Since the plague hit, travelling entertainers were the last to survive and some even remained sane despite the seemingly endless carnage they drove past each and every day. A fair few remained fixed in their habits, their planned stops too ingrained that even in the undeath that the plague caused, they still pitched their tents in their regular fields.
It wasn't uncommon for survivors to be driving past fields where circus tents seeped through the fog like a corpse's teeth - jagged, yellowed with age and reeking of stale food. Sometimes kindred workers would halt their convoys and check out the tents, just in case there were any other survivors mimicking the undead as a ploy to deter them.
Seven times out of ten, they were too late and the whole troupe would lurch forward eager to feast. It's amazing just how fast clowns can become feral and brutal without their ringleader to keep them in check. No matter how lurid their costumes, they move with the same eerily unnatural silence as their civilian counterparts, equally drenched in viscera and eager to find a fresher source.
One time out of ten most of the troupe would be dead and the survivors minds so utterly ravaged by grief that they preferred to be stuck in their old routines, performing for their undead friends and family as if that would somehow bring them back.
One time in ten would there be safe survivors using the thick rubbery materiel of their big top as a fairly effective shield against the hoards, blocking sight, sound and scent all at once. The only danger was that once the tents were up, you became trapped. There's never a safe time to pack up, not once the hoards take notice of the change in their environment and remain stubbornly close to investigate.
This brings us to the final tenth, the aftermath of the aforementioned when they exhaust their food supplies and cant get out to replenish them without alerting a hoard to their existence. Given enough time, the plague finds everyone.
It wasn't uncommon for survivors to be driving past fields where circus tents seeped through the fog like a corpse's teeth - jagged, yellowed with age and reeking of stale food. Sometimes kindred workers would halt their convoys and check out the tents, just in case there were any other survivors mimicking the undead as a ploy to deter them.
Seven times out of ten, they were too late and the whole troupe would lurch forward eager to feast. It's amazing just how fast clowns can become feral and brutal without their ringleader to keep them in check. No matter how lurid their costumes, they move with the same eerily unnatural silence as their civilian counterparts, equally drenched in viscera and eager to find a fresher source.
One time out of ten most of the troupe would be dead and the survivors minds so utterly ravaged by grief that they preferred to be stuck in their old routines, performing for their undead friends and family as if that would somehow bring them back.
One time in ten would there be safe survivors using the thick rubbery materiel of their big top as a fairly effective shield against the hoards, blocking sight, sound and scent all at once. The only danger was that once the tents were up, you became trapped. There's never a safe time to pack up, not once the hoards take notice of the change in their environment and remain stubbornly close to investigate.
This brings us to the final tenth, the aftermath of the aforementioned when they exhaust their food supplies and cant get out to replenish them without alerting a hoard to their existence. Given enough time, the plague finds everyone.
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