6,303 days in quarantine
When I was younger, I used to be extremely into Urban Dead (Kevan Davis, 2005), a text based MMO set during a localized zombie epidemic. Years later, the covid pandemic brought me back to the game’s undead infested streets. Fear makes you crave familiarity, and I wanted to return to a place from my childhood where the pandemic and quarantine were all just normal.
You play as either a zombie or a survivor in a town that has been quarantined from the rest of the world. There are no NPCs in the game, instead everyone you meet is controlled by another human player.
There are no formal goals beyond accumulating experience points.. Once you obtain the max level, though, even these become merely a number that goes up.
Every 30 minutes you are given one action point which lets you perform a task in the game. If you run out of action points, you pass out and are completely powerless until your next point arrives.
Due to the lack of goals, everything in the game is completely driven by player interactions. There is no way for the game to end other than quitting. Die and you become a zombie, but treatments exist that can bring the dead to life. There is no end. The only thing that changes is which side you are on.
This open-ended design is the game’s greatest strength. I have encountered players who have been playing continuously for sixteen years. If you find the right part of town to hang out in, the game can become habit forming. Urban Dead might slowly be rotting over time, but like a zombie it keeps going, sustained by dedicated players who will probably stick around until either they or the servers die.
The diaries of Urban Dead’s players and the stories of its buildings form an incredible time capsule of 2010s culture. In the spirit of those writings, I have decided to leave behind a short diary of my own.
Diary of the Urban Dead
The silver lining of a mass tragedy is that now when I walk into a room, I know I'm not the only survivor in it.
On July 3rd 2005, the government of Malton quarantined the city.
In some ways, life in Malton is better than the outside world. There are no IDs in Malton, no one demands you justify your gender. With a few keystrokes you can write a description and become whoever you want to be. Anything you need – truly need – can be easily salvaged from the ruins of the city.
Healthcare is free and plentiful. Beyond radio broadcasts from outside the city, there are no authorities. What infrastructure exists is the work of individuals and informal, impermanent groups. People have tried to impose order on Malton for decades now, but the end result is always the same. Eventually, everyone gets bored and leaves.
The biggest threat in Malton isn’t zombies, it’s entropy.
Day One
When I return to Malton in 2021 I don’t know what to expect. The quarantine is still in effect after all these years, and I find myself in an abandoned building with only a flip phone (and I do mean only a flip phone). I check my phone. The cellphone networks are dead and I don’t have any friends to call anyway. I panic.
Based on my experiences over 10 years ago, I know that to be alone is to die. I needn't have been afraid. After grabbing some clothing and heading out the door I find the entire block abandoned by both zombies and humans.
I aimlessly wander around until I stumble upon a building broken enough for me to sneak inside. I pass out with the door open, not sure if I'll wake up alive the next morning.
Day Two
I wander through the city, stopping to consult the Urban Dead wiki and learn the histories of the various spaces I traverse through. I stumble upon an entry about a bank that had been fought over for four years. Eventually the humans triumphed over the zombies and their repeated attempts to take the building. They formed a group and swore that from now on the bank would be their home and no zombie would ever set foot in it.
The bank is an empty ruin by the time I arrive. There’s no sign of the group to be found anywhere. Perhaps if the zombies had continued to attack the building, they would still be here. Instead, like the rest of the game, entropy destroyed them.
Day Four
I have been wandering the city for days without seeing anyone, human or zombie. Exhausted but paranoid, I barricade myself in an abandoned building. This is a mistake. In a ruined suburb, an intact barricaded building sticks out and screams one thing: “Human Inside.”
Boards creak as they are softly but firmly pulled from the door frame. A fat, stubby hand reaches down and with the foggy memories of life unlocks the door. A thirteen foot tall undead infant crawls in.
I’m passed out when they find me. Even if they’re just a gigantic baby, a zombie is still a zombie. They could tear me apart in a moment, but they stop. They don’t touch me or harm me in any way.
Instead, they throw all the doors of the building open.
Gently, they undo all my barricades. Finally, they begin to scream. They scream over and over through the night.
No one comes, and when I wake up in the morning they are gone.
There wasn’t anyone out there listening.
Day Eight
I make my way to the center of the world. I arrive in Yagoton, Catherine General Hospital to be specific. I’d run into survivors here and there but this is the first established group I meet. I greet them and they hit me with an ax.
They quickly patch me up and explain that, rather than fighting zombies, it was quicker to just hit each other with axes and then use the hospital supplies to treat the injuries. The players in the hospital, already having maxed out their stats, continue to do this in order to raise their exp to greater heights. Fighting zombies was less efficient than beating and treating each other up for exp.
