~plot~ event: the apothecary Who: Open to Everyone What: Murder most foul. When: May 8th, late evening. Where: The Midway Warnings: Blood & gore.
Even with shortened hours, the evening had been a busy one for the Cirque Nocturne. The locals were curious about their extended stay, and although they came warily to the ticket booths, they also came in large groups, determined to see for themselves. The circus had stirred up trouble when it had visited last, many years before, and it seemed to be doing the same thing now. The local hauntings were much worse, the entire town pulsing with a new sort of anxiety. Disappearances, record levels of violence, general unrest... Saint Francisville was as on-edge as the circus itself.
Still, the guests came.
More than one of them disappeared that night, sacrificed to the tense appetites of the circus employees, but no one would have suspected such a thing while the lights were still up and the music still playing. There was laughter and awe, money spent by the pocketful. And when they left, all the guests that could leave did so with emptied wallets and smiles on their faces.
The circus shut down in the normal fashion, albeit well before dawn. The gates were closed, the lights turned off one section at a time. The rousties went about their jobs, securing stalls and shops. Security prowled the area, checking for any trespassers.
It was one of the Security staff that found him, or what was left of him. The tatters of his clothing identified him as an employee, a roustabout who had been with them for nearly a year. A well-liked fellow, good at his job... or he had been. By the time he was found, it was all over. His hands were splayed, the thick spikes driven into the backs of them trapping him against the closed shopfront of the Apothecary. Despite the claw marks across his face, the look of horror there was unmistakable.
In the places where his clothing was gone, chunks of flesh had been torn from his body, his skin flayed from the red muscle. There were arcs and splatters of blood all about, as if he had been trapped in a tornado of claws and teeth. But there had been no screams, no noise, nothing to draw attention to his death.