James saw they had swapped his old high school football field from grass to astroturf this year on Facebook. His buddy had tagged him in a post by the local reporter, with pictures of the contractors covered in the little black pellets. Behind them were ten-feet-tall roll-ups of earth, the last remnants of the sod James had helped set all those years ago. Sure, the grass got replaced every so often, but from the pictures, the new astroturf job seemed amateurish, and it seemed like his last tie to that field got scraped away by some excavator on the cheap. He gave the post a like and decided he’d go to the homecoming game to see about the contractor’s handiwork. He hadn’t been in a few years; it was a good enough excuse. 

On the drive over in his hand-me-down Ranger, he remembered the summer days he spent sodding that field. Dad was the coach, so James always pitched in for free. He started in junior high, working alongside the varsity players, who used the job as extra conditioning to ease the return from last season’s injuries. They’d compare surgery scars. James could never forget one of those scars, it covered the whole knee, and took on the shape of Wisconsin when the guy flexed right. By the time he was the varsity player working his way into shape, he knew every inch of the field like every inch of his own body.  

Now the field’s gone. James had learned to accept the time that’s passed him by. His toil a badge of honor. Though, at this point, all that was good for was a sense of déjà vu when the unmistakable, earthy scent of tilled soil and sod came around the back of some truck. Plus, his knees had gotten so bad, he couldn’t help sod another field if he even wanted to. 

It was still light out as he pulled into the gravel parking lot. Still, the place was packed out with tailgaters. Charcoal smoke, carried on the early autumn breeze, filtered through his truck’s half-cracked windows, and he was reminded he’d forgotten to eat; no good for his insulin levels. He’ll have to bum a dog off someone. He parked abruptly into one of the only open spots left, further away from the entrance than he’d like to walk, but it’d have to do. He was too proud for a disability slip, no matter how many times Dad had told him to forget pride.  

He normally avoided homecoming like the plague. He never got to tailgate when he was on the team. Now, it felt like fraternizing with civilians. The idle chatter about which quarterback was playing better, whether the star running back could go on his bad foot, it all just made him long for some action. No one to come home to anymore anyways. 

Still, as he sat in his driver’s seat, waiting for the courage to walk through the crowds, it seemed the kids were having a good time. Through the passenger side mirror, he spotted a flask passing hands. He smiled, a memory of beer cans hidden inside of water bottles, left waiting in the locker room by cheerleaders, in joyous victory and in mournful defeat. Though he’d tried not to overdo it, thinking back, he probably did by a hair, maybe two or three times. 

After ample scanning, he confirmed he didn’t recognize anyone, and popped the door and took the first heavy step out of his well-worn seat. Of course, right as he did, he clocked the profile of one of his buddies. He didn’t curse to himself about it, but he wasn’t looking for small talk with old ghosts either.

To anyone else, this buddy was just another old white guy, but to James, his buddy had a real specific limp, couldn’t be anyone else. Back when they could play, this guy was a tight end, because he was big and could still get a step on you. James’s dad was old-school, though, so this buddy normally just got brought in for jumbo packages to open extra lanes in the run game; Dad thought they were Navy or something. Whenever they played the cross-town team, Dad called a lot of jumbo, because those crosstown kids were huge. It was one of those nights, his buddy went to block on the right side for a counter and the running back tripped, fell and rolled right up on old buddy’s calf. James was right next to him on the line, he heard the pop. Not the type of thing you really forget. His buddy said it felt like his Achilles rolled up like a shade. He keeled over, frozen in pain, and hit his head too. And the helmets back then, well, they really didn't have much more going on than some soft padding. He walked with a limp across the graduation stage. It wasn’t so bad anymore, but guys on the line together, they can tell. Old buddy favors the right as he goes to grab a Busch Light from someone’s trunk. 

Anyway, James kept his head down as he walked to the stairs that fed into the field, forgoing the badly needed hot dog. He didn’t look, but he had the sense that his old buddy raised a beer in salute as he passed. That’s how it is. Some of the guys, like James, don’t really talk about it; some of the guys, like old buddy, seems like all they can do is talk about it. 

The concrete steps were girded by a rusted iron guardrail, which James needed. He took it slow, practically rested his whole forearm on the rail during breaks between steps. Nowadays, he followed Dad’s latter-day advice: good leg to heaven, bad leg to hell. The field did feel like pure hell on those old summer days before they got the sod down, hot wind whipping up loose topsoil. Wiping at his eyes with the hem of his t-shirt never really cleared the problem. He’d need to cry a little, and he’d always wait to get back to the car for that. 

