Detailed Cartography: Badon Heights

Badon Heights
     Badon Heights became an extension of Fairhaven as Belport became an attraction to the wealthy, who would come with their yachts and enjoy the weather and access to the ocean. Badon Heights is often seen as very exclusive, and non-luxury cars are rarely seen driving through there. Badon Heights got its name from Nicholas Badon, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who donated heavily to the city. Originally the area was just his estate, north of Fairhaven. However, more people began to follow his example and build their houses in the "Heights" outside of town. Things continued to escalate with wealthier and larger estates for quite some time, and then the citizens there fell victim to some crime as enterprising thieves moved up and began to prey on the wealthy. The response was to form a town, but Badon would not consider a town separate from Belport, and used his connections to have the city annex the area, and extend the city's resources north, though supplemented with a large trust fund for "the establishment and security of the area known as the Heights."
     While not a separate town, residents within the area of Badon Heights pay significantly higher taxes for public works, which helps keep the area pristine and secure. Badon Heights has many docks and ports for private ships, many of them yachts. Badon Heights also has a private ferry service—both a fast catamaran style ferry and a hydrofoil—out to the Bel Vista Islands, which are considered part of the Heights.


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Detailed Cartography: Sibley Park

Sibley Park
     Not long after the completion of City Center, Harlin Sibley, the grandson of Harold Sibley, willed his property to Belport on the condition it be made into a park for the people of Belport to enjoy. The land remained untouched, though, until after World War II when plans for the park could be made and realized. The park is open t the public, though its location is easier for those in Fairhaven, City Center, and Badon Heights to enjoy. The park is marked by a twenty foot tall statue of Harold Sibley not far from the park's entrance. Read more ...

Detailed Cartography: Midtown

City Center or Midtown
     City Center sprang up between Fairhaven and Meriville, the two towns that first consolidated into the city of Belport. Neither town could agree on a name, and so the new name of Belport was chosen to placate the citizens of both towns. The new downtown became the financial center of the city, laying claim to the first high rises. Though it had nothing as fancy as the Empire State Building, the Horiwitz Tower first defined the Belport skyline. Other, less impressive buildings rose up, creating a dense downtown financial district on par with any modern city. Unlike the other parts of the city, City Center is laid out in an exact grid. City Center stretches from Meriville to Fairhaven, now, and ends at University Square. Read more ...

Detailed Cartography: The Grind

The Grind
     The Grind sprang up in the vacant area between Meridian and Sherwood and Dante during the Great Depression. The displaced people set up shanties in the area, and tried, many times futilely, to find day work in the towns. The name Grind came into being because the people felt that they were being ground down. When Fairhaven and Meridian formed Belport, the new construction of the City Center created enough jobs for the displaced people to work. The shanties soon became more permanent structures, and the Grind started building itself at a pace that matched City Center, even if on a less grandiose scale. The Grind became the main source of workforce to both Dante and Shoreward, and became a semi-industrialized area, though the area had no kind of government, and fell outside of all the jurisdiction of the existing towns. The Grind quickly became the worst area to be associated with for its rampant crime. Since no one would go inside of it, it became a haven for drug dealers, mafia, prostitutes, gangs, and all other manner of disreputable figures.
     After World War II came the incorporation of Shoreward, Dante, and the Grind into Belport. For years afterward, the Grind continued to be a neighborhood that people would go out of their way to avoid. Attempts at regulating the area mostly failed so that police in the Grind either turned a blind eye or were a part of the problem. It wasn't until Mitch Harrison, a city councilman and former DA, led a strong push to reform the Grind after it began to encroach on Meriville. The encroachment itself wasn't necessarily the problem, but Merivillers, seeing how close the Grind was and how bad their neighborhoods were becoming, would relocate to other, safer areas. The turning point for the Grind was when eight people were massacred at a local restaurant. This polarized the city and Harrison won the bid for mayor and began massive reform initiatives, tripling the police presence in the Grind and reversing much of the damage done. Efforts were made to revitalize the area to restore it to Meriville, but Meridian Street, which had once served as the center of town, had become Meriville's southern border, and no amount of revitalization changed that. The revitalization was successful in curbing the criminal activity in the Grind. It is still not the safest place to be at night, and known for its roughness, but the most hardened activity belongs to Dante and Shoreward, now.
     The Grind is considered the heart of Belport's night life. It has more nightclubs and bars per block than the rest of Belport combined. The semi-industrial nature of the Grind appeals to younger people, and so many college students, both from Belport College and DeGradi University, frequent its nightclubs and parties, and even raves in its infrequent warehouses. The Meriville side of the Grind—AKA the Upper Grind—being the entire area of what was formerly Meriville, from Meridian Street down to Townsend Avenue—the old border of Meridian—the Grind is more trendy than dangerous. The roots of Meriville's quirky artistic side reside there and there are art studios, coffee shops, and even the occasional gallery, though more than a few of these have been repurposed into night clubs and bars.
     The Lower Grind, at the borders of Shoreward and Dante's Forge, is the last remnant of the original Grind. In these places it is nearly unchanged from its original, criminal roots, but the surrounding areas of Shoreward and Dante have become so bad as to match it, making it indistinct, now.

