Story 1037: The Carnival of 100 Corpses

It arrived with no warning.

No trucks, no crew, no sound but the creak of rusted wheels and a calliope tune twisted in reverse. By dawn, the Carnival of 100 Corpses had unfolded itself on the edge of Hollow Pines—just where the dead forest met the broken highway.

Locals awoke to bright colors stretched over decaying canvas, skeletal Ferris wheels spinning without riders, and striped tents that bled at the seams. The gates were open. Admission was free.

Curiosity is always the first to die.

Ezra Kane, a former mortician turned scavenger, was the first to step inside. He’d seen things since the rise of the eldritch plague—things that clawed sanity and chewed through souls—but even he hesitated at the carnival’s smell.

Not of rot. But of remembrance.

A scent like childhood grief and birthday cake left too long in a coffin.