Banbury Square
| Banbury Square
Ketchelbank [45, 34]
Basic Info:
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Description
Possibly the most unkempt location in Malton, Banbury Square is a soul-retching medley of foul smells, copious amounts of garbage and an almost palpable aura of failed hopes and smothered lives. It has been argued that the square smells worse than the entire rest of the city, likely due to the square's reputation as the homeless and destitute hangout in the days of the city prior to the apocalypse, although the subsequent cycles of death, unbirth, destruction and looting have hardly improved the derelict location.
History
Prior to the Outbreak, Banbury Square was a very important economic location, in that it was THE place to go to score any of a staggeringly wide array of drugs. Drug-dealers, pushers, junkies and just the down-and-out thronged to this location, and despite the regular rousting of its inhabitants by the Malton police, tens of thousands of pounds moved through here in either currency or chemical form. The notorious drug dealer, Fatty Bolger, was widely reputed to do much of his business through proxies at this location, making him one of Malton's biggest criminals. His reputation for selling slightly lower-grade goods for less tended to undercut his rivals, forcing costs in the Square down on a regular basis. So it could be said that the square was good for addicts, who could get anything they wanted here for twenty bucks cheaper than anywhere else.
The other major presence in the Square was the homeless population, led initially by outspoken advocate Tuttle Pierce. Widely reputed to be a hardcore drug addict, Pierce was notable in that while he regularly spoke out on the homeless situation in Malton, he bullied the homeless in Banbury Square into, for all intents and purposes, what was a large gang. Pierce was later found dead, reportedly from an overdose.
With the Outbreak, the homeless and the drug-related groups more or less evaporated overnight. Neither group was arguably healthy on an individual basis, so it is likely that a small population of Malton's hordes are in fact ex-Square residents. It is unknown if many of the residents were able to escape Malton before the quarantine, however it is rumored that many disappeared into the sewer system and utility tunnels of Malton. While this outcome is unlikely, survivors from Ketchelbank have been known to tell ghosts stories about small enclaves of homeless who, shunned by society before the Outbreak, have simply turned about and shunned the plight of survivors post-Outbreak. When pressed on this they merely point out that many manhole covers have suspiciously new chains tying them to the access ladders beneath, chains that are padlocked underneath the manhole covers, inaccessible to those above.
