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Chapter 18 - A Mansion and Apartments
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
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.-
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Chapter 11 - Faded Luxury
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration 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.-
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Chapter 10 - The Sketchy Hospital
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
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 6 - Izzy Means Business
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
Chapter 6 The explorers got back in the van for another three-block ride, leaving the industrial district and entering a commercial district. Melissa parked the van on the side of the road, in front of some shops, and the explorers got out and started walking along the road, looking for buildings that would be interesting and relatively safe to explore. One of the first buildings to catch their eyes was a gas station with a two-story convenience store attached. The entire top floor of the building had buckled in the middle and fallen into the first floor, turning the first floor into a sort of “bucket” that held both its own contents and the destroyed contents and structure of the second floor. The convenience store’s exterior was finished in rustic wood shingles. “Wow. That store’s seen better days. Anyone want to take a look?” asked Billy. The other explorers agreed and walked into the store’s parking lot, which was now mostly a grass field. A sign said, “Checker Gas”, priced at 95 cents for unleaded, $1.00 for premium unleaded, $1.00 for diesel, and $1.10 for leaded. “I’ve never seen a Checker Gas before, or gas that cheap. I do remember it being $1.20 or $1.30 when I was a little kid.” said Billy. “I haven’t seen a Checker since maybe 1990. They’re long out of business.” said David. There were 12 green, rusting, old-style gas pumps underneath a large green detached awning, about 10 feet in front of the store, that had somehow stayed standing. One of the nozzles had been left disconnected and hanging. The store itself had so much debris inside that it was totally impassable, but through the broken windows, the explorers could see what looked like rotting wooden beams and 1980s snack food packages put in a blender. The floor had a green-and-white checkerboard pattern. David saw the gas station as a backdrop to get his picture taken. He asked Melissa to take his picture on his phone, and she obliged. Meanwhile, Billy filmed what he could through the windows, Dirk scanned for ghosts, and Megan stayed with Billy. After just a few minutes at the gas station, the explorers walked to the building next door, a small strip mall. This was a one-story building that was still standing; the walls were made of a light beige brick, with a black shingle roof. Most of the windows were broken. There were 5 stores: a toy store, two clothing stores, a sports bar, and a hair salon. The building was quite dirty and decayed, but the roof, while missing shingles, looked structurally intact. “Where do you all want to go?” asked Melissa. “Toy store.” said Billy. “Yeah, I’m not that into fashion. I want to see the toys I grew up on.” said David. Confounded by the vast difference in condition between the gas station and strip mall, Billy asked when the buildings were built. “This part of town was first developed in the 1950s, I believe. The east side of town was first, in the ‘20s and ‘30s, then the south side we’re in during the ‘50s, then the west side, up toward the mountain, in the ‘60s and ‘70s.” said Melissa. “Hmmm. Probably differences in maintenance, or construction quality.” said Billy. Walking up to the store, they could see that it was called “Toy Safari”, but all of the letters, each about 8” tall, had fallen off and were laying on the ground. Megan decided to stay outside, only looking into the store through the front windows with her smartphone’s zoom. In the front window of the store, a bird’s nest sat on a Transformers standee; the standee itself was faded, and it and some of the action figures within had bird droppings on them. Crossing a threshold of broken glass and deftly dodging the fallen letters, the rest of the explorers entered the toy store. Due to the small space, Melissa stayed with Dirk, while David stayed with Billy. Inside the store, there was a noticeably musty smell that was quite significant even through the masks. The store was about 30 feet wide, maybe 100 feet deep. The toys were mostly still on the shelves, arranged in four aisles, although a shelf in aisle 1 had fallen, spilling racks of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, He-Man action figures and Superman action figures on the floor. Billy was a bit disappointed that there were no video games, while David was elated to see toys he’d had as a kid, frozen in time. Flaked off pieces of the ceiling covered the toys on the top shelf; the ceiling itself was very moldy, deteriorated, and cracked, but still structurally barely hanging on. At the front of aisle 1 were Lego sets; somewhat ironically, Lego Town playsets were heavily featured. Next to them were other building sets; Construx, Erector Set, Lincoln Logs, and more generic-branded blocks. There were about 50 feet worth of building sets, ending just a few feet from the fallen shelf, stacked floor-to-ceiling. David dug into a 1000-brick Lego set, building a simple tower before taking it apart and putting it back in the box. “If this place were made of Lego, we could just re-build everything.” said David. “Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where everything was made of Lego.” said Billy. “I loved Legos as a kid. Had many of those Town sets, but most of that was after I left Izzy.” said David. “I loved them too, but I always got the sets that weren’t pre-made. Liked the creativity. Do you mind if I video you reminiscing over the Lego sets?” said Billy. David approved, and Billy got his first video of David reminiscing; he already had several scenes of Melissa recounting her time in Izzy. Meanwhile, Dirk led Melissa into aisle 4, walking past the cash registers. He was drawn to the “dangerous” toys in the store; the Daisy air guns and lawn darts. Midway through line 4, he saw the lawn darts display. “Aww, they’re the ***** plastic tips, not the real ones. Did you ever play with the real ones?” asked Dirk. “Yes, quite often in fact, until I was 8. Then one hit me in the back of the leg, near my ankle, and I had to go to the emergency room. I couldn’t walk for a week because it cut a muscle in my leg. I still have the scar from it.” said Melissa. “Can I see the scar?” asked Dirk. Melissa pulled up the back of her pants leg slightly, showing Dirk the scar about six inches above her ankle. “Gnarly. Does it still hurt?” asked Dirk. “No, it’s fine. Just a rough patch of skin.” said Melissa. David and Billy turned around upon reaching the fallen shelf, looping back around, and going down aisle 2, where they saw board games. “Wow, they had Go for Broke here. My grandparents had that game, that’s how I remember it.” said Billy. “Even I don’t remember that one.” said David. Billy and David continued exploring the aisles in ascending order, as Melissa and Dirk came the opposite way. Then, David froze. In a small open space behind the aisles, he saw the toy he’d longed for as a kid – a Thomas the Tank Engine toy train set. Against the back wall of the store, there were dozens of blue boxes about 24” high x 30” wide x 16’ deep, stacked three high, with the train sets in them; folded-up tables sat in long, brown boxes. The boxes were warped and buckled from moisture exposure. A price banner, laying on the floor after the tape holding it to one of the boxes had failed, said $149.99 for the train set and table combination. A table, with a train set already set up on it, sat on the floor. It was about two feet high and suffering from some dry rot. David blew some dust off one of the trains and gingerly moved it around the track for a couple minutes, until Melissa and Dirk finished their exploration of the store. “I wanted one of these for Christmas back when I was 5. One of my few memories in Izzy is playing with this very train set during the weeks leading up to Christmas 1986. My parents brought me to Kay Dee Toys a few times, and I got everything I wanted on my Christmas list, except for the train set. My parents got me one of those off-brand train sets, it had about half what this one did. They told me they’d get me the real thing for my birthday. Of course, the volcano hit, and my birthday was just 6 months later, so they still had more important things on their mind. I grew out of Thomas the Tank Engine after a couple years, but I never forgot that train set. Thanks for letting me relive a piece of my childhood.” said David. The explorers were all touched by the speech. Melissa gave David a pat on the shoulder. Even Dirk was moved. On that touching moment, and with it nearing 1 pm, the explorers left the toy store for another place, catching up with Megan, who was in the van. Billy showed her a few pictures of the inside of the toy store. Megan stayed in the van once she found out the next exploration target: a real estate office located 200 feet down the street. This was a two-story building, about 2,000 square feet total. It had a rather Italianate look, with yellow-beige stucco walls and burgundy ceiling tiles on its hipped roof. Even from the outside, the explorers could see that this building was in far worse condition than the toy store. Roof tiles were missing, with holes formed in the roof. The windows were all broken out. There was a hole in the wall on the second floor, about four feet wide and half the height of the floor. A pile of bricks lay under the hole. Whatever signage was on the building had long disappeared, but Melissa demystified things, giving a historical explanation in the parking lot to the explorers. “This is the old Brambling Real Estate