The Z Chronicles Read online

  Unfortunately, a second later, the still animated head of Rafael Myers was able to move its jaw enough to chew into Jerry “Jellyroll” Parks’ very fleshy arm. Rafael was no longer a threat, but Jellyroll now had a sliver of the virus coursing through his bloodstream.

  RIP Jellyroll.

  It was clear Jellyroll would be joining the other team soon.

  The Cowboys missed the playoffs that season, and had to respond to dozens of lawsuits. People were mad. They wanted vengeance, and the ZFL found a way to tap into that. The public zeitgeist, it was called.

  Thus, the Zombie Football League was born. They recruited from recent college graduates, and I got a call on one of their first days open for business. They’d seen me play in college and loved my arm. They didn’t say they loved me. Just my arm.

  But they’d also seen the bar tape. That was also a plus in my favor for the ZFL. They wanted players who could handle their own on the field against zombies. I fit the bill in more than one way.

  * * *

  The question caught me off guard at the postgame press conference. Not only the question, but the one asking it.

  “Vince Lager, what is your response to the allegations?”

  The one posing the question was Kat Ellison, a national sports reporter assigned to the ZFL. I was more than familiar with her questions in the past, but this one was unexpected because I had no idea what she was talking about. It had been years since I’d been arrested for anything, and as far as I could remember, I hadn’t done anything illegal in a while. Still, it sent my heart pounding.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “The allegations about the ZFL. That they are illegally harvesting zombies? Surely you’ve heard the reports,” Kat pressed.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I had a few things on my mind over the past few hours. Namely, trying to keep a few Z’s out of mine.”

  That line sent most of the press corps into laughter. I was good at that. In spite of the blood and gore covering the field, you could always count on good ol’ Vince Lager for a laugh. Scanning the room, I noticed one not laughing: Kat Ellison.

  When the laughter died down a few notches, she interjected, “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Kat, I’d love to, but to be honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll watch your report on the news later, I’m sure, but all I’m going to worry about this week is the Brain Bowl. After that, whatever the ZFL is doing, or not doing—that’s between them and the Department of Defense. It doesn’t have anything to do with me. Now, who wants to ask me about the decapitation in the second quarter? The touchdown on the switchblade sweep in the third?”

  I was peppered with questions about the game, the zombies, my teammates—past and present—for the next twenty minutes, but all I could focus on was Kat’s question. It was a source of pain, and one that had troubled me before. I knew the question would be asked of me again later that night.

  * * *

  This is a ZFL Special Report. Since its inception, the ZFL has provided the world with two services: a method of collecting zombies, and entertainment. What we have uncovered in an unprecedented in-depth investigation, is that the ZFL is not just collecting and keeping the world’s zombies for use in the barbaric game called Z Ball, but that the Z population has dwindled so much that the league has resorted to the unthinkable.

  As one eyewitness—who refuses to divulge their identity—says, the ZFL can no longer meet the needs of the ever-expanding league. With an average of twenty to thirty Z-infected people used in game play every Sunday afternoon and Monday night, the need is exceeding the supply.

  “I’ve been to the zombie stables. There are just a few left. Each week the ZFL has to scrape the bottom of the barrel, plus some, to fill their rosters.”

  On screen, a blurred out face was seen in a darkened room talking to Kat Ellison. After a moment, images flashed across the screen from a few of this season’s games. Eviscerations, limbs cut off, ligaments and tendons severed—from zombie and human alike.

  “So what does that mean?”

  “In the short term? It means the quality of play goes down. Think about it—in the first games of the year, what’d you see? A lot of violence, especially from the Z side of the ball. But over the first month of the season, the best—the most fit—zombies all got what was coming to them. After that—especially in the last few games, what have we seen? Overweight, even obese...women, kids, the elderly—those who wouldn’t even have been chosen for a backyard football game,” the anonymous source said.

  Kat was clearly annoyed by the comment, looking for something different, and she said so.

  “Okay, fine. Forget the games for a moment. What else? What have you seen?”

  “I’ve...I don’t know if I can really talk about it.”

  Mr. Anonymous was getting agitated. It was obvious he would rather talk football than the serious issues Kat Ellison was confronting him with. For her part, though, Kat was empathetic. She reached over and patted the man’s hand.

  “Sure you can. Just tell me what you told me earlier.”

  He took a deep breath and launched in. What he said would be replayed over and over from that night until the kickoff two weeks later for Brain Bowl.

  “People. Regular, ordinary people. They are taking them and converting into zombies. Ever since Week 6 of the season, the freshest zombies on the field are just that. Freshly turned. Gathered...harvested...taken off the streets just a week or two beforehand. I’ve seen the rooms where they were drugged. One by one, the zombies were allowed in, and allowed to...feed. Allowed to take normal people and make them zombies. All for...football. The greatest game on earth is now the greatest murder machine on earth.”

  * * *

  For a half hour, Kat continued to probe and dig into the Zombie Football League. She and the network brought in experts from a number of fields, including the fairly new area of Zombie Ambulatory Sciences to discuss how “fresh” the latest zombies were and the likelihood of them being humans just days earlier.

