'Dead Rising 2'

When faced with a zombie apocalypse, you can flee in terror, or you can fight back and have some fun with the flesh-munchers. Dead Rising 2, released in late September, offers the latter approach with flair in Fortune City, a faux Las Vegas. It's definitely the most delightful zombie romp in video games, but it'll eat your brains if you're not careful.

Players step into the shoes of Chuck Greene, a contestant on the zombie-killing game show Terror Is Reality. Competing for prize money to cure to his infected daughter, Chuck is in for a surprise when the confined zombies are released, and he is framed for the terrorist act. He's got 72 hours to clear his name before the military arrives, and countless zombies and psychopaths stand in his way.

Zacharia Furio before ..."This is a big risk even talking to you," said Alexander Iaccarino. "I'm afraid of being prosecuted for this. 'Cause I'm not absolutely sure that any of this is legal."

It was October 16, more than three months after it all started and two weeks before its finale: the Zombie Pride Parade on Halloween night in downtown Davenport.

Looking back with that information, it's easy to see what Iaccarino was up to, and easy to laugh at it.

But when he told me that he was concerned about getting arrested, he sounded sincere and serious. And when he launched ZWatch.org on July 10, things were less cheeky. The Web site talked about a man named Zacharia Furio who was missing, and it alluded to a secretive organization called the QC Department of Biological Sciences.

Iaccarino and a small group of friends then produced videos, photos, and faked documents to tell the story of the H1Z1 virus and a local cover-up, slowly revealing a zombie narrative. The story was supported by some conspirators, such as local author Brian Krans (http://bit.ly/4erGco), and missing-persons posters. (Incidentally, the "H1Z1" idea was not original with Iaccarino; the name and concept of an H1N1-related zombie plague showed up several months before ZWatch: Google.com/search?q=h1z1, http://bit.ly/eiZhp.)

How convincing was it? On August 7, the Rock Island Argus/Moline Dispatch ran a front-page article titled "In Search of Zach: Is Story of Missing Man Just an Internet Hoax?" The story (http://bit.ly/1kq4nV) certainly suggested that ZWatch and Furio weren't real, but it also allowed for the possibility that they were authentic. There remained a seed of doubt, which is all it takes.