office. It was a family run business, owned by a man named John Brambling. Their logo was a, sort of stylized, black and gold brambling bird to play off that. John had been a football superstar at Central Izzy High School in the ‘60s. He founded his real estate agency probably sometime in the ‘70s, I know by 1986 it was one of the biggest real estate agencies in town. All my friends told me to go to Brambling or Enter Realty. I went to Brambling the last month I was in college before I graduated. I had a good job lined up as a feature writer for the Izzy City Herald making 30 grand a year, so I came to Brambling and looked at the house listings they had and went to a few open houses. I got a nice two-story, 2,500 square foot house up on the hill for $130,000. It was built in 1973 and had just been renovated top to bottom. I saw the house and saw that it was the one for me, and I moved in on July 18, 1986. Brambling had the best service, they told me everything I needed to know and got me a well-maintained home at a good price. I think he’s still a real estate agent.” said Melissa. “Aw, I want to see your old house, if it’s still there!” said Billy. “I was here last year, and it’s still there and structurally pretty stable. You’re more than welcome to see it. It’s 126 Lampley Road. We’ll actually all get there later on.” said Melissa. The explorers walked through the agency’s front door, into a large room, maybe 20 feet wide and 30 feet deep, with a dark oak wood floor, a peeling brown and beige wallpaper, and elegant pendant light fixtures. There was a large hole in the ceiling at the rear of the room where a section of floor, about 3 x 4 feet, had collapsed on the upper floor. Large, overstuffed leather chairs sat at the front of the room, in a small lobby area. A bit further back, there was an empty water cooler, and two identical desks, both with a Commander 64K computer and three chairs around them, one behind the computer where the agent would sit, and two on the opposite side where the prospective buyers would sit. On those sides of the desk, moldy, mildewed pages in binders showed houses that had been for sale. Under the hole in the ceiling, pieces of wood from the upper floor and two chairs had fallen onto the broker’s chair on the rear desk. As the explorers went forward, they found the floor inside the room largely stable. Billy thumbed through the pages of one, amazed at the houses one could get for the low prices. A 2,367 square foot house, built in 1974, on the slopes of a volcano then-dormant for centuries for $120,000 would be a good deal even adjusted for inflation. The other explorers gathered around him. Even after seeing all the abandoned artifacts left behind, seeing pictures of houses, all prepped for sale and decorated, from 33 years earlier was a surreal experience. They perused the binder on the desk in the front for a few minutes. Billy got the pictures in his filming. “Such a shame. All that work to prep those houses, and they never got a chance to sell.” he said. In a central hallway, the explorers found a staircase and climbed it. Going to the right, they found the room just above the one they’d just been in. It looked like its downstairs counterpart, other than having several roof leaks and the aforementioned collapsed section of floor, which a desk tilted precariously toward. While the other explorers stayed on a relatively stable piece of floor near the staircase, Melissa put her left foot on the floor; it felt very spongy, like if she stepped on it, it would immediately collapse. Not wanting to risk it, she turned around. “Floor’s bad in there. You might not want to go in.” said Melissa. After they went back down the stairs, Melissa shared another memory. “I sat in one of those very chairs that fell through the floor as I signed the deed to my house.” They left the building to head to their next building, which they decided would be their final building on this walk before heading back to the van for something else. A Cadillac dealer got the honors. Dirk saw the rows of old luxury cars next to a crumbling glass-fronted building, and the explorers went across the street to the dealership. “Let’s look at this stealership” said Dirk. The explorers looked at the cars on the lot first – there had to be at least 100 rotting 1987 Cadillacs, all with very few miles, here. The paint was severely degraded on all of them, to the point that rusty bare metal covered some one-third of the total surface area, and the tires had deflated over the years at different rates, leaving the cars tilted at odd angles. About half of all the car windows had broken. Various molds, mosses, and even full-sized plants grew out of the cars. The showroom’s front wall was entirely made of windows, and they were all broken; part of the roof had collapsed. The Allantes were the first thing the explorers looked at. This was a soft-top convertible that had just launched months before the volcano. Billy and David explored them, while Melissa and Dirk explored other Allantes. The Allante that Billy and David went to first appeared to have once been gold with a burgundy interior but was now ransacked. The convertible top’s fabric had completely dislodged and fallen into the car. Large pieces had fallen off the severely cracked dashboard. The steering wheel was missing its hub. The seat frames showed where the cushioning had rotted away. Much of the interior and exterior was coated in a green mold, and mosses grew out of the interior of the car. “Cadillacs of the late 80s were junk anyway. My uncle had a ’81 Deville when I was little, he loved the thing. Then, he got an ’85 Deville because it was the new design. He said it rode like an ox-cart compared to the ’81. He swore off Cadillacs until recently, he got a ’17 Escalade and is happy with it.” said David. “Glad he likes his new Escalade. I’ve been in one, they’re really nice.” said Billy. “One of my college friends test-drove an Allante when it came out. I think it was actually a couple days before it officially launched, he got up early one morning and test drove it. He told me it wasn’t worth the $55,000. Same guy test-drove a new Ferrari, I don’t know how the heck he pulled that off. He was only a few years older than me; I think he was born in 1961 and drove a late 70s Chevy Monte Carlo.” said Melissa. “What was a college kid doing driving a new Ferrari? Surely they knew he wasn’t going to buy it.” said Dirk. “That’s my dad.” said Billy. “Quit BS-ing.” said Dirk. “No, really, his name is Dave Alexander, and he was born November 12, 1961. He used to test-drive a lot of cars back then.” said Billy. “You know what they say about Scorpios, they’re weird.” said Dirk. “It’s not about the zodiac sign, it’s about the person.” said Melissa. After looking at a few more unsalvageable decayed Cadillacs, the explorers decided to look in the building. The grey carpet was covered in leaves, and a Seville and Coupe de Ville were in similar condition to the cars outside, but underneath the section of collapsed roof was a navy-blue Sedan de Ville crushed to about a foot tall. Billy made sure to film the pancaked Cadillac with as much detail as he could get, one of the most interesting things he’d seen so far. After a few more minutes of exploring, they were ready to move on. “I’m hungry.” said Billy. “Who’s up for lunch?” asked Melissa. Everyone agreed; it was 1:31 pm after all. [Disclaimer: the characters in this story are fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.] -
Chapter 5 - They Made Computers Here
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
Chapter 5 Back in the van, Billy put the test reports in the door pocket, opened the glove box, and switched out the memory cards on his camera. Melissa drove the van the 600 feet or so over to the computer factory, with Billy in the passenger’s seat. The clock in the van said 11:26 AM; it hadn’t felt like almost 2½ hours had passed. At the factory, they found Megan standing outside the factory. Melissa parked the van, and both got out and walked up to Megan. The factory was a one-story, overgrown brick building. The shingled roof was a mess, and was missing many of its shingles, but was structurally sound. “What are you doing out here?” asked Melissa. “I don’t feel comfortable going in there. It looks dangerous.” said Megan. “Feel free to stay out here. I’ll leave the van on. If you need anything, feel free to contact me,” said Melissa. “Billy, do you want to go in?” “Absolutely.” said Billy, and Billy and Melissa walked toward the entrance. “How bad is it in there?” asked Billy, over the walkie-talkie to David. “Not too bad. The floors are fine. Really interesting stuff in here.” said David. Melissa opened the door and walked into the factory lobby. “David says it’s not bad inside. You sure you don’t want to go in?” asked Billy. “I guess I’ll give it a look.” said Megan, who walked into the factory with Billy. Melissa held the door for them. Inside, the plaster drop ceiling in the lobby had largely flaked away to the ground, its material accumulating like snow on the grey carpet. On the wall, behind a desk, the sign said “C an r C p r”; the remaining letters of “Commander Computer” were piled up on the floor. Melissa, Megan, and Billy went inside the main factory floor, a massive room, perhaps 50,000 square feet, with no ceiling. The roof was still there, if sagging in a few places. Pipes and ducting ran through the roof, hanging down in a few places. The concrete floor was mostly clear of debris, save for one 10-foot long piece of air conditioner ducting that had fallen. There were about 20 long tables, in rows about 10 feet apart, about chest high, with chairs by them and computer parts and computers in various stages of completion as far as the eye could see. At the head of the assembly line on Row 1 was a pile of green silicon sheets, about 4 x 6 inches; down the line was a machine, which had the wiring pattern that would go on the motherboard. Further down the line was a station called “Motherboard Inspection”, with a magnifying glass, a completed motherboard, and