James showed up early for a couple reasons. When he was a kid, his buddy's dad was the football coach. When they were 12, his dad hired them to help re-sod the football field. It took longer than expected, but his buddy's dad always undersold that kind of thing. He had been paid upfront. For the rest of the summer, verdant grass stains colored his jeans. The scent of grass crying out always brought him back to that summer.
He showed up early because he'd seen on Facebook that they had changed from grass to astroturf, and part of him needed to know if that was true. It was Homecoming, and he was by to tour the old grounds. When he was in school, he remembered seeing the alumni glancing the halls, tracing the stucco with their fingertips, to remember its prickle before the bus came to pick them up. Walking mothballs. He was lost in the synestasia of memory. He was running late for warm-ups, his helmet held together by hope rather than glue. His cleats left a pattering rhythm down the cracked cement of the path to the football field soon partnered by his teeth. How old that wandering mass seemed to him then. He allowed himself to touch everything. The cracked paint on the pole holding up the awning that watched over those waiting for their parents. He had rested against it once, in hopes of catching someone's eye.
Now he was down by the field. The clipped smell of summer warmed him in the October chill. His only partners were two humped teenagers, delicately applying fresh paint to the field. Hashmark by hasmark, they ambled. The two kids finished up their job and said 'hey mister,' before turning under the bleachers to get stoned before the game. When he was on the team, or when he thought about having been on the team, he remembered his other buddy. He was a tight end, a bigger guy, and was brought in jumbo packages to open up extra lanes in the run game. When they played cross-town, they played a lot of jumbo, because those kids were huge. One of those nights, he went to block, and the running back tripped and rolled up on his calf. James could hear, he still heard, the pop. His buddy said it felt like his achilles rolled up like a shade. He keeled over, frozen in pain, and hit his head. The helmets back then, they really didn't have much more going on than blunt force protection. He never walked right after that.
The hash marks seemed to grow. They were always bigger when you stood face to face and the camera wasn't there to pan across them. But they were growing, from a yard a piece to the size of a body, to kite shaped like a coffin. Rows and rows of painted white coffins. The smell changed, earthen and sour. James' skin rippled, pimpled. He got the eerie sense that the bodies beneath this field were buried far too shallow.
He hightailed towards the back of the high school, where the locker rooms emptied out and parents and cheerleaders waited. He remembered waiting for the bus after school their with some buddies . That was a breeding ground for all kinds of things. Crushes mostly, but also nicknames, terms for baseball card swaps, nougies and wet willies, discussion of the color of their physics teacher's underwear. He always had rode the bus. When he was especially young, he would slide underneath one seat to the one behind it, to secret away to his best friend or to trade in secrets. On cold days, he would seek out the seat above the wheel, its excess heat warmed his feet and steamed the window. When he turned 17, a buddy helped James rebuild his dad's old firebird. It took a while, but he never rode the bus after that. He gave his buddy rides whenever he asked.
The boys emerged. A small throng of horns called out to fling them towards the field, joined by the crush of cheers. The small bones in his ears vibrated. The wrought-iron gate to the field, sparkling under the LED stadium lights, flung open to accept the holy ones. It was the final moments of twilight, and the crowd rejected the night for their carnival. The ground tremored. They thought it was the revelry of feet.
James fingered a seat to the back left corner, near enough to the bathroom and exit. Parents, flushed in pale horror, girlfriends, warmed by letterjacket pelts, and nerds. James was never really sure what the nerds were doing there. He watched them in odd bon humour. A boy nerd and girl nerd tapped shoes. He could see their breaths. Their aura was pink and merged for the night. James remembered the laughter of his first love. He never acted on his feelings and would look to her in the stands, blanketed in layers against the night's bitter cold. The years had stolen her name from him.
The darkened heavens were pierced by the whistle call. The pigskin careened into a dimunitive boy's hands, and like the day's light he was gone. Opposing fleets of young warriors released into a battle fray. A smattering fell early, chopped at the knees. A parting of the fleshy sea, he could smell pay dirt. Just as suddenly, James saw a hand emerge from the earth, wrap the carriers ankle, and fell him. It didn't seem that anyone else had noticed. He took this opportunity to find a snack.
Behind the bleachers, the air was thick with the mixed scents of body spray and popcorn. The constant bustle of the tiny workers drowned out the moans of the crowd. "Twizzlers in chocolate, please." Without asking, the cashier picked out a trio with sprinkles. He bit down. The sweet was rubbery and pulled away from his teeth; the chocolate apologized with a milky embrace. James remembered his buddy who sold Reese's Pieces before algebra, looking for ways to afford replacement nudie mags when his dad stole them. He had always had it on good authority that a group of freshmen found his buddy's secret backpack compartment and were the thieves in question. He never said anything, he felt a little uncomfortable thinking about it and laughed to himself. That chuckle was soon drowned by the screams of the crowd.
The scene: A touchdown deferred. The ball had slipped through the tight end's taped fingers when he spotted the rotting corpse emerge from the ground. It's trembling body called forth the revival of others. 52 forever young bodies punctured through like aborted birds. The running back, paralyzed at the three yard line, was overtaken quickly. His sumptuous quads fed more than one flesh walker. They were replaced by ravenous legions, advancing in delayed lock-step on the well-appointed bleachers. The many voyeurs streamed out, letting loose the true scream. The quarterback's father, who sat for appointment viewing in the front row, was already had. His call decayed and then snapped shut as a clench ripped out his vocal chords and quickly devoured them. In their terror, the AV club destroyed the lights. Primal foot falls were led by the moon.
James saw his buddy, the dumb one with the bum leg. His jersey was rotted and thread together by sinews that had fused with his flesh. Whatever hair he may have had evaporated into the field. His hand was a balled first, in which he clung to his football. The foam that lined its interior was crumbling and left a roostertail in time with his steps. His name was Doug. James remembered just as subconsciously as he had forgotten. Doug, the name rattled around James’ tinny skull, as the helmet swung down on those too invalid to escape or too inebriated for the new darkness. The splattering blushed Doug’s body, he almost looked alive. He walked towards James and faced him.
The corpse smelled just like the sod James had sewn into the field all those years ago. It reached out for James’ skull. In the instant before his brain felt fresh air, he remembered what he had once forgotten: the smell was worms, not the sod itself. Then, he was destroyed.