No need to make this more dangerous than it needs to be.

"Alright I guess we're going to the carnival." You say.
"Good. be ready at the trailer park entrance in a few minutes. Someone there can probably hand you a weapon as well."

When you arrive at your destination, a group of rednecks are already there checking various rifles and handguns. It really does look like they got enough to take on an army. Their attention turns to you.

"Well now if it isn't blondie. I'm surprised Mel is riskin' his piece on the side like this." One of the sleazier rednecks says.
"I know that's right Ray. If she was mine, I'd be wantin' to keep her safe." Another says.
"Piece on the side? Is that what Mel told all of you?" you ask which is followed by a lot of snickering.

"Not in so many words honey, but we ain't the idiots that he thinks we are. Why else would he tell us to lay off of ya if he wasn't stickin' ya? Sonofabitch already has Tina, don't see why he gets ta have TWO fine pieces of ass while some of us ain't got none." Ray remarks.
"Could I have one of those rifles please?" you ask ignoring Ray's comments.

Ray snorts at your request.

"Don't think so blondie. Maybe you think yer warrior princess or some shit cause you got lucky shootin' a couple of those freaks, but I ain't impressed and you ain't getting any of these rifles. Here, take one of these instead. Should be more than enough for you seein' as all yer gonna be doin' is hidin behind Mel the whole time anyway." Ray says and hands you a smaller pistol.
"Fine, I don't need a big weapon anyway. I don't have to over compensate for something." You say taking the pistol.
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Ray asks.
"It means she's sayin' you probably got a small pecker Ray, now quit givin' the girl a hard time and let's all get goin'." Mel sudden remarks as he walks up with a couple more people.

Ray doesn't say anything and just glares at you before leaving for one of the trucks. Everyone else does likewise. Predictably, you have no wish to ride with any of them, let alone in the back of one of the pickups with a bunch of them so you ride up front with Mel especially since you want to address something.

As the trucks pull out from the trailer park, Mel fiddles with the radio, but he doesn't get anything except Ground Zero ads.

"Goddamn Ground Zero shit. I'm tellin' you like I've said to everyone else, it's a fuckin' conspiracy goin' on with them. In fact all of this shit goin' on is government related." Mel says turning off the radio.
"Yeah, probably. Hey Mel, is it really necessary for you to lie and tell everyone that we're having sex?" you ask.

Mel starts chuckling a little bit.

"Who said I did that?" Mel asked.
"Well first of all a few days ago Tina flat out asked me if I had any intention of fucking you, and I had to clarify that I wasn't. She believed me, but she said you told her that I flirted with you. Then Ray just said that I was your piece on the side. Everyone else seems to believe that as well." You say.
"Okay, first off I'll admit that I might've said you were flirtin' with me to Tina, but there was a good reason. We're just makin' up from one of our many bad fights and I figured it might be good to get her a little jealous. Y'know so she doesn't take me for granted and that she could possibly lose me if she isn't careful. Knowin' Tina she probably thought it was bullshit anyway, which is probably why she just flat out asked you as opposed to just clawing yer eyes out if she thought it was remotely true."
"Well she did say that she didn't believe it."
"Exactly. She knew a girl like you wouldn't be interested in someone like me. Still, it was a good gesture on my part to show her I still care."

At this point you're not going to decipher hillbilly love life logic. You just continue to listen to Mel explain himself.

"Now as for Ray an' the rest. All I told them is to lay off of you a little bit since you were new to the trailer park an' you were doin' your best to contribute. I really can't help it if everyone jumps to conclusions."
"But you're not exactly dispelling those conclusions either."

Mel laughs again.

"Well, I suppose yer right about that, but think of it this way, if they all think you're my squeeze on the side, they're actually all less likely to try anything because they won't want to answer to me. I mean right now all they do is stare a lot and make the occasional cat call. Now I could tell them that we're really not doing anything, but after interactin' with Ray, do you really want him or some of the others sniffin' around on a regular basis?"
"Ugh, I suppose not…just wish there was another way."
"Man's world, blondie, deal with it."
"Trust me, I am. I just don't like it."

You and Mel continue to drive in relative silence until you get to the carnival destination.

"This should be coming up to it soon."
"Didn't even know there was a carnival nearby."
"Yeah, set up shop I think last Saturday. Most of us from the trailer park went there earlier in the week. I didn't go mainly because I was too busy fightin' with Tina at the time and I didn't wanna run into any clowns. Hate those creepy fuckers." Me;
"Really? I always liked clowns. I even briefly thought about wanting to be one when I was little. Oh well, guess that will always be the dream." You say causing Mel to give you a look like you just creeped him out a little.

You drive up to the carnival, which looks like it was in the middle of being packed down, but other events got in the way and given the ones you suffered, you can sort of imagine what those were. The place looks like a warzone and there are several bodies lying on the ground

"Looks like I was right, the Guard was here." Mel says pointing to a military truck near a dilapidated tent.
"Don't think they're still in charge here either." You say.
In the distance you see a few small figures near a large tent and then they run into it when they see you pull up.
"Well looks like whoever is still in charge here is going to be meetin' us real soon." Mel says and stops the truck. The other trucks following stop as well.