a blue leather office chair that the inspector would sit in. Then, there were stations with boxes of computer chips and soldering guns. At the other end of the room, near the end of the row, were cases, stacked up against a wall; this is where case and motherboard were joined together, completing the production of the computer on one continuous line about 150 feet long or so. Billy walked quickly through the aisles to David and Dirk, who were at the head of Row 1. Megan walked slower and more hesitantly, and Melissa stayed with her for reassurance. They reached the row two minutes later; during those several minutes David and Dirk looked at the adjacent rows, finding them to make the same type of computer as Row 1; Billy walked down Row 1, filming the entire row in one continuous shot before going back to the top of the row just as Melissa and Megan met up with them. Together, the explorers walked down Row 1 together; Billy didn’t reveal what type of computer that the line made. As they walked by the chip boxes, Billy picked up a few MOS 6502 processor chips and looked at the dates. They seemed to be made at random times between January and March 1987. The end of the line revealed the computer to be a Commander 64K, an extremely popular computer of its era. “Cool, a Commander 64K. I had one as a kid. It was a lot of fun.” said David. “I had a 64K too, in college. A lot of my friends did too. I didn’t know they were still making them in ’87, I’d moved on to a Commander 1000 PC by then. Remember coding in BASIC on the 64? I often would get computer magazines that had BASIC programs you had to type in yourself, because the disks you’d get at the store were a lot more expensive.” said Melissa. “Typing in your own programs? Doesn’t sound fun. Anyway, why didn’t the crash test lab have any Commander computers?” asked Megan. “Commander was a cheaper computer designed for the general public, at least from what I can remember. If you look in the houses, you’ll probably find a lot of Commanders left behind.” said Melissa. “Makes sense that people would own Commander computers with the factory right here in town.” said Billy. “Izzy was always a city that was big on technology. This isn’t even the only computer factory in town, there were a couple of others, for HBM and Helmintoller Instruments. Pretty much every piece of 80’s technology you could think of was made in Izzy. We had factories that built Atari video games under license, TVs, VCRs, the chips that went into computers. We even had our own internet service of sorts.” said Melissa. “What was that like?” asked Billy. “Was there X rated stuff on it?” asked Dirk. “It was all text. It was called Izzy-Net, we could get the news and all kinds of information, send messages to one another, and we could even connect to Usenet and talk to people around the world. It was a dollar an hour to talk to people locally or get local news, but if you wanted to access stuff from the outside world it was 5 dollars an hour. It was free if you accessed it from the college campus. It came out in about 1983, I think. The first night I got access to it, not long after it came out, I was at a computer lab at Izzy University here in town. It was quite easy and intuitive to use, and about maybe 10 minutes after I first got on, I was chatting with a guy from France. We talked for four hours, until the computer lab closed at midnight and they kicked us all out. And Dirk, to answer your question, there were adult boards on there, but I never went to them.” said Melissa. “How fast was it?” asked Billy. “It wasn’t bad, actually. Since it was all text, the amount of data was small. It was a bit slower than texting on a modern phone if you were chatting. Getting a newspaper article or something like that did take a while though.” said Melissa. “How many of the people in Izzy had computers and Izzy-Net?” asked Billy. “Computers, probably a good three-quarters of households had a computer of some kind, quite a few people even had a main computer and maybe a cheaper or older computer for the kids. Izzy-Net, I’d say maybe 20 percent, but it was spreading fast. You have to remember, we could get this stuff cheaper in Izzy than they could in most places because it was locally made.” said Melissa. “David, did you ever use Izzy-Net, or CompuServe, or any of the early internet services?” asked Billy. “Could you knock it off, Billy?” asked Dirk. “You’re asking too many questions.” “Remember, this is supposed to be a learning experience. Asking questions is good.” said Melissa. “No, I was too young to use Izzy-Net, I didn’t get to use the internet until about ’94. We got AOL then.” said David. The explorers proceeded to explore the remainder of the large room. On rows 7-12 were hundreds of completed computers, all ready to be boxed up. At the ends of the rows were boxes piled up on the tables, and several dozen boxed computers, all ready to be shipped, against a wall next to a large loading dock door. The computers were all still clean and looked to be in operable condition. All were tempted to take one. Dirk reached for a boxed Model 1000 PC. “Don’t you dare.” said David. The explorers looked at the other rows, finding similar production lines to the 64K line they saw earlier, only these lines made models called the 1000 PC on 3 lines, 1500 PC on two, Dostim on 3 and Dostim Plus on 2. “These were more expensive computers than the 64K, so they didn’t sell as many. When I got my 1000 PC, I cross-shopped Dostims. The Dostims were about the same price as the 1000 PC but didn’t have IBM compatibility. My 1000 PC was $1,399 at Lechmere, the 64K’s would have been going for probably $200 then. I brought it home on March 7th, 1987, just three weeks before the volcano.” said Melissa. “Whoa, 1400 bucks. That would be about 3 grand today. Oof, sorry about that.” said Billy. “It’s fine, that computer would be long out of date anyway.” said Melissa. “I could grab you one out of here.” said Billy. “I can just buy one myself, there’s probably thousands around.” said Melissa. “Maybe we could get the one out of your old house.” said Billy. “You can have it if you want, but I don’t need it.” said Melissa. “I’ll have to think about that. By the way, Dostim is Uzbek for ‘friend’. That’s why they named a computer that.” said Billy. “Interesting.” said Melissa. The explorers looked around the rest of the building, finding no more computer manufacturing floors, only some offices. They decided to look at the big corner office, which had belonged to the factory manager. This room had a plush red carpet and a plaster drop ceiling; though about 80% of the plaster was still attached, there was a small hole in the roof at the very corner of the building. The large windows were intact, but their view was only of overgrowth. A slit, a few inches wide, had formed in the walls directly under the hole, and a few leaves poked through the slit, but the remaining 95% of the room, about 20 feet square in size, was in remarkably good shape for its period of abandonment. The explorers reasoned that with the hole, the room would quickly deteriorate over the next few years. There was a large, ornately detailed wooden desk against the right-side wall, with a chair that sort of looked like an Aeron chair behind it. On the desk was a name plate that said Timothy A. Karaglanis. Seeing the name, Dirk started scanning his EMF meter. “I’m pretty sure Tim is still alive. He’s a family friend.” said Melissa. “Seems like an interesting guy.” said David. “Do you want to meet him?” asked Melissa. “Yes.” said David. “Me too.” said Billy. “All right, I’ll shoot him a text. He’d be glad to meet both of you.” said Melissa. Tim’s desk still had a fully upgraded Dostim Plus computer on it, though it was yellowed almost to the point of being brown, with an equally yellowed 20-inch monitor on it. There were no pieces of paper on the desk, though there were 3 stacks of about 3½ inch floppy disks, about 50 disks in all. Most of their labels suggested they had run-of-the-mill business data on them, but there were a few games and tech demos mixed in. These were more treasures that needed to be rescued, but they’d be safe in this room for the near future. “That computer could really use a retro-bright.” said Billy. “What’s retro-bright?” asked Melissa. “It’s a process where they take the plastic pieces from a computer that’s yellowed and expose them to peroxide and UV light to make them their original color again. There’s several ways to do it, but you can’t just pour peroxide on an old computer and put it in the sun. It’s an involved process, you’d have to go on the Internet to figure out exactly how to do it. It’s ironic that sun causes the yellowing, but you can use the sun in combination with peroxide to reverse it. I don’t actually retro-bright stuff, that takes someone who knows what they’re doing with computer repair.” said Billy. “Amazing that people figured that out.” said Melissa. On the left side of the room were several bookshelves, with hundreds of old programming and computer books on them. They included rare books on long-dead programming languages from ABC ALGOL to Z++, manuals for computers both common and rare, and books on all types of software. It seemed that every book printed about computers up to 1987 was in this very room. All the explorers decided to peruse a few of the books, making sure to be gentle with the aged paper, except Dirk, who luckily didn’t do any damage. After a few minutes, they put the books back and headed out for their next location.-
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Chapter 4 - The Abandoned Crash Test Lab
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
