assignments. A half-built Lego model of the Millennium Falcon sat on the floor next to the desk; a half-finished algebra assignment, dated March 30, 1987, sat on the desk next to the folder, with a freshly sharpened Musgrave pencil next to it. Billy was tempted to try to finish the assignment. “I hated weekend homework growing up. HATED it.” said Billy. “You know what? So did I.” said Melissa. Billy pushed the papers in the folder out a short way, to get a reverse chronology of the dates, which he would use in his video of the room. “Another building, another story.” said Billy, off-camera. The next room was the master bedroom, located at the rear of the unit. This room was a bit larger, about 10 by 15 feet, with a bathroom on the far side; together, the rooms made up the entire 20-foot width of the apartment. The layout was like the kid’s bedroom, with the full-size bed parallel to the long end of the room, next to a broken window where the blinds had fallen off. A large crack ran down the wall and through the window, pushing the two halves of the rear wall out slightly, as if the walls were ready to burst open and whatever was above crash down. Several feet below the foot of the bed, there were two large armoires, made of engineered wood made to look like cherry, with a small table to their right holding a Yorx 13-inch television. A large photo of an east Helmintoller beach hung to the left side of the bed, while on an end table to the right, next to the window, was a clock radio identical to the one in the kids’ room and a multi-colored glass lamp. Through the window, the explorers could see the garden that had been in the mansion’s backyard. The once meticulously maintained garden had grown into a tangled mass of multi-colored leaves. Cypress trees towered over the mansion, which was barely visible through the foliage. To the right of the garden, a vine reached its way into a broken window on the mansion’s third floor. “That would have been a pretty view at one time.” said Melissa. “Have you ever been to these apartments?” asked Billy. “Yes, once, but I’ve also been to a couple other similar sets.” said Melissa. “For low-priced housing, these were pretty nice. How much was rent here?” asked Billy. “I think about $180 a month, so maybe like $400 today.” said Melissa. In the bathroom, there was a two-inch gap between the inner and outer wall, and the ceiling above bowed just above the bathtub dramatically. Billy quickly filmed the room and left, reasoning that the bathtub on the floor above was getting ready to come crashing down. The final room to explore was the kitchen, a generic kitchen with avocado green countertops over gold-colored counters. The walls were the same yellow as in the living room. Appliances included an Amana fridge, an oven/range, and a microwave. Billy carefully opened one of the cabinet doors, finding stale food still boxed and canned and a hole in the wall where he could see into the next apartment unit. Poking his camera through the hole, he took a picture and quickly analyzed it. “What’s in there?” asked David. “Looks like a college student’s bedroom. I saw a fraternity paddle for Theta Phi Epsilon, football schedule, some textbooks, and a Commander 64K. And lots of posters on the wall. Can we look at it, Melissa?” asked Billy. Melissa checked her watch. “Sounds good.” The explorers left unit 107, finding Megan next to a sporty car, covered in moss, with all the windows broken and tires deflated. Due to the decay, the type of car wasn’t immediately recognizable; only that it had been orange in a past life. A tree next to the car explained some of the decay. “I can’t tell what kind of car this is, but it looks nice.” said Megan. The other explorers took a closer look at it. “Lancia Fulvia Coupe.” said Billy. “There are no badges left on it, how’d you know?” asked Megan. “I’ve had a thing for Fulvias my whole life. I know Fulvia Man himself.” said Billy. “Fulvia Man?” asked Megan. “This man can tell you anything about any Fulvia. He’s a walking Fulvia encyclopedia. He has three Fulvias and a room in his house dedicated to Fulvias. He’s loved them since they came out when he was a teenager, that would make him, I think, 74 now.” said Billy. Billy filmed the Fulvia inside and out before his face turned suddenly dour. “I can’t look at this Fulvia anymore, it’s going to make me cry.” While Megan stayed outside, the remaining explorers went into unit 108. The living room was painted red, and the paint was in oddly good shape. The flooring was the same tan carpet as in 107. On the left side of the ceiling, against the wall between units 107 and 108, was a hole, about a square foot, with a television half-fallen through it. Aside from a fairly standard red cloth couch and TV, there was a plastic red coffee table with a Scuderia Ferrari logo on it, and several car posters – Alfa Romeo Spider Graduate, Lamborghini Countach, Jaguar XJ12, BMW M1. “Someone who lived here must have had a thing for European sports cars. Could this be the Fulvia owner?” asked Billy. There were no computers in the room, but there was an Atari 2600 hooked up to the TV, its controllers still in situ on the coffee table. The other side of the room had two bookshelves, one less than half-full and containing mostly textbooks, the other full of car magazines, as well as textbooks. Both also had “The Theta Phi Epsilon Creed” in them – evidence that the residents here were college roommates in the same fraternity. The corkboards on the wall further showed the divergent interests of the two roommates. The left corkboard had pictures from fraternity parties and football games, while the right corkboard was cars, cars, and more cars: pictures of cars, pictures of the resident inside cars, and ride receipts from the supercar center. “I always liked the Theta Phi Epsilons. Good guys. We had homecoming with them my sophomore year.” said Melissa. “I’ve had a good experience with them myself.” said Billy. “They had good heads on their shoulders. Did you happen to know the person who lived here?” asked David. “No, I think they were a freshman, so they would have come in the fall after I left.” said Melissa. Billy examined the car pictures. “Look up here. There’s a man posing next to an orange Fulvia, and the same man in what looks like the Fulvia’s interior. Fulvia owner confirmed. Guy had a Fulvia and was in a fraternity, I’m jealous.” said Billy. “That’s the life.” said David. “Look at this record. I’m counting 73 supercar rides in about 3 years, 1984 to 1987.” said Billy. The explorers proceeded to the room that Billy had seen through the hole in the wall, but didn’t stay long, before going to the master bedroom. There were some automotive artifacts; a couple automotive posters, one for the Fulvia and one for a W126 Mercedes S-Class, as well as about twenty model cars, all European except for a C4 Corvette, on a small table. A Porsche 959 model car was abandoned in mid-construction. Some of the cars were rusting. There was also a Commander 64K on a small desk, along with many disks and papers with BASIC programs typed out on them. Many of them had assignment markings; a five-page assignment, labeled “Intro to BASIC Final Exam” and dated December 11, 1986 had a grade of 105 on it with a comment from the professor “Daniel, this is junior-level work from a freshman.” “Hmmm, I wonder what Daniel V. Palmer is up to today?” asked David. “My dad might know him. I’ll have to call him. He told me that he knew a guy with a Fulvia in college, but he sold it long before I was born.” said Billy. Billy took pictures of the BASIC programs, intending to try them out himself. After he finished filming the room, he realized he had only 14 seconds left of video on his SD card. “I have to change out my SD card when we finish exploring this unit.” said Billy. Melissa handed him the keys to the van, and Billy went to the van and hit the unlock button, which did nothing. She forgot she left her van unlocked, he thought. He opened the passenger door and got into the glovebox to swap out cards, before shutting the glove box. He noticed an “SRS Airbag” on the glove box door and took his camera bag out of the glove box. He found Megan taking pictures outside about 15 feet from the van. “Just curious, why’d you take your camera bag out of the glove box?” asked Megan. “I don’t want it smashed by Melissa’s glove box airbag.” said Billy. “It’ll be fine. It’s happened to me.” said Megan. “With a glove box airbag?” asked Billy. “Yup, steering wheel airbag, passenger airbag, my knee airbag, glove box airbag, and both the side airbags on my side. I don’t know why the airbags went off on the passenger side, I had no passenger, and the car was supposed to have advanced airbags. Also, the side airbags, I was told they went off because I hit at an angle, but it wasn’t that bad of a crash. Someone ran a red light and I hit them at about 35 miles per hour. I wasn’t hurt at all, the steering wheel airbag held me in the seat, so I barely moved. After the crash, I moved the deflated passenger airbag out of the way and opened the glove box. The glove box airbag fell down on its own.” said Megan. Melissa and David walked out of the abandoned apartment. “Ready to go to the mansion?” asked Melissa. “Let’s do it. You coming for this one, Megan?” asked Billy. “Looks a bit sketchy, I’ll just stay out here.” said Megan. All the explorers walked through a passageway between units 106 and 107 in the apartments, then down a sidewalk to a side entrance of the mansion, where Megan split off and began taking pictures of the front of the mansion. The remaining explorers gently opened the door. The room they found themselves in was cavernous – and very moldy. Even through their masks, the stench was overpowering. The floor above had collapsed, spilling the contents of the rooms above onto the former ice rink. The floor above that bulged downward, threatening to collapse. In the rubble, bits and pieces of a living room were visible; a couch, crumpled and standing on its end; a large rear-projection television that had somehow stayed relatively intact; and a couple of computers. The explorers immediately left after Billy had filmed an overall shot of the room and walked along the side of the house to the next entrance, on the side of the house near the front. They entered a large room, about the size of three of the apartment units put together. The room was still in decent condition; about half of the ceiling covering was missing, some of the wood paneling on the walls had been eaten by termites, and the wooden parquet floor was buckled and warped in a few spots. There was a slight odor of mold. “I guess this was the meeting point for the whole complex.” said Billy. A roller coaster cart, suspended between two rails, said “Virtucoaster” on it, presumably controlled by an unidentified type of Commander computer. “Oh, I loved the Virtucoaster as a kid!” said David. “They had a virtual roller coaster at a family fun center I went to when I was a kid, but it was enclosed and had a big screen at the front, so it was like you were on a VR track.” said Billy. “This one wasn’t quite so fancy. This cart would simulate a roller coaster’s movements, it would flip you upside down and tilt you every which way. It was unrealistic as heck, but fun.” said David. “I also rode the Virtucoaster a lot in college. There were several here in Izzy.” said Melissa. Billy made sure to get a video of every inch of this contraption he’d never seen before, including the severe rust on the joints. “If you tried to use this today, it’d snap apart.” said Billy. Next to the Virtucoaster were tables filled with board games, including Clue, Life, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, checkers, chess, and Go for Broke. “Did every mansion in Izzy have an entertainment room? Both of the ones we’ve been to have.” asked Billy. “It was very common, probably 70 percent had one, but most weren’t this big. Some charged admission.” said Melissa. “Were there any reclusive millionaire types, the ones that didn’t want to be bothered?” asked Billy. “Not here in Izzy. Izzy was a town that wasn’t very well suited for recluses. They existed, but there weren’t many, and certainly not millionaires.” said Melissa. “I love people from Izzy. Everyone I’ve ever met is really nice and willing to talk to you.” said Billy. “My parents taught me from a very young age, ‘Be kind to everyone. Everyone’s in your life for a reason.” said Melissa. “Yeah, too bad Dirk didn’t get the memo.” said Billy. The explorers trudged on in the room, finding a bank of TVs with video game consoles hooked up – three NESes and two Sega Master Systems. Past the TVs, against a back wall, were two dartboards. “Nice. Someone got a bullseye here.” said David. Pool tables, five Dostim Plus computers, and a DJing booth rounded out the main part of the room, but an alcove of the room had a large dining table. The dining table was a U-shaped unit, custom-built from hand-hewn wood with a granite top, with a total of 26 green leather chairs around it. What caught more attention than the chair, however, were the countertops at the corners of the room. There was a collection of 12 Chinese vases, intact, still in glass cases. Billy carefully filmed the vases; knowing little about Chinese vases, he was silent, figuring he could do some research later to determine their rarity or authenticity. Melissa came over and began to look at the vases herself. “I’m not an expert on Chinese vases myself, but I’ve studied them some. These don’t look to be super-rare, but they still look to be worth potentially several thousand dollars apiece. Let’s document these vases, and attempt to contact the owner.” said Melissa. “I say we just take the things and at least put them in a stable building. The whole floor collapsed in the next room over, from what I assume was water damage from that ice rink next door, so we’ve already got water in the envelope of the building.” said Billy. “You’re right, but I think this is stable enough that it’ll last a week, so let’s keep them in here for the time being. There’s a good chance that no one owns it, though. I was here, once, in 1981 and I remember the owners being an older Chinese couple, probably in their early to mid-60s. I’m sad to say it, but they’ve probably passed from old age, and no one would have taken over property in an active volcanic area.” said Melissa. “So, if there’s no owners, what happens?” asked Billy. “Contact the next of kin and see what they want to do with them.” said Melissa. Billy almost said, if there’s no owners, why not take them, before realizing that had the volcano not happened, the vases would have probably been handed down. David came to the same conclusion. Both were bummed that they may not be getting the thousands – with a slight chance of it being millions – from the vases. Billy documented the vases. “409 Oakley Road, Izydorczak, Helmintoller. Twelve ancient Chinese vases in danger due to abandonment and structural instability.” After examining the kitchenette, which featured a refrigerator, stove, oven, microwave, and food processor, the explorers went to the door that led into the house and found it locked. “I guess there was some attention paid to security here.” said Billy.

Chapter 17 After a short, 200-foot drive in the van, the explorers arrived at a car dealership, Izydorczak Honda. As they walked toward the dealer, they noticed a payphone with a big green “GT” sign on top of it. “Can you help me explain GT to our non-Helmintoller viewers?” asked Billy, filming the payphone. “I was GT’s president from 2011-2016 and drove for them from 1985 to a few months after my presidency ended, when I switched to Uber. I think I can help you out.” said Melissa. “I also did a year with them, back in 2010-2011, before I quit when I got a new job and didn’t have time anymore.” said David. Billy turned her camera to Melissa. “Hi, I’m Melissa Murphy, former president of Great Transport. I drove for them from 1985 to 2016 and served as president from 2011 to a few months before I finished my 31-year career with them. Basically, GT was a forerunner of Uber in many ways. In the mid-1960s, a college student named Edward Medley had an idea for his fellow students to help the community and make a little extra money. Due to technical and legal reasons, he couldn’t set it up until 1973. Back in the days of Izzy, it worked with pay phones. You’d call a marked number on a pay phone, and it would broadcast a type of radio signal that you had to have a special type of receiver in your car to pick up. The GT drivers had these receivers, which had LED screens on them, and when someone needed a ride and you were within 2-3 miles, it would light up the number of the payphone. So, if someone were at this payphone, it would light up IY-58. Nowadays, it works with GPS, like Uber and Lyft and things like that.” “Sounds confusing. Always had a lot of respect for the early GT drivers.” said David. “We had to drive around the city and area for a few months as part of training to get used to where everything was, and we kept maps – paper maps – on top of our dashboards.” said Melissa. “How was the pay? I want to drive for GT in a year or two.” asked Billy. “Usually about 60-70 cents a mile when I started, about $1.50, maybe a bit less, now. It was luck of the draw on what car you got, though they all had to meet certain safety standards. If you wanted a luxury car or an exotic, it might be 3 to 5 times more.” said Melissa. “What was the most expensive thing you could get driven in?” asked Billy. “Follow me.” said Melissa. The explorers walked across the street, and then about a block over, to find a brick building with numerous supercars in the parking lot that had decayed to the point of undrivability. The destroyed Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Aston Martins, and several other niche-branded cars were covered in decades of mud, pollen, and moss. Most of the tires were deflated, and some of the windows had broken. Melissa walked over to a Porsche 959, so thoroughly decayed that it couldn’t be determined what color it had originally been. A broken front passenger side window meant that the interior was in similarly wretched shape. “This Porsche 959 cost $300,000 when we got it back in 1986. I actually drove it several times. A ride in it would set you back 25 bucks a mile.” said Melissa. “Was it in general circulation, so one might get really lucky and get a ride in it at the cost of a normal car?” asked Billy. “No, it was exclusive, you had to book it.” said Melissa. “25 bucks a mile. Did you get a lot of customers? Also, what about the other supercars, how much did they cost per mile?” asked Billy. “We had appointments booked up solid, 8 am – 8 pm, non-stop from October of ’86 through to January ‘87, then it calmed down a bit. We ended up paying for the car by January 1st, then we knocked the price down to 10 bucks a mile. Most of the car enthusiasts in the area got to it when it was 25, before January 1st, so we weren’t slammed at 10. Most of our other supercars were in the 7 to 10-dollar range per mile. I personally usually drove the supercars on Mondays, which were one of my days off. I think the schedule they had me on was every third Monday, 2 pm – 8 pm.” said Melissa. Billy turned on the camera to film Melissa again. “What was that like, driving people around in supercars?” “I enjoyed it. They gave us our car assignments ahead of time and swapped us out every two hours. Most of the people took the standard five-minute, one mile ride so I was meeting new people every five minutes. Most were younger men or boys, between about 10 and 40. The kids and the hardcore enthusiasts were my favorite. They were always so happy. As for the drives themselves, we had a route we were supposed to take, we’d go up the road, make a left, down the avenue a few blocks, turn by the black glass apartment, make a left, down the road, down to the next avenue over, another left and finally back. If someone booked a 15-minute ride, I’d usually take them out on the interstate. On the standard 5-minute rides, I’d only get to 45, 50 miles per hour, but if someone booked a 15 or more-minute ride, I’d take them out on the interstate and punch it.” said Melissa. “What’s the longest ride you ever took someone on?” asked Billy. “We had a limit of 30 minutes per ride. One guy paid $150 for a 30-minute ride in the 959, the Monday before the volcano. We got a good 10 miles out on the interstate, up to 140 mph. Younger man, about 21 years old.” said Melissa. “You never got pulled over?” asked Billy. “The left-most lane was a ‘high-performance’ lane, no speed limit once you got 2 miles out of the city.” said Melissa. All but Megan walked into the building, entering a semi-circular room, about 20 feet long at its midpoint, with windows along all its exterior walls. Most of the windows were broken, and ducting was hanging down from the ceiling, which, other than its joists, had completely came out. Moss and grass covered parts of the oak wood floor, which was buckled and warped. On the outer side of the room, there were 27 chairs arranged; two rows of 10 each facing one another, with the remaining 7’s backs against the outer wall. Against the wall, to the left side of the row of 7 chairs, were the remains of two bookshelves lying on the floor; some of the books and magazines had fallen outside the building, into the grass, and the bookshelves themselves looked termite eaten. The explorers looked at this side of the room first. The pile of books primarily consisted of 1980s car magazines; Road and Track, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, and some even Billy had never heard of. “Wait a minute, ‘How to Test-Drive Exotic Cars’? Never thought I’d see a book called that.” said David. “Let me see that.” said Billy, opening the book. “Copyright 1980 claimed until April 30, 2000. After that date, this book is in the public domain.” “Mmm, 20 years of copyright, seems reasonable for a book like this.” said Melissa. “My dad had this book as a kid. He test-drove everything. There was this one exotic car dealer where they normally wouldn’t even let you touch the cars unless you were wealthy, because they had this manager who had a chip on his shoulder. They had stuff that they wouldn’t have even had here. My dad went there 16 times to test-drive or ride in something unsuccessfully. Then, the 17th time, the manager wasn’t there, turns out he was out for a year. The man shows up and test-drives 5 cars including a Ferrari 288 GTO. This was in July of 1985, by the way. He was 23.” said Billy. “Wow, he sounds like a persistent person.” said David. “He told me, never give up on your dreams. He wouldn’t go to a car dealership 17 times now like that, but he did end up getting a good job as an automotive journalist, before becoming a Volkswagen specialist. It’s almost scary what that man can do if he puts his mind to it.” said Billy. “I’d love to meet him, he raised you right.” said Melissa. “Thank you, he’s a great man.” said Billy. “Anything you’ve wanted to test drive?” asked David. “Actually, I’ve test driven every current Honda except the current generation Odyssey.” said Billy. “Well, you’ll have a full list soon.” said Melissa. “Thanks for wishing me luck – Oh, you’re going to let me drive your van?” asked Billy, realizing the meaning of Melissa’s words. “Yes, once we finish our exploring, you can drive us home once we get out of Izzy.” said Melissa. “You’re kidding, right?” asked Billy. “No, I’m serious. You’re more than welcome to drive my van.” said Melissa. “What if I wreck it?” asked Billy. “I have 8 airbags to take care of us. But seriously, if I’m in the car, my insurance will cover it.” said Melissa. Billy was so excited, he nearly tripped on a December 1985 Car and Driver as he walked away from the bookshelves to the other side of the room. The inner side of the room had a tall counter that concealed a Commander Dostim Plus and a red cloth office chair covered in bird droppings. Underneath the counter, near the foot area, was a generator. Billy looked at the case, covered in fine dirt, closer and found that a red LED was still on. He moved the mouse, but nothing happened. Finding a power button on the keyboard, he pressed it, and the computer’s fans whirred to life, followed by a screen that said “DostimOS”. “THIS COMPUTER FREAKING WORKS!” shouted Billy. Melissa almost said, “Turn that off”, but remembered that the computer was on a generator. She and David walked over as it finished booting to an operating system largely resembling a first-generation Macintosh, but in full color. “Why is there a generator on this computer?” asked Billy. “They always told us that it was in case of a power grid interruption from volcanic ash, like if there was a minor earthquake or eruption.” said Melissa. “They would have never guessed it would go 33 years without being used.” said Billy. There were three folders on the desktop: CARSCHED, DRIVERS, MAINTENA, and “FINANCIA”. “The names are shortened because the OSs of the time could only do 8 letter file names.” said Billy. Billy clicked on the “CARSCHED” folder, then on a file called “POR959~1”. It was a spreadsheet file, last modified 03/28/87 8:02 pm. It opened to a sheet with a date/time, driver, driver birth date, customer, and customer callback number. The first entries were dated October 4, 1986; the first line said 8:00 am, Driver 1906, April 27, 1958, Randy Watson, 2-961-492-3308. “What’s your driver number?” asked Billy. “2844.” said Melissa. “I see that guy you were talking about. 