Thus begins my casual days of daily grinding. I login, beat my friends with an ax, patch them up, and briefly chat about horror movies before logging off.
Day Thirty
What seemed like easy exp has become stale. Once I max out my stats I find myself increasingly tired of the game. By this point I’ve settled into the rhythm of this world. Everyone either finds something to do or they quit.
Some run radio shows in game, others hunt players for sport, explore the map, or heal people and revive the dead. I open a revive clinic, operating out of the Style Building. Grafiti hangs above the faux Umbrella Corporation logo. “Smile you’re in Style.”
Day Forty Five
I’ve settled into a pattern. Some days I raid the hospital where my friends continuously beat each other, other days the necrotech for revival syringes. Once I’ve stocked up I go outside and revive the zombies who seemed like they need help. Few stick around after revival.
There’s one player I see with a startling frequency. I’d revive them and then in under an hour they would be back, fully zombified, begging for a cure with a desperate pleading “mrh?” It takes me a while to figure out what their motivation is.
There are some living players who worship the zombies but want to help them by playing on the side of the undead. They intentionally get revived and comit suicide over and over again with the goal of wasting as much of my resoures as possible so that I can revive less people.
Day Sixty
I vow to never revive the zombie cultist ever again, but this doesn’t last long against the reality that some days, there simply isn’t anyone else to revive. What had once felt like a good deed has become a lonely monotonous endeavor. At least the people in the hospital are getting exp.
Day Sixty Seven
I spot something unusual during my rounds today. A horde of injured players show up followed by a string of zombies. Apparently, a horde has formed and is systemically making its way through every block.
Day Sixty Eight
Healing four or five people is difficult but possible. I’ve managed for now, but the influx of patients tears through my reserves. Tomorrow, I need to restock.
Day Sixty Nine
The hospital is overrun when I return for supplies. A few zombies are strategically camping out, making restocks impossible. I return to the Style Building to make a last stand.
Day Seventy
We fend off the zombies today with revive syringes and putting up barricades faster than they can tear them down.
Day Seventy One
I’ve been torn apart and eaten by a Silent Hill nurse. I count myself lucky as that’s always been my ideal way to die.
I wait around hoping for a revive but it never comes.
Day Seventy Three
I wander the city until someone randomly revives me. Standing up on wobbly legs, I take shelter in a nearby hockey stadium to recover.
A few hours later a PKer shows up and decapitates me with a baseball bat.
“HOME RUN!” she yells, before fleeing to escape the consequences of her random act of murder.
Dying is bad enough. She could have at least picked the right sport for the venue.
Day Seventy Six
I finally find a cluster of people living in a zoo who revive me. I decide to take some time to restock.
Day Eighty
I make my way back to the Style Building to help with rebuilding, but either the horde has been defeated or moved on. Either way, I’m no longer needed.
I revive the suicidal girl as there isn’t anything else to do.
She’s back in less than an hour.
Day One Hundred and Eighty
The endless cycle of revivals has started to wear on me. I begin to notice that the most active and oldest players are of three different types:
The grinders like those in the hospital who log in daily for their exp
The jockeys who run radio shows or argue with people in the city over the airwaves
Player Killers (no explanation needed)
After spending months reviving people and knowing the futility of killing zombies, I decide to reach out to the only major remaining group of player killers, “The Flowers of Decay.”
They give me an assignment as audition: stalk the streets of Yagoton and murder the people I’ve formerly revived. Afterwards, I’m to provide a list of a few of my friends and they’ll pick one at random for me to repeatedly murder.
If I do as instructed, I’ll be part of their group. I think about it but can’t shake how wrong it feels.
Killing people in Urban Dead is nothing, but being betrayed by your friends is something that would hurt for real. There’s no polite way to be a serial killer.
I can’t do it.
I make my way to a graveyard. I wave to a zombie who happens to be there and then I log out not caring what happens. I have been destroyed by boredom.
Day Four Hundred and Eighty
I log in to find I’m a corpse.
I stand up as a zombie.
The same zombie from three hundred days ago is still here. I guess he likes this spot.
Catherine General Hospital is lit up. My friends are probably inside beating each other with axes.
I go to the Style Building for a revive. The Silent Hill nurse is still there with a horde of zombies.
Perhaps I’ll try being a zombie. You can’t really talk but I heard the food is good.
Happy Halloween.
Most of Taylor McCue's brain was eaten by a zombie long ago. What remains now are only the basic instincts, that's how she ended up becoming a video game developer. You can play her ghoulish games on itch, IF YOU DARE! BUT BEWARE AND READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS FIRST OR YOU MIGHT MEET A GHASTLY FATE!!!
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