Chapter 4 As Melissa drove the van toward town, she and the explorers saw a large, unusual looking building. From above, it sort of looked like a lowercase “d”, with a 3-story, grey-brick circular building with windows joined to a long, windowless hall. Another building, a two-story, peeked out from behind it. The van made a left turn, passing a couple of crumbling factories to get to the building. As they got closer, they saw that only the top two floors were circular, and the bottom was a square footprint. All the explorers saw this building as a must-explore. Melissa turned left, and then left again, ignoring the long-deactivated traffic lights and parking in front of the building. A concrete sign said “HELMINTOLLER MOTORS AUTOMOTIVE SAFETY RESEARCH CENTER”; about half of the glue-on letters had fallen onto the ground, but since the concrete itself was recessed in the shapes of the letters mounted to them, it was still clear what it said. The building was heavily overgrown and decayed; most of the windows were broken, the roof had holes in it and was missing most of its shingles, and ivy crawled up the entire height of the building. The parking lot and paved grounds were heavily cracked, with grasses growing through. Immediately next to the building, the once artfully arranged flowers, hedges, and cut grass had grown out of control, the grass now being about two feet tall. The explorers walked toward a collapsed awning and break in the overgrowth, carefully stepping over the metal remains of the awning to get to the entrance door. A plaque next to the door said, “Dedicated December 3, 1973”. “Looks pretty rough for 47 years old.” said Melissa. The lobby floor was covered by ceiling tiles which had mostly turned to a strange mush that was an inch deep in some places; about 70% had fallen. Fluorescent lights were in the ceiling, some missing their covers. Moss grew in some places on the grey-tiled floor and ceiling tile mush. The white paint on the walls had almost entirely peeled off; in some places, the drywall itself had disintegrated due to water damage, revealing dirty cinder blocks. The floor above looked to be bowed down slightly. There were a few office chairs in the lobby; a water-damaged car safety newsletter, dated March 14, 1987, sat on an end table. The headline said, “GM plans 3 million driver air bags for 1992 models”. On the opposite wall was a directory; the first floor was a sled testing area and crash test observation area, the second floor was safety feature development, and the third floor was offices and the test library. “Has anyone ever had an airbag go off on them? I hear the older ones hurt pretty bad, but the newer ones are a lot better.” asked Melissa. “I have. They didn’t hurt me at all, but my car was a 2015 model.” said Megan. “Glad you were okay.” said Melissa. “I think it’s a good thing that we live in a world now where everyone has airbags. I’ve never had one go off on me, but my mom was saved by one in a major head on crash in 2001.” said Billy, who was filming the lobby and got a close-up of the newsletter, and would continue to film the rest of the building. “Oh my! Glad the airbag saved her.” said Melissa. Passing an elevator and going to the sled test area room, they found an occupant compartment of a car mounted to a rail that ran under the floor. Everything forward of the firewall, everything behind the rear seats, the doors, and the undercarriage had been removed, but the car had a boxy shape, much like a typical mid-1980s American midsize sedan. The floor in this room was solid concrete, and in much better shape than the tile floor in the lobby. A sticker on the car said, “032387 AIRBAG TEST”. The interior of the car had brown leather seats, and four deflated airbags hung out of the steering wheel, dashboard, and both front seat backs for the rear occupants. “Did they ever put the rear seat airbag system in any production cars?” asked Billy. “Not that I’m aware of. There would be safety concerns involving children, so that’s probably why they never put it in cars.” said Melissa. “They probably could today with the much more advanced airbags in cars.” said Megan. “Airbags are a crock. If you’re a good driver, you don’t need them.” said Dirk. “My mom is a good driver, but the 19-year-old drunk that crossed the center line and hit her wasn’t. They were in a dually pickup truck; my mom was in a ’96 Honda Accord. Her ankle was crushed, and she was in the hospital for several days, but the firefighters on the scene said the airbag saved her. I rest my case.” said Billy. The explorers walked toward the back of the room, finding a part of the roof missing in the corner. Directly underneath the missing section of roof was an IBM PC XT computer. Pieces of roof and ceiling material covered the corner of the room and the computer; a small plant grew out of the computer’s keyboard. “Somebody ought to send that thing to the 8-Bit Guy. It might still work with a deep cleaning and restoration.” said David. The next room was an observation room for the crash hall; a large window, now broken, looked out of the room toward the barrier, and a glass door connected the room and the crash hall itself. A small room to the side of the observation room had the crash test controls. In the observation room, there was stadium-style seating in three rows of 20, sort of like in a modern movie theater, and four CRT monitors hanging from the ceiling labeled “CAMERA 1”, “CAMERA 2”, and “CAMERA 4”; the sticker for Camera 3 was gone. At one end of the observation room, the floor above had fallen through, leaving a large hole that covered perhaps 25% of the ceiling area in the room. A strange object, about 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide at the base, had come through the floor and had landed on one end of the seating rows, crushing seats 1 through 5 in each row. The object itself was severely damaged, with cracks all over. The explorers went to look at the object, looking for any evidence of what it might have been. The unmistakable green of computer boards shined through, and Megan found a badge on it. “It says Cray-1S. Looks like some kind of old supercomputer.” said Megan. “Yup, Cray Supercomputer.” said Billy. He looked for any computer chips that may have been showing. “I see, I think, an 8107 on one of the chips. That’s 7th week of 1981, so about February. So, they got a few years of use out of it.” The explorers decided to look at the control room before going into the crash hall itself. Dirk hit the big red button that started the test, but, of course, it didn’t do anything. There wasn’t much to look at in the small room, so they went back out and went into the crash hall. The crash hall was a large room, about two stories high, with numerous holes in the roof. Pieces of metal and ceiling material covered the concrete floor, and the entire area was covered in a greenish grime. Next to the barrier, large lights, which once lit up crashing vehicles for the slow-mo cameras, had fallen to the ground and pulled a section of roof down with them. There was an underground rail that cars would be attached to guide them into the barrier. The explorers carefully dodged the pieces of metal on the ground as they walked to the other end of the crash hall, the section where the cars would have started on their journey to doom. A midsize coupe, labeled “1988 Saber Supreme Prototype”, sat at the end of the runway, its tires deflated from decades of sitting. Two dummies sat in the driver and passenger seats, still in their seat belts and sitting up as straight as they had been 33 years ago, staring forward, waiting for an impact that would never come. The somewhat creepy humanoid figures, sitting in a dirty car, staring forward would make a great video thumbnail for one of Billy’s videos. More dummies were against a wall, standing in racks; there were six adult size dummies and four dummies about the size of 3-year-olds. Just like the dummies in the car, they were eerily frozen in place despite the mess that had rained down on them for decades. A large metal cabinet was against another wall, with a computer and a notepad on it. The back wall, directly behind the car, had a large garage door; presumably, this is where cars that were destined to be crashed would come through. Along the wall that joined the crash hall and main building, there was a staircase that led to the second floor. After about twenty minutes exploring the crash hall, the explorers had seen everything they’d wanted to see. “Do you all feel comfortable going upstairs?” asked Melissa. “This building’s sketchy.” said Megan. “This building’s boring.” said Dirk. Not wanting Megan to be left alone with Dirk, David decided to stay downstairs. “I’m going to stay with them.” said David. “This is probably one of my favorite buildings I’ve ever been in. I want to see upstairs.” said Billy. “Just remember to let me know where you’re going with the walkie talkies. I’m going to stay with Billy.” said Melissa. “Mama’s boy.” said Dirk. “She’s not my mom.” said Billy. Billy began climbing the stairs, with Melissa following. Billy opened the door to the second floor. It led into a hallway that was in significantly worse condition than the first-floor rooms had been. The floor was the same grey tile as had been in the lobby, and the same ceiling tile mush covered parts of it. The same peeling white paint was on the walls, but these walls were standard house-style wood construction. The walls were a strange mix of paint, exposed plaster, and even exposed wood, depending on how much water damage was in that spot. There was a small hole in part of the ceiling. Billy stayed to the left side of the hallway; Melissa took the other side, both staying close to the walls where the floor was strongest. A door was labeled “Passive Restraint Development” to the left. Billy opened it, and both walked into the room. In the center of the room was a cutaway of the dashboard and front seating areas of a car. The floor was sagging under the car, so they didn’t go near it, but they could see that it had automatic seat belts because the driver’s seat belt was extended forward, but the passenger’s seat belt was buckled normally. “Those automatic seat belts. I hated those. The regular seat belts, ironically, are so much more convenient.” said Melissa. “Never had one in my family that I can remember. They were federally mandated for a while in the early ‘90s on cars without airbags, but eventually they