not a typo -- people died in the ensuing blaze.

Hey, nobody said the "corruption" that necessitated the island's complete quarantine was of a bureaucratic nature.

Scooby Doo set, and you won't even be breaking one of those half-enforced "Darn Meddling Kids" laws. If the rusting, empty cages and rotting enclosures again put you in mind of horror tropes, don't worry: You won't be dodging any ghost-rhinos here.

Because animals don't have souls. Everybody knows that, silly vegetarian! It's why eating bacon is delicious, but eating man is a crime. So no spirits here! Why, the worst thing that could happen to you in the isolated, abandoned ruins of the Old L.A. Zoo (still complete with functional cages) is some good old fashioned hobo-rape in the reptile house.

I'm sorry, that sounded theoretical, didn't it? I meant to say that if you go here, you

absolutely will get hobo-raped in the reptile house. That's where Big Raping Jim is currently squatting.

Oh, don't worry -- the name's ironic. (He's not actually that big; he's just really good with knives).

another suspiciously abandoned island occupying prime city real estate. Well, maybe "prime' is being a bit generous: It's located just offshore of Baltimore, Maryland. The fort is a sinister walled stronghold, surrounded on all sides by water - a design choice that's just begging to be invaded by some sort of Chuck Norris, or failing that, certain species of Van Damme.

There were no great disasters that caused Fort Carroll to be abandoned. The most action it ever saw was post-WWII, when it was briefly used as a firing range. It changed hands several times after that, where various owners planned casinos, public parks or museums. These all failed for boring, economic reasons; none of them due to suave British men firing wrist-lasers into shark tanks. But still, for the discerning villain with a predilection for the classics, Fort Carroll is practically begging to be filled with sexy female ninjas, or armed men in mono-color tracksuits, depending on budget.

Again, this island is ostensibly "off-limits" to urban explorers, but there are pretty firm air quotes around that term, as you could simply take a quick boat ride or a long swim out there on any given day.

The boat ride will take you right to where the island sits, where you'll find the fort beside the Key Bridge in the Patapsco River, while the swim will take you right to the emergency room, where you'll find you have a raging case of Marine Hepatitis.

Fallout's vault sections stirred something in the crazy isolationist in you, well you'll be happy to know that those things are plenty real, and they're conveniently located right in the heart of London. All utilities -- electricity, water and phone -- still function just fine, because the tunnels have been occupied at various points in history by codebreakers, soldiers, British Secret Service and eventually the BT Group, a European phone company. The last owners put the tunnels up for sale back in 2008, to the tune of $7.4 million dollars. Though they wanted to keep both the entrance:

... and the name of their prospective buyer a secret, rumors say the latter was a man named Simon Woodroff, who we can only assume is a roguish chap living a seemingly devil-may-care playboy lifestyle, yet plagued by grief, anger issues and a rather unhealthy penchant for winged nocturnal rodents.

the largest bomb shelter in the world, right beneath the streets of Beijing, China. It was intended to house six million people, and it was all interconnected. See, he didn't want his citizens to merely survive a nuclear attack -- he actually wanted the city to continue to function, unimpeded, even as radioactive hellfire rained down from above.

He had chairs and everything; society could go on.

And while that might seem insane to you or I, we have to think of it like ordering Chinese food: You're not supposed to order dishes for each individual, as is customary in the West, you're supposed to order one giant, concrete dish that entire populations can live in together, underground, while the world above crumbles and burns. That analogy may have escaped me a little, but I'll tell you what it won't escape: The labyrinthine maze of Mao's subterranean city.

SSSSEEEEGGGUUUUEEEEEEE!

The bunker was never completely finished, but it's so vast that nobody can tell you how far it was, exactly, from completion. It is widely believed that the tunnels, as they exist now, manage to connect up with all major points in Beijing: Tiananmen Square, Central Station, the West Hills - it has tendrils everywhere. One man documented his recent descent into the tunnels, which he described as being accessible only through an abandoned, nondescript storefront. Once down there, he found this map:

Which showed him where the Compass and Boss Key were, and he got to trekking. He stumbled across the usual stuff at first - damp concrete, brick, a sense of creeping, claustrophobic dread -- until he tried a light switch and found that the half-century old, abandoned underground city still inexplicably gets working electricity.

He forded onward, until, after hours of scrabbling across garbage and debris in the half light of the crumbling tunnels, he turned a corner and walked right into this:

Possibly the most terrifying scenario in which one can encounter mystery underwear.

At the end of that tunnel, a "homeless" family had set up house in the forgotten ruins of this sunken bunker-city, complete with a full working kitchen:

And some lovely house plants -- you know, to spruce up the place.

Plus, supermutants hate and fear our surface flora, as they find their sickening, organic, leafy structures strange and alien. Everybody knows that.

You can buy Robert's book, Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead, or follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Or you can help him on his quest to find more dusty, dangerous, forgotten places ...like your mom's vagina! DAAANNNG.

For more from Brockway, check out Secondhand Nightmares: 10 Horrifying Thrift Store Finds and 6 Near Death Experiences Caught on Video.