2:10 – 2:40 pm, March 23, 1987. Does anyone know a John Durso?” asked Billy. “Haven’t seen him since ’87.” said Melissa. “What was with the driver birth dates?” asked David. “The minimum age to be a driver was 21, but a few people wanted their driver to be older, like 25 or 30.” said Melissa. Billy scrolled the page down. The week following the volcano had at least 100 people booked, and there were pages for booking all the way out to September 30, 1987, though the last booking was on September 5. “When did this place reopen? I’d be pretty peeved if I were one of those people who had a supercar ride canceled.” said Billy. “Sadly, it took a while. We had a temporary location with a limited selection of cars in October, so 7 months later. We reopened at our new permanent location in June of ’88 and held our grand opening on July 30th of that year.” said Melissa. “And the funny thing is that my dad told me that they opened as close to that dealership manager’s house as they legally could, like a half mile or something. Was that coincidence or intentional?” asked Billy. “If it’s who I’m thinking of, we did it on purpose. I wasn’t involved in that decision, though. That came from the big boss, Mr. Messenbaugh, himself.” said Melissa. “Did you work there, and how long?” asked Billy. “Yes, until 1992 when I had my first child, and didn’t have time anymore.” said Melissa. Billy looked at Melissa’s driver profile and a financial statement from 1986. “This place made over 4½ million dollars in 1986? Holy guacamole.” said Billy. “Yeah, this place was always full.” said Melissa. “I’m thinking we should turn off the computer before we use up all the power in the generator and go look at that Mongolian restaurant across the street. I’ve heard that place is nuts.” said Billy. “Everybody ready to go?” asked Melissa. “Yeah, and I think I ate at that restaurant once, wouldn’t remember it though.” said David. The explorers left the car center as a tear came to Billy’s eye. “All those cars, just rotting away. All those cars that brought thousands of people joy.” said Billy. The restaurant, called simply “Buuz Grill” – evidenced by its label scar, as all nine letters had fallen off – was designed to look like a giant Mongolian yurt, complete with a fabric motif on its desert sand-colored exterior. The exterior was overgrown, save for the entrance, although the building appeared to have no windows. The parking lot was about 10 percent full. “I think I’m going to try this one out.” said Megan. All the explorers went inside, finding a large room, filled with tables and chairs, underneath a 20-foot-high ceiling. A fine dust, consisting mostly of flaked-off ceiling material, covered the tables. Many of the tables still had plates on them, the food having rotted to nothing long ago. The floor was made of copper colored stone, and the walls were covered in a large, intricately painted mural that looked somewhat Asian; the explorers could only assume that it was Mongolian as well. “Wow, they really went far with the realism. Was this a trendy restaurant?” asked Megan. “It was quite popular, and believe it or not, open for many years before the volcano, I think since the ‘60s. After the volcano, it re-opened in Wheatley.” said Melissa. “I’ve never heard of Buuz Grill, and I go to Wheatley a lot. Must have closed.” said Megan. “Changed its name to Mongo Grill back in the early ‘90s, and eventually merged with Genghis Grill about 2001 or so. So, if you’ve been to the big Genghis Grill in Wheatley, that’s the old location of Buuz Grill.” said Melissa. “This place still reminds me of a Genghis Grill.” said Billy. Billy picked up one of the menus left behind on a table. There were only a few items on the menu, none of which included vegetables. “Big Buuz Buffet Bowl, 4 bucks. Man, I would stuff myself so much at that price.” “I guess you don’t need a big menu at a buffet. Most people got a buffet bowl and called it a day.” said Melissa. Billy continued down to the drinks section. “They had airag here too. Why doesn’t that surprise me? And they also had alcohol-free airag.” said Billy. “I’ve never had this airag stuff.” said Megan. “Fermented horse milk. It’s an acquired taste.” said Billy. “I wonder why there’s no vegetables on the menu. I mean, I hate vegetables, but I’m surprised.” asked Billy. “Traditional Mongolian cuisine doesn’t have many vegetables because their climate doesn’t allow for much vegetable farming. As I understand it, it gets to below 0 in the winter there for months on end and then up to 100 degrees in the summer.” said Melissa. “That’s about right.” said Billy. The explorers walked into an alcove of the building, where the buffet had been. There was a hole in the roof directly above it. The stickers that showed what had been in the serving troughs were still there, beef, sirloin steak, mutton, lamb, goat, chevon, camel, pork, bacon, Harbin sausage, and even yak. A black, ash-like substance covered every serving trough; bird droppings covered the glass shield and surrounding areas. Spices, which had deteriorated to stale powder, were in troughs next to the meat. There was no area for vegetables. Megan got a whiff of the smell of rotten meat and stale spices and left. “Wait a minute, who would eat yak?” asked David. “Why don’t the Mongolian restaurants nowadays have some of these meats?” asked Billy. “Yak is quite good, at least in my experience, sort of like low-fat beef that’s a little sweeter. But some of those meats were expensive and hard to get, especially after Nelson International Meats scaled down their operations after the ‘90s. It just wasn’t profitable. You can still get yak and camel in some places, but they won’t always have it and it’ll be expensive.” said Melissa. “Sad that the most unique ideas end up watering themselves down or closing.” said Billy. “Well, it’s probably good that they don’t sell those meats as often. Yak and camel don’t sit right with me.” said Megan. Next up was the ovens that the meats would be cooked on. The explorers recognized the large, table-like oven, but the jugs – each about two feet tall, on a small counter – were new to all but Melissa. A large barrel, filled with stones about the size of a fist, was next to the jugs, and a fire pit was next to the barrel. “What’s with the rocks?” asked David. “That’s a type of traditional Mongolian barbecue, called Khorkhog or something like that. They put the stones over a fire to get them hot, then they put the hot stones into the jugs with water and meat. At the time, this was the only restaurant in all of Helmintoller to serve it.” said Melissa. “Sounds inefficient, but I suppose it works better in Mongolia.” said Billy. “You’d always have a few people standing and watching as they cooked the khorkhog. I remember being 8 years old, standing in this very spot, standing on my tiptoes, so mesmerized by the cooking process. A couple helped hold me up so I could see better.” said Melissa. “That’s so nice of them. Any more good stories involving this place?” said Billy. “I remember, when I started working at the supercar place, I was driving some probably 50-year-old guy in a Bentley Turbo R, and they’d brought in some Buuz in a cup and snuck it into the car. While we were driving, he got it out and started eating. I hit the gas, and the food got all over him and the interior of the new car. I hear him scream out the S word, look over and see him covered in meat chunks with his hands up. I was new and wasn’t expecting the car to accelerate so suddenly, but needless to say it’s a bad idea to bring food on a supercar ride.” said Melissa.

Chapter 16 The explorers got back in the van, and Billy swapped his SD card. The explorers drove east, past a row of student apartments, before driving past a wealthy residential section of town. “These were professors’ houses, some of the coaches and college deans lived here as well.” said Melissa. Billy filmed them. “Did you ever go to any of them?” asked Billy. “Yeah, I’ve been to the football coach and the dean of the engineering college’s houses. Both were at open house events.” said Melissa. The explorers reached an avenue, labeled as “Avenue B”, and turned left, heading north through a middle-class residential district. Ahead of them, they could see a massive, completely collapsed stone and brick building. “That was the Broadway Playhouse, it had been abandoned for decades even before the town itself.” said Melissa. Billy began recording the playhouse ahead of them. “That big, completely collapsed building up there was called the Broadway Playhouse. It’s been abandoned a lot longer than the rest of the town, probably some time around 1970. In its day, it was a very ornate building that played Broadway plays. People would pay, in today’s money, 500 bucks to get a ticket. Eventually, and I’m not sure why, people just stopped coming. I think it had something to do with a shift in the types of plays and improvements in the quality of movies. People still watched plays, but they mostly became a thing that went to smaller and cheaper venues, like colleges and more generalized performing arts centers. The saying went ‘Why would I pay 100 bucks’, and this was back in the ‘60s, ‘for a musical when I can pay 5 bucks for a movie or an amateur performance that’s almost as good?” said Melissa. “Well then how do they make money with Broadway?” asked Megan. “Much bigger market, much bigger pool of customers.” said Melissa. Melissa stopped the van in front of the playhouse. Through the collapse, the explorers could see an opera box, probably on the third level, with red chairs with gilded trim, surrounded by Art Deco-style decoration, gold-colored with green accents. More bits of the once-grand glory of the theater showed through on the ground level, where broken-out front doors revealed a beautiful marble floor in the lobby, largely covered by fallen roof. Billy walked to the threshold of the doors and filmed what he could of the interior, including a mangled chair that had come through a hole in a wall, made of red leather and brass. The explorers looked for clues as to what might have played at the theater. “Can I walk into the lobby a little bit? There’s no basement, and everything collapsed decades ago.” asked Billy. “Grab a hard hat, and don’t leave my sight.” said Melissa. Billy and Melissa donned their hard hats, and Billy carefully walked onto the marble floor as Melissa followed. The lobby still had sections of roof, although about half were missing. Billy first walked to the doors that led into the theater, filming through the broken window. What he found were more of the opera boxes like he’d seen from the outside, along with a floor section that was a minefield of destroyed chairs and red roof tiling. The walls behind and surrounding the stage area had fallen forward into the seating area and collapsed roof. The stage itself was empty, just a platform covered in warped cherry wood. Billy then turned his attention to the ticketing area. The letter marquee sign had fallen. The counter was empty. Looking to the area beneath the marquee, he found ten letters. “H, L, E, L, O, D, L, L, Y, O. It’s Hello, something, I think. Hello Dolly?” asked Billy. “Yeah, I think I remember hearing something about that one.” said Melissa. “When’s it from? I know it’s post-1956 because I saw a picture of this theater from 1956, and it was playing The King and I.” asked Billy. “Not sure, but probably ‘60s. I don’t ever remember seeing this theater open. I think I was about 7 or 8 when I saw it for the first time, and it looked kind of dingy then, so it was definitely closed by ’72.” said Melissa. In the meantime, David was looking into the lobby himself. “I used to work in a movie theater in high school. They might have old ticket stubs under the counter.” he said. Billy opened a wooden door. The musty stench was overpowering, but he found three old ticket stubs, all three of which said “October 31, 1965” on them. “I guess that settles that.” said Melissa, as they left the theater and walked across the street to a Lechmere store. “I loved Lechmere! Used to go there all the time to get video games until they closed when I was 16.” said David. “I think most of us in the 30 plus age group loved Lechmere.” said Melissa. “I’ve always wanted to go to a Lechmere. They closed when I was one year old.” said Billy. Even though a full-grown tree was growing in the parking lot, the Lechmere building itself still looked to be in relatively good condition. The white siding was covered in grime and pollen and had numerous holes in it, but the windows on the front doors were intact. Billy filmed Melissa talking about the store. “I remember the day this Lechmere opened. It was March 1, 1985, and they advertised it for months. Everybody in town was so excited to finally get a Lechmere, they always had the best selection of electronics but the nearest one was an hour and a half drive. The day it opened, the parking lot was full, and people were parking across the street at the abandoned theater, which was still standing and structurally stable at the time. It was a big deal.” said Melissa. The explorers walked into the store, with Megan staying behind. A faint light from the glass doors illuminated the front counters but the interior was otherwise pitch black, save for a couple of cracks in the roof where light came in, so once again, flashlights were required in this nearly perfectly preserved monument to ‘80s state of the art technology. The first area they got to was the music section. There were four sections for vinyl records, miscellaneous formats, cassettes, and CD’s. “Wow, they had everything here, even Urban Chipmunk.” said David. “What I’m most surprised about is how many CDs they have. I thought CDs didn’t get really big until the early ‘90s, well, after ’87 anyway. Also, I never thought I’d see 8-tracks and CDs in a store, unless it was a store nowadays specializing in retro records.” said Billy. “I forgot all about the video singles. I can’t believe we used to drop 20 bucks on a music video of Cyndi Lauper. So cheesy.” said David. “David and Melissa, what were your favorite songs back in the ‘80s?” asked Billy. “Rock Me Amadeus. Still stuck in my head 35 years later. Had the video single and everything, probably got it at this very store.” said David, who walked over about 20 feet. “Here it is, actually.” he said, holding the videotape up. “I used to rock a lot of REO Speed Wagon on my Magnavox CD player. That thing got a lot of oohs and aahs. Favorite song, though, was probably Can’t Fight This Feeling.” said Melissa. “I love both of those songs.” said Billy. “I used to get all of my electronics and music here. I was probably here once a month, at least.” said Melissa. Billy turned his camera to Melissa to get her in the shot and had her repeat the line. After they explored the music section, they went to the video game section. “This is bigger than my local GameStop, and in 1987, wow.” said Billy. “My parents told me as a kid, when it comes to video games, it’s Lechmere or nothing.” said David. “OH MY GOSH!” yelled Billy. “What?” asked Melissa. “An RDI Halcyon, on clearance for $999. I guess it had been sitting there a couple years. Weird no one bought it because that would be worth five figures today. I’ve never seen one in person, and I’ve always wanted to.” said Billy. “We have to take this with us.” said Melissa. David’s jaw dropped. “What?!” asked David. “I thought the Halcyon was never officially released, so this has to be very rare, maybe a very limited release.” said Billy. “You’re right about limited release. As far as I remember, they might have released 50 or 100 here in Helmintoller, as a Lechmere exclusive, about 1984, I think. I remember they had a few at the Messenbaugh Mansion that you could pay a dollar and play a game. They had some type of Dragon’s Lair type game, this was supposed to be like a high-end arcade system for your home, it could play laserdisc movies and CDs too. Of course, all that cost something like $3,000 when it came out, they ended up making them for a couple weeks and selling most of them off at about $1,000 to $1,500. They actually built the Helmintoller-market ones at a factory here in Izzy.” said Melissa. “Well, it actually came out in February 1985, at the dead of the video game crash. I think the production run was 57, but you’re pretty much dead-on right, and I’ve been studying video games and collecting them for 15 years.” said Billy. “Well, looks like you just scored yourself a Halcyon. If this weren’t such a rare and valuable artifact, I wouldn’t allow taking it.” said Melissa. Billy put the Halcyon aside while the explorers finished looking at the old video games. The whole Sega Master System library released through March 1987 was there, with several copies of each game; ditto for the NES library, although a couple games were missing. The Atari 7800 library was also largely complete. Billy wanted with every fiber of his body to start hauling off games, but he was just happy to have his new Halcyon. “This store doesn’t really explain why the NES stomped the Master System and 7800. At this stage of the game, their game libraries were surprisingly close in size, given that all three were still early in their lives. Nintendo did, by most accounts, have the highest-quality games though. It would be in the years after 1987 that the NES would really hit its stride, peaking about 1990.” said Billy. “Yeah, I remember when I wanted a video game console to replace my old ColecoVision for my 7th birthday, I asked for Nintendo specifically and Super Mario. All my friends at school were talking about it. My parents pulled the old trick of ‘we’ll think about it’ and told me that the Atari 7800 had the same quality games at lower price. But I woke up on my birthday and they’d wrapped my present in Atari wrapping paper. I was disappointed, until I found a Nintendo Action Set in there. Cheeky twits.” said David. “Mmm, sounds like a good idea, makes the surprise all the more special.” said Billy. Though most of the shelf space was given to prominently displayed games for the newer systems, most of the games on the shelves, however, were for older systems, chief among them the Atari 2600. A clearance bin, advertising games at $10 or less, had a wide variety of systems and games represented in no particular way, though none were NES, Master System, or Atari 7800 games. After wading through about 50 copies of Combat on Atari 2600 for $5 each, Billy began to find some gems; a few Sega SG-1000 games, some Vectrex games, and probably several more games worth ten times more than the pittance they were going for in 1987. Nonetheless, there were no “holy grails” – some of the games might fetch over $50, perhaps low triple digits at most. Before they left the area, the explorers also looked at the demo stations set up; one each for NES, Master System, Atari 7800, and Atari 2600. The TV set up for the 7800’s demo unit had fallen to the ground. “I probably played on these exact demo units. My parents would drop me off at the demo units while they shopped.” said David. “Mine would drop me off at the toy store when they went to the mall.” said Melissa. “Mine left me at GameStop while they shopped for clothes. I hate clothes shopping. I’ve been scared of clothes tags since I was 3, so those video game stores and demo units hold a special place in my heart, for sparing me from seeing hundreds of clothes tags.” said Billy. “How’d you get scared of clothes tags?” asked Melissa. “I guess I just decided one day I was scared of them, I was 3 years old.” said Billy. “Oh.” said Melissa. The explorers left the video game section and made their way to the appliance section, where they found a sea of 70% beige appliances, with a few other colors in there, mostly black, and white. “Dang, eventually someone’s going to have to clear this place out.” said Billy. “In time.” said Melissa. “Beige was in during the ‘80s. We actually had to special order some of the appliances in my sorority house, and my first home, because I didn’t like beige.” said Melissa, as they reached the appliance section. “Look at the features on these microwaves they’re advertising. Quick defrost, clock, digital LCD display, for $300. Safe to say, we’ve come a long way.” said David. “I still have a 1986 GE microwave. After my family had issues with some of the new microwaves, we just bought a vintage one. We’ve had it 3 years, no problems. It looks like this one over here. It has all the features I need, and it WORKS, dang it.” said Billy, pointing to one of the higher-end microwaves with a $429 price tag. “Where’d you get it?” asked Melissa. “Abandoned house, it’d been abandoned in the early 1990s and was demolished in 2005, but before they demolished it, they took out all the appliances. Somebody bought the microwave, used it for a while, then sold it on eBay. I bet that 95% of these microwaves would still work.” said Billy. “Here’s the other 5%.” said David. An Oster microwave lay on the floor, face-up, dented on the back. A roof leak above had caused the shelf holding the microwave to weaken and corrode, which had caused the microwave to fall. Moss grew in a thick mat on the shelf in a small area, about half a square foot, where the sun shined in. So far, this was the only vegetation they’d seen in the store. “At least it was a low-end microwave.” said Billy. By this time, they’d been in the Lechmere about 20 minutes. Billy had filmed a wide swath of the Lechmere, including the entire music, video game, and appliance section. “We should probably go on to our next place. Grab your new Halcyon.” said Melissa. “Can we see the TVs and computers?” asked Billy. “Quickly.” said Melissa. The explorers went to the TV section, which Billy quickly filmed, before they went to the computer section. “Which one was your old computer, Melissa? The one you bought just before the volcano.” asked Billy. “Commander 1000 PC. This one right here.” said Melissa. Billy got a shot of the computer. “Aah, the days when there was more than just PC and Mac.” said David. A wide range of Commander computers were on display; at least half of the computers on sale were Commander models. The PC, or IBM-compatible models were on prominent display, advertised as “100% IBM Compatible” by Commander. The PC-compatibility, or “IBM compatible” theme extended to many of the rest of the computers as well. “You can see all of the Commander computers. This was Commander-town, after all. And you can see the IBM compatibility thing that was spreading, these PCs are the forerunners of modern PCs.” said Billy, getting several sweeping shots of the computers on the shelves. “What about all these portable computers?” asked David. “Yeah, 100 bucks for a computer with a one-line LCD display… no thanks. Especially when you could get a Commander 64K for the same price.” said Billy. “Well, now everyone has a computer in their pocket that’s probably hundreds of times more powerful than all the computers in this store. So, it was a good idea, just not ready for its time. Did you ever have a portable computer back then, Melissa?” asked David. “I tried one out once, and just couldn’t see a reason to buy it.” said Melissa. “Yeah, though I did hear they were good as scientific calculators, so I guess there was some purpose to them.” said Billy. After a few more minutes of exploring the computer section, the explorers left the Lechmere, and Billy grabbed his Halcyon. He put it in the right seat of the 3rd row of the van; with Dirk gone, there was no more need for the 3rd row. The explorers then headed for a movie theater. Megan was already taking pictures of the outside of the theater. The theater, called the Royal 16, was a relatively large building, covered in tan brick, and was a relatively modern building, with a copious amount of neon. “This was the first movie theater in Izzy, opened in 1924 months after the city was founded. In the ‘70s, probably about ’72, they tore down the original building and replaced it with this one which opened in time for Izzy’s 50th anniversary celebrations in ’74. It was considered the nicest theater in Izzy.” said Melissa. The explorers walked into the theater, save for Megan, who stayed outside once again. The foyer of the theater was over 20 feet high, and about 90% of the ceiling tiles were missing. The walls were cracked, and moss was growing in a few spots. On the right wall, now-retro movie posters hung up; the left wall had arcade games, and the back wall had two hallways, separated by a concession stand between them. “I don’t know much about movies, but Blind Date doesn’t seem to be too appealing.” said Billy. “It was a romantic comedy, and not a very good one.” said Melissa. “I don’t like romance movies to begin with, so I’d probably be asleep in 5 minutes with that one.” said Billy. “I love the Police Academy movies, sad that this theater never got to show Police Academy 4.” said David, pointing to a poster. The other movies advertised included Lethal Weapon, Mannequin, Hollywood Shuffle, Raising Arizona, and Black Widow. Billy filmed them all, as well as the arcade machines, which included Flicky, Hang-On, Out Run, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Alien Syndrome, Wonder Boy, Enduro Racer, Zaxxon, Zoom 909, Congo Bongo, and Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars. All 12 of the arcade machines were intact, but dusty. “Wait a minute, these are all Sega games.” said Billy, filming, before looking up. “Sega Arcade. I’m an idiot.” he then said, as he saw the “Sega Arcade” lettering above the games. The “A” in Sega appeared to be loose. Billy finished looking at the arcade games before finding Melissa and David near the concession stand. “Look at what they sold here.” said David. Amid the standard fare of popcorn, sodas, and hot dogs, this theater appeared to have some culinary oddities. “Who would eat calamari at a movie theater?” asked Billy. “It was just one of those Izzy things, though you’ll find it at some specialty movie theaters nowadays.” said Melissa. The menu items seemed to get odder, going from cheeseburgers and cotton candy to lamb burritos, fried snake, and Mongolian style airag, with “For sale to 18+ ONLY” printed by it. “Wait, what? AIRAG?!” asked Billy. “What’s airag?” asked David. “Fermented horse milk. Popular in Mongolia, never thought I’d see it at a movie theater.” said Billy. “We had airag at quite a few places here in Izzy. Someone in the 1950s came back from Mongolia with the stuff and happened to be friends with a horse farmer. They started making airag, and it caught on.” said Melissa. “I had airag a couple times at Mongolian restaurants. It’s delicious.” said Billy. “Y’all can have that.” said David. The explorers then walked up a stairway into a hallway labeled “Screens 9-16”. Billy looked into each room, finding the room with screen 13 – which was showing “Blind Date” – had a major roof collapse. The remainder of the rooms still had major decay, but their roofs looked to be intact. David wasn’t willing to go into screen 13’s room, so Melissa gave him permission to explore the neighboring screen, 12, after visually inspecting it. Melissa and Billy went into room 13, turning off their flashlights; the hole in the roof covered about 40% of the room, concentrated close to the screen, and sunlight lit the interior. Massive, sound-absorbing foam blocks had fallen off the walls, requiring Melissa and Billy to step around them. Billy took careful note of the rows of seats – labeled A through Z, with each seat numbered from 1 to 22. Billy tried climbing up the steps to get to the top row, but the floor began to feel spongy, and he didn’t make it past row R. Nevertheless, from that vantage point, he could see the large hole in the floor that consumed parts of rows D through M, perhaps 10 seats wide at its widest point. Seats had fallen into the hole, caused when the supports had rotted away underneath the hole in the roof. The plant growth inside this room was the most of any room he’d seen so far. Billy and Melissa carefully stepped toward the hole to get a better look but stayed a few feet away. The supports for the theater floor had been built directly on pilings on the ground, meaning that the area under the hole not only had light and water, but the soil underneath the theater. An oak tree grew amid broken seats, flooring, and structural supports around where seat K11 had been; it extended about 3 feet above the former floor and was about 8 feet tall total. Moss and grass covered some of the seats adjacent to the hole. “This room is a death trap.” said Billy. After filming the room, he and Melissa left and waited about three minutes for David to finish in room 12.