just required airbags.” said Billy. “Yeah, my ’90 Accord had them. They were a pain in the neck. I, and most people I knew, wore their seat belts then anyway.” said Melissa. In one corner of the room were three Macintosh SE computers on desks, each with a black leather chair, all connected to a printer. There was no drafting table to be found – the facility had gone full AutoCAD. A whiteboard on another wall still had lots written on it; the deadline for the revised seat belt design to be finalized on the 1989 “WF-20” sedan was June 30, 1987 – the targeted HICs in a 35-mph frontal crash test were below 700. The ’88 Saber Supreme, the car they’d seen in the crash hall, was scheduled for testing March 31, 1987. On the top of the whiteboard, in red letters, said “COMPUTER SWITCHOVER MONDAY, MARCH 23 – OLD COMPUTERS WILL BE REMOVED AFTER FRIDAY, MARCH 20”. “Wow, those computers were only used for a week. What a waste.” said Billy. “I bet we’ve seen millions of dollars of stuff left to rot already.” said Melissa. “I want to ask you your story of evacuating, but I’ll savor the mystery for now.” said Billy. “Whenever you’re ready.” said Melissa. In another corner of the room, right next to where Melissa and Billy were, was a car dashboard, with dual airbags deployed from it, inflated for display purposes. Both were both amazed that the bags had stayed inflated for so long and a bit miffed that airbags hadn’t been implemented in most new vehicles by 1987. As Billy filmed the room, he noticed that his memory card in his camera could store only 26 more minutes of video, giving this building’s exploration new urgency. Billy attempted to reach under the passenger airbag and open the glove box, but the bag was too firm. In fact, the bag covered both the glove box and the entire center stack of the dashboard; combined with the driver bag, little on the dashboard was visible. The passenger bag came out over 3 feet deep from the dash. “Gosh, I hope your passenger airbag isn’t that big, or mine. That could kill someone.” said Billy. “I wouldn’t think they would be. I bought my cars because of the high safety ratings. I’m an Uber driver and have passengers in and out of my car all the time, and if we get in a crash, I want me and them to be as protected as possible. Can’t have that with an airbag that gives you a Mike Tyson punch.” said Melissa. “What cars do you have?” asked Billy. “The 2018 Honda Odyssey Elite I brought on this trip, and a 2020 Honda Accord Touring” said Melissa. “Nice cars.” said Billy. They left the room and decided to go into another room labeled “Structural Development”. “This building certainly needs some structural development.” said Billy. Melissa laughed. This room was approximately in the same condition as the passive restraint room, and was laid out similarly, except instead of seatbelts and airbags on display, it was the frame of a car, the same one they’d seen in the passenger restraint room. Billy decided to give the room a once-over with his camera and go to the next room, the “Accident Avoidance” room. Again, it was laid out like the other two rooms on that floor, except with brakes and suspension systems, but was in worse shape. The floor had a large crack that extended across the middle of the room, and its center was sagging severely; crossing to the back half of the room would be suicidal. Billy took a close look at two anti-lock brakes that had been taken from cars. One was labeled “Production”, and the other “Concept”; both looked quite like one another. Billy was stumped; the only reason he could come up with is that maybe the new design was cheaper. The last major room on the second floor of this building was the Supercomputing Room, though the floor directory said that there was a second instance of each of the four major rooms, as well as several minor office rooms, storage rooms, and the like, meaning that perhaps only a third of the total square footage of the floor had been explored. Given the poor condition of the building and the limited time of the trip, Billy didn’t want to explore rooms that would largely be duplicates or ones with nothing interesting in them. Billy opened the door, and most of the floor was gone, including the section directly in front of the door. He and Melissa looked inside the room. Against the right wall of the room, on the sole section of intact floor, were six terminals, with black leather chairs behind them. Instructions for the supercomputer’s operation still hung on the walls next to where the supercomputer had been. There was a hole in the roof, about one-foot square, above the collapsed section of floor. A slow drip of water came from a corner of the hole. “All those years of water dripping down must have weakened the floor, and it just couldn’t hold that heavy computer anymore.” said Melissa. “That thing’s probably several tons and has less power than my smartphone. The ‘80s was a long time ago, in more ways than one.” said Billy. Leaving the room, they found the building’s central staircase. It looked passable, but in rough condition, with lots of debris and a few small holes in some of the steps. “Can we go to the third floor?” asked Billy. Melissa approved, and they carefully climbed the steps, which moved unsettlingly. When they reached the steps, the library doors were directly in front of them, meaning that the library was on the opposite side of the third floor than where they’d explored on the second, and thus a totally unknown quantity. The section of floor nearest the door was still stable, but the floor was warped and buckled across most of the library. Some of the bookcases had tipped over, and a few had even fallen through a hole in the floor. The room was well-lit; most of the glass panes in the skylight directly above the hole in the floor had broken out, and there were various other small holes in the roof. The only intact section of ceiling was near that same section near the door; the rest of the ceiling was entirely gone. “When I get back into town, I’m going to see about getting all of these books and documents taken out of this library by someone with specialized equipment. The urban explorer’s creed is to take only pictures and leave only footprints, but these are irreplaceable documents that are (puts her fingers very close together) this close to disappearing forever. Another two years and this floor’s going to be all gone. I wouldn’t go into this room if I were you.” said Melissa. Against Melissa’s advice, Billy studied the room and decided to walk toward a section labeled “Technical Documents”. He found what appeared to be a beam under the floor and carefully walked on it; Melissa walked on another beam, about two feet to his left, ready to grab Billy if the beam gave way. He got to the documents, which were labeled chronologically, and grabbed a handful that dated to late 1986. Just as he withdrew his hand, he heard a loud bang underneath him. Then, his body moved back rapidly. Billy looked, and saw Melissa’s hands tightly clamped around his left arm and right shoulder. Standing on a more stable patch of floor, Billy saw that the floor where he’d been standing had no additional damage. “False alarm? Whatever it is, I’m getting the **** out of here.” said Billy. While they were leaving the library, Melissa’s walkie-talkie buzzed to life. “Perfect timing.” said Billy “We found a computer chip fab. Me and Dirk want to go inside it.” said David. “Where’s it at, and what identifying features does it have?” asked Melissa. “It says Commander Computer, it’s a brick building, and it’s directly to the right of the crash test lab if you’re looking at it from the front.” said David. “All right, you can go ahead and go in, we’ll be there in a few minutes.” said Melissa. -
Chapter 3 - Ghost Airport
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
The red numbers in the image indicates where the chapter takes place. Chapter 3 The airport terminal building, made of concrete, still looked relatively stable. Most of the windows were still in place, but some were broken out, their tempered glass piled up along parts of the perimeter of the building. Melissa went to the back of the van and grabbed a mask and a walkie-talkie for each person; each explorer donned their mask and put their walkie-talkie in their pocket. All five opened a front door that said, “Airport Employees Only” and walked in. The interior of the terminal was huge, probably at least 150 feet wide and 80 feet deep, with a 20-foot high ceiling. Dirt, leaves, and bits of fallen plaster from the ceiling covered the red-carpet floor. Above, the plaster came off the roof in some places, revealing the concrete roof underneath. The floor was at ground level and rock solid. About every 30 feet or so, there were concrete pillars. A hallway came off each end of the room; the left one was labeled Food, and the right one Services. A metal fence, about 5’ high was about 15 feet in front of them; looking to the right they saw the main entrance to the terminal, a pair of doors between the railing and front wall. A baggage claim conveyor belt was in the middle of the room. Only a railing separated the check-in area from the rest of the terminal. The explorers observed that that would never fly in the present day. The back wall facing the runways was mostly windows, but there were sections of wall, with peeling beige paint, at regular intervals; about 10 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling wall, then 40 linear feet of floor-to-ceiling windows, in a repeating pattern. On each section of wall, there was a number – from 1 to 3 – and a large board which would show flight details. Board #3 had fallen and was laying, broken, at an angle propped up on a chair. Banks of large beige leather chairs, probably about 80 per section, were adjacent to the back wall, covered in the same detritus that covered the floor. There were also small booths where airport employees would check tickets. All the explorers, except Billy and Dirk, took a wide-shot picture of the terminal; Billy took a video of the room, panning his camera from