The clouds hung low and unsettlingly dark against the stark summer sky. The bodies swaying from unseen ropes beneath them hung lower, gently watering the ground with their blood and tears. It had been several days of them drifting around the town's outskirts, gradually painting a visceral circle that the locals feared to cross.
Within a week they started to run out of food, too scared to go near the edges of the circle and ever fearful of joining the condemned folks up in the clouds who'd taken to softly moaning and weeping. As one week turned into two, the air was constantly filled with the sobbing and begging of the condemned as the townsfolk silently dared each other to be the first to cross the line.
It was a day shy of week three before an elderly man decided he had nothing to lose, grabbed his rifle just in case and took his trunk out on the roads,aiming for the bloodline. He got as far as his front tyres touching it before he leapt out (or was dragged, the stories vary here) and started gasping for air.
He was the first to join the condemned and five hundred or so more would join before the clouds left.
To this day there's still a red line around the town, though time has almost washed out.
To this day when it rains, everyone runs inside in case the condemned are back.
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