Chapter 15 Melissa was the first to wake up, stirring to life at 8:18 am. She washed and changed her clothes, by which time Megan had woken at 8:39. David awoke at 8:57, and Billy minutes before his alarm had been set, at 9:18. When Billy awoke, he noticed the daylight coming through the windows and looked at his phone, hoping it would be 7 or 8 am. Finding it just eight minutes before his alarm would go off and still tired, Billy started playing with his phone, re-setting the alarm to 9:53. A few minutes later, Billy drifted back to sleep, but awoke once again at 9:35, by which time David was in the shower, when Melissa called out “Time to wake up.” “I’m tired.” said Billy. ‘Do you need some coffee?” asked Melissa. “That would be nice. With milk and cream if you can.” said Billy. Billy heard a Keurig operating, before Melissa brought him a blonde cup of coffee which was warm but not hot. Newly energized, he got out of the bed and, just as David was exiting the bathroom dressed, took his change of clothes, went into the bathroom, and showered, brushed his teeth, and dressed in just 11 minutes. When he finished, he went into room 1017, where Melissa, David, and Megan were gathered. Megan finished getting ready about five minutes after Billy. The explorers made their way downstairs to the cafeteria, where they enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes, sausages, and eggs before, at 10:27, leaving the hotel and heading back toward Izzy. “What are we exploring today?” asked David. “There’s a few things I want to get to, but I’m up for ideas. Anything in west Izzy will have to be tomorrow, though.” said Melissa. “Well, finishing the university might be a good start, as much as we can.” said David. “You know those apartments that were sort of a black steel and glass, minimalist design? Those, and that really odd restaurant that looked like it was from a Look-Alikes book. Do you know where I’m talking about? They’re pretty near each other, kind of in southeast Izzy. I’ve wanted to go to those places my whole life.” said Billy. “Those apartments are in pretty bad shape, but we can do that and the restaurant. I used to love that restaurant myself. And we’ll also go in a couple buildings at the university, but we can’t spend all day there,” said Melissa. “The twin towers of Izzy. I know that’ll probably be tomorrow.” said David. “A video game store.” said Billy. “Something outside or in a sturdy building that’s safe.” said Megan. “Well, we’ve done an airport, a school, some varied businesses, a hospital, research center, computer chip factory… I don’t know, maybe a bank or post office or something.” said David. “A movie theater, maybe?” asked Megan. “I would say an office building, but the twin towers of Izzy would be office buildings. I’m with Megan, a movie theater or something like that. Preferably, one as ‘80s-y as possible.” said Billy. “Oh, I can give you ‘80s.” said Melissa. At 11:29 am, the explorers’ second day started when Melissa parked the van at a parking lot across from the university’s student center. The explorers weighed their options. The basketball stadium was missing some windows, covered in a considerable amount of ivy, and was in a very dilapidated condition, but still looked reasonably safe to explore. The student center appeared to be in slightly better condition, though still missing many of its windows. The explorers wanted to get a better feel for the campus before going into the buildings. A 4-story building with a circular footprint, identified by a sign as “Puckett Hall” had a major roof collapse that was obvious from 50 feet away. Another building with a circular footprint, this time a dorm 9 stories tall, still looked as if it would be safe. The conference center was overgrown, had a large hole in the wall on the second floor, about 80% of its windows broken, and cracks in the brick – it was iffy on exploration. It said “V n r fer e” on the top, most of the metal letters having fallen over time. “That used to say Vincent W. Dorfman Conference Center. It was one of the oldest buildings at the university, built in 1943, I think. Some of the copper on those finishes around the windows came from melted down shells recovered from World War II battlefields.” said Melissa. The explorers decided to look at the journalism building first. Letters engraved into the building’s concrete façade said “WHALIN MEDIA BUILDING”. The building was made of concrete, with windows that extended from chest height to the top of each of the building’s 3 floors. The building was grimy, but only a couple of windows were missing, and its concrete structure looked intact. “This building was built in 1973, by which time all new buildings at the university were using laminated glass windows instead of plate glass or tempered glass. I know the standards here required new government buildings to have laminated or tempered glass starting in 1956.” said Billy. “Yeah, and the private buildings started having to have it around maybe 1965 or so, but the older buildings were grandfathered in. I remember there was a big campaign to get your windows replaced by safety glass. We got our windows replaced by tempered glass in 1972 at my childhood home, but I went with laminated glass in my first house I lived in on my own.” said Melissa. “Why would anyone go with tempered glass?” asked Billy. “Tempered is a lot cheaper.” said Melissa. The explorers walked under an overhang supported by four concrete pillars about 2 feet in diameter; the pillars looked intact. A label scar which said “WHALIN MEDIA BUILDING” was on the left wall; the red metal letters, each about 6 inches tall, were scattered on the floor, roughly below where they’d each been. “I never walk under Ls on signs. I’m always worried that they’ll fall and hit me, and they’re sharp and pointy so they’ll cut me up.” said Billy. “Funny you’d mention that.” said Melissa, pointing to the wall directly above the doors going into the building. “Those letters used to be attached up here, above the doors. One day, the L in Building fell off and hit a student in the head. She actually got a head injury.” said Melissa. “Was she okay? When did this happen?” asked Billy. “She ended up fine, missed a couple days of school. This would have been about November or December of 1985, it was cold, and we were getting toward finals, my senior year. I was in the building, someone looked out the window and said, “somebody’s hurt outside”. Me and a few people in the room went to the window and saw a crowd gathered, then we went downstairs and saw her laying on the ground, her head bleeding. By then, there were already a few people helping her, so we just watched for a bit and went back to class. One of my sorority sisters helped her out.” said Melissa. The explorers walked through the doors into the building. They were in an atrium, with skylights illuminating the entire area. Several lounge chairs were along the sides of the atrium. An alcove inside a staircase had a 32-inch Sony TV, while racks containing a variety of local, national, and international newspapers sat next to the staircase. The level of decay was modest, but there was a piece of glass fence railing hanging from the third floor, chipped paint, and many fallen ceiling tiles. Billy grabbed a local newspaper entitled the “Izydorczak Informer” and read a few headlines. They included, “Local Man Has All National Geographic Magazines Ever Printed”, “New Burger Restaurant Opens on Samberg Slopes”, and “Five Fun Things to Do This Spring”. “Well, this is refreshing. Where’s all the negative news?” asked Billy. “We didn’t do a lot of negative news. We were a Messenbaugh Group newspaper, and our motto was that ‘people should come away from reading the news happier than they started out’. We reported on crime if it was nearby, but we didn’t do a play by play of the trial or anything. Those were on obscure cable channels.” said Melissa. Melissa led the explorers into a bagel shop. A sign above the serving counter simply said “L”, but the label scar revealed the original name, Big Apple Bagels. The rest of the letters, this time about two inches tall, were, again, on the ground. As the explorers made their way through the shop, which was about the size of a living room in a large house, the remaining L fell off and bounced off Melissa’s left arm before falling to the ground. “Thanks for shielding me from that L. Are you okay?” said Billy. “Yeah, didn’t hurt.” said Melissa. The restaurant had a mild stench of rotten food. The approximately 20 tables still had all their chairs positioned neatly around them. A standee advertised the “Ocean Special” sandwich, which had lox and smoked salmon cream cheese on an asiago bagel, for $4.99. “Wow, they had the Ocean Special back in 1987. I thought it would be 2000s at the oldest.” said Billy. “I think they’d only been around a few years in 1987.” said Melissa. “At $4.99 back then, they couldn’t have been popular.” said Billy. “You’d be surprised. I had a couple, they were delicious.” said Melissa. “I don’t eat raw fish now; I can’t imagine eating it in the ‘80s.” said Megan. Billy saw the soda machine and wanted to see if it would work after 33 years, so he grabbed a paper cup and pushed the button for Coca-Cola. A small amount of nasty-looking, tar-like substance came out from the spigot. “You know I don’t like it when people mess with stuff.” said Melissa. “I’m sorry, Melissa. Just wanted to see what would come out of a Coke machine after 33 years.” said Billy. Billy went outside, threw the fossilized Coke on the ground, and put the cup back where he’d found it before the explorers climbed the stairs and went to the second floor, entering a hallway adjacent to the atrium. Down the hallway a bit, water dripped through a small gap between the floor above and the wall, forming a puddle on the ground. The masonry core of the wall showed through on a section about four feet wide where the apparent roof leak had worn away the drywall. Melissa decided not to chance walking through the area, as it seemed to be an isolated patch of decay. Instead, she and the explorers turned into a classroom, room 214. The whiteboard said, “Layout 101”. Three rows of tables, each with 7 chairs in them, sat facing the whiteboard. A drop-down screen had an empty Eiki overhead projector facing it, its arm still extended upwards. Other than the March 26, 1987 date written in green marker on the whiteboard, it looked much like a standard classroom setup in 2020. Underneath the date, in red, was a note saying, “Layout Assignment 3 due March 31 for TR classes, April 1 for MW classes”, the whiteboard was empty otherwise. As the explorers began to look around, they began to see outdated objects, some of which were foreign even to Billy, himself a journalism student. At tables lining the back and right side of the room, there were ten Commander devices that looked like typewriters, but had a large LCD screen – about 3 inches by 6 inches – above the keyboard. Billy, Megan, and David took a closer look. There was a slot for a 5 ¼” floppy disk to the side of the LCD screen, but there was paper sticking out of the top of the device, much like a normal typewriter. The bars seen in a normal typewriter weren’t there. Several of the buttons seemed strange – such as a big, red button that said “Enter”. “What is it?” asked Megan. “I think it’s some kind of early laptop combined with a printer, like one of the old Osbornes. But the printer seems integrated, not an add-on device.” said Billy. “My family had something like this when I was a kid, but the screen wasn’t nearly as big. It had one line you could type in and it would print it just like a normal typewriter, but you could spell check what you wrote before printing it.” said David. “That’s an electronic typewriter. Kind of like a computer, but it could only do text, sort of like if your computer today only had Word on it, but even more limited than that. If you wanted to change a font, you had to change out one of these wheels, called a daisy wheel.” said Melissa, holding up a daisy wheel. “We had four different sizes of text we could do, three fonts, so we had to keep twelve different kinds of these wheels around. The typewriter would have to cycle through the wheel, like a rotary phone, and strike the appropriate letter.” “Each letter? Wow, that sounds slow. Also, I would have thought they would have had computers by then.” said Billy. “Truth be told, by 1987 these things were becoming outdated, but they weren’t that slow. A page would take about 3 or 4 minutes to print. We did have computers, but they went to the school newspaper and the higher-level classes first, where the work was more complicated. I remember the day we got Macs in our school paper my junior year. It took a few days to learn, and then things got a lot more efficient and easier. We never stopped praising those Macs.” said Melissa. “How did this class work?” asked Billy. “This was just a 101 class, so things weren’t as complicated, I took it freshman year. First, we wrote out what we wanted to type, so we’d know what sizes and fonts of type to use. Then we’d type out everything of a certain size or font, switch out the daisy wheel, go to the next, usually we kept it to 2 or 3 different sizes and/or fonts. We’d lay it all out on the typewriter so we could cut it all out in one piece with the X-Acto knives. We’d take our printed-off papers and cut out what we wanted in a certain section and glued it on to a thicker piece of paper. We had to be very careful and measure everything, because if we glued something in the wrong spot, you might have to do it all over again, and one project might require 20 pieces. After we were done, we’d photocopy the whole thing. People got in the habit of printing out two copies of everything. You have no idea how easy computers make things nowadays.” said Melissa. “I just gained a ridiculous respect for the older journalists.” said Billy. Melissa showed the explorers the photocopiers and trays containing X-Acto knives and glue. “Did I say something wrong?” asked Billy. “About what?” asked Melissa. “The ‘older journalists’ thing.” said Billy. “Oh, you’re fine.” said Melissa as she chuckled slightly and pat Billy on the back. “Ugh, can’t imagine having to use one of these. Did people get cut?” asked Megan, pointing to a knife. “Actually, I can only remember one time hearing about someone getting cut. It wasn’t bad.” said Melissa. The explorers left the room and went toward the staircase, but a row of bust sculptures caught David’s eye. As the explorers walked over to the bronze sculptures, each of which were on plinths, all were impressed by the level of detail and quality. Billy, however, was interested in it as a chronicle of the university presidents’ history. He slowly panned his camera over each sculpture and made sure to get seven pictures of each sculpture: one of each side of the bust, front and rear of the bust and plinth, and plaque. A plaque on the bottom of the first sculpture said, “William P. McGraw, Founding President of Izydorczak University, served 1939-1947, Born October 6, 1881, Died April 19, 1978. Sculpture Dedicated August 1, 1978.” All five of the sculptures would end up being dedicated on the same date. The second sculpture was for Don James, served 1947-1951, born September 6, 1893, died January 3, 1951. The third was Stephen V. Merheb, served 1951-1957, born June 3, 1894, died October 20, 1986. Robert Radford, served 1957-1972, born December 31, 1912, and Yancey LaCalameto, served since 1972 and born June 14, 1928, were the last two. “Was Yancey LaCalameto still president in 1987 and is he still alive?” asked Billy, as he looked up Robert Radford, finding he’d lived to age 88, dying on March 8, 2001. “As far as I know, yes on both. He was a great president, put a lot into U of Izzy.” said Melissa. After looking at the sculptures for a few minutes, the explorers went up to the third floor. At the top of the stairs, they could see the cause another section of missing drywall and the section of glass fence hanging down next to it, where the attachment points had corroded. There was a pool of water on the ground. Billy walked toward the area, testing the floor with each step, and the other explorers followed. “Be careful. We don’t want what happened to Dirk to happen to you.” said Melissa. “I know.” said Billy. The explorers looked up to find the source of the damage, a crack in one of the skylights that extended all the way through. The damaged section of wall looked damp, but not soaked. The floor underneath the water was bowed down. “Probably only been leaking a couple years. Water does its damage fast. This floor will probably be collapsing by 2025.” said Billy, filming the section. “I’m surprised it’s taken this long.” said Melissa. “Well, they probably designed it really well because they didn’t want to have to constantly maintain it. Triple-paned glass, stuff like that.” said David. Billy looked over at the skylight and saw that some of the glass panels were cracked, but the innermost panels looked to be intact. “Triple-paned glass.” said Billy. The explorers walked away from the roof leak and turned right to go into an inner hallway of the building. Most of the ceiling tiles had fallen and created a mush on the ground, but the floors still felt stable. Billy and David looked into what appeared to be a computer lab, with vintage Mac computers at each desk, before moving on. Billy took a picture of the computer lab. Melissa led the explorers into a pitch-black room. The flashlights illuminated the room, which had black walls, some red-tinted fluorescent lights on the wall, and a table with hundreds of pictures on it. The pictures looked faded and washed out. “Why are there so many pictures?” asked David. “I know this was a film development studio, but this is just packed. Midterms or something?” “It was the weekend before midterms, so a lot of the photojournalism students would have been developing their pictures over the weekend. They’d drop them off Friday and pick them up Monday. Students got their pictures developed for free, so a lot of the students used this.” said Melissa. The explorers all looked at the pictures, which told a story of the last few days in Izzy. Billy made sure to get a picture of anything that looked passable and interesting, including a picture from the center of campus, which included the campus center, the circular dorm, and the very building they were in, amid cherry trees that were just starting to bloom. Another picture showed a man and a woman sitting on a park bench together, gently smiling. Another showed the volcano itself, its top covered in snow. “These are good pictures. Sad that they’re left behind.” said Megan. “I’m preserving them digitally, and besides, I think everyone in these classes automatically passed. So if the pictures’ job was to help their photographer get a good grade, they did it.” said Billy. After Billy finished photographing the salvageable pictures, the explorers left the room. “Next building?” asked Melissa. “Sounds good.” said David. The explorers walked out of the journalism building, and Melissa led them to the old administration building, which was on the other side of the student center. The Radford Administrative Building was bad shape, with most of the windows broken and numerous cracks in its ivy-covered, dirty brick exterior. There were some small holes in the roof. “Does anyone feel comfortable exploring this one?” asked Melissa. “I’m out.” said Megan. Melissa, Billy, and David went in through a door that had been propped open, finding themselves in a narrow hallway with green carpet flooring, faded white painted walls, and a ceiling missing all its tiles. A large picture in a frame had fallen from the wall; Billy looked at the picture, but it was so crumpled, and water damaged that he couldn’t tell what it was. The explorers passed a few offices before getting to a dangling sign, with so many letters missing that it was unintelligible other than one word: “R G STR R” Melissa led the explorers into a large room. There were 15 counters on one side of the room and chairs on the other side, much like a bank lobby. Large binders, each labeled with a subject, sat on end tables adjacent to the chairs. There was a small hole in the ceiling at the far end of the room, and moss growing in a few spots. “This is the registrar’s office, for 95% of the students, it was their only reason to be in this building.” said Melissa. “My dad says that there was a room in the attic with every yearbook ever printed, but the woman who worked up there wasn’t very nice.” said Billy. “We can go up there if it’s still structurally stable. I know what room you’re talking about.” said Melissa. “How’d you all know what professors are good and bad back in those days?” asked Billy. “If you were in the Greek system, which 90 percent of the students were, they had lists of professors that were good and bad, like a Rate My Professor before the internet. Non-Greeks could access these lists too, so no one was left out of the loop.” said Melissa. “What about you, David? How did you register for class?” asked Billy. “They had computer-based registration by then.” said David. Billy found a binder that said, “Elective and Other Classes”. He looked through it, asking “Wonder what interesting classes they offered here?” “I do know they had a major in operatic dancing here. It was the only operatic dancing program in all of Helmintoller.” said Melissa. “Looking in this book, looks like they had a class called ‘The Science of Star Wars”. said Billy. “That one was quite popular, if I remember correctly.” said Melissa. “What about ‘A History of Soviet Cars’? I’d love to have taken that class.” asked Billy. “Never heard of it, but I know that they often tested classes here before launching them at other universities, and the Yugo came out about that time. I can see how that would be interesting”. said Melissa. “They do have a basket weaving class!” said Billy. “They had that at my college too. Got a good laugh about it.” said David. Billy put the binder down and filmed the rest of the room, by which time the explorers were ready to go to another room. “Yearbook room?” asked Billy. “Sounds interesting.” said David. The explorers left the room and went to a nearby stairwell. The stairs were white-tiled, fairly standard college stairs. Melissa stepped on the first step, finding it spongy feeling and a bit unstable. “How are the stairs?” asked Billy. “They’re a bit sketchy. Very borderline. I say we try the stairwell on the other side of the building.” said Melissa. The explorers left the room and followed Melissa down a corridor to the other stairwell. Inside the room, a wall bowing outward didn’t bode well for the trip, and the stairs themselves looked physically worse than the others, with more debris on them and corroded handrails. Melissa carefully stepped on the first step. It felt stable. She tried the next, and it was still stable. “Stay to the right, and if things get too sketchy, we’re going to have to go back down.” said Melissa. When the explorers reached the third floor, they found a hole in the roof, perhaps half a square foot, mere inches from the stairwell. The stairs remained stable. The third floor had a wide hallway, with offices branching off each side. There were no holes in the floor, but there were a few spots where the roof had holes in it and water pooled on the floor. Melissa tested the floor. “It’s marginal, but it looks like we’ll have a path to the yearbook room.” said Melissa. “Can we take some yearbooks home?” asked Billy. “We’ll see.” said Melissa. The explorers carefully crossed the hallway, following Melissa and carefully avoiding the soft spots. They reached a staircase. The stairs were dark green, with a marble finish, and still felt surprisingly stable. Once the explorers reached the top of the stairs, they found a hallway. To the left, the floor looked sketchy; to the right, there was a large hole in the floor underneath a large roof leak. Billy’s heart sank. “I’m out.” said David, who stayed behind on the stairs. Melissa turned to the left and tested the floors, finding them relatively stable; Billy followed, and after seeing them go a few steps safely, David followed. They reached the end of the hallway, which led directly into the yearbook room. Inside the room, there was a desk with a Commander 64K computer on it. There were two chairs, one for a “Wilma Curwen” who worked in the room, and another on the opposite side of the desk. A bookshelf with the yearbooks was beside that chair. The wall behind Wilma’s chair was missing, and part of the roof had collapsed, making Wilma’s chair fall backward where it precariously dangled over the edge. Billy filmed the entire room, making sure to get every yearbook as well as the desk. “Can we take the yearbooks?” asked Billy, only to see Melissa with an armload of them. “Put some of them in my camera bag. I’ll just carry my camera with the loop.” said Billy. Melissa stuffed the 1975-1986 yearbooks in the bag. Billy grabbed the 1963-1974’s, David the 1950-1962’s, and Melissa the 1939-1949’s. All three found it difficult to see, so Melissa held her yearbooks over her head as she crossed the hallway. The explorers then went back down the stairs they came and took a break once they got out of the building, putting the yearbooks on a relatively clean section of ground. “I thought you said we weren’t to steal anything. That’s why Dirk got kicked out.” said David. “This was a special case because these yearbooks are rare and the room they were in was about to totally collapse. It looked like that wall only collapsed in the past few weeks, because these yearbooks are still in reasonably good condition. These yearbooks would have been done for within a few months.” said Melissa. “I say, if there’s room in the van, we take them home.” said Billy. “I say we put them in a more secure building on campus, and then decide what to do from there. They’ll be fine in the journalism building for now.” said Melissa. “Yeah, well I don’t think someone who died in 2004 is going to care about us taking her yearbooks.” said Billy. “Maybe so, but it’s still wrong to steal. Besides, the journalism building is closer, anyway, than the van.” said Melissa. The explorers lugged the yearbooks to the journalism building, where they left them in a first-floor classroom that was still largely intact. “I’ll see about getting these yearbooks out to digitize them.” said Melissa. “Can’t wait.” said Billy. At this point, the explorers had been on campus for over an hour, so they decided to go to the next exploration. On their way out, they found the campus’s oldest building, McGraw Hall. It was a shell, the entire interior collapsed into the basement. “What a shame. They used it for 48 years and it was fine, they leave it abandoned for 33 and it just totally collapses.” said Melissa.