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Detailed Cartography: Shadow Valley

Shadow Valley
     Shadow Valley, as it is now called, stretches from the hills to Mt. Kelly's western slopes and Shadow Lake. It wasn't until the discovery of iron ore in Mt. Kelly that the place came into existence as a mining community. Most of the miners turned out to be Chinese, Japanese, and Russian immigrants, who, after working on the rails, settled into the area to work the mine. During the Depression, more immigrants, mostly European from the East Coast, filed in to find work and a life. The immigrants had no fear of hard work and plunged into the hazardous mine. Unfortunately, the vein of ore slowed and dwindled to nothing, but the people stayed in the area as their own little community. Many of the immigrants went to help with the construction of Belport's City Center, while still others found some work in the factories and foundries of Dante's Forge.
     Even though they worked in other areas of the city, they always returned to Shadow Valley since they had adapted the area to look like their homelands, each nationality shaping their neighborhoods after their homes, complete with architecture, dress, and food. Shadow Valley holds to very old ways of doing things. Some of them even hold to the old superstitions, and say that the reason they settled in Shadow Valley was because of Mt. Kelly, and some power it has. For the most part the people of Shadow Valley keep to themselves and prefer it that way.
     Recently, with the fall of communism, there has been an influx of organized crime into the area, and so many people find that just one more reason to stay out of Shadow Valley, though it's said that the valley's shadow stretches well into the city.

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Detailed Cartography: University Square

University Square
     It didn't take long for DeGradi University to generate its own neighborhood. At first it was built outside of Fairhaven, but an influx of students created a need for goods and services close at hand, and so it grew. The name came into being when Meridian and Fairhaven officially formed the city of Belport, including DeGradi University into its city limits, and the square, which it wasn't, around it.
     DeGradi University is a private school, and considered to be one of the nation's better schools. While not Ivy League, it boasts an impressive curriculum, and commands prestige. Read more ...

Detailed Cartography: Dante's Forge

Dante's Forge
     The town of Dante was established by Adrian Dante after the logging around Sherwood began to diminish. Its location around Swift Creek and the Rush made for strategic locations to send the logs to the sawmills, most of which belonged to Dante—the logging company was also named after him. From there the logs could be sent down the Rush or "Shoreward." Logging was more controlled in Dante than Sherwood had been, mostly due to smaller demand since other great logging cities had saturated the need. Still, Dante grew for quite some time in all directions until it could no longer grow west for having run into Sherwood. For a long time the two towns were equitable neighbors, and the border between them somewhat fluid and they decided to form a cooperative that linked them together, but less formally than the one that would join Faihaven and Meridian in a few years. Dante was nearly wiped out during the Depression, and many of its citizens became homeless, scratching out survival on the outskirts of the town, which eventually became known as the Grind.
     The discovery of iron ore in Mt. Kelly helped the town stay alive, and they quickly converted many of the unused sawmills into steel mills and refineries to process the raw ore that was brought down the Rush. The demand for steel was so great for the new skyscrapers in Belport's City Center that the mills and refineries ran all night long, casting a glow into the sky and making people think it was a different Dante who had founded the town. The new plants caused so much noise that some people began to refer to it as a forge for the constant ringing of metal on metal, and the name stuck. Dante's Forge quickly became the heart of industry in the region.
     During World War II, much of Dante's factories shifted to wartime production. During this time, the banks of Belport's City Center made sure everything was in order so the wartime effort continued unabated, and all decided that oversight would go more smoothly if Dante were made part of Belport. Since Dante and Shoreward were already, informally, knit together, and Shoreward had all the warehouses for the wartime production, it was agreed that both places, and the space between them, known as the Grind, should be formally made part of Belport. The area is called Dante, Dante's Forge, or even just the Forge interchangeably. Some have suggested that the neighborhoods along the border of the Grind and Dante's Forge be called the Vestibule. Others extend this to where Dante borders with any other area. With the decline of the factories, many neighborhoods were simply left to fend for themselves. Homelessness has risen back up—though nowhere near what Depression-era rates were—and crime has increased so that Dante—and Shoreward—match the old Grind for criminal activity. Over time, the border between Dante and Shoreward has shifted back and forth. With the decline of factories and improved shipping methods, Shoreward has started to encroach into the Forge, where previously Dante had invaded into Shoreward.


