The center snapped the ball. Burke took it and dropped back to pass. Tidwell hurtled down the field, knocking aside two zombies with his large, powerful shoulders. He turned back. Burke threw a long bomb. It hung in the air. The crowd, the living and undead alike, became silent as the ball descended toward Tidwell. Tidwell sprinted past the fifty, the forty-five, Johanson matching him stride for stride, the apex of the ball’s trajectory and Tidwell coming to a point. It landed in his hands perfectly. But at the forty-two yard line, Johanson reached out his long tooth marked arm. Grabbed Tidwell’s face mask, and with one swift jerk, tore Tidwell’s head off.
Tidwell’s body twisted and fell forward. Good enough for a first down. Johanson reached into Tidwell’s helmet, and with strong bony fingers, scooped out handfuls of brain and ate. He ambled off to the sideline with his meal.
Jesus, Burke thought. He had drive before, but what drove him now?
The refs came in with their cattle prods and got the undead back in line. They shifted jerkily on the new line of scrimmage. The seconds ticked away.
They had discussed it over beers many times. Was the urge of the living to stay alive as great as the urge of the undead to feed?
“Depends on the individual,” Johanson said. “Some of us would do anything to stay alive. But then we’ve both seen players who just all of a sudden sit down in the middle of a play, take off their helmets, and let the feeding frenzy begin.”
“Why would somebody do that?”
“Cause they’re tired.”
“I’d never do that.”
“Some people just get sick of the way the world’s turned out. Maybe all their friends and family are gone. Maybe they think it’s inevitable, so better submit to fate rather than waste all that energy fighting a lost cause.”
At least Tidwell had gotten them a first down.
Burke looked up into the stadium seats, his eye landing on Tidwell’s widow. Her face was in her hands as she rocked back and forth. A woman next to her patted her on the back, talking to her, words that Burke knew would never matter.
The center snapped the ball. One of the undead, number fifty-three, leapt over the center as Burke scrambled backward. Fifty-three was on him in an instant, trying to twist his head around, trying to snap Burke’s neck. Burke landed on his back, number fifty-three on top of him, his brown ugly teeth gnashing around his face mask. The refs blew the whistle. Fifty-three continued to pummel Burke with rot-purple fists. When a ref zapped the thing with a cattle prod, the electricity flowed into Burke as well, causing him to bite down hard on his mouthpiece, streaks of black light crossing his vision. His body went rigid for a moment. Fifty-three rolled off of him. Burke took a deep breath and looked at the gray sky. Spence, a running back, helped him up.
“You okay, man?”
Burke nodded.
“You sure?”
“I’m fine. Huddle up.”
In the huddle, Aidan Carter, as much of a veteran as Burke, rubbed his hands quickly together.
“We’re coming down to the wire. This is way too close.”
“We’ll get ’em,” Tyrone Bishop said, his voice surly and deep beneath his helmet.
“I don’t like it this close.”
“We’ve done it before.”
“What if we don’t.”
“Don’t talk like that, bro. We’ll get it together.”
“We better. We better do it now.”
Second down. Still at the forty.
They lined up. It seemed as if there were sparks in the eyes of the undead, their ferocity, their hunger so great it seemed to animate them in a way Burke had never seen before. They drooled a green and yellow slime from the corners of their torn, misshapen lips. The humans in the stands got quiet while the undead in the giant cage beyond the goalposts howled and shook the large metal strips.
“Hike!” Burke yelled. The ball hit his hands like a bullet. He dropped back, handed off to Paine. But Paine’s grip was off. He grabbed it too far forward and it slipped from his hands. It bounced on the grass. Paine dove on it and clutched it to his chest.
The whistle blew. The clock ticked down.
Forty seconds left.
Aidan Carter’s eyes were wild. “How could you fuckin’ miss that? You know what this means?”
Paine wouldn’t look at Carter.
Carter punched him hard on the shoulder. “This is our life you’re fooling with. Don’t you know that?”
Burke grabbed Carter. “Come on. The clock’s ticking.”
Third down.
Burke took the snap. Stepped back. He looked to Carter, but he was trying to shake off two of the undead. He looked to Bishop. Bishop’s rage had gotten the best of him, and he was going ape on a zombie, bashing his head in with his helmet, screaming obscenities, tearing the cold limbs off the walking corpse.
There was no one to throw to. Burke tucked the ball into his chest, put down his head and ran. He straight- armed a tackle, his fist busting through the thing’s brittle decaying ribcage. He shook him off. The tackle fell in a heap. Another zombie dove for him, but Burke sidestepped him and brought his foot down on the thing’s face, crushing it into the ground.
Burke ran. He gagged at the stench in the air. He heard screams from the stadium seats. Howls. Shouts. A cacophony of rage and disbelief. His blood pounded in his ears. He saw the clock’s digital read-out on the balcony in front of him. The seconds blinked down in a slow motion pulse. It felt like his legs were encased in cement.
A hand gripped his shoulder. A strong hand. Burke spun around, tripped on his own feet and fell, the other player falling with him and landing beneath.
It was Johanson. Hungry. Rotting.
Johanson. Only a week ago Burke’s best friend.
Burke took his helmet off. Johanson struggled beneath him. Burke felt Johanson’s clammy hands circle his throat and squeeze.
Maybe it would be easier to just give up. Better that than to live in constant fear. Maybe it would be easier to die, let Johanson finish him off like he should’ve let his children do. He searched Johanson’s face for a sign of something. Anything. A memory of the times they’d spent together. Just a spark of something.
Burke whispered, “I love you, buddy.”
Nothing registered in Johanson’s eyes, his pupils dry and clouded. His nostrils flared with the scent of fresh meat hovering over him. Burke lifted his helmet in the air. Kept his eyes wide open as he brought it down on Johanson’s face again and again until he heard the crack of skull, the destruction of brain. The hand on his neck went slack.
The crowd, both the living and the dead, went wild.
They called a time-out. Ten seconds left.
“We need this.” Burke scanned the morose faces of his remaining players. “This is our last chance. You know what it means if we don’t win.”
The huddle was silent. Strange how despite the roar of the crowd crashing down upon them in one continuous wave, they could notice the silence among themselves.
Bishop doubled over and vomited. Carter got down on his knees, clasped his hands together and prayed.