Chapter 14 The explorers all got back in the van. Dirk tried to take the middle row right seat. “Get in the very back.” said David, as he motioned to get in the seat. Billy got the front passenger seat again, putting his camera in the glove box. He looked and noticed he’d taken up six 64 gigabyte SD cards, and a little of a seventh for a total of almost 400 gigabytes, from just one day. The 5-terabyte hard drive that Billy had just gotten was going to have a significant chunk filled by just one trip. It was 7:54 pm, and almost completely dark outside. Melissa carefully navigated the pothole-filled University Road southward before coming to the avenue that ran along the city’s southern border. The sensation of driving on a completely dark road yet surrounded by buildings was alien to the explorers. Billy relaxed into the leather seat as Melissa carefully avoided the potholes and plants growing from the avenue. “My arms still hurt, by the way.” said Dirk. “Be quiet.” said Megan. About ten minutes after they had left, the explorers’ van got to the freeway. Megan, David, and Billy dozed off, while Dirk played on his phone. At 8:29, Billy woke back up. He looked over and saw that the van was going 106 mph. “Are we in a hurry?” asked Billy, quietly. “Yeah, we have dinner reservations that were supposed to start at (looks at clock) 8:30,” said Melissa. “Unfortunately, Dirk put us behind about 20 minutes”, Melissa whispered, so as not to draw Dirk’s attention. Billy could see the faint lights of Kallal City in the distance. “Looks like you’ve made the time up well.” said Billy. “Yeah, we should be there in the next 10 minutes,” said Melissa. “But I was planning on going 80, 85 miles per hour, not 106.” said Melissa. “Are you okay? You seem a bit, um, off.” asked Billy. ‘I’ll be fine.” said Melissa. “I know that house meant a lot to you.” said Billy. “Eh, Mother Nature was going to demolish it in due time anyway.” said Melissa. A couple minutes later, Melissa woke the others in the van up. “Wakey wakey. We’re almost at dinner.” Shortly after, Billy asked Melissa, “Do you remember when my dad signed the wall? My dad always wore old sorority shirts when I was a little kid, and he told me how good K-Xi-D and some of the others were.” “Yeah, I was there that day. He’d booked an appointment to see the K-Xi-D house and I wanted to make sure I was there. I actually drove him back to campus afterwards.” said Melissa. “Yeah, he was class of ’88, would have been ’87 but, we know what happened. He would have been a freshman in fall ’83. What did you drive back then?” asked Billy. “An ’82 Accord Special Edition. That’s why they had me drive him back, I had the nicest car.” said Melissa. “Mmmm, an ’82 Accord, that sounds like a really nice car for back then.” said Billy. “I got it when I graduated high school. It was the first Honda in my family.” said Melissa. “My dad’s been a big Volkswagen fan his whole life, he’s drove nothing but Volkswagens since his first car. He told me, ‘you gotta get a Volkswagen’ since I was a baby. When I was 10, we went to Germany, to the plant in Wolfsburg. It was his lifelong dream to go there. We rented an Audi A6 and spent 3 days in Germany, going to see the plant on the second day. I remember at lunch we waited half an hour in line to eat a sausage called a ‘currywurst’ that Volkswagen makes itself. As we were eating our lunch, my dad told me that Volkswagen actually makes more sausages than cars.” said Billy. “You can’t be serious.” said Megan. “Yup. I looked it up. Volkswagen actually makes more currywurst sausages than cars.” said Billy. “How do they taste?” asked Megan. “Delicious. I still eat them occasionally.” said Billy. “I’ve had one of the Volkswagen currywursts myself.” said Melissa. “When did you have one?” asked Billy. “It would have been a long time ago… 1993 maybe? By the way, if your dad was such a Volkswagen fan, how’d you end up in a Honda?” asked Melissa. “When I went off to college at Helmintoller Tech in 2013, I fell in love with Honda. One of my first friends there had a fully loaded black 2011 Accord, that car was nice. I didn’t know how to drive then, and wasn’t ready for college, but that’s one thing I took from there. It just so happened that the spring of my first year, so spring 2014, I felt like I was ready to drive. Of course, when I told my dad I wanted an Accord, he said ‘are you crazy? They’re built like tin cans; nothing beats Volkswagen engineering’ and reminding me ‘your mom almost died in an Accord’. One evening, me and my mom snuck off and bought that white Accord I have now. Dad wasn’t happy but he got over it.” said Billy. By now, the van was in the city, driving on surface streets. “Hondas are for losers. They make about 17 horsepower and sound like a lawnmower.” said Dirk. Melissa pulled the van into the parking lot of a restaurant called “Tamiko’s Sushi”, next to a brand-new white Honda Accord Touring, at a spot near the entrance. The restaurant, with a capacity of about 200 people, had a pagoda design and looked to be busy, but not packed. She and everyone else got out of the van, Billy grabbing his camera and SD cards, and followed Melissa to meet a middle-aged man, about 5’10 and of medium build, standing on a sidewalk near the front door of the restaurant. “This is my husband, Roger.” said Melissa. “Nice to meet you, Roger.” said Billy. “Sup, Rog.” said Dirk. “Go with Roger, Dirk. If anyone else needs to go back to their car, you can go with Roger, too.” said Melissa. Billy moved to go with Roger. “I gotta get my laptop.” he said. While Melissa, David, and Megan went into the restaurant, Dirk and David went with Roger. “Shotgun!” exclaimed Billy. “You’re not going to let me have the front seat?” asked Dirk. “Not after that stunt you pulled at the sorority house.” said Billy. Billy took the front passenger seat of the white Accord Touring, while Dirk sat behind Billy. On the way back, Billy talked to Roger while Dirk played with his phone in the back seat. “What did you guys explore?” asked Roger. “It’s been a busy day. We only really got around to the south side of the city.” said Billy. “So, like the airport, main library, University of Izzy, places like that?” asked Roger. “Yes. One place that really got to me was the old hospital, that place was a death trap. A big chunk of the building is gone entirely. The decay in there is just incredible, it blows my mind that that place was used just 35 years ago. Melissa told me that she was born there, and that the hospital was poorly built. Are you from Izzy, by chance?” asked Billy. “Yes, but I wasn’t born there, I moved there when I was 8.” said Roger. “Hold that thought. Do you mind if I record this? I’m doing a video on Izzy. Just say you’re Melissa’s husband, she’s already in the video, and tell me about your life in Izzy. If you can, give me some dates for reference, but if you can’t remember a date, that’s fine.” said Billy. “Go right ahead.” said Roger. Billy started recording on his camera. “I’m Melissa’s husband, I met her when we were students at the University of Izydor-“ As Roger spoke, Dirk interjected with a profane statement about how Melissa and Dirk had supposedly met. Disgusted, Billy turned off the camera. “Never mind, I’ll just record this bit after Dirk’s gone.” said Billy. Within two minutes, they were back at the McDonalds where the day had started. Dirk left the Accord, delivered a profane gesture, and got in his Firebird and peeled out. Meanwhile, Billy got a bag, which contained his laptop, external hard drive, and medications out of his own Accord before getting back into Roger’s Accord. “Something is not right about that man.” said Roger. “Yeah, I haven’t been too happy with him either. He almost died in the hospital when he fell through a floor that Melissa specifically told him not to walk on. It was the most impressive feat I’ve ever seen a human pull off. He was literally falling through the floor and she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back. That man, that man who was just in the back seat of your car, is alive because of your wife.” said Billy. “That’s why I married Melissa, her big heart. She’s always been a person who will go out of her way to do what’s right by people.” said Roger. “Well, Dirk repaid that big heart by whining about how much his arms hurt, and then damaging Melissa’s old sorority house trying to steal scrap metal. Real piece of work.” said Billy. “Well, you don’t have to worry about Dirk anymore.” said Roger. “That man deserves something to happen to him that will change the way he looks at life.” said Billy. Soon, Billy and Roger were back at the restaurant. Roger looked at his phone to see where Melissa and the explorers were sitting. As it turned out, that was unnecessary, as they were sitting near the front of the restaurant, around a U-shaped table with a hibachi grill in the middle. Roger sat on Melissa’s right side, while Billy sat on her left side, on the right side of the “U”. Along the bottom leg of the U were a man Billy had never met before, David, and Megan. “This is Tim Karaglanis, the man whose mansion we went to today.” said Melissa. “Hi, Tim. As a collector of old video games and a man very interested in old computers, I’m honored to meet you.” said Billy. “As a man who grew up on Commander computers, I’m honored to meet you.” said David. “Nice to meet you.” said Megan. The waiter came within a minute to take their orders. After taking their orders, the waiter asked who would be paying. “I’m paying for this whole table.” said Melissa, covering the explorers, Roger, and Tim, as well as a couple, whom she or the others didn’t know. “No, I’m paying for the whole table.” said Tim. “No, you save your money.” said Melissa. After a couple minutes of debating, the two came to an agreement where each would pay for half of the bill. “Tell them about your experience with Commander Computer.” said Melissa. Billy got out his camera to record. “I started working there in 1967 straight out of college. At that time, we mostly made big calculators and typewriters, and we were a small operation. We had a factory in the Zodiac Valley we leased space in, but the head office was in Izzy. I was in the product development division, so I worked at the head office.” said Tim. “Did you live in Izzy your entire life before the volcano?” asked Megan. “Yes, from birth until the volcano hit when I was 42. Anyway, we moved into consumer calculators in about 1969, 1970. Some of our lower-end models were quite cheap, 30 bucks or so back then, and they became quite popular. I was the head design engineer for our best-selling calculator, the HM-20, which came out in 1972. We were floored at how successful they were, and we had to build a new factory to keep up with demand.” said Tim. “That factory on the southwest side of the city, near the interstate exit? We visited there today. That’s where I first saw your name.” asked Billy. “That’s the one. We actually used modular construction to get that factory up in 4 months. The HM-20 came out in June of ’72, the boss ordered the factory on July 10th, and we had production, I believe, the week before Thanksgiving. The offices weren’t done yet, just the bare minimum to get the factory running. We had a big ribbon cutting ceremony February 19th, 1973 to mark the factory’s completion. Everyone there got a special HM-20 calculator. We sold over 400,000 HM-20’s that first year.” Tim stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath. “At some point, you all had to go from calculators to computers, because I know that Commander eventually ended production of calculators in the early ‘80s, I think. I also know that, at some point, I think I read in the late ‘70s, you became CEO. What’s the stories there?” asked Billy. “They appointed me the CEO in 1976. At the time, we had become a very successful calculator company and were looking for our next product. I guess, in hindsight, we could have stuck with calculators, but our R&D team was doing research on computers after things like the Altair had become somewhat successful. They wanted to cancel the project, but I told them, keep going, one day businesses and some homes will have a computer.” said Tim. “They all do now. Heck, we have computers in our pockets that are millions of times more powerful than those ‘70s computers that cost thousands to buy.” said Melissa. “Our first computer came out in ’77 and was called the Dual – because it could run CPL, a proprietary language we developed, but it could also do regular BASIC. It was supposed to be CPL entirely, but CPL proved to have a steep learning curve, so we developed a dialect of BASIC, called Commander BASIC, and put that in. It was somewhat successful, but no one ended up using CPL, so it was a good call to put the BASIC in. Our next computer was called the V-50, and that’s where things really took off. I don’t know if you went to my old house, but I started building that in ’81, after we made more money off the V-50 in its first 3 months on the market than the Dual made in almost four years. In hindsight, it was sort of a speculative move, but then the 64K came out and things just kept getting better, we came out with the Dostim and PC compatibles after that, so it seemed to be smooth sailing. At the time of the volcano, we were, by far, the biggest company in Izzy.” said Tim. “What happened after the volcano? I know Commander was re-founded and successful for a while but went out of business in 1997.” asked Billy. “We had everything back in production by May 15th and a new headquarters, converted from an abandoned factory, open by July 1st. However, this was also when our fortunes started going south. We were able to keep our fortunes up for a while by sales to Eastern Europe and other emerging markets, but the markets were all going toward IBM compatibles, and our IBM compatibles weren’t selling well.” said Tim. “I bought one of your IBM compatible computers. Good computer, shame they weren’t successful.” said Melissa. “Thanks for your business. Anyway, I left in ’91, a lot of people started leaving around that time. We went through a succession of CEOs and top brass after that, before we were finally bought out by HBM in 1997.” said Tim. “Thank you. You gave a lot of good information.” said Billy. “We went to your old house today as well.” said Melissa. “How’s it holding up?” asked Tim. “Pretty well. Definitely still salvageable.” said Melissa. “We found a vintage Corvette in there.” said Billy. “Oh, the Corvette. I miss that car.” said Tim. “We were thinking about getting it out of Izzy and maybe restoring it in the future if we can get the money. For now, though, I just want it out of that ghost town.” said Melissa. “I’ll be glad to help you get it out of there. Just bring it to my house. While you’re at it, it would be nice if you could get the other cars too, if that’s feasible.” said Tim. “What are you driving today?” asked Billy. “I’m in a 1985 Ferrari Testarossa. There’s an interesting story behind that car, it was the car that I drove out of Izzy.” said Tim. “Melissa told me that you used to have open houses most weekends at your house. Since the volcano hit on a Saturday evening, what happened at your house after that?” asked Billy. “The house was far from the volcano, so we heard a faint rumble, but the volcano was a couple miles away so we didn’t see anything, initially. A few people were saying ‘what the heck was that’ and things like that. I probably had 80, maybe 100 people in the house, watching TV, eating, playing games, and swimming in the pool. I was in the pool myself. A young woman burst into the room and yelled ‘THE VOLCANO IS EXPLODING! GET OUT OF TOWN!’. People ran over to her, a few immediately ran out of the house in their swim trunks, some went to get dressed, some asked more questions. Me and about 25 other people followed her upstairs where a projection TV simply said, in red letters on a black background, ‘ALL RESIDENTS OF IZYDORCZAK, EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY’. A loud, high pitched buzzer alternated with a voice saying ‘Samberg Volcano has erupted. All people in Izydorczak must evacuate immediately. This is a life-threatening situation.’ I’ll never forget the chaos. People were going into the dressing rooms yelling ‘GET OUT NOW!’, screaming, cursing, total panic. I ran to my Ferrari, some young hippie type guy ran behind me and got in the passenger seat as soon as I unlocked the door. There were no words. As I backed out, I hit a blue station wagon, and we just kept driving – over lawns, through fields, anything we could do to get to the freeway. I saw a few people who just drove through the fields next to the freeway. Total chaos.” said Tim. “Wow. Whatever happened to you and the hippy guy? Did he ever talk?” asked David. “He didn’t say a word for half an hour, he just looked shocked. Once we were about maybe 5, 7 miles out of town or so, he finally said ‘Thank you’. I asked him if he was with anyone and he said his girlfriend, she’d been watching a movie upstairs while he was in the pool, and that if she’d taken the car, she’d be in a white Ford Fairmont. I managed to call one of my friends in Helmintoller City to stay until I could get back on my feet, I dropped the hippy looking guy off at a hotel where they had police set up to help re-connect missing parties. That’s the last I saw of him; I think he found his girlfriend the next day. I finally got to my friend’s house at 6 in the morning, I was literally dozing off to sleep behind the wheel. I’ve never before, or since, literally slept a day away.” said Tim. “Well, I’m glad he’s okay, and he got to ride in a Ferrari even if it was under terrifying conditions.” said Billy, wrapping up his recording. “I guess there’s a silver lining to everything.” said Tim. “That was something very heroic you did.” said Billy. “Thank you, we all did what we had to that night.” said Tim. “You know, I’ve never been in a Ferrari, or any Italian supercar for that matter.” said Billy. “Do you want to?” asked Roger. Billy could hardly contain his excitement. “Oh my gosh, YES!” he shouted. “Me too!” said David. Roger and Megan followed. “It’s a two-seater, so we’ll have to do this one at a time. Take it away, Melissa.” said Tim. Melissa thought it over, realizing it would take 5 trips. “Do you mind if I let Roger drive one of the trips?” she asked. “Go right ahead.” said Tim. “If you need to leave, we can just do this another day. It’s 9:41.” said Billy. “Eh, just try to keep it reasonably short. Don’t go all the way to Wheatley and back.” said Tim. -“He just lets you drive his Ferrari?” asks David. They worked it out, with Billy saying “I want to go last. I want to savor the anticipation.” Roger and David went first. They were gone for 9 minutes. After that, Roger took Megan for a spin, which lasted 10 minutes. During this 19-minute period, Billy tried his best to stay as calm as he could, but a close observer could tell he was a bit jitterier than normal. At 10:02, Billy’s time finally came. “Who do you want to drive you?” asked Melissa. “I don’t particularly care, but you I guess.” said Billy. “I can take the rest back to the hotel. Wait, I guess someone should stay behind with Tim.” said Roger. Realizing that she was the only one who needed a ride to the hotel, Megan stayed behind. “You don’t have to go out of your way to take me back to the hotel.” she said. Melissa and Billy walked out to the Ferrari, as Roger walked out to his Accord and left. As soon as they got in, both buckled their seat belts and Billy turned his camera on. “THISSS is a Ferrari Testarossa. I wasn’t expecting to ride in it today, but it’s owned by the old CEO of Commander Computer, so this is kind of a historical and car review video at the same time. This is a 1985 model, it was actually in Izzy back in the day, and the owner drove it out of there. It has, how many miles does it have, Melissa?” asked Billy. “128,105.” said Melissa. “I don’t know much about the Testarossa, so I’m just going to show you the car.” said Billy. He turned off the camera momentarily. “Do you mind if I turn a light on in here?” asked Billy. “Go ahead.” said Melissa. Billy turned on the light and videoed the still-pristine interior as Melissa merged onto the interstate. The road ahead was clear. “You got a good hold on your camera?” asked Melissa. “Yes.” said Billy. “You ready to see this thing run?” asked Melissa. “Yup.” said Billy. Melissa floored the Ferrari as Billy filmed. Both took in the whine of the V12 engine as the speed climbed to 125 mph. “Whoa.” said Billy, as he turned off his camera and relaxed for the rest of the ride. “I bet Dirk would have enjoyed this.” said Melissa. “That’s what you get when you act like a total jerk. I would have kicked him out after the hospital incident.” said Billy. “I