Undeadly Epidemic Reanimated

After being deprived of caffeine for 68 hours, zombie gamers swarm towards the nearest available Mountain Dew. - photo by Hannah Weil

Josh Marxen

Last November, the gaming community was struck by a second disastrous epidemic and has yet to fully recover. The contagion has since been dubbed the “Left-4-Dead-2 flu” or, colloquially, the “Dumb Rabies.” The eponymous epidemic coincided with the release of the game “Left 4 Dead 2,” which the scientific community now unanimously agrees was the agent directly responsible for bringing the infection to humans.

“This is one stubborn bitch of a flu,” said Hal Flyfan, a virologist speaking at a conference at the Center for Disease Control. “The strain is a mutation of the original L4D virus, but what baffles us is that last time, the worst of the online traffic was over after three weeks. This flu is still around five months after its release, and we can’t tell what makes this strain so different. No significant or creative differences have been identified in its chemical structure, plot or game play.”

Most knowledge of the initial infections was lost in the ensuing cerebral holocaust, but the evidence gathered suggests the disease was distributed to members of the community by the Valve Corporation via the game “Left 4 Dead 2.” Some speculate that the corporation was engaged in a clandestine public test of a revamped biological weapon or mind-control chemical.

Flyfan and others have attributed the contagious success of the virus to its ability to spread not through air or water, but through the Internet. Healthy gamers were somehow lured into massive online hordes with infected players who exposed them to the disease. It is believed that individual infection begins when the healthy players begin to imitate infected behaviors such as firing guns mindlessly at anything that moves. Once begun, this behavior can continue until the infected gamer has to leave for school or work the next morning.

Physical and mental deterioration manifest soon after. Reports from high school teachers and employers in the days following the infection revealed that general absence rose to 70 percent, and those who did show up were noticeably unhygienic, uncoordinated and less able to speak intelligibly. Some appeared physically ill, with pale skin, sunken eyes and missing appendages. Their arms were stuck in a raised position, as if they were still using the keyboard.

“We’ve captured and studied infected subjects, and an individual’s chances of recovery seem depressingly slim,” Flyfan said. “After two months of rehabilitation, they still don’t have the motor control or mental strength to figure out test chamber five of Portal.”

“The monotonous, worn-out plot makes you lose all sense of time and place,” said subject 77, the only of the infected to regain the ability to speak. “You’re just doing the same thing for hours, watching idiots run straight at you from the front and shooting at them. Eventually, you — ” he couldn’t continue when his jaw fell off. This typical symptom is due to the tendency of infected players to leave their mouths hanging open while playing.

“We told ’em it was comin’ … ” Ellipsis, a survivor of the epidemic said. Ellipsis was the manager of a GameStop in Savannah, Ga. when his community was overtaken by the infected. He has no known last name, as his creators saw no reason to give him one. “We told ’em that after the L4D quieted down that it wasn’t really gone. It was just lyin’ low … ” His voice trailed off as he shook his head and blew out a large cloud of cigarette smoke.

Flyfan announced that the CDC is investigating the popular rumor that the original L4D was never completely inoculated. “It’s possible that it was incubating in the TF2 community for the interval between the first and second releases. Nobody would have noticed because the zombies blend right in with the normal players. The virus wiped out players’ capacity to play anything that required sustained thought, so where else could they have gone?”

Valve Inc. representatives could not be reached for comment, and some speculate that Valve itself has been contaminated, explaining delays in releases of some of its more intellectually satisfying games in recent months.