Every day I play this game I think it’s pointless and I need to stop. Every day it takes at least an hour longer than I meant it to. Food left cooking in the kitchen starts to burn, tasks are left undone, the sun sets before I’ve seen it risen. Still, I used to be worse than this, this is progress.

I figure that writing some of the in-game events into stories should help me get the addiction out of my mind. Otherwise it’s like intrusive thoughts. Remember to load your shotgun this time, don’t forget where you left your car. Think about patching the jacket or getting a new one. Is Mattie infected now? Is she going to die of zombification? I won’t know until I’ve played more, let the clock tick, revealed the horrible truth.

(In case it’s not clear, I don’t own a shotgun or a car. I do need to get my coat repaired IRL though.)

I made the character Mattie (Mathilda) last night. My excuse was that I was feeling overwhelmed and wanted a quick and easy Zomboid character to level out my brain. But this game doesn’t do that. Project Zomboid is so full of anxieties that it can be like playing a high-octane FPS, but all you’re doing is looting a grocery store of the food that hasn’t rotted. Playing it to level out is maybe like taking speed or smoking crack in order to go to sleep – doesn’t exactly make sense. But it does distract from the daily grind of real world anxieties, so I guess that’s why I like it.

Mattie is a military veteran. Because that was supposed to be easier to play. I also gave her loads of experience boosts and things so I wouldn’t have to spend hours and then days slowly training her skills. Played it too much last night and started playing it too much today. Before I pulled myself away from the game to get on with my Sunday, I had this incident.

You can get a mod for the game that adds NPCs, ‘human’ characters – where the game is usually just you and zombies wandering around shortly after the apocalypse. Most of the humans are nice, but every now and again one of them will try to rob you. This happened to me. And I was so offended by this poorly armed NPC trying to rob me that I tried to open up on her with a shotgun, but I hadn’t loaded it. So I pulled out one of my three pistols and shot her, but most of my rounds didn’t hit. And she managed to splutter out “stop”. I mean the NPCs mostly speak through canned phrases, but the meaning of that canned phrase was “stop”. But I’d already clicked – already pulled the trigger about five times and the bullets were going whether I liked it or not.

Anyway, this quite affected me. I really wouldn’t want to be the kind of person that murders someone just because I can. Even if that someone is an arsehole trying to rob me in the zombie apocalypse.

Most of the NPCs seem to spawn as married couples, so I knew the woman would have a husband nearby, but I didn’t know if he was well programmed enough to be hostile (I’m still learning how the mod works). So after killing about 20 zombies that were drawn by the noise of the pistol shots, one of which successfully jumped me in the dark and tore open my arm, I went back to the house and found the husband. I didn’t disturb him in case he tried to kill me, and it created this scene – he was sat on the sofa staring off into the distance. And for a moment it didn’t feel like standard NPC behaviour, but a broken man who’d just seen a stranger blast his wife apart.

So much for levelling out my brain, huh?

Day 4

“Drop your weapon,” she says, “drop your backpack!” She gestures with a homemade spear. Somewhere in the car park behind them shamblers groan and dither under the low lamplight.

Mattie slings the shotgun off her shoulder, levelling it at the woman’s torso, and pulls the trigger. Click. She’d forgotten to load it.

For a moment a look comes across the woman’s face like maybe shouting at the heavily armed cowgirl quietly passing by her house was not the best idea she’s ever had.

Mattie pulls out a police-issue 9mm and puts a round in the woman’s shoulder, she drops. Cries out. Whether calling to someone or not, Mattie can’t tell. Mattie fires another round, it misses. Her hand is shaking, the woman is getting up. Mattie fires another two rounds.

“Don’t shoot! I give up!” the woman shouts, wild with panic. Two, three, four rounds crash through her body. Most of the pistol clip must’ve gone, but she’s down and not moving.

Mattie mumbles something and holsters the 9mm.

In the sudden clarity she doesn’t have to look round to know every shambler for a few blocks will be heading this way. She arranges her gear. Looks round. Beneath the streetlights she can see ten, fifteen, twenty shamblers, more seem to be crawling over fences and crashing through bushes the longer she watches. She checks her knife, clenches her baton.

Half her mind says the fresh corpse will keep them busy long enough for her to get away. The other half says she has to protect the human she’s just killed, and that half, as insane as it is, wins out.

Half an hour later, covered in blood, a massive tear through the thick fabric of her jacket shoulder, she’s panting, her arm isn’t working properly. Another shambler comes at her. She shoves it to the ground as it hisses and gargles. Stomps its brittle skull into paste.

She tosses her jacket onto the ground and starts searching through her bag. Pulls out some alcohol wipes, cleans the cuts on her shoulder, groans as it stings. They’re deep, the flesh pulsing.

She bandages the wound, gets her jacket back on, another shambler advancing on her. She meekly bats it, grimacing in pain from her shoulder. It keeps coming. She dodges its hissing, chomping maw, shoves it to the ground, stomps it dead.

That looks like the last one. She doesn’t want to think about the wound. She pulls out some painkillers and a flask of tequila. Catches her breath.

The dead woman has nothing on her. Mattie carefully approaches the house she’d apparently been guarding. Peers through the window. A man sat on the sofa, giving a thousand yard stare to a blank tv screen. She watches him. He’s alive, but not moving.

Mattie leaves him and the dead woman behind. Drags herself to another nearby house. The front door is open, house looks empty. She raids the fridge for anything. Fruit and ice cream and the easiest things to eat. She’s leaning in the kitchen, chomping down ice cream like her life depends on it, listening to the faint scratching and grumbling she can hear coming from behind the bedroom door. Brain freeze.

She dumps the ice cream carton, pulls out her bloody baton. She flexes her arm. The painkillers are working enough. Carefully, she opens the door, and the shambler immediately stumbles out at her. She’s nimble on her feet. Leads it through the living room, out the open front door, cracks it on the head. The blow makes it pause. She hits it again and it falls down. Last hit finishes it with a crunch.

The street is pretty quiet now. Sun coming up on the horizon. Shamblers off in the distance, looking dazed, inactive.

She goes back into the house, closing the door behind her. Into the bedroom, closing the curtains when she sees the blood her boots have trailed across the carpet. She drops the shotgun, her bag. Takes herself into the shower. The water’s still running, at least for now.

She takes off her hat and stands under the shower, letting the water soak through everything. Rests her head against a cold tile. Closes her eyes.

A vision of the dead woman shakes her awake. She sees the red water pooling beneath her. Feels the weight of her clothes like so many days pretending to herself that it’s worth staying alive. She turns off the shower, sits down on the toilet seat, and falls asleep.