probably should have, come to think of it.” said Melissa. “That was nice of Tim to come and bring his Ferrari. What are the odds?” asked Billy. “Truth be told, I set up the whole thing. If you can’t tell by the fact, he lets me drive his priceless Ferrari, me and Tim have been friends for over 35 years.” said Melissa. “I think I remember you saying Tim would be glad to meet us, but I didn’t know it would be tonight.” said Billy. “I planned it weeks ahead of time. When you all signed up for the trip and put what you wanted to eat, I took the most popular option and set it up with Tim. I just finalized the details over text at the factory.” said Melissa. “And the Ferrari? Surely, he wouldn’t have brought that randomly. Were you behind that too?” asked Billy. “Maybe.” said Melissa. “Wow, you didn’t have to do that.” said Billy. “Well, I figured that if there was a car guy and a Ferrari available, I’d try to make something happen.” said Melissa. Even though the rides lasted less than 10 minutes, it would be something that Billy, and the others, would remember for a lifetime. When they got back to the restaurant, Melissa gave the keys back to Tim, and the explorers got back in the van to go to the hotel, a 12-story, 3-star hotel called Zodiac Valley Hotel. At 10:29 pm, the explorers finally reached their room. Billy found it amusing that the floors were named after zodiac signs. The explorers’ room was on the 10th floor, and was a double suite – two rooms, numbered 1017 and 1018, joined by a door. “We’re on Libra level. Only in Helmintoller would a floor of a hotel would be named that.” said Billy. Melissa and Megan stayed in room 1017, while David and Billy were in room 1018. All four had their own bed, a full-size bed with burgundy sheets and pillows and a white blanket. “What time do we have to be awake tomorrow?” asked Billy. “I’d say, maybe 10 am.” said Melissa. As Melissa and Megan settled into their room, and David laid down to fall asleep, Billy wanted to do the same, but he had to clear his SD cards for another day of exploring. First going to the community tab on his YouTube account, he posted “First day of Izydorczak exploration complete. Went to: airport, crash test hall, computer factory, several businesses and homes, hospital, high school, convention center, library, and a special surprise! Expect the videos uploaded by October 15th.” Then, he plugged in his 5-terabyte external hard drive through a USB port and his camera’s off-loading cable through a second USB port. As he drifted in and out of microsleeps, he off-loaded the contents of card 1 onto his laptop, then the remaining 6 cards, before transferring the 397.6 gigabytes of files to his laptop. Finally, after that 26-minute process, he took his bedtime medications. Finding David fast asleep, he set his alarm for 9:26 am, to commemorate the awesome September 26th he’d just had. Then, he fell asleep, briefly thought about the awesome day he’d just had, and went out like a light. He was so tired; he’d forgotten to call his parents to tell them he was okay. For Billy, it felt like he was asleep for a few seconds before he was woken up by his phone ringing. When he looked at his phone, he was surprised to see that it was 1:12 am, and that he’d been asleep for about two hours. “Hello, Dad.” said Billy. “How was your trip?” asked Billy’s dad. “It was great. We got to see quite a few places, we explored most of the southern part of the town, then we had sushi and I got to ride in a Ferrari.” said Billy. “That’s awesome. Who put all of this on?” asked Billy’s dad. “Melissa Murphy. She said she remembers you from college. Kappa Xi Delta?” asked Billy. “Oh, yeah. She was the nicest person I knew. Tell her I said hi.” said Billy’s dad. “Well, she hasn’t changed one bit. We did have one mean guy that we had to kick out.” said Billy. David woke up from the conversation. “Could you take your conversation into the bathroom, please?” he asked. “Sorry, didn’t realize how loud I was talking.” said Billy, walking into the bathroom. “You’re good.” said David. “Who was the mean guy and what did he do?” asked Billy’s dad. “He started off by insulting Melissa, calling her old and just generally being a snarky jerk. Then, he almost died when he disobeyed Melissa and went somewhere, she told us not to. Melissa just barely saved him. He was literally falling through a floor, and she grabbed him.” said Billy. “Holy ****! Make sure you do what Melissa says.” said Billy’s dad. “Yeah, it was nuts. I’ve never seen anything so brave. She came up behind him and just yanked him out. Gave me a lot of confidence in her. Anyway, after that happened, he still acted like a butthole. He constantly whined about his arms hurting. Didn’t take responsibility at all. He got kicked out after he tried to steal scrap metal from the old Kappa Xi Delta house. Melissa got pretty ticked off, she was yelling at him.” said Billy. “Wow, are you serious. What a *******. Anyway, you get some sleep and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” said Billy’s dad.

The explorers regrouped and walked back out to the van. By now, it was 7:02 pm, and the sun, and temperatures, were beginning to go down. “Last exploration of the day.” said Melissa. “What is it?” asked Megan. “My old sorority house.” said Melissa. The van drove through a commercial district before reaching a faded sign that said, “University of Izydorczak”. Behind it were several crumbling brick buildings. Melissa made a left at the sign, drove past some dorms, and was soon on Fraternity and Sorority Row. A few of the houses couldn’t be recognized since none, or not enough, of the Greek lettering remained. Billy pointed out the houses. “That’s Sigma… something, there. That’s Delta Omicron Pi, looks like it’s got a big hole in its roof. There’s Phi Nu, they’re holding up pretty well, but Theta Kappa next door looks to be on its last legs. And there’s…” “Kappa Xi Delta.” said Melissa, parking the van in front of the house. The house appeared to have a leaky roof and a badly weathered brick exterior, though it was in the best shape of the Greek houses seen so far. The sign hanging above the door said, “KAPPA XI DE TA” in bronze letters, about 12 inches tall and 8 inches wide, each.” “I wonder what happened to the L?” asked Billy. “That L’s probably been gone for 25 or 30 years. It fell off not long after it was abandoned.” said Melissa. “Wonder what happened to it? Stolen, perhaps?” asked Megan. Melissa looked up at where the L had been. “Corrosion.” As Melissa, David, Billy, and, surprisingly, Megan, walked into the dilapidated house, Dirk stayed outside, looking at the fallen L, which had landed in the grass. Dirk moved the L, setting it against the house’s brick foundation, and examined it closely. Meanwhile, inside the house, Melissa waxed nostalgic as she showed the group the kitchen that she’d cooked so many meals in decades ago. A roof leak had dissolved much of the sheetrock along one section of a wall and a section of adjoining ceiling, leaving the underlying wood frame and insulation exposed, but the structure was still stable – for now. The sage green paint on the walls had mostly chipped off, leaving the white undersurface exposed, which itself was faded and dirty. Bits of ceiling formed white chunks on the maple-wood floor. Along one wall of the kitchen was a large, white, 1980s fridge, still-intact granite countertops with blonde wood shelves underneath, and an electric range. An oak cutting board, engraved on one corner with the Kappa Xi Delta letters, sat on the countertop next to the range. The adjacent wall to the right had the same countertops, but these had an oven on one end and a dishwasher on the other. There was a microwave and a coffee maker on the right end of the counter. Cabinets that matched the shelves still sat intact above the countertops, even in the vicinity of the roof leak. To the right of that was a wood, Victorian-style pantry shelf. A large archway led into the adjoining dining room. “Even my sorority house isn’t this fancy.” said Megan. “I was the head Kappa Xi Delta chef my junior year, so ’84 to ’85, so I spent a lot of time in this kitchen. I remember the day we brought all these new appliances in. We saved up about $10,000 all fall semester of my junior year to remodel this kitchen. Before that, we had wood paneling on the walls and avocado-green tile floors. If you looked up 1970s kitchen on Google, you’d probably find something similar. They spent an entire winter break remodeling it, and we held a big party the first day our new kitchen was open.” said Melissa. “Did you make your steaks there?” asked Billy. “We bought 200 steaks and 40 bottles of A1 sauce, and people ate every one of them. The whole campus was invited. The party lasted 3 hours and we made about $5,000.” said Melissa. “Wow, I’d say in my 3 years in college, we might have had one event that made that much.” said Megan. Melissa led the group into the dining room. Billy looked at the composite photos on the walls, which showed every member of Kappa Xi Delta in the year in question. Along the wall facing the outside of the house were composites from the years 1956 to 1959, each about 6 feet wide and 4 feet tall. 1958’s composite had fallen, its corkboard back visible on the floor. The opposite wall had 1952 to 1955, and the walls at the ends had 1960 to 1963. A long wooden, glass-topped table, with 14 well-padded wooden dining chairs, sat around it. “When was K-Xi-D founded here, anyway?” asked Billy. “March 11, 1939,” said Melissa. “The first year the university was open.” “When was this house built?” asked Billy. “I think it was built in the late 1920s by one of the first wealthy families in Izzy. They left it when the stock market crashed, and the sorority bought it right after they were founded here.” “I would have never thought it was built in the ‘20s. Was it renovated, fully, at any point?” “Yup, last full renovation was in ’83, just four years before the volcano. So, all this was still, effectively, pretty new when it was abandoned.” “Any information on the other houses?” asked David. “Sorority Row was in the process of being updated in the ‘80s. All 14 of the houses were going to be renovated or the chapter given a new house. I think by the time of the volcano they’d gotten to 5 of them. We were the first to be renovated in ’83. Phi Nu got updated in ’84, and Alpha Alpha Alpha got a totally new house in ’85. Right before the volcano, Delta Omega got a new house in ’86 and Omega Chi got a renovation that same time. They were building a really nice house for Delta Omicron Pi that was going to open fall of ’87, but we all know what happened before that.” said Melissa. The group next went to a room with an L-shaped, overstuffed, white leather couch facing a 32-inch Sony Trinitron tube TV and a Pioneer stereo. A shelving unit with VHS tapes, cassette tapes, and LP records sat next to the TV. Along another wall was a Dostim computer at a wooden desk, and another desk with two lamps, a sculpture of the Kappa Xi Delta letters, and the chapter’s first composite photo from 1939 completed the room. In a similar state of disrepair to the previous rooms, plastic letters that once said “KAPPA XI DELTA” had fallen on to the couch. One of the pillows on the couch had a teddy bear, which had been Kappa Xi Delta’s mascot. Looking at the VHS tapes, Billy and David noticed that none seemed to be official retail releases, just blank tapes with names of movies and shows on them. Some had two movies, sometimes completely unrelated, on them. “A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Good taste.” said David. “Some of the few movies I’ve seen in my life. Wonder why these are all recorded blank tapes though? Cheaper? My grandpa said that blank VHS tapes used to be really expensive, I can only imagine the pre-recorded ones.” asked Billy. “New tapes were 50 bucks or more sometimes. We had HBO, they’d get a lot of the good movies, so we’d record them off there, or the regular TV if we were lucky.” said Melissa. Meanwhile, Megan was looking at the first year’s composite. “Did you ever meet any of the founding members of your chapter?” “Most of them, as a matter of fact. This was only a little over 40 years after we were founded, so our founders were still in their 60s. One of them was an advisor for the whole Greek system. They came to chapter meetings and events on campus, so everybody had the chance to meet them. I do the same today.” said Melissa. “What happened to this chapter after the volcano?” asked Megan. “I can answer that. They merged with the SHU chapter.” said Billy. “Yes, we did. Me, and all the other Izzy University members, got automatically welcomed into any K-Xi-D chapters of their choosing, but most of the members went to SHU because it was closest, and SHU took on alumni relations.” said Melissa. Billy finished filming the VHS tape shelf, then filmed the rest of the room, being sure to get a close-up of the 1939 composite. Afterwards, the group went into the chapter room. Amid the crumbling ceiling, warped wood floors, and peeling paint, hundreds of folding chairs sat neatly arranged in seven rows. Billy looked into a glass display case, intact even as the roof above bulged and threatened to come down. A tear came to his eye. Melissa better not see this, he thought. Greek Week Champions 1968. Greek Week Champions 1969. 1970. 1971. Every year through 1986, except for 1975, 1978, 1980 and 1982. Hundreds of award plaques and trophies for sisterhood, academic excellence, and kindest sisters. The oldest award seemed to be a sisterhood award from 1940. Billy’s heart sank as he saw one of those kindest sister awards. For some reason, this artifact inexplicably made him far sadder than it should have. “Melissa M. Mingo, June 5, 1986.” He stood in front of it, hoping Melissa wouldn’t see. “Are you okay?” asked Melissa. “Yeah, it’s just… I saw something sad. You don’t want to see it.” said Billy. “My kindest sister award?” asked Melissa, patting Billy on the shoulder. “It’s fine. They made two copies, and I have the other at my house.” “You deserve it 100 percent.” said Billy. “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” said David. “I agree.” said Megan. All three came over to see the award as Billy finished filming the display case and went to film the rest of the room. After a couple minutes in there, the group gathered, ready to finish their day. “I’m going to take you upstairs. Guys didn’t get to come up here often.” said Melissa. The group went to climb the stairs, but after Megan noticed some slight wobbliness in the stairs, she decided to stay downstairs. Melissa tested the floors with each step; they were still stable. “It’s getting dark, we can only stay up here a few minutes. If you want, we can arrange another visit tomorrow.” said Melissa. “I’m getting kind of tired anyway.” said David. “Me too.” said Billy. In the room, there were three bunk beds, still made. Small, IKEA-style white wooden dressers sat next to each bed. On top of them were various knick-knacks; a picture of a bird, lamps, cups with pens and pencils in them. There was an empty picture frame on one. “Family picture.” said Melissa. “This girl took a family picture with her.” “That’s good.” said Billy. “This one was my bed,” said Melissa, pointing to a top-bunk bed with a white pleated comforter and white pillows with a green conch shell pattern. After the explorers looked around the relatively small room, Melissa opened a closet door. “This was one of my favorite rooms in the whole house, ‘the wall’. People would sign this wall, mostly sisters, but sometimes visitors. I think there’s, um, over 30 years of signatures in here.” said Melissa. Billy and David looked in awe at the walls, which were made of solid wood panels that had, somehow, remained intact. The left and middle walls were covered in signatures; the right wall was about two-thirds full. While David took in the signatures, Billy looked for dates and patterns. The left wall seemed to have the oldest signatures; the oldest one Billy could find was from a Margaret Dawson, apparently a K-Xi-D, dated 9/24/53, near the middle of the wall, which was about 7’ wide. The dates on the signatures got slightly later in a ring around the original. “Do you think they’ll mind if I film their signatures?” asked Billy. “I certainly wouldn’t mind. Go right ahead, it’s been over 30 years.” said Melissa. The earliest signatures – about 1953-1955 – were large, but as the left wall had become about half-full, the signatures shrunk. Between two signatures from 1958 and 1959, Maggie Santos had put her signature in a space less than a half-inch tall. It was undated but was probably from the mid- ‘60s at the earliest. David found Melissa’s signature, on the upper part of the right wall. It said, “Melissa Mingo, Sept. 7, 1983, KΞΔ Room 5 Resident 83-84” “Look over here, I found Melissa’s signature.” said David. “Oh wow, that’s awesome.” said Billy. Then he looked up about a foot. “Dad?” The signature, the very highest one on the right wall, said, “Dave Alexander, 10/12/83 10:17 am, I Love KΞΔ!” “Melissa, you might want to have a look at this. My dad signed the wall in here.” said Billy. Though he’d already filmed the entire walls, he made sure to get a close-up on his dad’s signature. Melissa soon came into the closet as Billy went back into the bedroom. “Did you know my dad, Dave Alexander?” asked Billy. “Yes, I did. He was always so happy and fun to be around. Kind of like you, actually.” said Melissa. “He probably signed the wall up high to be considerate, because he was tall-“ said Billy, before a sudden loud boom echoed through the room. The entire building shook. The explorers could hear popping sounds in the distance. “EARTHQUAKE!” shouted Billy. Then, the shaking stopped. “It’s not an earthquake.” said Billy. The explorers left the room and went down the stairs. The ceiling in the kitchen near the door they’d came in was sagging. Several pieces of ceiling lay freshly fallen. There was a large crack in the wall next to the front door. A hacksaw, that hadn’t been there before, lay in the grass. The second “P” in Kappa and the “A” in Delta were now missing; the letters said “KAP A XI DE T”. There was a large cut underneath all the letters and around them, as well as the beginnings of a cut above the letters. It was obvious that someone had tried to cut the section of wall off that contained the letters. Megan was already outside, and Dirk was nowhere to be seen. By now, it was 7:31 pm, and the daylight was dim. The explorers turned on their flashlights, looking for Dirk. A few minutes later, they found him by the faint beep of his “ghost-catcher”. He was inside the Gamma Gamma Gamma house, next to a broken window. “Dirk! I know you’re in there!” yelled Melissa. “Come out!” “You can’t make me.” said Dirk. “Yeah, well I can leave your butt here if you don’t come out.” said Melissa. “You wouldn’t.” said Dirk. Melissa started to walk toward her van, and motioned Billy and David to walk with her. “You wouldn’t really leave Dirk, would you?” asked Billy. “It’s an empty threat.” whispered Melissa. A few seconds later, Dirk ran up to them, just as they started to turn around. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” he said. “Do you know anything about the damage to the sorority house?” asked Melissa. “Oh, that? That was scrappers.” said Dirk. “Bull. If it were scrappers, why would you try to hide from me?” asked Melissa. “Megan, have you seen anyone else in town?” asked Billy. “Nope.” said Megan. “Well, what’s it matter? No one’s used the house in a **** long time.” said Dirk. “This woman SAVES YOUR LIFE, and this is how you repay her? By causing major damage to a house where she once lived and made lots of memories?” asked Billy. “I would have given you guys some of the money.” said Dirk. “You’re a horrible person! I wouldn’t want any of your money!” said Billy, before beginning to launch into a profanity-filled tirade. As Billy screamed at Dirk, Megan joined in, though she wasn’t quite as upset. David and Melissa watched. “You could have killed us!” yelled Megan. “My hand slipped!” yelled Dirk. Billy got in Dirk’s face. “I want you to apologize to Melissa, right now.” “***** you.” said Dirk. Melissa stepped in. She put her hand on Billy’s arm. “Everything’s going to be okay. Calm down.” She turned her attention to Dirk. “I’m sorry to inform you that you are no longer welcome on this trip, Dirk. Vandalizing and then causing major damage to a building is a gross violation of the urban explorer’s code. Since we are at the end of our day anyway, I will have my husband meet you at the restaurant to take you back to your car.” Melissa texted her husband to meet them at the restaurant, so as not to spoil the surprise for Megan, Billy, and David.