  I was transfixed in front of the television, horrified and somewhat justified at the same time. Of course, Kat gave ZFL Commissioner Rod Parnell a chance to respond as well. Surely she hadn’t shown him the entirety of her investigation. There was no way Parnell would have let all that footage air without some sort of rebuttal, I thought. But at the end of the piece, the station noted Parnell was given a chance to reply to the allegations and declined.

  Even though our victory earlier in the day to send us to the Brain Bowl should have led the news, Kat’s investigative journalism sunk that. I couldn’t escape the footage—it was on nearly every channel, it dominated the net, and Twitter was just beside itself. The spotlight had left the game itself and was now focused off the field. I dreaded going to the training facility the next day...and every day after for that matter.

  Brain Bowl VI couldn’t come soon enough, and after that, the offseason.

  I switched off the television and sunk into my couch. My apartment was quiet, but only for a few seconds until a knock echoed throughout the small space.

  I grabbed my hunting knife from the side table and went to the door. Everyone had some kind of weapon when they went out these days. Maybe it was a gun, maybe a knife, maybe a portable flamethrower. America—and the rest of the world—was armed to the teeth. You never knew what was behind the door, so preparedness was the word of the century.

  I looked through the peephole. I couldn’t believe it.

  Kat Ellison.

  I pulled my face back from the door and blinked. Just hours before I’d answered her question at the press conference and I just finished watching her report. According to her report, I was just a cog in a machine of death. Why was she here now?

  Curiosity won me over. I bit the side of my mouth and opened the door. I didn’t realize at the time I still had my knife in hand.

  “Vince, are you planning to stab me? I mean, my report was bad fo
r you, but I hoped it wasn’t that bad...” Kat said when I swung the door open.

  I stared down at my hand. I stuck the knife into the leather sheath at my side and turned my attention back to the TV reporter at my door. “What do you want, Kat?”

  She leaned against the doorframe and gave me that smile. I hated that smile. Just like I hated donuts or bacon or beer. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “The one person trying to destroy my career?”

  “That’s debatable. Let me in so we can talk,” Kat said.

  Against my better judgment, I turned to let her in. She swept past me, her scent momentarily sending me back to college. Sending me back to when both Kat and I were nobodies. Yet, for a time, she was my everything.

  In a way, my apartment probably looked a lot like I was still in college. Beer cans and pizza boxes littered the kitchen and coffee table. The only thing different was the blades, guns, and other small types of weaponry scattered around. My ZFL uniform was unique to me, constantly being upgraded, mostly at my discretion. I was always on the lookout for the newest, latest, sleekest way of killing a zombie. And finding a way to conceal it inside a football uniform.

  “Geez, Vince. If we hadn’t already gone through one apocalypse, I’d swear your apartment was the scene of one,” Kat said.

  “Very funny,” I said. I was still standing by the door. She didn’t indicate at all the visit would be short, so I slinked away and perched myself on a bar stool by the kitchen. I found a half-full beer still cold enough and took a swig.

  Kat didn’t sit, but leaned against the wall just next to the balcony door. I could tell she was just as nervous as me at being in the same space together.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here.”

  A statement. No question. She was a pro, honing her skills the past half-decade since she’d left journalism school.

  “Yup.”

  I’d also learned how to answer questions in the furnace of a ZFL locker room. The less said, the better.

  “Did you watch my report?”

  “Just finished, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’d hoped you would. Figured you couldn’t help yourself. And that’s why I’m here.”

  I put the beer down. I had a bad taste in my mouth, but it wasn’t the alcohol. I glared at Kat, hoping she would feel the rage beginning to boil up in me.

  “To gloat? To watch my career go down in flames, just like you watched when I nearly destroyed my own chances at success in college?”

  She shook her head, but I wasn’t having it.

  I stood up and motioned to the TV. “You know what I saw when I watched your report? I saw that bar video on a loop. Over and over. Vince Lager is the superstar quarterback of the ZFL and you can’t bear to watch your former boyfriend have success, so you find a way to sabotage it. I don’t go to bars anymore, so what can you do? A fine job of killing my career, if you ask me.”

  I might’ve been a little angry. I stopped and took a deep breath. Kat didn’t flinch.

  “Running in head-first, and not using it for the brain inside. That’s always been your problem, Vince,” Kat said. “Can we just talk for a few minutes?”

  I chewed on my lip a little and nodded. If there was anyone in the world who could bring me down, it was Kat Ellison. It was true when we were co-eds and it’s still true now.

  “Vince, I came here tonight because I still care about you. We...we lost what we had in college, but I can’t lose you. And I’m afraid if you play in the Brain Bowl, I will.”

  “Kat, we both know Z Ball isn’t the safest sport, but you know me. I can handle it. Whatever gets thrown at me will be easy, even in the Brain Bowl.”