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Detailed Cartography: Meriville

Meriville

     Despite being founded many years after Fairhaven, the two towns were often thought of as being twins. Meridian was established because many of the loggers in Sherwood thought Fairhaven was too far away, especially since they would have to be up early and back to work. Meridian initially was nothing more than a few inns and taverns that were more respectable than those in Sherwood, but more convenient and cheaper than those in Fairhaven. Gradually, much of what Fairhaven had to offer became available in Meridian. Fairhaven's decline was Meridian's gain as the town became the focus for those living in Sherwood and Dante. It began to handle the banking and other needs of those people, at least until the Depression.
     The Great Depression virtually destroyed Meridian. With the collapse of banks and the joblessness, the very livelihood of Meridian dropped out, rendering many homeless. Many of the homeless and jobless ended up living outside the city, forming a shanty town with those from Sherwood and Dante. So many of the people were affected by the Depression that many began to refer to Meridian as a hooverville, or Meriville.
     To save the town, Meridian's mayor and council spoke with Fairhaven. They decided to incorporate into one city, which would help create new jobs and spur on growth. Soon Meridian became part of Belport, but its Depression era name stuck, turning it into the neighborhood of Meriville.
     Meriville is often thought of in the same way as New York's Greenwich Village with its quirky artists and odd way of doing things. The Grind became a permanent structure south of Meriville, but as time went on, Meridian Street, which used to mark the center of town, became its southern border as the Grind encroached.


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Detailed Cartography: Shoreward

Shoreward

     Sherwood was the original logging port town near the forest and handled most of the original logging that took place until all the coastal wood had been harvested. Adrian Dante saw the end of the logging in Sherwood, and moved on east to the junction of Swift Creek and the Rush, where he set up new mills and a new town. The loggers found it easier to use Swift Creek and the Rush to get their wood to the sawmills and transport them, especially after the rails came to the city. Sherwood, having lost most of its woods to logging, gradually became slanged into "shoreward" as the direction where the shore lay.
     Sherwood''s economy shifted to fishing, and it would have completely collapsed with the establishment of Dante and the onset of the Depression if not for the success of the fishermen. Early on, a processing plant established on Carlyle Island saw to it that there would be a steady supply of fish, crab, and shellfish to the town, and local fisherman frequently would come back with their catches of the day to sell to citizens. The town's name of Sherwood gradually became corrupted by both the fishing industry as well as the logging, referring to it as "Shoreward" for the direction it lay instead of its proper name. The new name eventually stuck, since the wood around the town had completely been cleared. Shoreward later became the location of all of the dock warehouses, a natural fit because of its location, so old mills leftover from the logging days would be converted or demolished and rebuilt into warehouses to serve the docks and to store the logs and wood products that came from Dante.
     World War II saw Shoreward's warehouses full with military equipment, and this would be the last time that all of the warehouses were used. Rapid industrialization and faster shipping methods led to many of the warehouses becoming vacant. Today, many of these old, abandoned warehouses become the location of raves, or attract criminals who use them as storehouses for their goods, creating a lawlessness unseen since the Grind, pre-massacre.


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Halloween Scourge Chapter 1 & 2

     Halloween Scourge is the third novel with Matt Allen, and you can read it after the jump. Since Chapter 2 is so brief, I've decided to include it as well.

Halloween Scourge

Chapter 1

     The phone rang. I recognized it as the phone even though I was still asleep, and somewhere in the dream between "play it again, Sam" and "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." At first I was looking around in my club for the phone that was ringing, then I realized it was my phone and I had to claw myself awake, opening one eye blearily as my hand yanked the receiver over to me.
     "This better be a rich, leggy dame wanting to marry me or I'm hanging up," I said into it.
     "Matt Allen?"
     "What?"
     "Is this Matt Allen?"
     "Not at whatever the hell time this is. It's Sunday, so I'm closed for business." I didn't work weekends unless someone really paid me to, and last night I had been up late; the Bogey film festival had been on, so I was in no mood for whatever this was.
     "This is Detective Collins. I'm calling because we would like you to consult on a case." It vaguely sounded like Collins, but my brain wasn't making connections yet.
     "All right, you got me. This is definitely a new one for me. You kids have really upped the quality of your pranks. I'm going back to bed now."
     "No! Allen, I'm quite serious. I cut you some slack on your stalking case, and now I want the favor back. Captain Jenkins and I want you to consult for us. I'm at a scene right now."
     "Hold on a sec," I said, then focused eyes on the phone and looked at the Caller ID. It did read Stephen Collins, and the quality certainly was that of a cell phone. "I charge overtime on weekends, Collins."
     "Just get your ass down here. We're at Third Avenue and State Street. Give the officer your name and he'll let you through the tape." I heard dead air as he clicked off the line.
     "Well this is new."
     I didn't waste time and hauled myself out of the bed and into a quick shower before heading out. I got there in twenty minutes, which put the time at about eleven in the morning. There was no way to miss everything. Police cars of all kinds were about, so I ended up parking a little ways back. There were quite a few gawkers, but the uniforms kept them back behind the tape. I walked up, and gave my name to Graves, that's what his name plaque read, who lifted the tape up for me. I couldn't even see anything that was going on from outside the tape. Evidently the real scene was tucked back into an alley.
     It was a typical dank, dark, dirty alley littered with refuse. It was maybe six feet wide with a dry cleaner and a tailor on either side of it. I had a feeling that neither place would do much in the way of business today. The old red bricks had cracks in the mortar as well as chunks missing from corners of bricks. More than that, though, a section of the wall was taped off and a crime scene guy snapped pictures of the section from various angles. It was covered in blood. And not just random splatter or spray, but words.
     I didn't want to be here, not for some wacky killer that enjoyed writing in blood on the wall. I didn't even know why I was here. Another flash went off, and for the first time I could make out the writing, "If the corruption continues, sacrifices must be made soon." Almost sounded poetical, but was pretty much nonsense to me. If Collins thought I could lend a hand with his nut job, he was mistaken. Below the writing was the bloody remains of an arm. By the size of it, it looked like a woman's arm, and that it had been used to do the writing. It didn't look like it had been cut off, but ripped free.
     "Allen?"
     "Yeah, Collins." Collins looked the same as I remembered him; medium height and medium build, with his only distinguishing feature being that strong chin, and in one of those cool cop trenchcoats. Columbo had a trenchcoat, too. I should get one. Collins held a cup of coffee from the local Cuppa Joe's instead of a cigar, but that appealed to me more, anyway.
     "Yeah. Thanks for coming down."
     "I charge double on weekends."
     "You said extra, not double."
     "So now I'm being specific."
     "The department has it covered. We'll put in a voucher for you."
     I made a noncommittal sound, and pointed to his cup, "Can I get one of those?"
     "O'Brien, get Allen here a cup of coffee. How do you take it?"
     "A sugar and two creams."
     "You got that O'Brien? Good. Okay, well, this is what we wanted you to see." He pointed down to the covered form, which I hadn't even seen before; I had been too occupied on the wall. A guy pulled the covering back to reveal a woman, looked to be in her thirties, with dead eyes and her neck at an unnatural angle. More than that, though, there were puncture marks in her neck.
     "Don't your lab guys have to rule out knives and such? Why call me?"
     "Allen, two puncture wounds in the neck, and her arm was ripped out of its socket and used to write a message in blood."
     "I'm sure your eggheads would come up with an explanation of some sort. Probably they'd point to someone wanting to make it look like a vampire, and I can't say I'd blame them," I said, squatting down next to the body, careful not to get any of her blood on me. "Those punctures look about right, and I can see the indentations of other teeth on the skin."
     The spacing looked about right for a human mouth, but I wasn't about to whip out a ruler and measure. The problem I had, though, was that the body wasn't drained of blood. I glanced back at the wall to the bloody writing. Most vampires wouldn't waste blood like that. There were other ways to send a message, like ripping apart limbs to spell it out or carving the message into the flesh. Because there was blood left, it could have been that the vampire had been interrupted, but that was odd in itself.
     "You got an approximate time of death?"
     "Between six and eight hours going off of liver temp."
     It wasn't dawn, then. That was about the only thing that could scare a vampire into abandoning a feed. The choices came down to two, then. The vampire stopped feeding because it wanted to, or it stopped feeding because something stopped it.