Chapter 13 is here, with a big surprise! Read all about the end of their first full day of exploring!

Chapter 12 Next door to the event center was a large building which had a Romanesque look. Scaffolding surrounded the building, which looked in passable from the outside. “Could be a façade. The place could be wrecked inside.” said Melissa. As the explorers got closer to the building, they saw some fallen bricks laying on the ground. Some of the windows were broken. Megan decided to stay outside. A sign next to the front door said, “REDUCED HOURS, EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 6, 1986: THU-SAT 8 AM – 10 PM, CLOSED MON-WED FOR ONGOING RENOVATION”. “I guess the renovation has lasted 34 years… and counting. The focus has shifted from modernizing it to turning it into a pile of rubble.” said Billy. David opened the 15-foot tall, solid wood door. The explorers followed him into a large atrium. The ceiling was about 35 feet high and made of glass, which lit the interior of the building so that flashlights weren’t needed. To the sides, spiral staircases led up to the second and third floors. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases, still loaded with books, were visible from the front to back of the building on the top two floors. In the center of the atrium, there were rows of red chairs, with wooden end tables next to them, and a circular desk with chairs around its interior. Some of the end tables still had books on them. Although the books looked to still be in place from a distance, the atrium was in terrible condition. Shattered panels of laminated glass from the ceiling covered the floor – this was a “hard hat required” building. The ceilings outside the atrium area had mostly come off, revealing the bare beams under them. There was obvious water damage – the wood floors were buckled and warped, and many of the walls were decayed to their internal beams, the drywall having been eaten away by water. Moss covered parts of the floors, and a greenish grime covered the interior walls. “I wonder how many of these books could be saved?” asked Billy. “None of ‘em.” said Dirk. “Not sure yet, but I’m sure some of them could and some couldn’t, maybe 60 or 70% could be saved.” said David. Melissa led the explorers to a small alcove to the right. The sign, which was missing some letters, said “C ck Che k ut D sk”. One bookshelf had large binders on it, each labeled with a year, from 1951 to 1986. The binder for 1987 was on a desk, next to a telephone, a pen, and a dried-out date stamper still set to “APR 11, 1987”. While David, Dirk and Melissa looked at the 1987 binder, Billy grabbed the 1964 binder off the shelf and looked at it. All wanted to sit in one of the four chairs behind the desk, but all looked too dirty and weak to sit in. Billy flipped through the pages of the binder, which appeared to be about 800 to 1,000 pages. He turned one page at a time until he was more assured of the durability of the binder, then he opened the binder to what appeared to be about 1/3 of the way through, looking for April 28. He landed five days early. “April 23… 24… 25… 27… 28!” mumbled Billy to himself. The pages had 50 lines each, with the title of the book, the due date, and the number and shelf of the book. Each line was numbered; the lines on the page Billy was looking at were numbers 924,551 to 924,600. Most of the books checked out on April 28, 1964 had been nonfiction books that Billy had never heard of. The first entries for the day were a set of 14 books, all about the schwa sound, all with Dewey Decimal classifications of 414, from shelves 502 and 503. All had a check-out time of 8:01 am and a due date of May 12th; they’d all been turned in the day before that. “Uh. I didn’t know there were so many books about ‘uh”. said Billy. “Meliss-uh, somebody was doing some intense research on schwas the day you were born.” Melissa looked at the binder from 1964, while Billy started looking at the binder from 1987 – looking at the last-ever books to be checked out. The last ever book, number 4,518,386, was titled “NYC at 360: A History of New York City, 1624-1984”. It had been checked out at 9:55 pm on March 28, 1987, had a Dewey Decimal classification of 973.92718, and was from shelf number 1,782. Its due date was April 11, and it had never been turned in, for obvious reasons. “Have you ever been to New York City?” asked Billy. “Yes. Beautiful city. I lived there for a while in the ‘90s, as a matter of fact.” said Melissa. “Somebody’s got a book on it forever, no late fees. What was it like living there?” asked Billy. “Very crowded. I moved there in ’93 when I found a job opening at my dream job there. Back then, I was an investment banker, so I took a job at the World Trade Center and moved into a SoHo apartment. At first, all the hustle and bustle, being in the middle of everything, was enjoyable, and working 103 floors up was a nice novelty. After a couple years, it got old having to deal with everything being so crowded all the time. I missed the space and the fresh air of living in a smaller city and not having to pay $2,000 a month just for a one-bedroom apartment. Someone told me ‘you should teach’, so I left New York in June of ’97 and went back to get my PhD.” said Melissa. “When you worked at the towers, were you worried about t-?“ asked Dirk, before Billy cut him off. Don’t want to bring back any potentially traumatic memories, he and David thought. “Terrorism? I never worried about it too much. Two months before I started working there, they put a truck bomb in the basement and tried to knock the towers down. It killed a few people, but it wasn’t the massive catastrophe the terrorists were hoping for. After that they upgraded security in the buildings. We had the occasional evacuation drill but never thought about it on a day-to-day basis.” said Melissa. “Wow. We’re all glad you’re okay.” said David. “How’d you go from being a journalist to an investment banker to a journalism professor?” asked Billy. “I double majored in journalism and business. From my childhood, I was always a good writer, but I also became interested in finance and investing. I couldn’t decide which one I wanted to do, so I did both. When I got out of college, I was recruited by the local newspaper, so I did that for a while until the volcano went off. Then, I moved to Helmintoller City and found a job working for a small local newspaper, the Barlow Post, and got an internship at a Silverman Sachs office in 1988. After that, Silverman hired me on. I was putting in 60, 70 hours a week for at Silverman, driving for GT [an Uber-like business active since 1973 in Helmintoller State] in my spare time, and I barely got any sleep. In 1993 I found a job with the same pay, about 60 grand a year, working a regular 40-hour week. I enjoyed it at first but got burned out on both living in New York and the hustle and bustle of the financial sector. A fresh college graduate I was mentoring in 1996 told me I should teach, and I started doing research onto professorships. Left New York in ’97, enrolled at Western Helmintoller University, and got my PhD in 2001, when I started teaching.” said Melissa. The explorers took in what Melissa told them, then soon put the binders back down and walked toward the back of the library, where the card catalog was. “I’ve never seen a card catalog in person. It’s been all computerized my whole life.” said Billy. “They were getting ready to computerize it here, too.” said Melissa, pointing to a moldy, decayed piece of paper which said “NEVER FUMBLE THROUGH CARDS AGAIN. COMPUTER CARD CATALOG COMING AUGUST.” “I wonder if they were already doing the work on digitizing it. A million entries don’t digitize overnight.” said Billy. “Not sure, but I seem to remember seeing a guy on a computer with a rack of cards a couple weeks before the volcano. So, probably.” said Melissa. Billy opened a broken glass door. A computer laid on the ground, next to a desk half-eaten by termites. 3 ½ inch floppy disks laid next to it amid insulation and ceiling tiles. Billy picked up one of the disks, labeled “CARD CATALOG: Disk 13, 218 to 233”. He left the room and showed the disk to the rest. “Looks like it was going to be a 40, 50, maybe 60 disk job. The wonders of computers before the Internet and cheap storage.” said Billy. “Computer town, they looked for an excuse to computerize everything.” said Dirk. “I’d rather deal with 60 floppy disks than this big card catalog. We were all looking forward to the computerized card catalog, or Triple C as we called it.” said Melissa. The explorers then went to look at the thousands of shelves of books, which were all labeled with a number. Shelf 1 was at the far left of the 1st floor, directly to the left of the entrance. The floor-to-ceiling shelf only went from 000.00003 to 000.2816. Every book was still intact on the shelf, covered in a thin layer of dust. The first book was entitled “Computing Theory”. On the other side, the shelves started with shelf 27. Billy turned on his flashlight and walked down the corridor of books. The books on every shelf were still intact. Billy wanted to read some of them, but knew that time was limited, and he didn’t want to be the one who would move the books for the first time in 33 years. “I wonder what the last shelf in this place is?” asked Billy. “I think there were about 15 or 1,600 shelves.” said Melissa. “If we can safely get to it, can I see it?” asked Billy. “Follow me. It would be at the back right corner of the building.” said Melissa. As David and Dirk explored the remainder of the library, Melissa led Billy up a debris-covered staircase, careful to avoid a slippery section of boards, glass and 2x4’s that covered the whole right side of the staircase. The building’s condition was even worse up here. The roof visibly sagged in many areas; in some areas, there was a hole or a separation between roof sections that let in enough light that a flashlight wasn’t necessary. Damp patches on the red-carpet floor showed where was relatively safe to step, and where was dangerous – Melissa deftly stepped around the patches, and Billy followed, occasionally stopping to film a section of books or hallway. They finally reached the back wall of the building. By the Dewey numbers on the books – in the high 980s – Billy could tell that the shelves, 1,708 and so on, were near the end. A few shelves down, a bright light shone through a hole in the building. As they walked by shelf 1,712, the two turned off their flashlights. Shelves 1,715 to 1,717 had all fallen through a hole in the wall that extended from floor to ceiling and was about 12 feet wide. Melissa put one foot on the floor by the hole, declaring it safe, before Billy walked onto it. He filmed the shelves adjacent to the hole and zoomed his camera in on the pile of books and wood scraps that had fallen to the ground. Judging by the lack of vegetation growing atop the books, Billy reasoned that the wall must have collapsed recently – probably in the last year. Moss grew along the sides of the adjacent shelves. Billy and Melissa continued, noticing a crack in the wall above shelves 1,718 to 1,726, and light shining in from behind 1,721, although the shelf was still in place. Finally, they reached the last shelf in the entire library, 1,731. The area in its immediate vicinity was oddly pristine, with the wall, shelf, ceiling, and roof fully intact. Billy looked at the last book, 999.96502, Where in the Universe could Humans Live? “When I was a kid, I would always so straight to the last book in the library and thumb through it. I’ve seen 998’s and a couple 999’s, but never a 999.9 anything.” said Billy. He carefully pulled the book out and turned the first page. Melissa shined her flashlight, allowing Billy to read the book. It had been checked out only twice, on November 5, 1986 and February 10, 1987. The first line in the book, which had a 1986 copyright date, was ominous. “In the future, a major disaster, shifts in the Earth’s natural state, or overpopulation may cause some of us to have to move to another planet.” “Melissa, can you hold this book open like I have it? I want to get a close up of these words.” said Billy. As Melissa held the book open, Billy filmed the words, then turned the pages of the book. The irony was not lost on him when he found a chapter labeled “Supervolcano”. Turning to the chapter, he saw a diagram of the Toba supervolcano, erupting and creating a cloud around the world. “Wow, how ironic that a town that ended with a volcanic eruption, would have the last book in its library feature a supervolcano.” said Billy. He took the book from Melissa’s hands and put it back in its original spot, and they walked back out. Melissa got in touch with David through the walkie-talkie. “Where are you?” she asked. “I’m on the west side of the second floor, near shelf… 927. I don’t know where Dirk is, he started up his ghost scanner and wandered off.” said David. “Wait right there. I’ll be there shortly.” said Melissa. Melissa and Billy met up with David at shelf 927, and they scanned their flashlights but couldn’t see anyone. “DIRK!” they yelled in unison, through the walkie talkies. No answer. Walking toward the south side of the building, they yelled again. “DIRK!” “What do you want?” asked Dirk. “Where are you?” asked David. “Bottom floor, northeast corner. I wouldn’t come out here though, it’s possessed.” said Dirk. “I’m in the Bermuda Triangle, coordinates 56.784 North, 110.82 East” continued Dirk, raising his voice to talk like a ghostly female. The remaining three walked down the stairs and continued toward the front door. “That’s not in the Bermuda Triangle, it’s in Siberia.” said Billy. Billy decided to play a game with the ‘ghost’. “Who are you?” asked Billy. “I am Amelia Earhart… I’m so lonely…” said Dirk. “What ended up happening to you on that flight?” asked Billy. “I crash landed in a sewer and lived there for the rest of my life… I died in, um… 1992, I guess.” said Dirk. “From what?” asked Billy. “Loneliness… no one wants to talk to you when you’re covered in sewage…” said Dirk. “If you’re really Amelia Earhart, what’s your middle name?” asked Billy. “Um…Ethel.” said Dirk. “Okay, Amelia, it’s time to leave this building. Come to the front door.” said Melissa. “I’m talking to Amelia Earhart.” said Dirk, back in his normal voice. “Well, Amelia’s ghost is actually a bit to the east of here. You’ll understand her a lot better if you come with us.” said Billy. Within a minute, Melissa, Billy, and David could see Dirk walking toward them.

Chapter 12, coming later this week (after months of writer's block, I'm finally resuming work for good) contains a reference to the September 11 attacks. While the reference is not graphic and is low in impact, those sensitive to such content may not want to read it. Therefore, Chapter 12 will be released in two versions, with and without the content.

The reason there haven't been updates in almost two weeks is that I've been battling COVID-19. The story was put on hold during that time. Now, I'm feeling 95% normal again, and resuming work on this story.