Mind-swimming with thoughts of youth, James finally made it down to the chain-link fence that separated the most ravenous fans, mostly mothers, from the team. The trip had already begun to take a physical toll. Sweat dripped into the collar of James’s Under Armour polo. He could feel that his knee was going to swell up any minute now. To stave it off, he leaned on the fence, propped on an elbow, and observed the field. 

The polyester blades of grass were tiny, not enough to get a foothold in. Black pellets had been kicked up wherever an assistant coach had been illustrating walk-throughs for his unit, not quite an imitation of the clay-like earth of a grass field. Really the pellets were their own thing. Two sports medicine students stood around, throwing leftover footballs back and forth. Whenever the ball hit the ground, it bounced sideways, not quite where they expected. The whole thing gave off that fake plastic scent that all these new fields give off, as if the team were a bunch of action figures. 

As he turned away, shaking his head, he noticed a strange thing in his peripheral. The hash marks seemed to grow. From a yard to the size of a body, then the size of a coffin. Rows and rows of white coffins. The smell changed too, to the scent of earth, of that soil that used to whip up at James so mean. He closed his eyes instinctively.  

When he opened them again, the coffins were gone, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d seen some kind of premonition. Not that he believed in ghosts. Or the only ghosts he believed in were the kind quarterbacks see after hard hits. He’d been hit hard a few times too, seen some things on this field he couldn’t explain, but he thought those days were gone. He shook his head again for good measure, let the old noggin rattle around one more time, and went to find a seat. 

He parked himself at the top of the stands, right below the radio-caller’s crow’s nest, just steps away from the parking lot. With age, he had learned he needed his back to the wall. For a big guy, he never liked a surprise. He sat there, comfortable with his solitude, watching the cliques form, the honest and vulnerable face of a straggler as they sought their cult. They came in new colors these days, but it was all the same song and dance. 

Arms out wide, swollen knee elevated, he felt the cool aluminum bench in his hand, allowed the rough cement block of the wall behind him to scratch his knuckles. All these feelings brought the memories back. Holding his knees for dear life, feeling puke come on as the team ran stairs again and again. The patter of his cleats and his teammates’ cleats, against the cement, like summer rain. Sneaking into the stands with the girl who never gave her name, or maybe she did, he forgot.

All these memories, so warm and so frightening; he knew that once he started to live in the past, the world of the dead was soon ready for him. By the end, Dad’s every conversation was about the field, about next year’s playbook, which really was just the playbook of ’74. James could never tell if his dad was happy, living in those memories. He leaned yes, only so he could sleep at night, not worrying about when his own turn would come. 

The big field lights came on to the cheers of the slowly-filling crowd. The sun slowly found its way out of the sky. Murky dark formed where the fluorescent light didn’t shine; it seemed to James there’d be less shadow without the light. He considered the washouts smoking shoplifted Marlboros in that dark, somewhere beside the bleachers. The smoke that rose from the corner meant the game was about to begin.

Suddenly, a blare of horns and a gathering storm of drums, louder, ever louder. The stampede of cleats approached. The war cries of the young men could be heard as they rumbled down the path from the locker room. The crowd joined with their own noises. James did not cheer when the team burst through their banner, though he did smile. Students flashed the lights on their phones and sang some pop song James had never heard. Parents were completely frenzied. 

The coach sauntered onto the field. He wore sunglasses and his playbook was laminated. He ran a spread offense. James was thankful his father did not live to see the day. To his father, and to James, this was cowboy football. 

The home team won the coin flip. The band played their fight song. The starting quarterback tossed his letterman’s jacket to a cheerleader. Some things are classic for a reason. 

Just as the other team set for kick-off, that earthy smell came back. He couldn’t shake it this time and no one else really seemed to notice. Maybe his blood sugar was getting too low. He waited for the first play to finish before heading up for a bite. 

A whistle, then the kick. The pigskin sailed through the air, end over end, right into the belly of the kick returner, who knelt for a touchback. Everyone jogged off except one of the blockers, who had keeled over, untouched, and grabbed his calf; one of those freak, non-contact injuries. James sighed; these new fields are all terrible with those kinds of injuries. Something about the way cleats caught in the fake grass. Still, he couldn’t shake the sense that, out of the corner of his eye, he might have seen something dark grab the blocker’s ankle. He needed that snack. 

Standing up was a pain, his knee was plump and his limp worse than normal. He hadn’t walked around this much in a couple weeks. That he made the short walk to the concession stand at all was no small miracle. 

