SCP-628 is capable of isolating any given resonance chamber 
within 0.2 seconds, quickly enough to play recognizable music. 
Under sufficiently windy conditions, it does so spontaneously. The 
copse's repertoire includes numerous works composed for pipe 
organ between 15 and18 , aswell as anumber (_ recorded to 
date) of previously unknown compositions. Level-2 personnel and 
above may refer to Site-104's database for recordings of "original 
works". 


The sounds produced by SCP-628 are not anomalous beyond their 
origin. Ordinary infrasound, however, has been shown to cause 
feelings of fear, awe, sorrow, anxiety, and disorientation. Sound 
waves at or very near 18 Hz, the resonant frequency of the human 
eye, can also produce simple optical illusions. Since the sound is 


“Icky!” 


"What, wrong color? Oh | can paint that. | got yellow. Yellow and... | 
think some blue left," the undead man said as he tried to shove an 
AK-47 into a confused Circus patron’s hands. "There's lots of 
options! And hey, you don't like the make, we got lots more. Plenty 
to go around, do not worry, | will not run out of stock. Cannot run out 
of stock. Literally, there's always more of these and it's just 
amazing." 


“Hey you, