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SETTING AND LOCATIONS
SETTING AND LOCATIONS
Oh, the places we will go.
WELCOME TO SANTA ROSITA
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Santa Rosita is a small mountain town with a population of 10,000. Its climate, terrain, flora and fauna ostensibly place it somewhere in Northern California, far inland. The summers are hot, spring and autumn are cool and mild, and the winter months can be as frigid and snowy as some of the Midwest and Northern territories of the United States. Compared to its peers, it may seem like it doesn't have much to offer, but don't let its size fool you. The town is much bigger than it looks and is growing by the day as new businesses open and locations once closed off to the public become accessible.
Take a look around. We guarantee you’ll never want to leave. |
NORTH SANTA ROSITA
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Uptown, Santa Rosita’s shopping and financial district is a bustling hub of family-run stores, businesses and municipal services. The road that cuts through South Santa Rosita grows less rugged the closer it gets to the center of town, gradually melting into Santa Rosita’s designated Main Street. There are a large number of establishments located here that range from practical (hardware and grocery stores) to pleasure (restaurants and record stores) with many of them having been around for generations.
• TOWN HALL: Santa Rosita’s town hall is a brick building with a clock tower that keeps time with perfect accuracy, chiming every hour on the dot, and two stone lion statues flanking the front entrance. The interior is every bit as lavish as you would expect, with portraits of previous mayors lining the walls and rich mahogany fixtures. Here, important records of the town’s history including census information can be found, but access to the archive rooms is by appointment only, as are meetings with Mayor Clarke. Clarke’s secretary, a Robbie woman named Ethel, handles all of his affairs including booking appointments for tours and personal one-on-one meetings with the man himself. Unfortunately, slots seem to go fast, so you might have your wait cut out for you if you’re desperate to see him. • POLICE STATION: Home to Santa Rosita’s boys in blue, the police station is an ominous building situated on the very edge of North Santa Rosita, right on the cusp of East Santa Rosita. A fleet of police cruisers is parked outside the precinct, and Robbie officers can be seen going in and out at every hour of the day. Like Mayor Clarke, Chief Harding also has his own Robbie secretary — Susie — who’s as endlessly chipper as she is pretty, the one bright ray of artificial sunshine in this cold, grey building. Unlike Ethel at Town Hall, she’ll tell you exactly where Harding is (usually, his office) and what his schedule is looking like (usually, no visits or appointments before noon) and how soon you can expect to see him (usually, not until he’s sober). • THE BLUE MOON DINER: Burgers and fries and milkshakes as thick and creamy as freshly churned butter are the pride of this trendy diner. Tucked away on the outskirts of North Santa Rosita, close to the corner road that leads to East Santa Rosita, the Blue Moon is one of the newer establishments to set up shop on Main Street. The interior is replete with neon lighting fixtures and blue and white pleather booths, around which waitresses glide on roller skates to deliver meals packaged in cute little paper cars to hungry guests. At night, its hot pink and blue neon lights make it something of a beacon for late night patrons wandering the streets for some excitement or a midnight snack, allowing it to live up to its namesake. • GREENE’S GROCERIES: Your one-stop-shop for the freshest produce, meats and dairy in all of Santa Rosita. The Greene family has been running their grocery store since 1921, and in the years since it’s grown exponentially from the tiny bodega Adam Greene’s grandfather operated with a staff of one. It’s a grocery store, deli and butcher’s shop rolled into one that boasts a varied inventory of food, cleaning products and other miscellaneous wares, all for affordable prices. It’s a popular place for part-time work, not least of all because of its generous employee discount and the ever-present opportunity to convince Mr. Greene to impart the secret recipe of the dressing for his famous Reuben sandwich on favored employees. • MAPLE PARK: Located in the center of North Santa Rosita, Maple Park isn’t really a park so much a small patch of grass surrounded by flowers in what is evidently the town’s attempt at a garden. At each of the park’s four corners is a stone bench, and in the center of it is a fountain — the perfect place to spend one’s lunch break, meet with a friend or take a quiet moment to collect your thoughts amidst the high energy of Main Street. • HONEYBEES: Other than the Blue Moon Diner, Honeybees is Santa Rosita’s other newest business, a department store comprised of four floors of the former office building it’s taken up residence in. Each floor specializes in different products: the first floor is clothing, cosmetics and toys, the second is housewares and furniture, the third is appliances and sporting goods (including guns and rifles) and the fourth is hardware. Despite the undoubtedly important role it plays in Santa Rosita's economy, there’s an impression that many of the smaller stores on Main Street look upon their new neighbor with a sense of passive aggression, some more open than others with lamenting the business it takes away from them. • SANTA ROSITA GENERAL: Santa Rosita’s hospital is a sterile and white but welcoming building with its own pharmacy, staffed by volunteers and medical professionals alike. Most of the doctors and nurses here are Robbies, which means their bedside manner is always impeccable and their skill always reliable. For the most part. Every so often, the staff has been known to suffer certain lapses of judgement, such as mistaking a tonsillectomy for an appendicitis, or a broken arm for a gangrenous wound that needs amputated, but these incidents are uncommon and seldom investigated. As anyone will tell you, the doctor is always right. |
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EAST SANTA ROSITA
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Santa Rosita’s residential district is characterized by its large but not excessive amount of sycamore and rosewood trees, the latter of which leave the neighborhood perpetually smelling like roses. The atmosphere in this little slice of suburbia is quiet and peaceful; it’s everyone’s home, and as such, everyone does their part to take care of it, be it by studious maintenance of the outside of their houses or by taking part in Santa Rosita’s neighborhood watch, a program jointly sponsored by the police department and the HHA.
• SHADYSIDE: Santa Rosita’s suburbs certainly live up to their name. Shadyside is a beautifully kept little neighborhood with carefully planted trees along the streets, white picket fences, perfect lawns and houses that look exactly the same going down the line. The residents are all very proud of their community and everyone does their part to make sure it remains every bit the face of Santa Rosita as it appears to be. Everyone knows one another and no one locks their doors, making it very tight-knit as well and the perfect place to raise a family. • SCHOOLS: East Santa Rosita is home to the town's two schools: Santa Rosita Elementary and Frederick Loren High. Santa Rosita Elementary serves children from kindergarten to 8th grade, and it is here where they’re given all the tools a child needs to be happy, healthy and wise in the 20th century: how to write in cursive, how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. (Remember, duck and cover!) Likewise, Frederick Loren High — named after a beloved and dearly departed local entrepreneur — prepares teenagers for adulthood by serving them up a rich curriculum of math, science, home economics, history and literature. Their basketball and football teams, the Frederick Loren Rose Buds, draw crowds from all over town for their games, and their school colors are red and white. • THE LIVING ISLAND: Deep underneath Santa Rosita Elementary is a labyrinth of tunnels and loosely connected rooms that at one point functioned as a fallout shelter. Those days and that intended purpose are long gone, however, leaving only a network of dilapidated hallways where the air is fetid and stale, sections of the floors and ceiling are rotting away, and the few operating light sources are just a flicker and pop away from burning out. Still, there are some signs that the shelter is not as abandoned as it may seem. Underneath the pungent smell of decay and dust is an undercurrent of fresh blood, and one particular room has been converted into a crude operating theater filled with surgical instruments, restraints, and other evidence of the meat work that went on within all too recently. The shelter can only be accessed through two ways: through a steel hatch in the basement of Santa Rosita Elementary or through a storm drain in the depths of Old Growth. If approaching from the basement, you know you're headed in the right direction if you come across a strange mural painted on the wall just outside of the shelter — a helpful landmark and as good an answer as any for where it got its name. • SANTA ROSITA PUBLIC LIBRARY: The public library is one of the oldest buildings in town and shares many similarities with Town Hall, from the stone lions that stand watch outside its double doors to the mahogany interior which speaks to a lifetime of care and generous funding from the town government. The windows are stained glass with the center one on the ground floor in the children’s section bearing the inscription Sapientia et veritas, esse tuum gladium et scutum — "Wisdom and truth, be thy sword and shield." There’s a wealth of classic literature to be found here, but oddly not very much nonfiction. The atlases, history textbooks and biographies stocked on the shelves are all painfully out of date, many of them so old that their covers are falling apart. As well, there is a microfilm reader available for anyone to use, but the only reels on hand are for old articles and local publications from the early twentieth and late nineteenth century, nothing current from the last decade. Maxine, the elderly librarian, is always around and ready to help would-be readers, although her advanced age, bad sight and ailing mind make her spacey at best and unreliable at worst. • ROSE GARDEN PARK: Rose Garden Park’s name is a bit of a misnomer in that it’s the furthest thing from a garden, nor has it seen a rose in bloom in the last thirty years, but it is a park and a nice one at that. Often, Santa Rosita’s Little League team can be found practicing here at the small but well-maintained baseball field set up in the corner of the park; when they’re not using it, it’s available to the public and has everything one needs for a game of ball. There’s also a picnic area on the other side of the park, complete with tables and a fire pit, and a playground. • DAGON LAKE: Near Rose Garden Park and butting up near the Old Growth is Dagon Lake, shining blue and promising endless summer (or winter!) fun. While it may not offer much in the way of beaches, there's a floating dock alongside a boat ramp, a metal slide that ends a couple feet above the water for maximum splash, and a small building that rents out rocket-shaped paddle boats during the warmer months. The proprietor of this small business is happy to rent out boats to anyone who asks, but he'll warn every customer to keep their eyes on their rental — sometimes they'll go missing and you'll have to pay for a replacement! But he's certain it's just some of the town's kids playing pranks, and you're only young once, so why not let them have their fun? What's a missing boat here or there? • THE ROCK QUARRY: Go past Rose Garden Park and through the trees that make up the edge of Old Growth and you’ll eventually find your way to the rock quarry, a treacherous cliff-side with a 250 foot drop down into a lake-sized body of water. With the obvious danger the quarry poses to wayward travelers, especially children, it’s surprising that it hasn’t been walled off. Most children in Santa Rosita know better than to go here, however, especially at night when the water looks pitch black and the light from the moon and stars reflect off its surface in strangely soothing, almost hypnotic patterns, leading many who stare into its depths to attempt to get closer to the edge to have a better look at it, often tumbling straight off the cliff. |
WEST SANTA ROSITA
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At a glance, West Santa Rosita may seem barren, but it primarily functions as the town’s camping grounds and festival space, making it quite the place to be during the summer months when the town gears up for its annual carnival, or when enterprising families pack up for the weekend and take the kids out to rough it underneath the stars. Though Old Growth can technically be entered from any part of the town, it’s in West Santa Rosita that there are actually trails and designated camping areas set up for residents that do decide to brave the forest, either in a misguided attempt to prove to themselves and others that they’re no city slicker, or in desperation to see what else Santa Rosita has to offer outside its boundaries.
• STARLIGHT DRIVE-IN: Located on the outskirts of West Santa Rosita, the Starlight Drive-In is a two screen outdoor theater with an attached refreshment bar that serves up hot dogs, popcorn and soda to patrons looking to catch a movie on a Friday night. The theater sees all of its business on weekends, which is the only time it’s open, making it a popular date spot for teenagers and couples looking to spend a night away from the kids. The movies that play here range from saccharine beach movies to westerns and musicals, but once in a great while they’ll play a sci-fi or monster movie — which are always a big hit with hopeful young men looking to comfort their easily spooked ladies. • LOVER’S LANE: Past the drive-in theater is a long and winding road that stretches into the woods and leads all the way up to a small mountain summit that offers a gorgeous panoramic view of Santa Rosita. On a clear day or night, one can see the entire town laid bare before them; at night, it’s particularly breathtaking with each house identifiable by the twinkling lights illuminating them. Nicknamed “Lover’s Lane” by the locals, it’s another favored dating spot for the youth of Santa Rosita. Supposedly. In actuality, there’s very little evidence that anyone visits the summit, and the road leading to it isn’t well-traveled or maintained, making driving through it something of a gamble. One never knows when their engine will stall, leaving them stranded in the dark. • THE DOC HOLIDAY BAR AND MOTEL: The name of the former owner of Santa Rosita’s only bar and grill has been lost to time, scrubbed away from the sun-bleached and weatherworn sign out front below a blinking neon image of a cowboy spinning a lasso, and the current owner and employees can't quite remember it either, leading them to rename the establishment to something a bit more fitting: the Doc Holiday Bar. Despite its ungainly exterior, the bar's interior is surprisingly nice with clean — though not immaculate — countertops, secluded tables lit by candles and a sizable and respectable selection of spirits to order. Attached to it is a motel that advertises cheap rates, clean beds, and a television in every room. While one of those is very debatable, everyone can at least agree that two out of three isn't bad. • OLD GROWTH: Surrounding Santa Rosita on all sides is a dense forest nicknamed Old Growth by residents, presumably for its advanced age which has left it vast and unruly. Though the overgrowth of trees give it the impression of being unchecked, there are some areas of Old Growth that are easily accessible and even frequented by the residents of Santa Rosita, who can occasionally be found hiking and camping around the various well-loved trails. These areas are helpfully identified by trail markers left by the town government. However, the further away you get from them, the more difficult it is to find your way back, and the more hazardous the path — if you’re even on one by now — becomes. Wild animals like black bears and coyotes make their home here, but they’re surprisingly rare, and not as common as the occasional bursts of shrieking laughter that can be heard echoing through the trees, warbling noises halfway between terror and sobbing. |
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SOUTH SANTA ROSITA
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Heading south from Main Street takes you out of North Santa Rosita proper and into the south end of town where a few other miscellaneous businesses lie, including a gas station and attached mechanic garage where the owner, an old man with coke bottle glasses, will happily work on your car if you’re in need of repairs. Past these, there isn’t much left of Santa Rosita save for the trees and the long road that winds through them. Even the street lights are scarce out here, which can be dangerous at night as the further you travel away from town, the darker it gets.
• THE TUNNEL: At the end of South Santa Rosita is a double-deck tunnel. Signage around it indicates that it leads to the highway, though the specific interstate number has been defaced by rust and age, as have a good portion of the signs themselves. Painted over the arch of the tunnel is a rainbow, the paint faded and pale. If it weren’t for the police presence that constantly patrols the area, one would get the impression that this road has been abandoned, and indeed, that’s the excuse you’re likely to get from the officers stationed here. The tunnel and the road beyond it are under construction, you see, and the county has cut funding in all the wrong places, so until the builders can resume work, it’s off limits — as a matter of safety. Santa Rosita’s police stick to their story very stubbornly, but with nothing less than a smile and a calm, reassuring tone as they attempt to redirect wayward souls away from the tunnel and back to Santa Rosita. Refuse, and they’ll become a bit more forceful, though no less calm than they were before. The best case scenario is that you wind up having to go back. For many, the worst case is incurring the wrath of multiple police officers at once, and the absolute worst would be actually making it into the tunnel, a cold and dark shaft lit by dull orange lights that flicker intermittently where the air is moist, the ground craggy, and the feeling of being watched is almost overwhelming. |