left to right. Dirk got out his EMF meter, scanning for ghosts. Melissa explained the purpose of the airport. “This airport took people to other small airports within a few hundred miles or to the big international airports in Helmintoller and Cormack City. People wanting to take a vacation overseas would normally take a flight of about an hour to Helmintoller City and then catch their main flight there. During peak tourist season, sometimes there would be 5 or 6 flights a day to and from Helmintoller City alone. But it never was a particularly busy airport, if a plane was coming every hour then it was a busy day. The big jet planes, like 747s, never flew here. We’d mostly get the smaller turboprop type planes, 50 or 60 passenger tops.” “Did you ever catch a flight out of here?” asked Billy. “A few times. I went to New York City in ‘74, to the U.S. Virgin Islands spring break of my junior year of college in ‘85, and a couple of local flights in between. My dad also brought us here in 1977 when they expanded the airport. We didn’t take a flight then, but it was a source of local pride for us to finally have an up-to-date airport.” said Melissa. Dirk walked off during Melissa’s speech, scanning his EMF meter around the room, but it wasn’t indicating anything. Melissa kept an eye on Dirk as she and the rest of the explorers went to the back of the room. Staying several feet back from the board in case it fell, they read it. A line of “CANCELED” notices ran down the right of the board. Even a chair said “CANCELED”, one of the decals having come off and landed on it. “People weren’t very worried about their flights. The minute the volcano hit, all of that got canceled. I remember hearing that they sent everyone at the airport home. There was an inbound flight, they diverted it to Cormack.” said Melissa. Billy wiped off one of the cleaner looking chairs and sat down. “Still comfortable after all these years.” he said. David tried one out too, coming to a similar conclusion. Dirk was near the opposite wall of the terminal near the ticket check-in booths, so the group went that way. The outside of the booths was fairly non-descript; faded white letters said HELMINTOLLER AIRLINES, EXPRESS AIR, AIR IZZY. Another flight information board, bigger than the ones near the other wall, hung between the Helmintoller Airlines and Air Izzy booths. Megan found a door that led to the interior of the booths. The interior of the Helmintoller Airlines booth was a small room, a square about 10 feet on each side. A desk at the front of the room had an old Macintosh computer on one side, connected to a printer on the other. Somewhat protected from the main terminal area itself, the room was remarkably clean; the red-carpet floor still felt in good shape. A paper on the table said, “LIST OF SCHEDULED FLIGHTS: MARCH 28-30, 1987”. The first four flights, the last of which had left for Helmintoller City at 9:00 pm on March 28, were checked off as departed. The 5th to 11th flights, which would leave at various hours on the 29th and 30th, were marked through with a red line, the red Sharpie still laying a few inches away. Tickets for the next flight had been printed. It was a connecting flight from Izzy to Helmintoller, which would then leave for Orlando, FL. The date on the tickets said “SUN MAR 29, 1987 6:00 AM” “What you are seeing is several canceled vacations. I hope all these people eventually got to go where they wanted to go.” said Billy, filming the papers close-up. They might have data he could put on Wikipedia or something. Melissa responded to Billy, adding to his video. “Helmintoller Airlines was really good about giving refunds if I recall correctly. My mom’s friend had a flight canceled from the volcano, and she got her money back within a few weeks. So, they probably did get to make them up, but it might have been a year or two later.” Seeing that the others were beginning to wait on him, Billy turned off the camera and went back toward the group. As they walked toward one of the hallways that led out of the main terminal room, Billy asked if it would be okay if he put video of the airline tickets on the internet. “I don’t see why not. They don’t have any personal information and they’re 33 years old.” said Melissa. “Why would you take video of airline tickets?” asked Dirk. “I find the data interesting.” said Billy. “Weirdo.” said Dirk. “Some people like that kind of stuff. It’s not weird.” said Megan. The left hallway of the terminal was lined with advertisements for various airlines. The ceiling was lower in here, but much of the drop ceiling had come down, littering the floor with the ceiling tiles, and leaving pieces of the ceiling framing hanging down. The explorers had to watch their steps to avoid slipping on the tiles; luckily, the ceiling was high enough that the framing hanging down was still above their heads. The metal roof itself was mostly intact but had a couple of small holes in it. The hallway itself was only about 25 feet long before opening into a large circular area with white tables and attached chairs in the middle, still arranged as they had been decades ago. The walls were beige, and the carpet blue in this area. Restroom doors were at the very end of the hallway. There was a large dome skylight above the tables. Most of the glass panes were intact. “Whoa, they had a Queso Burgers here. I’ve always wanted to go to a Queso Burger again. I only went once, when I was like 7, and it was delicious.” said Billy. “What’s a Queso Burger?” asked Megan. “It was a burger place where you could get burgers with spicy cheese dip right inside the patties. I think it started here in Izzy in the ‘70s. When I was growing up, they were everywhere. It was one of my favorite places to eat, they were delicious. Then about 2005 or so they went out of business.” said David.” “Maybe you should have eaten a few less of them.” said Dirk. “Maybe you should be a little less negative.” said Melissa. There were two other restaurants in the food court: Uno’s Pizza and Subway. While Melissa and Megan explored them, and Dirk kept “ghost hunting”, Billy and David went over to the Queso Burger. Aside from being very dirty and stained with rotting food, the serving troughs looked just as David remembered them. They opened a door and went into the kitchen. The scents of mold and rotting food wafted through the air. It smelled bad, but not overpoweringly bad. Then David opened a large fridge. That was a mistake. David and Billy quickly walked out of the room, recoiling at the smell of beef rotted decades ago and dead bugs. “Serves you right, dumba**es.” said Dirk. David and Billy cleared off two chairs and sat down to catch their breath; Melissa and Megan walked over to them and stood nearby. “Are you two okay?” asked Melissa. “Yeah, pardon my French, but that kitchen smells like s***.” said Billy. After about two minutes, Billy and David got back up. Billy got out his camera and filmed the food court, making sure to get close-ups of the serving areas of all three restaurants and poking his camera into Queso Burger’s kitchen. “I’m warning you, any prospective explorers, do NOT open anything in this kitchen.” said Billy. The group then went to leave the food court area. Billy filmed down the hallway, choosing the return trip so he could better chart his course so he wouldn’t slip on any of the fallen ceiling tiles. After that, the group crossed the main terminal room again and went into the right-side hallway. In here was the non-food services of the airport: a rental car agency, a gift shop, and a money exchange. This hallway was, architecturally, a mirror image of the other, and the level of decay was remarkably similar. Melissa, David, and Megan looked through the duty-free shop while Billy went to the rental-car agency counter and Dirk looked at the money exchange. The rental-car agency was rather plainly labeled, “Airport Rent-A-Car”. Billy perused the binder on the counter, finding a selection of Ford and Toyota vehicles, everything from Toyota Tercels and Ford Escorts to Lincoln Town Cars. Billy also peeked inside the booth and found a desk with a computer and a printer, much like he’d seen at the check-in terminal. He moved on to the gift shop and met up with those in there. Everything had been left on the shelves of the gift shop; T-shirts, cups, and various other souvenirs that said, “We call it Izzy because even we can’t pronounce Izydorczak”, along with various other corny slogans. The gifts were covered in a thick layer of dust, but somehow 98% of them were still on the shelves. Meanwhile, Dirk stuffed 50 dollars in his pocket from the money exchange – no one was the wiser. The group had been in the airport for over an hour and were eager to start exploring the city itself. After finishing up with the airport exploration, the group went outside to find it noticeably warmer and sunnier than when they’d came into the airport. That was a rather small airport, but I’ll take it, thought Billy, as they walked back toward the van. They’d explored only about 30% of the airport. “SHOTGUN!” yelled Dirk. He climbed in the front seat of the van; Billy and David got the second row, while Megan took the third. In her mind, Melissa didn’t want Dirk getting the front seat, but she didn’t say anything. Melissa turned the van turned around and went back down Airport Road, making a left turn at the end of the road to go into the ghost town itself.-
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Chapter 2 - The Trip to Izzy
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