The air over there was buttered with popcorn. The popper was overflowing, and slightly smoking. Students ran around, checking every machine, no one quite sure how anything ran. Thankfully, there was no line and James had his order memorized: a couple chocolate-dipped Twizzlers. How many ‘a couple’ meant was dealer’s choice. James knew all too well his sweet tooth betrayed his Frankenstein stature, but he didn’t care, a man’s got to have his candy in this short life. Anyway, a buddy of his had introduced him to the treat at this same stand. A lot had changed over the years, but they dipped the Twizzler the same way. It wouldn’t really shock him if they never cleaned the vat. In his heart, he hoped they didn’t. The chocolate Twizzler was the only thing, it seemed to James, that got better with age. He took a bite and paid in cash. He offered the change as a tip and the cashier dumped the coins in a tin can labeled ‘Prom.’ 

Mouth filled with melting chocolate, blood slowly leveling, James walked back to his seat. Each step sent a throb down his leg. He was thankful for the rest when he sat. The murmur of the crowd vibrated the aluminum bench beneath him. It was a peaceful feeling, like he was one in a congregation. His eyes adjusted to the stadium lights once more and he surveyed the scene. 

First down. Quarterback in shotgun. Halfback at the ready to his right. Four wide receivers, two on either side of the line, out wide. A play so obvious, but so simple, just throw the ball to the open man. The quarterback stomped his leg once, then clapped, then both, and the ball was hiked perfectly to his hands. 

Then, something terrible. The earthen smell returned, this time, completely unbearable. Five sets of hands, gray and disfigured burst through the ground, releasing fountains of plastic pellets. The hands ripped down the offensive linemen as they pulled themselves up, revealing their connection to decaying bodies, cloaked in the type of sweater jerseys James had only seen in old pictures. The defensive line, all decorum lost, ran off the field. The zombies advanced on the quarterback unabated, though, not before he could get his throw off. A perfect spiral. It didn’t matter: the zombies devoured his flesh all the same and then advanced on the coach, who was consumed just as quick, his sunglasses discarded. More sprung up from the ground, in place of cornerbacks, fullbacks, tight ends, until a hundred and four moaning figures filled the field. 

The crowd, initially unable to process what it saw, shrieked. A true and terrible shriek of genuine grief and fear. All at once, fans shot up the stairs, to the parking lot and safety. A few were crushed against the aluminum benches. James tried to stand, and found his knee frozen in place, his whole back racked with pain. The last stragglers cleared the benches, among them James’s buddy. He took the stairs one at a time and avoided James’s horrible pleas for help. It took old buddy a long time to get up those stairs. 

As it turned out, the zombies weren’t chasing. One or two more players were devoured, bones picked completely clean, but most of the living players made it out, jumping the fence and scrambling to the locker room, trailing pee. Just James remained, trapped in the stands, though none of the zombies seemed to mind. After the field cleared of the living, they paused and turned to each other, as if unsure what came next. Then, all at once, they remembered. 

They picked teams, skins vs. no skins. They flipped a bone to decide possession. They fielded a kick-off. It was to be a game to allow the dead to rest. 

Succumbing to his bizarre circumstances, James found himself riveted. There was stumbling, to be sure. Half the players had no MCL, the other half no ACL. Everyone had CTE. He could tell that much just from his seat. Who knew what else the ages had done to the bodies of the undead. Best of all, given the loss of muscle definition and the obstinance of rigor mortis, passing was out the window. This was grind-it-out, in-the-trenches, smash-mouth football. Dad, wherever he was, would have been proud. These zombies had utter heart. 

The two sides fought with heavy casualties. Every play, someone lost an arm, then a leg. Heads were left to roll where they lay. Progress was slow, attrition was fast, and it seemed no one would find a way to win. 

Eventually, the game looked ready to break open. What must have been the home team mounted a bruising drive. Every rush scratched out just enough yards to live four more downs. Runners churned their legs, and for a second, the field looked as if it was earth once more, every step tearing deep scars into its face. Finally, they were paused at the one-yard line. 

Fourth down. Every dead body crowded either side of the line of scrimmage. This was to be the final battle of the war for every inch. The ball was hiked. Right away, the defense shot forward at the knees of the offensive line, sacrificing their skulls to stop any advance. Pigskin in the hands of the golem-sized fullback, he leapt over the pile. The mike linebacker, watching the ballcarrier’s every step, leapt too, from the opposite side. They collided mid-air, over top the maul of bodies, and collapsed. No gain. There would be no victory, as not a single body remained intact. 

In the ensuing silence, James felt the peace that came at season’s end. The playbook of ’74 could rest.  

MAX FREDELL is a writer based out of the Twin Cities, raised in the Pacific Northwest. This is his first published work. Unless you count the song he sings each morning to his cat.