Chapter 11 Melissa and Billy got back in the van, taking the front seats. Melissa started to drive the van northward, crossing an avenue. Billy handed his camera to David in the back seat to show him the pictures of the room he was born in. “I’m surprised you could even go in it. I would have thought the floors would have been far too damaged.” said David. “You lucked out. It was one of only two of the birth rooms that we could even go in.” said Billy. “What was the rest of the hospital like?” asked David. “Collapses down as far as the 1st floor, had to watch your step everywhere. Extremely dangerous building, I’m guessing in 5 or 10 years the whole top half is going to be gone.” said Billy. “Yeah, I was really nervous about you all in there.” said David. “Would you believe that building was used until the ‘90s? Less than 30 years ago. Maybe even 25. There were apartments on the 2nd through 5th floors. It was some kind of commune established after the volcano. I guess they abandoned it because the building was becoming unsafe.” said Billy. “Well, I’m glad the room I was born in is still there, even if it won’t be for much longer.” said David. “I am too. As an aside, I heard somewhere that building had more people born in it that test-drove the 2008 Honda Accord in Helmintoller when it came out than any other building.” said Billy. “Wow, how do they know that? I was born in that building, and I test-drove the ’08 Accord when it came out, but I didn’t know that very building was number one.” said David. “It was in Izzy, it was a big hospital, and it operated from the early ‘60s to ‘85. A car salesman where I live said that most of the people that test drove those Accords in the first days and weeks were born between about 1975 and whatever would have been 18 years old then, so 1989.” said Billy. Just then, Melissa turned left. “Why are you going left? It’s only 5:04.” asked Billy. “The stadium, event center, and library are up here. Really nice buildings.” said Melissa. “Can I go inside?” asked Dirk. “Shouldn’t be too sketchy, so yes. But if you disobey any instruction, you’ll get pulled again.” said Melissa. The first building they explored was the stadium. All five explorers decided to come along on this one, as it was outdoors. The parking lot, while overgrown, was empty, unlike the parking lot of the event center next door. “Remember, since Izzy was abandoned in March, they wouldn’t have been using this field yet for the season. They only used it from April to October, sometimes November. They played rugby, football, and occasionally a few other outdoor sports and events.” said Melissa. The field itself was just a large expanse filled with grass 3 to 4 feet tall; any identifying lines had long vanished. At one end of the field were two scoreboards, a rugby scoreboard on the left and a football scoreboard on the right. Both were heavily rusted, with chipped paint, but still standing. Some of the glass pieces covering the score panels themselves were missing. The explorers stayed on the concrete adjacent to the bleachers. “How’d they get both rugby and football in?” asked David. “Originally, it was just a football field. Rugby came here in the mid ‘70s. They’d start the field as a rugby field in the spring and convert it to a football field in July or August. Not too much difference.” said Melissa. The bleachers themselves had sides made of brick, with a concrete structure. The plastic seats were white, with some green seats arranged in a pattern that said “PELES”. A few bricks had fallen from the sides, and the concrete was cracking and had some small plants growing through it, but the structure looked stable enough. There was a press box at the top of the bleachers; it had a few missing bricks near the tops of the walls and the roof appeared to have a hole in it, so exploring it would depend on how it was attached to the bleachers. “The high school said Peles too. I guess that was the mascot for the town.” said David. “Bet the whole town felt like idiots after the volcano went off, naming their mascot after the Hawaiian god of fire.” said Dirk. “The volcanologists all told us that the volcano hadn’t erupted since the time of the pharaohs in Ancient Egypt and that it probably wouldn’t erupt for thousands of years, and even if it did erupt, we’d have at least a week of warning. It was a one in a million thing. As for the mascot, the football, basketball, baseball, and rugby teams were all called the Peles, the hockey team was called the Destroyers.” said Melissa. “Easy to remember what team was from Izzy.” said Billy. Melissa climbed a staircase to get onto the bleachers; all but Megan followed. They walked up next to the spine of the “P” in PELES, as Megan took a selfie in front of the bleachers. Billy took a picture of the bleachers from the side and a close-up of seat R1. The bleachers had 26 rows. “I love how the rows are A to Z, so you know exactly how far from the bottom or top you are.” said Billy. “We don’t care.” said Dirk. “I went to this stadium many times and didn’t remember that. Interesting little detail.” said Melissa. Melissa opened the door to the press box, putting one foot on the floor to test it out. It felt solid. She motioned for the rest of the explorers to follow. The first room was a corridor, empty except for three stacks of posters, about two feet tall each. Billy looked at the posters on the top; a poster for a football match between the Peles and the Gorham Sailors on October 4, 1986, a football playoff match between the Peles and the Cornelius City Griffins on November 1, 1986, and a 14th Annual Water Balloon War, put on by Phi Gamma Alpha Fraternity on September 12, 1986. “Water balloon fight, that sounds like a dream! I need to get a DeLorean and go to 1986.” said Billy. “Most of the Greek community at Izzy University came down here every year to hurl water balloons at each other on Friday night. Sometimes, even alumni would come, I was at the last one in fall 1986 even though I’d graduated in May. Every organization got a few thousand balloons – ours were green – and we just went nuts with them.” said Melissa. In the next room, there were three torn black leather chairs and a table with a camera mounted in front of it, facing out a still-intact window toward the field. The explorers gave the room a quick once over and walked out. Next door to the field was the city’s main event venue, a large building that, at a distance, looked sort of like the airport terminal, clad in numerous windows. A label scar said “Medley Arena”; the actual lettering for the arena, red letters about 8 feet tall, had torn loose and were laying in a mangled lump in front of the arena. The exterior of the arena was covered in laminated-glass windows, some of them cracked and all covered in dirt and grime. While it appeared to be in worse condition than the mansion they explored earlier, it still looked very much structurally stable, a relief for Melissa, Billy, and Dirk. All explorers, including Megan, went in. The interior of the building smelled musty, though no plant life was visible inside. In the entrance concourse, the light-tan, marble floors looked ahead of their time for the 1980s, and they and the white marble walls looked to be largely intact. There were a few flakes of paint and drywall from the ceiling on the ground, but the ceiling – painted with a beautiful mural of the city – still had 90% of its paint and covering. “Wow, this place looks modern for 1987. The event arena in my hometown still looked a lot like this until they renovated it a few years ago. It’s in great shape, too.” said Billy. “They’d just done a top-to-bottom renovation of the arena in 1984. Had they abandoned it a few years earlier, it would be in a lot worse shape; the old arena had roof leaks, as well as hideous avocado-green walls. They’d been wanting to repair and update it for at least a decade, and they finally did, only for it to be abandoned a few years later. They built, and renovated, this place to last and to take the weight of thousands of people on the floors at once. Izzy was booming in the ‘80s, so several of the major attractions in the city were renovated just a few years before the volcano.” “What’s your best memory here?” asked Megan. “Probably the Steven Wonderful concert in December 1984. It was a huge event that they hyped up since that summer. They actually had to do 3 nights, because they could only hold about 15,000 people in here. 15,000 tickets sold out in 15 minutes, so they expanded to a second night, and that sold out quickly. They added a third night, and that almost sold out. I went on the first night, and let me tell you, it was the most amazing concert I’ve ever been to, before or since. Steve was on top of his game that night.” said Melissa. “Any other big-name singers sing here?” asked Billy. “We got Michael Jefferson, Wham-O, Motley Crew, GEO Speed Wagon, they all came to Izzy. Steve was the first, the 1984 renovation made the big names take this venue seriously. They tripled the size of the venue in ’84. We had probably 20 or 30 concerts scheduled that had to be canceled because of the volcano, ’87 was going to be the biggest year yet.” said Melissa. “Why were there no cars in the parking lot, then?” asked Billy. “The night of the volcano, there had been a hockey game that let out at 9, I believe. Don’t quote me on that, I wasn’t there, but everyone would have gone home before the volcano hit after 10.” said Melissa. On a wall to their right, the explorers found a marquee board with a list of major events listed on it. Only a couple of the letters had fallen, so it was still readable. There were three sections: Sports, Music, and Events, as well as a calendar in a binder with laminated pages on a small, elevated table underneath. Although the city had been abandoned on March 28, 1987, the calendar didn’t have an opening until August 18 of that year. “Do you know anything about this Izzy Car Show, scheduled for June 1-7?” asked Billy. “I actually drove people around in the new cars the last two times they held it. It was a lot of fun. They paid me $200 a day just to drive the new cars. Helped me pay off my college debt, too.” said Melissa. The explorers walked down the concourse, finding a restaurant called “Frisco Burrito” on their left. The theme was similar to a Chipotle, with an adobe and red color scheme. “Wow, I bet in the ‘80s that was trendy.” said Megan. “Yeah, and delicious.” said Melissa. Next to the Frisco Burrito, there was a passageway to the main event room itself. The room itself was massive, and much more decayed than the concourse. The humidity was noticeably higher than in the concourse. The concrete floor of the main room was covered in steel coils, with no sign of the ice that would have been on the rink; there was a large amount of moss growing from the concrete floor and steel coils, and even some moss growing on the walls that separated the rink from the spectator area. “Hmmm… I wonder how that worked?” asked Megan. “I think they send a really cold liquid, something that can get to below zero without freezing, through the steel coils. The coils get to below zero and that freezes the water around them.” said David. “And what about when they needed to use the arena for something else?” asked Megan. “They laid an insulated, foldable floor over it. It would feel like a normal floor, but there would be ice underneath.” said Melissa. Above them, the ceiling was about 40 feet above them. Though covered in moss and grime, the concrete roof structure was intact, and all the little workers’ passageways running a few feet below the ceiling looked stable. Some pieces of plastic, from the rings of advertising that lined the walls at the boundaries between levels, had fallen on the high-backed green chairs ringing the stadium. There were probably 60 rows of these seats. “Yeah, just looks like the inside of a stadium, with a little more decay.” said Dirk. For once, everyone agreed with him. “I’d love to go up to the walkways near the ceiling and get a top-down shot.” said Billy. “I’ve been up on those walkways at another stadium, as a maintenance worker. It’s an interesting novelty the first time you go up.” said David. “If we can get up there, and they’re stable, we’ll walk on them.” said Melissa. The explorers left the ice rink room by climbing up through the seating area, reaching row 63 and leaving through section 314. They walked back toward the lower numbered sections, 313, 312… until they found a luxury lounge near section 308. A sign on the wall said, “Rhodes Furniture Lounge”, next to a large door that said, “Members Only”. “No sense in keeping my poor butt out.” said Dirk, as the explorers walked into the room. “Did you ever get to go in here, Melissa? I only got to walk by it, I always wondered what was in here.” said David. “Yes, once. It looked just like this, but in better shape, obviously. Tim got me an invitation in here in 1985.” said Melissa. The lounge was wrecked; the entire drop ceiling had come down, covering everything in the room with a thick coating of plastic and drywall. The tan shag carpet was covered in moss. The bare concrete walls were visible in some spots where the green and white wood paneling had come off. A white patch on the top of the big screen TV revealed one of the sources of the decay. “Bird crap. Birds are getting in here somehow.” said Billy. An overstuffed red couch was ripped and had bird droppings on it as well. The explorers soon found where they could have come from, a broken skylight. A serving cart’s troughs were filled with dead vermin. Plates were left on a table, and there were even cups laying on the floor. “Somebody didn’t clean up in here.” said Billy. “I’m out. Eew.” said Megan. She left the room and went back out to the 3rd floor concourse. The remaining explorers continued to explore the lounge for a few more minutes before leaving to keep looking for the maintenance room. During the walk toward the maintenance room, Dirk reached in his pocket for his cell phone; he felt some pain in his shoulder. “Ow, my shoulder.” “Oh, boy. Not this again.” said Billy. “Melissa hurt my shoulder in the hospital. I just tripped over something little and she grabbed my shoulders like a ******* gorilla.” said Dirk. “No, you were falling into a hole where you would have died, and I grabbed you so you wouldn’t fall to your death.” said Melissa. “Let me get this straight. Melissa saved your life and you’re going to try to frame her for hurting you?” asked Billy. Billy showed Megan and David a picture of the hole. “This is the hole he almost fell down. He stepped on it, after Melissa told him not to go in there, and it fell out from under him.” “Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty serious hole. You did the right thing, Melissa.” said David. “If Dirk tries to get you in trouble, we’re all behind you.” said Billy. “Yeah, you’ve been nothing but nice to all of us.” said Megan. Finally, between sections 301 and 328, they found a door that said, “Employees Only”. Melissa tried the door, expecting it to be locked. It opened. She looked at the walkway in front of her, finding its connections secure and structure stable. The walkway, made of black corrugated steel, was about 2 feet wide and had a black steel railing that was about 4 feet tall. She called for the explorers to follow her, and all but Megan did. David followed Melissa on to the walkway, and Billy followed behind, followed by Dirk at the back. The walkway moved unsteadily with all four on it. “Billy and Dirk, you need to go back to the concourse. I’ll come get you in 5 minutes.” said Melissa. They left, while Melissa and David walked on the walkways for a few minutes. “You gotta see the control center over the scoreboard.” said David. Five minutes later, Melissa came back. It was Billy’s turn. Melissa followed about two feet behind Billy, so he could film unobstructed. Billy filmed every second of the walk, getting a few top-down shots of the ice rink itself, as well as the ceiling. On the ceiling, the explorers got a close-up view of the air ducts and water pipes that serviced the building. Billy reached out and touched an air duct at a place where it ran inches from the walkway. The walkways intersected at the center of the arena, directly above the score board, around the control room at the center of the room like a porch on a house. The walkway that the explorers walked on ran across the diameter of the short side of the room and was about 60 feet long between the entrance and control center at the center of the arena. The control center was an enclosed circular room about 7 feet in diameter. Billy realized that the best place to get a good top-down video wouldn’t be from the control room or its immediate vicinity, but about 4 feet away. Billy zoomed his camera out to its widest angle and pointed the camera toward the ice rink and seats on one side, then to the ice rink and seats on the other side. Then, Billy had an idea: put his arm through the camera strap and poke his camera through the railing to get a direct overhead shot with no walkway in the way. With the camera pointing straight down, he took a picture, getting the whole ice rink and at least 30 rows of seats in the frame. “Wow. Melissa, take a look at this.” said Billy. “Impressive. I haven’t seen many pictures that capture their subject so well, and I taught photography classes for 5 years.” said Melissa. ‘Didn’t know I had it in me. Dumb luck, perhaps.” said Billy. After the picture, Billy opened the door to the control center; Melissa followed. “What, did they not have any locks on the doors in this place?” asked Billy. “Guess not. They would have had security staffed there, so I guess they didn’t see the need to lock stuff up.” said Melissa. The control center had papers on the table still left over from the last hockey game. The Destroyers had 6 points, the opposing team, the Kallal Ducks, had gotten 4. The game-ending time was 9:21 pm, less than 45 minutes before the volcano. “I live in Kallal, but I’ll root for the Destroyers here. It was their last game.” said Billy. “They were having a good season. They let them go to the Yelnats Cup the next year as the Murphysville Destroyers, and they won, so it was a victory, just a year late.” said Melissa. “That was so nice of the HHL. How long were they out?” asked Billy. “I think they came back around April of 1988, a little after the first anniversary of the volcano. They were all away games for a couple years after that.” said Melissa. “I love a good resurgence story. What about the Izzy Car Show?” asked Billy. “That was brought back in ’88. It’s been held in Cormack City since then, but it’s still called the Izzy Car Show.” said Melissa. “So, I take it, ’88 was the year stuff really came back, at least all the big events.” said Billy. “You really started to see the re-scheduled concerts and events start coming back around Christmastime of ’87, though most of our big events came back in ’88, some in ’89. Most of them were in venues in the Cormack City/Murphysville area, as that’s where most of us moved.” said Melissa. Billy finished exploring the control room, and then Melissa went back with Dirk. A few minutes later, the explorers were done with this building, and it was 6:09 pm.

Chapter 10 By now, it was 4:11 pm; with sunset at 7:21, there was about 3½ hours left to explore for the day. At about 45 minutes per location, they could get 4, possibly 5 more locations in for the day. Billy’s camera battery was at 46%; it would definitely need a charge tonight. The next place on the agenda was the hospital. It was close, next door to the school. Melissa drove the van a few hundred feet, parking in front of the hospital. The hospital was massive – and massively decayed. An entire section of the 10-story hospital, five stories high and nearly half of the floors’ area, had collapsed into the remainder of the building. A cross-section of the hospital from the 6th to 10th floors was visible from the ground. The parking lot was overgrown, with hundreds of cars filling about half of the parking spaces. Other than the totally collapsed gas station, it was the worst-condition building they’d explored yet. The entire building looked like it had been bombed. Billy saw a relatively modern, Helvetica-like font on a sign on the 8th floor that said, “Birth Ward”. “If I’m not mistaken, this building was renovated some time in the ‘70s and now it looks like this. Unbelievable.” said Billy. “1977.” said Melissa. “Must have been poorly maintained.” said Billy. “It was. I had a summer job in one of the hospital cafeterias in 1982, they were already building the replacement to this building. Even in ’82, the building was already having structural problems. They built the first five floors of the building around 1951, then they added the top five floors in the early ‘60s. They tried to fix it in ’77, but it didn’t work. As an aside, I was born in this building, room 827… looks like it’s not there anymore.” said Melissa. “Wow, seeing the place where you were born become thin air… I can’t imagine.” said Billy. “I was born in that building too, room 810. I think it was toward the back of the building, might still be there. My mom said there were cracks in the walls when I was born in 1981.” said David. “Is this the hospital where they shot people up with Thorazine?” asked Dirk. “Not when I worked there. They might have like in the ’60s, but by ’82 that was all at the hospital up on the hill, and they had some pretty serious restrictions around that stuff. Anyway, they closed this hospital in 1985, just two years before the volcano. I went back in 1996, and there was already a hole on the 10th floor. They had converted some of the lower floors to apartments, but of course everything was long abandoned by 1996. They actually condemned the upper floors right before the volcano and were going to demolish them, I want to say, within a few weeks of when the volcano hit. Evidently, Mother Nature is well in the process of that now. Does anyone feel comfortable going in?” asked Melissa. “I’m not going anywhere near that building.” said Megan. “I think I’ll stay out here too. A building that’s literally missing a big chunk is where I draw the line. But if anyone does go in, and it’s safe to go up there, try to film room 810 for me.” said David. “Sissies. It’s a ******* concrete building, it’s going to be fine.” said Dirk. “I’ll admit it looks sketchy, but I want to go in, at least as far as I safely can.” said Billy. “All right, let’s head in. I’m going to ask that you all follow me.” said Melissa. “Ok, Mom.” said Dirk, sarcastically. While Billy followed Melissa, Dirk took his own path leading up to the hospital, nearly cutting his ankle on a bramble in the process. The explorers entered the hospital lobby, which was probably in better shape than most of the building. Still, it was in awful condition; the tile floor was crumbling, exposing the bare concrete underneath, and the interior walls were cracked and buckling, evidence of severe water damage. Wood planks and tile-ceiling mush scattered the floors, where the ceiling had entirely vanished and most of the wall paneling had come off. There were even a couple of exposed fluorescent light tubes on the floor. This floor was somehow still stable. Since the hospital had closed before the volcano, it had been emptied out, for the most part. Little signs of the hospital’s former use remained. A chair from the lobby here, a December 1983 Reader’s Digest there. A directory marquee listed what was on each floor, though many of the letters had fallen off. A few things could still be discerned: acute care on the 1st floor, cafeteria on the 5th floor, oncology on the 6th floor, birth ward on the 8th floor. Since there were 10 floors, the explorers agreed to let Melissa take them to the most interesting areas of the building, given the limited time. Melissa immediately started walking toward the nearest stairwell, Dirk and Billy following. As they walked down a hallway, Melissa saw a pile of debris in a room to their right – walls, flooring, and objects from the floors above. The battered remains of a mid-1980s, 19” RCA Colortrak TV sat on top of the pile, underneath the hole that was about 5 feet in diameter. The explorers all went into the room. Billy and Melissa peered up and found that the floors on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors had all collapsed in the same area; the underside of the 5th floor looked buckled and weak but was still there. Further down the hall, the conditions improved slightly, with about 20 percent of the ceiling remaining and most of the tiles of the floor still being there. “The back half of the building’s always been in better shape than the front half. I’m not sure why.” said Melissa. The explorers climbed the stairs and went to the 2nd floor, passing an elevator bank. “I wish we could take the elevators.” said Billy. On Floor 2, the explorers encountered a room that had “Apartment 7” painted on a wall. The back half of the second floor, where they were, was in about the same condition as the lobby. Melissa walked into the apartment, which seemed to just be four rooms jerry-rigged together into an apartment of about 1,000 square feet. Dirk and Billy followed. The first room was the living room. At the front of the room was a 27” RCA Colortrak TV, basically a larger version of the one they’d seen on the first floor. The ceiling sagged in a few spots, and the floor sagged underneath a coffee table that still had a large book on it titled “Birds: A Spotter’s Guide”. Billy took a close look at the Garfield poster on the wall. “Hey, this has a copyright date of 1989. I thought everyone left Izzy in March of 1987.” said Billy. “Yeah, I did too, I remember hearing on the news that the town was totally deserted by the afternoon after the volcano hit. I guess, maybe some people moved back after the fact. When I explored this hospital in 1996, no one was here, so whatever would have been established here after the volcano would have been short lived.” said Melissa. “Do you think people were still living here on April 18, 1990?” asked Dirk. “How about December 24, 1995?” asked Billy. “1990, hard to say but probably. ’95, I’d say everyone was gone by then. Based on what I’ve seen, I’d guess they moved out in the early ‘90s.” said Melissa. “What kind of person lives in a volcano ravaged city?” asked Dirk. “Your guess is as good as mine. Probably people who wanted a rough, bohemian lifestyle.” said Melissa. In the second room, there were several folding card tables arranged like a countertop, a fridge, and an oven. A folding divider, about 7 feet tall, separated off a toilet, shower, and sink. The bathroom and kitchen both looked like DIY jobs, not professional. Room 3 had a bedroom, again with a DIY bedframe and a mattress. “This was some kind of squat, or commune, or something.” said Billy. “I remember hearing it was some kind of commune. There should be a store in one of these rooms.” said Melissa. The explorers finished with the apartment and went to the 4th floor. Dirk and Billy wanted to see the front half of the building, so Melissa carefully led them down a corridor. Halfway down the corridor, the floor dropped two inches and there were massive cracks in the wall – the line between the stable rear half of the floor and unstable front half. Debris – drywall, plaster, ceiling tiles, and the like – covered the floor throughout, but the amount of debris was at least twice as thick in the front half of the building. Walls buckled and tilted at odd angles, threatening to fall at any moment. In a room to the side, the explorers saw the hole they’d seen from the first floor, in the center of the living room of Apartment 27. Two easy chairs tilted precariously toward the hole, and a computer sat on a dilapidated desk. One of the desk’s legs was over the hole, meaning the desk was being supported by 3 of its legs, and the chair that had been at the desk had vanished into the hole. Melissa walked toward the room, but backed off as she entered; she’d put her left foot on the floor at the entrance to the room, several feet from the hole, but since the floor was very soft, she hadn’t put her full weight on it. The explorers continued down the hall slowly, following Melissa’s every step. They saw the front wall of the hospital