Chapter 2 Thirty minutes after leaving, and halfway to Izzy, they had only seen one car on the highway that ran between Kallal and Izzy, and even that had been 25 minutes ago. The lands the interstate ran across were rugged, wild, and heavily forested. A faded sign said, “Izzy City: 32 miles”. The highway was in an oddly good condition to be going only to a town abandoned for 33 years. Melissa decided to give a little history. “Back in the ‘80s, this highway would be crowded at this time of day on a weekend. It was our main way out into the world outside Izzy. I remember being a kid, I guess this would have been in the late ‘60s, and this road had a speed limit of 45 and no fences or lights. You always had to worry about hitting a deer on the way home. My dad hit a big deer with me in the passenger seat when I was 5. We were in a ’66 Ford Falcon, no seat belts, and we were lucky to walk away. Almost totaled the car.” “Glad you were okay!” said Megan. “Fortunately, I’ve never been in any other serious car crashes. And the road was upgraded. About 1972 or so, they finally put fences up so no one hit deer anymore. But 45 mph was still pretty slow, took almost two hours to get anywhere. Between my sophomore and junior years of college, so 1984, they upgraded the road to the 6-lane, 70 mph highway they have today. The city of Izzy paid for the whole thing and finished it in six months. They had the road closed weekdays from midnight to 6 am for a while. They used concrete that was supposed to last 40 years between re-paving. They said it was the best-made road in all Helmintoller when it was built. I think it cost something like half a million Simoleons. It’s a shame it was only really used for a couple of years.” said Melissa. “Well maybe if Izzy makes a comeback, it’ll be used.” said Billy. “I don’t think Izzy’s going to come back to life. It’s just too cost-prohibitive to fix it up.” said Melissa. “They had the money to build this highway, so they must have been a rather wealthy city.” said Billy. “Izzy was, financially, a very well-run city. I went to a couple of city council meetings back in the day- “ “You were on the city council there? How old ARE you, granny?” asked Dirk. Melissa laughed it off. “56. The volcano happened right before I turned 23.” said Melissa. “That wasn’t very nice, Dirk. She’s taking you on a trip, and you call her granny?! Anyway, go ahead, Melissa.” said Billy. “The years before the volcano, Izzy was making about a 6,000 simoleon profit every month. We had a great school system, great hospitals, great roads, all the things that made a city run well. The taxes were still fairly low, so I don’t know how they made it all work. Everything in town was clean, well-maintained, and just worked. The DMV wasn’t a pain in the neck.” “Oh, if only it were that way today.” said Megan. A few minutes later, Billy took out his camera for the first time. He took out a memory card labeled “IZZY 1” and put it in the camera. “Filming the highway.” said Billy. “Why do you have to film a road?” asked Dirk. “This highway’s part of the trip too.” said Melissa. “If anyone has anything to add, feel free to say it.” said Billy. Billy started his video, pointing his camera out the windshield. “This is the highway that runs from Kallal to Izzy. This road, I assume, dates back to 1924 in one form or another, but the smooth highway we’re riding on was built in 1984 and hasn’t been repaved since then. I guess since it’s been a road to nowhere for 90% of its history, so it hasn’t got a lot of wear. As you can see… not a car in sight. It’s a Saturday morning, September 26, at about 8:40 am as I film this. We’re on our way to Izzy.” said Billy. He looked over and saw that the van was moving at 96 mph. He didn’t say anything until the camera was off and back in the glove box. “You’re going pretty fast. I’m not on to you, and I trust your driving, but I don’t want to get pulled over.” said Billy. “There hasn’t been a cop on this highway in decades.” said Melissa. A few minutes later, evidence of a nearby city came into view. The rusting frame of a billboard was the first sign; the content of the billboard had long disappeared. Billy got his camera out. Another billboard a half-mile later, in slightly better condition, said “Thomasina’s Bar and Grill”; Billy managed to get a semi-decent shot. The volcano appeared in the distance. Soon, some of the taller buildings in Izzy began to appear out the windshield; the buildings were dark and looked heavily decayed. Billy started filming again. As the buildings got closer, the other passengers in the van began to look to the right. One tall building, perhaps 10-15 stories, had about half its windows broken and half intact, in no discernible pattern. University Street Tower’s sign had decayed to “UN E I Y S REET T R”. Soon, shorter buildings began to appear in the distance. All the buildings appeared to be coated in a thick layer of grime and dirt. Most looked to be barely standing; some had collapsed. Megan, David, and Dirk all got out their cameras and started taking pictures. About a minute later, the city was right next to the van, about a half-mile to the right. Melissa slowed the van to 55 mph as everyone looked in awe at the city, which seemed to go on forever. Directly to the right of the van, there were about 20 blocks of factories and various industrial buildings, then many more blocks of houses, mansions interspersed with more modest houses, then finally, various shops and offices. Around the time the industrial district yielded to the residential, the highway turned into an avenue, and the van slowed to about 20 mph. The avenue wasn’t in nearly as good of condition; potholes had eaten away at it, requiring Melissa to swerve the van around them in spots. “Wow,” said Billy. “This place is massive. I knew it would be big, but it’s hard to put into words just how big without being there in person.” “I bet there’s a ****load of ghosts in there.” said Dirk. Billy would have to edit the profanity out of his video, which aimed to be family friendly. For the first time in many miles, the road made a sharp turn to the right. Now, the abandoned city filled the view out the front of the van. A red line on the road marked the city limits; the sign itself had fallen over. Melissa turned the van onto a side road. A control tower in the distance made it clear that this road went to an airport. Just before reaching the airport, Melissa stopped the van. She asked everyone to get out. “Before we go into the city, I’d like to lay down some ground rules and explain the trip. As explained in the online signup, this is a 3-day, exhaustive tour of Izzy City. There are thousands of buildings in the city, and we won’t have time to explore them all. We’ll be exploring quite a few buildings, and we’ll try to get a good sample of them. That being said, these are buildings that haven’t been maintained in a very long time, and they could be structurally unsound. You all are adults and we can go inside the buildings, but you must wear a N95 mask, bring a walkie-talkie, and go in groups of at least two; no one should go inside the buildings alone. I have masks and walkie-talkies in the van for everyone. Also, make sure to test the floors and don’t walk on them if you feel unsafe. You don’t have to go into any of the buildings if you don’t want to. I’ll be going in as much as I safely can. Any questions?” “Yeah, why do I need a mask just to go inside an empty building?” asked Dirk. “Because there could be mold in there, and if you inhale it, it’s bad news.” said Melissa. “Why can’t I go inside the buildings alone?” asked Dirk. “Because if the worst happens, having someone there could mean the difference between life and death.” “What if a ghost spooks me?” asked Dirk. “Then I’ll use my Ghost-B-Gone spray on him.” said Melissa. “Where can I buy Ghost-B-Gone spray?” asked Dirk. “You have to get it online.” said Melissa, jokingly. After five more minutes of inane questions from Dirk, Billy had had enough. “Knock it off, Dirk. Quit asking questions so we can get to your ghost hunt.” -
Chapter 1 - Meeting the Explorers
drocca posted a City Journal entry in Izzy City - A Ghost Town Exploration Story
Chapter 1 The plan was to meet at the McDonalds on the west side of Kallal City on Saturday, September 26 at 7 am. This Mickey D’s was chosen because it was the last bastion of civilization for the next 60 miles, and thus was the closest place to the ghost town that the group of five explorers, accompanied by one of the town’s former residents, would meet at. The Mickey D’s wouldn’t open until 8, so there wouldn’t be any customers there. The weather only added to the desolate atmosphere; it was 54 degrees, windy, with a pall of clouds and a thin fog. Billy was the first to arrive, a man who appeared to be in his early 20s, about 6’ tall with short mousy brown hair and a medium-stocky build. He was wearing a beat-up Sonic the Hedgehog shirt and long khakis. He pulled his white 2014 Honda Accord in at 6:35 am. This was followed by Melissa, the group leader, just two minutes later, in a black 2018 Honda Odyssey Elite van, who parked two spaces to the right of Billy. She had medium-length blonde hair and was of a medium build. She was wearing a Kelly-green T-shirt, a light jacket, and khaki pants. As soon as Melissa arrived, Billy got out of his car, and Melissa got out of her van. They met in the parking space between their cars. “Hi, I’m Billy. Are you here for the Izzy trip?” “Hi, I’m Melissa. I’m here for the trip.” “Oh, you’re the organizer of the trip,” said Billy, having seen the name on the invitation. “I’ve been waiting for this day for months. I’ve been into Izzy since I was a kid. I’ve studied on it on the Internet for 15 years, and I’ve seen every picture I could get a hold of, but I’ve always wanted to go myself, but it’s been so dangerous until the last couple years. I wasn’t even born until 8 years after Izzy was abandoned, so I like the time capsule aspect, seeing a place frozen in time since before I was born. Have you ever been to Izzy?” asked Billy. “Been to it? Oh, I just lived there the first 23 years of my life.” said Melissa, chuckling. Billy was awed. “First off, you are not 56 years old. I might believe you lived in Izzy as a child, but no way you’re over 45. Second, I’m doing a video on Izzy, and I don’t want this to be awkward, but do you mind if I film you giving some stories from your time living there? I don’t have to put your face in it.” “You’re more than welcome to, and you can put my face in too. Glad to help you with your video.” said Melissa. “I’ll