     "We've got something else. Found it about fifteen minutes ago," Collins said.
     I pushed up and dusted off my knees. It would have looked better in a trench coat. I'd use some of what I got from this consultation to buy myself a trench coat. Trench coats were a natural fit to a good fedora, which I already had.
     Collins led me deeper into the alley to a dumpster. The smell was not all that pleasant, and he pointed inside to a numbered, yellow plastic tag. It was one of those crime scene things they put next to evidence. In this case, another arm, this one looking hairy and male. Like the woman's, it had been ripped from the socket.
     "We think the rest of him is in there, and this arm was also used to write on the wall. We thought that maybe this one ran out of blood so the guy pitched it, then ripped off the woman's arm. The rest of him might be underneath all the trash."
     "Good luck with that, then. Let me know if there's something to this body, too."
     "That's it?"
     "You'll hopefully get prints off the hand, but we both know that it's unlikely you'll get a hit on them. You guys have anything else around here worth looking at?"
     "We were hoping you would be able to show us some things."
     "What, like some weird gizmo that detects vampires, or maybe a crystal ball I could consult? It doesn't work like that. I haven't seen anything here that screams out to me about supernatural stuff, but then that's usually the case. The thing you don't realize is that most cases with something supernatural look pretty much the same as a regular one. If it'll make you feel like you're getting your money's worth, though, I can poke around a little bit longer."
     "You're a piece of work, Allen. We actually brought you in on this, and you haven't got anything for us?"
     "Sorry, Collins. That's generally the way it works. Thanks for the coffee, though."
     Collins rolled his eyes and waved me away. I walked back down the alley to where the woman's body was when I saw another crime scene guy taking up a small sample of something on the ground. It looked like fine powder. I stopped and looked at it.
     "What is it?" I asked the guy, a kid in his early thirties with spiky blonde hair. He looked like he had come off of one of those crime scene shows instead of being the real thing.
     "Ash, I think. Something was burned here. We should be able to tell how hot the fire was from what's left of the ash. There may even be particles of the original material left we can identify."
     "Mind if I touch some of it?"
     "We've got pictures and a sample, so go ahead."
     I dipped a finger in, then rubbed them together, feeling the ash. I knew this ash. It was, but then, it couldn't be. The alley was concrete, so it couldn't be what I thought. There'd be no way to hold one there, but the consistency, like baby powder, was too much. I checked around and saw that the sun would have crossed over this spot earlier in the morning. Right now the angle to the light was off, and likely had already reached as deep inside the alley as it was going to.
     I stood back up and went back down the alley to where Collins, a uniform, and another crime scene guy were going over the dumpster, taking things out and bagging them.
     "You still got that arm handy?"
     "Cute, Allen. Thought you were done here." Collins sneered at me.
     "So did I, but I got a theory. I need to borrow that arm for a second."
     "It's evidence, we're not going to release it."
     "I don't want it released. I'm not even going to take it out of the crime scene. I just need a better look at it."
     The other two guys shrugged, and Collins rolled his eyes, "Fine, but it stays in the bag to prevent contamination."
     "Sure thing." The crime scene guy handed me the evidence bag with the arm in it. It was the whole arm again, just like the woman's, complete with the bloody mess of where it had been yanked free. I took it and walked it back towards the end of the alley, and stopped just shy of the light, holding my breath. It couldn't be. This was just a wild hunch. But the ash meant that it was possible.
     "So what are you doing with this thing?" Collins asked from beside me. I hadn't heard him come up.
     "Going to look at it in the light." I held it solidly, then slowly pushed the edge of it, still in the bag, past the edge of the shadow and into the sunlight. Immediately there was a hiss, and I could see the intense cold causing a wisp of smoke as the flesh flashed to cold ash and the bag had become brittle and cracked around it, letting the fine ash spill out onto the ground.
     "Holy Mother of God! What did you do, Allen?"
     "Just put it in the light. I can do it again if you want. There's a good chunk of arm left."
     "Shit. I've never seen anything like that."
     "Hopefully you never will again. Here," I said, pushing the arm at him. Since the arm had come from a vampire, that meant the blood had, too. The wall where everything was written, though, would never see sunlight. "Hey, you. Yeah, with the camera. Back away from the writing, but keep your camera ready."
     "What are you doing, Allen?"
     "Shedding some light on things."
     "What are you talking about? We've been over that wall with flashlights all through the spectrum."
     "This isn't science, Collins." I pulled the silver mirror out of my pocket. The purest silver available, and finely polished. I reflected the sunlight back at the wall, going over each letter. Some of the letters started to go ashen just as the arm had, but not every letter.
     "Shit! Look at that! The picture, the picture. Take the damn picture now," Collins said to the camera guy. Startled, the camera guy began snapping away.
     When I had traced all the letters, a different message had been spelled out: "it comes."
     I could only think of one word after reading that.


Chapter 2

     "Fuck."

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