itself, but a large pile of debris from another multi-level floor collapse above blocked their path about 10 feet short of the front wall. The explorers turned left onto another hallway, sidestepping another hole in the floor. Soon, they saw that the floor ahead of them was gone. There was a vast chasm, perhaps 40 feet deep and 30 feet wide, that had formed where a large section of the 4th and 5th floors had collapsed, and debris had piled up on the 3rd floor. Since the outside wall was still in place, this collapse hadn’t been visible from the outside, unlike the collapse above it. Getting as close as he safely could, Billy could see that the debris pile was at least 10 feet high and putting immense weight on the 3rd floor. Above the pile, the sky was clearly visible. “7 stories of rubble in that one pile.” said Billy. Melissa and Dirk stood in awe as Billy filmed, looking for details in the rubble. A capitalized red “T”, A”, and “L”, each about 8 feet tall, sat on top of the rubble, the remnants of the hospital sign. Amid the chunks of concrete and drywall, more artifacts emerged. Billy found a half-buried packet of beef jerky, a corner of a mattress, and two mangled hospital beds in the pile with his zoom lens. “There’s a wall that says Oncology.” said Melissa, pointing toward the right. Billy filmed the word. “Oh my gosh!” said Billy. “What?” said Melissa and Dirk, simultaneously. “What room were you born in?” asked Billy. “827.” said Melissa. “Up about 15 feet and to the right. There’s a sign that says 827.” said Billy. It took Melissa a few seconds, but she found the sign. “I guess that confirms it.” said Melissa. “I don’t know how I’d feel seeing the crumbled remains of my birth room. You’re taking this better than I would.” said Billy. “Eh, it’s just a room, it did its job all those years ago.” said Melissa. “Wow.” said Dirk. Melissa took in the pile of debris for another minute, then led the explorers back toward the stairwell. They proceeded to the 5th floor. On the 5th floor, the conditions even in the back half of the building were starting to deteriorate over the lower floors, with some small holes in the floor. The explorers made their way to the cafeteria. A sign on a brick wall said, “Lava Lover’s Commune General Store”. A broken window allowed the explorers to view the store’s interior, a large, open room, about 50 feet square on each side. “Lava Lover’s Commune. That’s an… interesting name.” said Billy. Most of the floor in the room was missing; the entire front 40% of the room, farthest from the explorers, had collapsed into the chasm the explorers had seen on the 4th floor. There were several other large holes, mostly to the left side of the room. The right-rear quarter of the room, nearest the explorers, looked to still have most of its roof, but the roof was largely gone over the rest of the room, which was open to the sky and brightly lit by sunlight. Debris was piled up on the sections of floor remaining, save for a patch about 15 feet square on each side near the right-rear corner. Pillars, each placed about 10 feet apart, held up the remaining section of roof. Merchandise poked out from under the debris. A shelf full of canned goods stood, covered in debris, on a two-foot wide gap between the chasm and another large hole. A cash register and counter had fallen over, precariously perched on a twisted beam next to another hole. At the left-rear quarter of the room, one freezer unit had stayed in place on a small section of still-intact floor, despite at least two units to its right and three to its left having fallen into the floors below, as evidenced by wiring coming out of the wall. “Floor-busters sale on aisles 1, 2, 3, 4… everything must go, down to the ground.” said Billy. Dirk laughed. Melissa led the explorers around a corner to get a better look inside the store through an archway at the rear-right corner of the store. Magazines and books were in this section, their paper warped and ink bleeding from years of rains blowing in from mere feet away. “Don’t go in there. We’re pushing it just by being right here.” said Melissa. Just then, Dirk saw a copy of “The Amityville Horror” laying on a table on what appeared to be a relatively stable section of floor. He walked into the store, toward a sagging, discolored section of floor. Melissa began to walk quickly toward Dirk. Just then, the sound of ripping cardboard echoed through the air. For Dirk, time seemed to slow down as his body started to fall. The table with the book on it started moving toward Dirk as he froze in place, stunned. Just then, Dirk’s body moved backwards rapidly, and the table disappeared altogether. A deafening bang came from several stories down. Dirk felt a painful sensation in both of his shoulders. Billy’s jaw dropped. He had seen the whole thing play out. The floor gave way, and just as Dirk’s body began to sink, Melissa had grabbed his upper arms and pulled him back several feet over the new hole and to safety. The pull was so strong, it seemed as if Melissa’s arms had been powered by the V8 engine from a Corvette Z06. Billy was baffled as to how Melissa hadn’t fallen in the hole herself. Dirk looked back and saw Melissa, who was still gripping Dirk’s arms. “You’re hurting my arms.” said Dirk, still in shock. “Look down.” said Melissa. Dirk looked down and saw the new hole that had formed under him, which extended down four stories to the 1st floor. Billy stepped forward slightly to get a look at the hole as Melissa loosened her grip and walked Dirk back out of the room. “You’re a wonderful person, Melissa. Wow, just… wow. Dirk, you owe Melissa a big thank you. She just saved your life.” said Billy. “Thank you, Melissa.” said Dirk, begrudgingly. “I’m going to have to take you outside, for your own safety.” said Melissa. “Why? I make a mistake. I’ve learned my lesson.” said Dirk. “Urban exploring is very serious business. You disobeyed an instruction and nearly got yourself killed. I’m sorry to say it, but you’ll have to sit the rest of this building out. You’ve seen most of it, anyway.” said Melissa. Dirk, dejected, began following Melissa out of the building. Billy followed behind them. Melissa got on her walkie-talkie to David and Megan. “We’ve had an incident. Dirk is coming down to stay with you two for the remainder of the exploration.” While the explorers were walking through the parking lot toward the van, Dirk lifted his shirtsleeve and looked at his left upper arm. A bruise, about 2 inches in diameter, had begun to form. “You bruised my arm.” said Dirk. “Would you rather be dead? You’d be dead right now if Melissa hadn’t grabbed you.” said Billy. “No, I wouldn’t, there was a pile of debris on the bottom that would have broke my fall.” said Dirk. “45 feet down onto jagged concrete and steel? You’re alive because of that woman right there.” said Billy, pointing at Melissa. “Did she have to pull so **** hard? It felt like she was trying to pull my arms off. Where the heck did you even get that kind of strength?” asked Dirk. “I really don’t know. I just saw you falling and reached out.” said Melissa. When they got to the van, Melissa got her first aid kit out and cleaned and dressed Dirk’s bruises. “You just relax and take a load off.” said Melissa, gently patting Dirk on the back. “Billy, do you still feel comfortable going further up the hospital?” asked Melissa. “If you do.” said Billy. Melissa and Billy walked back toward the hospital. “We have to see Room 810, for David’s sake.” said Billy. Melissa and Billy re-traced their steps through the lobby, got to the stairwell, and began the climb to the 8th floor. “Don’t let Dirk’s unappreciative attitude get you down. To be the kind of person who puts themselves in danger without hesitation to save a life… ‘good person’ is an understatement.” said Billy. “Thank you. If someone died, I could save them and I didn’t, I couldn’t live with that.” said Melissa. “Maybe we should kick Dirk out for his own safety.” said Dirk. “I’m definitely not letting him go in buildings like this one anymore, but he hasn’t done anything to warrant getting totally kicked out. He paid the 400 bucks, it’s his trip too.” said Melissa. “You haven’t led me wrong so far, I guess you’re right.” said Billy. As they got to the sixth floor, the solid stairs became less stable. Cracks became visible in the stairwell walls, and some of the stairs were tilted at odd angles. Billy followed a couple steps after Melissa. Both held on to the handrail, but on the 7th floor, both had to sidestep a hole in a stair. The 8th floor was a wreck. The floor was bare concrete, covered in debris, and filled with holes; any tiles or decoration it would have had long gone. Nevertheless, it was still stable enough in some spots to be walked on. The ceiling was similarly filled with holes and devoid of any covering. The yellow paint on the wall, though faded and severely flaked, had survived. “The whole birth ward was down this hall and the one next to it, there were 28 rooms, I believe. This was the only hospital in town with a birth ward, there were probably 2 or 3 babies born here on a typical day, and they’d stay for a couple days each. Maybe 5 of these rooms would be in use at any one time, 10 at a busy time, but they wanted to make sure there was enough capacity.” said Melissa. The odds of getting into Room 810 didn’t look good; Room 801’s floor was entirely collapsed, Room 802 would have been suicidal to attempt due to a large hole in the floor in front of the room, and Room 806 had a warped, unstable floor that looked like it would have collapsed if one breathed on it wrong. Melissa and Billy walked inside 805, briefly: there were cabinets, a countertop with a box of sterile gloves on top of it, a hospital bed, and two battered wooden chairs. “How would we get to 803 and 804?” asked Billy. “There’s a little hallway off to the right that connects the two halls, like an ‘H’. I’m not sure if that hall is still here.” said Melissa. Rooms 809 through 812, the third row of rooms out of seven, were the frontmost row that were still there, their front walls now part of the outside walls of the building; the connecting hallway was gone, as were all of the rooms numbered 813 through 828. Room 809’s floor was sagging and full of holes; Room 810 was the most stable room of them all, though it still had a hole, about a foot in diameter, in the floor in one corner. Melissa and Billy walked to about four feet from the end of what was left of the hall and looked out. From eight stories high, much of the southeastern portion of Izzy was visible, including the university, more houses, and a small commercial district. Billy pointed forward and to the right. “Up there, maybe about 70 or 80 feet up and 30 feet to the right, is where you would have been born.” “My mom tells me it was a really nice room then; it was brand new. She says the equipment was some of the best in all of Helmintoller in the time, and the room itself was large, with plenty of room for the doctors and nurses to do what they needed to do. I showed her pictures of the room in 1996 and she was shocked at how fast it had deteriorated. From brand new to completely gone in less than 60 years… wow.” said Melissa. In the van, David, Dirk, and Megan could see Melissa and Billy. “I think they’re near room 810 now.” said David. “I can’t look.” said Megan. Melissa and Billy went into room 810. Inside it, there was a hospital bed, dirty and covered in debris, three amber-colored plastic chairs, and a dry-erase board on the wall. The whiteboard said, “DATE: 4/26/85, PATIENT: Allison, DOCTOR ON DUTY: Hughes, TIME OF BIRTH: 4/24/85 9:20 AM, STATUS: Healthy, ready for discharge.” “Wow imagine being 35 and the place you were born being completely gone from natural decay. I hope that person’s doing well.” said Billy. Billy took over a dozen pictures and a video of every inch of the small, 20x20 foot room, then he and Melissa walked back down the hall, climbed down 8 flights of steps, and were done with the hospital. “Wow, that’s the sketchiest building I’ve ever seen – online or otherwise.” said Billy.

Chapter 9 The explorers got back in the van, Megan taking the front passenger seat this time. The van went through a residential area. Most of the houses were structurally compromised in some way; holes in the roof on many, a missing wall here, one house totally collapsed there. Billy had Megan hand him the SD card labeled “4” and put card 3 in the glove box, with the two other used cards. After a drive of about five minutes, the explorers arrived at a two-story high school which said, “C N A ZYD A IG SC O”. The school was medium-sized, probably 500 or 600 students. “Central Izydorczak High School.” said Billy. “This is where I went to high school, class of ’82.” said Melissa. “You don’t have to keep reminding us that you’re old.” said Dirk. Megan decided to stay outside, given the condition of the school. The overall architecture of the school looked 1970s. The school had tan tile walls on the first floor and silver siding on the second floor. All the windows were shattered. “This place seriously looks like Candu High School in Uranium City, Canada.” said Billy. The explorers walked through a broken tempered glass front door. Inside the school’s front hallway, the floors felt stable, but a mush of fallen ceiling tiles covered the floor. The red paint on the cinder-block walls was peeling and faded. The interior smelled of mold. Inside the front office, a dirty sign-in sheet still said March 27, 1987 and the last person to sign in to the school – a boy named Patrick, at 12:29 pm. Elsewhere in the office was a logbook that said, “Detention”. “Hmmm, wonder what Harry Jones did to get the last-ever detention at this school?” asked David. After a short time in the office, the explorers went into Room 103 – a classroom. Much of the plaster had peeled from the walls, revealing the cinder blocks underneath, but the desks were still arranged neatly in five rows of six. There was a map of the United States that had fallen off the wall on the right side of the room laying on the floor. The subject matter on the blackboard revealed that on March 27, 1987, Mr. Donaldson’s 11th grade history class was learning about the Teapot Dome scandal, and that their homework was questions 7-12 on page 226. “Well, if you ever have to take a test on the Teapot Dome scandal… here’s some notes from 1987.” said Billy, filming the blackboard. The teacher’s desk had an Apple II computer, a gradebook, and a teacher’s edition textbook on it. Billy was most interested in the gradebook; David and Dirk looked at the textbook, a blue book that said, “American History”. It was laid out much like a modern textbook, but had no color photographs, and the maps were out of date, showing the Soviet Union. Of course, they had to look at what the doomed assignment had been. Question 7 had been, “What were some of the legislative changes that resulted from the Teapot Dome Scandal?” “I forgot all about the Teapot Dome scandal.” said David. “I remember hearing about it on the Simpsons.” said Billy. “I wonder how many of the students even finished that assignment. I always did my weekend homework on Sunday night.” said Billy. “Sometimes, I did it on Monday morning, in my other classes.” said Melissa. The explorers went down the hall, past a few more history classes, and found a chemistry lab. “This was Mrs. Conley’s class. I never was one for science growing up, but she always found a way to make it interesting. She taught junior level chemistry and was one of the people who inspired me to teach.” said Melissa. The blackboard had a detailed drawing of an alkane, an alkene, and an alkyne structure. The board said, “Remember the Alley rule like the vowels. alkAne = 1, alkEne = 2, alkYne = 3.” Under “Homework” on the board, it said “ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND”. “Mrs. Conley always used mnemonics and little tricks to help you memorize stuff.” said Melissa. A big periodic table, printed on cardboard, probably 4 feet tall by 6 feet wide, still clung to the wall; it only had up to element 109, with elements 104-109 having temporary names. The periodic table had a 1981 copyright date. Desks were arranged in much the same manner as in the history room, but on the left side of the room, there were lab counters, with wooden shelves inside the counters and gas hookups for Bunsen burners. Inside the shelves were all the trappings of a chemistry experiment: test tubes, pipettes, beakers, and the Bunsen burners. Billy and David looked inside one set of shelves, while Melissa and Dirk looked at another set. “Did anyone ever get hurt doing a chemistry experiment?” asked Dirk. “Not that I can recall.” said Melissa. “What was your favorite class in school?” asked Billy. “Probably newspaper class. I always enjoyed getting out in the community and interviewing people.” said Melissa. “I’d love to see that classroom.” said Billy. “Alright, next class.” said Melissa. The teacher’s desk was the last thing the explorers looked at in the room. It had another Apple II computer and a gradebook, with a pile of papers and an EZ Grader next to it. Billy moved a fallen ceiling tile to see the gradebook. Most of the grades looked good – lots of B’s, with quite a few A’s and C’s and few failing grades. “I guess only the smart kids took chemistry.” said Billy. “That, and a good teacher really helps matters too.” said Melissa. Melissa then led the explorers down the hall to a stairwell at the rear of the building. Once they got to the top of the stairs, Melissa looked at the main hallway on the second floor. It was in worse condition than the first floor, with most of the paint missing from the walls and a few small holes in the roof. Insulation showed through in a few places. Moss grew from the floor in a few spots, and there was a small hole, less than a square foot, visible on the right side of the hall about 30 feet away. “Follow me. Floors are a little sketchy.” said Melissa. The rest of the explorers followed Melissa in a single-file line through the hall as she tested the floors before putting her full weight on them. Dirk scanned his EMP meter, but it was empty, yet again. One locker was open, on the right side of the hall about 10 feet from the hole in the floor. “Can we see the locker?” asked David. As Melissa carefully walked toward it, she stepped on a soft patch of floor. She stepped back, sidestepped the patch, and got to the locker, number 423, asking the explorers to look at it one at a time. The binders and other ephemera attracted the most attention. The locker clearly belonged to a teenage girl. There was a faded, peeling River Phoenix photo on the inside of the locker door. The black Trapper Keeper inside the locker held assignments, tests, and various doodlings; although the Trapper Keeper itself was dirty, the items inside were in pristine condition. Two pencils still had their sharp points. An Algebra II test looked like it had been done yesterday, the feminine pencil script still clear, though the date said March 26, 1987. The grade on it was a 97. A biology test had a 94 on it, and several more assignments had A’s on them. Only a music test, dated March 4, 1987, had a mediocre grade – a 74. Melissa made sure the explorers didn’t take anything from the binder and put it back in an orderly manner. “All that studying, that good score, gone to waste. What happened to the grades of people who had to evacuate?” asked Billy. “As I understand it, they just gave everyone a passing grade for the current year in all of their classes and let them go to the next grade. There would have been no way to get the school records until long after the students graduated, with the constant threat of being blown up by a volcano. So, if you were in 10th grade at the time of the volcano, you just went to 11th grade in September of ’87. College was a real mess, certain universities agreed to take certain majors, some students had to take tests to be able to clep out of classes they’d already taken, but what they usually did is just say you didn’t have to take certain classes depending on what grade level you were in. Of course, this varied from major to major and university to university. On top of all that, all the ex-Izzy students got free tuition for a couple years.” said Melissa. “I don’t remember much, I was in kindergarten when the volcano hit, so not much schoolwork left behind to speak of. I just started first grade the next year, like Melissa said.” said David. “Lucky *******”. said Dirk. After looking at the locker, the explorers kept following Melissa. Near the end of the hallway, they turned left into a room, about the size of a normal classroom, with exterior windows. At the head of the room, away from the windows, were two photocopiers. Half of the blackboard had fallen where the wall covering had totally rotted away, revealing insulation and bare cinder blocks. On one side of the room, there was a row of desks, with four Macintosh computers and a printer. There was a large circular table in the middle of the room and filing cabinets on the other side. The filing cabinets had been labeled, but some of the labels had come off; the remaining labels had ranges of 3 years on them, like 1958-1960 and 1973-1975. One of the filing cabinets had fallen over, and papers had spilled out. Luckily, the floors in this room were still stable, though Melissa still tested them all out before calling the rest of the explorers in. The room had transformed into more of an indoor terrarium than a classroom. Moss and small plants covered the entire floor and parts of the desks, photocopiers, and computers. A 6-inch tall flower grew out of the rotting papers that had fell out of the filing cabinet. David and Billy looked at the papers that had fallen from the filing cabinet. A fragment of paper said May 6, 1943. An ad on the same page said, “BUY WAR SAVINGS BONDS”. One of the flower’s roots coiled itself around an article about gasoline rationing. “That’s just sad. This is World War II historical memorabilia.” said David. “So much we have to save in this town.” said Billy. After looking through what they could of the WWII-era newspapers, Billy and David looked over and saw Melissa looking at the newest newspaper in the room, with a print date of March 26, 1987. Dirk was standing nearby, disinterested. “What years did you work on this paper?” asked Billy. “1979 to 1982. Sophomore through senior year, I was editor in chief senior year.” answered Melissa. Billy carefully opened the 1979-1981 cabinet, picking up the first paper in there, the December 3, 1981 issue. For a high school newspaper, it was a serious piece of work, with 8 pages. It looked more like a local newspaper. On the dateline it said, “Editor Melissa M. Mingo”. “Wow, your initials have always been Mmm. That’s awesome.” said Billy. “A guy in high school actually called me Mmm.” said Melissa. The paper had several articles listed on a column on the front page; they included study tips for finals, places to go over Christmas break, a sports schedule, and a write-up about the school arcade. The front page had an article about the school’s football team, the Red Devils, going to the post-season after winning a game 35-28 against East Izydorczak High School the past Saturday, November 28. “Go Red Devils!” said Billy. Melissa repeated the cheer as she came over to look at the paper with Billy. “Go Peles!” said David, referring to his elementary school, Samberg Mountain Elementary School. At the bottom of the page was a reminder, “Wear your seat belts. Do it for those who love you.” “A seat belt saved my mom’s life.” said Billy. “I remember you telling us about that. Glad she’s okay.” said Melissa. Getting to the arcade article, Billy was mesmerized by a large color picture of the arcade, which had black walls with space motifs. Pac-Man, Centipede and Turbo were visible in the photo, Turbo described as having just arrived Tuesday [December 1]. “I bet this was a lot of fun to write.” said Billy. “It was. I had to play all the games; they gave me about 10 bucks in quarters to do that.” said Melissa. “I have to see the arcade.” said Billy. “They took it out a couple years before the volcano. It stopped being profitable.” said Melissa. “Rats.” said Billy. Billy kicked a mat of moss away, revealing a patch of the room’s original red carpet, still in good condition. There wasn’t much left to the room, so Billy and David went over to see the last newspaper ever printed at the school. At the top of the page, it said, “Soccer Season Starts March 31”. “I guess they didn’t have a soccer season.” said David. As the explorers left the room, Melissa’s left foot slipped on a patch of moss, suddenly sliding forward about a foot. Her right leg lifted off the ground, and her body tilted precariously forward as she flailed her arms attempting to regain her balance. Billy and David began to run toward Melissa, but just before they got there, she managed to regain her balance. “Wow. Good recovery.” said Billy. Melissa led the explorers down the hall and into a large room with dozens of circular tables and hundreds of chairs around them. There was some moss and mold in the room, but not nearly to the extent that was in the newspaper room. The ceiling was heavily decayed and discolored but had no visible holes. None of the tables and chairs seemed to have fallen into any holes, but the floor was covered in debris and suspect in the area. Melissa told the explorers to stay near the edges of the room. The explorers went through an archway into the food serving line. The menu on the wall was for the week following the volcano, March 30 to April 3, 1987, and was for burritos or meatloaf Monday, sushi or cheeseburgers Tuesday, cheeseburgers or pizza Wednesday, breakfast or grilled chicken Thursday, and a hot dog bar or salad bar Friday. “Looks like they had good food at this school.” said Dirk. “Too bad none of this ever got made. I wonder if they’d ever had sushi before?” asked Billy. “They had it a couple times when I was there, I remember it would have been during my junior year that they first offered it, I think it was the day after the Super Bowl in 1981. It was nothing fancy, just fish wrapped in rice, like a low-end roll you’d get today. It was 2 dollars; regular lunch was a buck. I did a news story about it; they ran out the first day about halfway through the lunch periods and offered it again a couple days later for the later lunch periods.” said Melissa. “The day after the Super Bowl that year would have been January 26, 1981. They offered sushi a couple times when I was in high school, a few students tried it, it sold decently but not especially well. This was 2013-2014 or so, so it wasn’t the novelty it was in the early ‘80s.” said Billy. “I’m not a big fan of sushi.” said David. “I’ll eat sushi all day. It’s one of those foods people love or hate.” said Billy. The serving line itself was very dirty and moldy; ironically, the cafeteria’s health grade of 99 was clearly visible. In the distance, a hole in the roof shined a light onto a large freezer, which flies buzzed around. The stench of the food was noticeable even 30 feet away. The explorers walked through the line like they would have if they were students, getting to the cash register at the end. The black cash registers had an LED display, looking like a large ‘80s calculator. After looking at the cafeteria, Melissa led the explorers back downstairs, where they decided to look at the gym and then leave. There wasn’t much to the gym: it was a large room, two stories high, in similar condition to the cafeteria. There had been a few pennants on the walls, but they had all fallen over the years. In one area, a piece of metal hung down precariously from the roof. The wood floor of the gym was warped and buckled. The rusting basketball hoops, surprisingly, hadn’t fallen, despite a small hole in the roof near one of the hoops. Billy carefully walked onto the wooden bleachers. The bleachers moved unsettlingly beneath his feet. He quickly left the bleachers for more solid ground and got a wide shot of the gym. The explorers then left the gym and walked out of the school for their next exploration. On the way out, David saw a sign that stated that the school was built in 1976. “This school was built in ’76.” said David. “Wow, same year my high school was built!” said Billy.