keep your secret about being 56.” said Billy. “Why’s it gotta be a secret? I don’t care if people know how old I am. They’ll figure it out anyway.” said Melissa, chuckling slightly as she pat Billy on the shoulder. They’d only met minutes ago, and Billy already felt like he could be fully himself around Melissa. I’ve hit the jackpot, he thought. I never thought my trip to Izzy would be this good. “Let me get my cameras.” said Billy, grabbing a small backpack from his back seat. He put the bag on his back. “You can put your bag in the van if you’d like.” said Melissa. Billy opened the right rear door of the van and put his bag in the middle, between the first and second rows of seats. After a couple minutes standing, they got in the van, Melissa in the driver’s seat and Billy in the passenger seat and talked until the rest arrived. A young woman was the next to arrive; at 6:56 am, she pulled her red 2014 Ford Escape as Melissa and Billy got out to greet her. She looked about Billy’s age. About 5’4”, with medium length brown hair and a light-medium build, Megan was rather attractive. She was wearing a “University of South Helmintoller” hoodie and jeans. “Hey guys! I’m Megan.” “Hey!” said Melissa and Billy, simultaneously. “Whoa, Ms. Melissa, I didn’t know you were on this trip!” exclaimed Megan. “Well, Murphy’s a common last name.” said Melissa. “You know Melissa?” asked Billy. “She’s my favorite professor I’ve ever had. She’s very nice and a great teacher. I’m looking forward to this.” said Megan. Right at the stroke of 7, the fourth member of the trip arrived, a man who appeared to be around 40, give or take. He was about 6’2”, with short red hair and a medium build, wearing a white shirt with a pocket and jeans. He was driving a blue 2008 Nissan Pathfinder. “Hi,” said the man. “I’m David.” he said, reaching out his right hand to do a handshake. Melissa, Billy, and Megan introduced themselves, shaking David’s hand. His handshake was sure and firm. The four got in the van, Billy getting the front seat because of his photographic equipment. To give Megan and David more room and for easy access, Billy put his DSLR, associated equipment, and flash memory cards in the glove box. After a few minutes of talking, David revealed that he was born in Izzy. “I was actually born in Izzy, but I was just 5 when I left. All my things, my old toys and books are still in my house in West Izzy, right near the volcano. This is the first time I’ve been there since the volcano, and I just want to see what became of my old town.” “Where’s your old house? We can go there.” asked Melissa. “255 Balboa Road. When you get into town, you just keep going north. It’s past the two blue towers.” said David. “I know exactly where that is. I lived on Wood Road, just across the little commercial district toward the mountain.” said Melissa. “The blue towers, are those the Western House Towers?” asked Billy. “That’s the one. I’d forgotten what they were called. Do you have family from Izzy?” asked David. “No, I’ve just researched Izzy for many years, always wanted to go,” said Billy. “Never been.” “This trip is a birthday present for me. I turn 39 next Wednesday.” said David. “Hmmm… 9/30/81… That makes you born on a Wednesday.” said Billy. “Wow, you’re smart.” said David. “What day of the week was April 28, 1964?” asked Melissa. “Tuesday.” answered Billy. After Billy told Megan that Oct. 28, 1998 was a Wednesday, and Dec. 24, 1995, his own birthday, was a Sunday, the conversation went back to Izzy. Eventually, David noticed that it was 7:26, and they hadn’t left yet. “Why haven’t we left? We’re almost 30 minutes behind.” said David. “We have one more coming.” said Melissa. “I say, if he isn’t here by 7:40, we leave,” said David. “I think a 40-minute grace period is plenty.” 7:40 came and went, and Billy, David, and Megan all wanted to leave. Finally, Melissa decided that she would leave at 8. The employees of the McDonalds arrived to start their workdays. At 7:58, a red 1998 Pontiac Firebird roared into the parking lot. It was rusty and loud, in an obnoxious way. The Firebird parked right next to Billy. A man, about 5’10”, of muscular build, with a goatee and tattoos, came out. Oh gosh, please don’t let this be the last member of our party, thought Billy. Melissa rolled down her driver window. “Hi. Are you here for the Izzy trip?” asked Melissa. “Yeah bro.” said the man. “Come on in.” said Melissa. “Shotgun!” shouted the man. He opened the passenger door, only to find Billy sitting there. “Sorry, if you wanted the front seat, you shouldn’t have gotten here an hour late.” said Billy. “Billy needs the front seat for his photo equipment.” said Melissa. Megan opened the back right door, and the man got in the third row of the van. Melissa backed out of the parking spot and started on the trip. “What’s your name?” asked Billy. “Dirk,” said the man. “I thought we were going to be in a bada** Jeep or something.” “What are your plans for this trip?” asked Melissa. “I’m going to find me some ghosts.” said Dirk, pulling an EMF meter out of his pocket. “I don’t think there are any ghosts here. Just abandoned buildings with a lot of ‘80s stuff inside.” said David. “Bruh. Have you ever seen that show Ghost Catchers?” asked Dirk. “I was born in this town, and I’ve never heard of any ghosts.” said David. “I guess there could be some ghosts, but I doubt it.” said Billy. “This place is ****ing crawling with ghosts,” said Dirk. “It’s been abandoned for, what, 50 years?” “33.” said Melissa. -
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).
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65 Year Update - 8,000 Sims Can Be Wrong
drocca posted a City Journal entry in What Happens when you Withdraw All Government Services?
As Kuzcek continues its slow transformation from crime-infested slum to burned-up ghost town, here's the statistics at 55, 60, and 65 years. This set of statistics is as follows: 40 years post abandonment -> 45 years -> 50 years. Total Population: 10,172 -> 8,850 -> 8,134 Residential Breakdown, after 55 years: R$ approx. 9,200 / R$$ approx. 930 / R$$$ at 64 Residential Breakdown, after 60 years: R$ approx. 8,100 / R$$ approx. 950 / R$$$ at 67 (?) Residential Breakdown, after 65 years: R$ approx. 7,500 / R$$ approx. 830 / R$$$ at 63 (?) Commercial Population: 4,427 -> 4,102 -> 3,738 Commercial Breakdown, after 55 years: CS$ approx. 2,950 / CS$$ approx. 1,100 / CS$$$ approx. 130 / CO$$ approx. 240 / CO$$$ extinct Commercial Breakdown, after 60 years: CS$ approx. 2,900 / CS$$ approx. 950 / CS$$$ approx. 100 / CO$$ approx. 150 / CO$$$ extinct Commercial Breakdown, after 65 years: CS$ approx. 2,800 / CS$$ approx. 800 / CS$$$ approx. 70 / CO$$ approx. 80 / CO$$$ extinct Industrial Population: 1,226 -> 1,226 -> 1,223 Industrial Breakdown, after 55 years: I-D approx. 1,200 / I-HT at 27 Industrial Breakdown, after 60 years: I-D approx. 1,200 / I-HT at 27 Industrial Breakdown, after 65 years: I-D approx. 1,200 / I-HT at 24 Crime: No arrests can be assumed at this point. 11 month -> 8/month -> 8/month Commute time: 93 minutes -> 85 minutes -> 85 minutes Power usage: 8,850 kWh -> 8,772 kWh -> 8,772 kWh Water usage: 65,280 cu m3 -> 65,068 cu m3 -> 65,052 cu m3 Air Pollution: 58 -> 58 -> 58 Garbage: Nearly all garbage in streets, approx. 320,000 tons -> 345,000 tons -> 360,000 tons Education: 16 -> 9 -> 6 Life expectancy: 51 years -> 50 years -> 50 years Average income: Approx. $19,800 -> Approx. $19,800 -> Approx. $19,600 Budget: $5,552 income / $2,530 expenses -> Approx. $5,020 income / $2,550 expenses -> Approx. $4,400 income / $2,350 expenses Funds: $5,920,145 -> $6,089,791 -> $6,232,600 Mayor Rating: Approx. 17 (2 bars out of 12) -> Approx. 16 (2 bars out of 12) -> Approx. 15 (2 bars out of 12) Sorry for no pictures, my internet's acting up at the moment. -
Emanthorpe - A rural delight for ghosts!
SimCities posted a City Journal entry in Cities Uncovered (SC4)
By The Way, this will be my last journal using small pictures, the next journals will have much larger pictures. Emanthorpe is a small little community of just 77 people, completely isolated from several communities. The town was devasted by fire and for some time, largely remained abandoned. Sims hated coming through Emanthorpe in this period and it soon got the label of a ghost town. The Rural Council of Emanthorpe, starting taking drastic action and after several months, soon became a village again. -
Ok I made a huge metropolis of about 450,000. It had everything like a downtown, midtown, soaring skyscrapers, typical big city stuff. The cars jammed the streets and it was just one of those cities you could tell was "alive." But I was bored one day, so I decided to see what would happen if I took away all their power. Well naturally there was a type of domino effect. It was actually really cool to watch because I had night time set. Like the cities lights went out in blocks starting from a randomly set point, I think it started at the coast. But all of a sudden like the first 100 block went out, which were all the skyscrapers along the coastline. Then the row of towers behind them followed. Followed by even more apartments buildings/skyscrapers. And so on and so on. It was really cool to watch actually lol. But then since there was no power to make the water pumps work it went into the brown out phase and all the buildings lost water. With no power or water my population collapsed basically. It went from 450,000 to 230 in a about one minute. Then I decided to make it even worse by taking away all fire, police, education, and health funding. The population dropped to zero and all the buildings turned dilapidated. But also in a domino effect. So I after watching all of this occur from a zoomed out view, I went in for a closer look. It was really eerie to see all the empty streets. I started shooting down one of the busiest avenues, the "Boston Thruway" which at its peak had 7000 cars. It was so weird to see everything empty and dilapidated. It reminded me a lot of that one movie, I Am Legend. Am I the only one whos ever done this? lol