You see several people now step out of the big tent. Some of them are armed, but then again so is your side.

"Get ready, but stay in the truck. I'm gonna actually try to handle this without a gunfight, but I'm not hopeful about that." Mel remarks and gets out of the truck.

You see him motioning and shouting to the rest to hold fire and then he addresses the carnie crowd who seem to mostly consist of midgets and the main one addressing Mel is dressed in clown clothing, though he doesn't seem to be wearing the makeup.

"It's okay, it's okay. Ain't nobody lookin' for a fight." Mel says.
"Doesn't look that way, given that you've come with three trucks full of armed men." The midget clown says.
"Heh, well I'm sure given your own heightened state of awareness, you know things are getting' dangerous nowadays. Anyway my name's Mel, I'm guessin' since you're the one talkin' you're in charge here. Ringmaster or something like that?"
"Look, we don't want any trouble."
"And you won't get any trouble. You…uh…got some military gear here too I see. That truck over there."
"Yeah, what of it?"
"Oh nothing, but that brings about the question of where are the guardsmen…heh yeah they tried to tell us what to do too. Didn't work out so well. The second amendment says you got the right to pack it after all. Government can't just do what they want."

At this point more people come out of the tent, which in turn makes more people get out of their trucks. You get out too, though you're taking cover behind the door. Your people and the carnies are both starting to eye each other waiting for someone to fire a shot.

"Look let me cut to the chase shorty. I'm assumin' you might know by now what's been happenin' back in town. Besides the government tryin' to pull their shit, there's a bunch of freaks runnin' around tryin' to eat people. A bunch of them attacked us last night and while we fought them off, some of us got badly hurt and are in need of medical supplies. Now of course we did try goin' into town first, but was just too fucked up there an' we didn't make much head way what with the freaks AND the guard all over the damn place. Then it occurred to me today that your circus might still be around and the National Guard probably would've been here as well so we decided to investigate. Now the group of weekend warriors at the trailer park had shit for medical supplies. So I'm hoping your detachment had more in that department."
"We ain't got anything! Just go away or we'll open fire!" the midget clown says.

Mel isn't convinced and in any case he has no intention of backing down now.

"Now you might get a few of us, but I'm bettin, most of us are better shots than y'all, so if you give us what medicine supplies you do have we'll leave here in peace, if not well…"

While Mel is probably doing the best he can in trying to resolve this without a gun battle, but you know how this is going to go down. It's just been that sort of week.

Suddenly someone fires a shot and then another from one side and then it's a full-blown shoot out. (You mainly hide behind the truck, firing every once in a while)

The carnies aren't holding back, but your side does indeed have much better aim and midgets are falling like flies until they all fall back into the big tent again.

After some more shooting which is completely one sided now, Mel calls a halt to it.

"We can fire all day into that big tent, but we can't be sure if we're actually hitting anyone since we ain't got x-ray vision an' I don't want us wastin' anymore ammo. We gotta do something else." Mel says.
"Why don't we just throw grenades at it? We got some from the Guard that was fuckin' with us." Ray asks.
"Because they might have medical supplies in there ya idiot. We start blowin shit up, an it defeats the whole purpose of the trip. I think we need to spread out an creep up then just rush in." Mel says.
"So your solution is to go in there like a SWAT team an' possibly get our asses shot off? Fuck that. I'm blowin' that motherfucker up."

At this point Ray and a couple others look and nod at each other and start heading towards the big tent with grenades in their hand. Mel tells them to stop, but his orders are ignored and met with a couple of swear laden sentences of being tired of him always telling them what to do.

Mel is visibly angry; though you're surprised he isn't doing more to stop them from disobeying his orders. As much as Mel isn't exactly your favorite person, you'd hate to see this as the first sign of a "change in leadership." Especially if it's going to be Ray.

You shoot at Ray

You'll be damned if you're going to let this spiral into a power struggle with the possibility that Ray could be in charge. If Mel isn't going to do anything about it, you sure as hell will if only to assert that you aren't someone to be fucked with.

Ray and his buddies approach the tent and you shoot Ray square in the back. He howls and slumps to the ground. Ray's buddies at this point believe themselves to be under attack and react accordingly. One wisely runs for cover and returns fire, while another foolishly fumbles with his grenade still out in the open.

Mel shouts at you, but everyone is now shooting. Most are shooting at Ray's buddies, but the carnies are now taking advantage of the minor infighting your side is experiencing and have come back out to fire upon everyone again. The one fumbling with the grenade gets hit several times, but not before he throws the grenade in your direction.

You run away from the truck that you were taking cover by, but in the crossfire you're hit in the leg. You fall to the ground and try to crawl away from the grenade.

You don't get far though and it goes off destroying the truck. You would've survived this since you were far enough away to only lose most of your hearing from the blast. What you don't survive is the flying piece metal from the truck that hits you when the grenade exploded.

With a hot piece of twisted metal embedded in your skull, your struggle is over.