  “The safest sport? Safe? There is nothing safe about Z Ball. How many fatalities last year?” Kat demanded.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled. Which was a lie. I knew. Forty-three players from eight teams. Dead or turned—which may as well be death.

  “Whatever. If you don’t know, you’re an ignorant fool. If you’re lying to me, you’re lying to yourself as well. Those knives and guns are only going to work for so long. And even if you beat them all, you still haven’t won. Commissioner Parnell won’t let you.”

  She turned her head towards the clear glass door. I saw her reflection and thought I might’ve glimpsed tears streaking down her cheeks. Impossible. She’d shelved those feelings for me a long time ago.

  “Parnell? What are you talking about?”

  She turned back to me. I saw a glint in her eyes. Must’ve been a trick of the light. “Look Vince, just keep your head down for now. I need to do a little more research, but all I’m saying is there is more to my report than what you saw on TV.”

  Before I could respond, she marched across the room, her perfume once again wafting across my nostrils, a pleasant memory of a former life. She opened the door, gave me one last look, and walked out.

  * * *

  A few days went by. I didn’t hear from Kat again, although her face was plastered all over the TV. Almost every time I turned on Sports Intel, there she was, talking about the apparent scandal, about how Commissioner Parnell and the ZFL were hiding their real actions from the public. Every time I saw her, I wanted to believe her, but I also wanted to keep my job.

  After the team made the trip to Dallas for the prep week before Brain Bowl VI, (after what Jellyroll Parks did, Parnell made sure to get the Brain Bowl in Dallas every year) I got a phone call while sitting in my hotel room, just after I’d watched one such Sports Intel report from Kat.

  “Hello?”

  “Vince?”

  I sat up straight, and turned off the TV. “Cal? What’s up, man?”

  A moment of hesitation on his end. “Not much. Just watching a lot of film. You know how it is.”

  I did. Even though our brand of football in the ZFL was totally different than the NFL, we still prepped for each game. We didn’t play other teams exactly, but the league did provide film on the prospective Z defenders each week. The line-up was subject to change of course—accidents happened—but we had a line-up on which we based our plays and weaponry.

  “Yeah, I got you.”

  “Hey—I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier, but congrats on the Brain Bowl. I know you must’ve been pumped to get there. I mean, it isn’t the NFL…”

  “The NFL? What a joke, Cal. The ZFL is at the top of the world right now. You can’t even compare the two,” I interjected.

  Another small moment of quiet from Cal. Yeah, I was a jerk.

  “Vince?”

  “Yeah Cal?”

  “You’re a prick.”

  We both laughed for a moment, and when silence fell again, I told him what happened.

  “Cal, she came to see me.”

  “Kat? I saw the press conference. That what you mean?”

  Now the pause was on my end. Since Cal had essentially been my on-field bodyguard in college, and Kat my off-field bodyguard, they were more than familiar with each other. The three of us traveled as a small pack for a while around Tempe. Even after Kat and I had broken up, Cal and Kat had remained friends. They had tried to hide it, but I knew.

  “Nope. I mean after the presser. I went back to my place, watched her on the tube, and then bam—she was at my door, wanting to talk.”

  “And did you?” Cal asked.

  “We did. A little,” I admitted. “She claimed to have more dirt on Parnell than she put up in her initial report, but then left before she would tell me much else.”

  I could almost sense Cal nodding his head on the other end of the line. “Did she say anything else?”

  “Like why she walked out of my life back at college? That the one day—the one freaking day I needed her, she was gone? Like how the next time I saw her I was fielding questions at a press conference like we’d never met each other a day in our lives?”

  “Vince,” Cal began.

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  Another pause. Cal was hiding something,
but before I could say anything, he dropped this on me—“Dude, you are an idiot. She never gave up on you. You gave up on yourself. You need to call her. See what she really has to say before you go and kill yourself on Sunday.”

  My mouth opened, ready to reply, but Cal had already hung up.

  * * *

  After Cal dismissed me, I spent the rest of the night with my thumb hovering over the SEND button on my phone. I convinced myself if my fingers twitched and my thumb landed on the green button, it was fate and I had been destined to call Kat.

  Okay, I was a jerk and a coward.

  Somewhere along the way, though, I fell asleep, my mind replaying what happened between Kat and me. It was the bar brawl that did us in. I lost my temper and Kat all at once. We’d been stupid in love. Turned out, I was just stupid. She wouldn’t talk to me when I got out of jail, and I was determined to not go crawling back. I felt really low and then her absence just about did me in completely. I never thought I would forgive her. It was hard enough to see her on Sundays after games. But, when Cal told me she felt like she did after nearly a decade...I was blown away.

  My dreams were empty, just like my hotel room. I guess I’d hoped Kat would be running through my head while I slept, but instead it was me running from a pack of Z’s. Kat didn’t show, but she hadn’t been in my dreams for a long time. It was no surprise.

  When I woke, my right arm was numb, the nerves asleep from the unnatural sleeping position, but I still had my phone clutched in my grip. It took a moment to register, but my phone was ringing. Was Kat feeling the same way I did? Had she decided to call me first?