Act I

Death has a line of dead people where he has to send people to their afterlife paradise or back as animals. Then, (Monkey Wrench) the a plague destroys and unprecedented percentage of the population, flooding Purgatory with far too many souls for Death to deal with in a timely manner.  His eventually solution: (Bizarro World) Tell them to go build something to bide their time. The result: The Town of Waiting, where the dead occupy themselves until they are called to pass on.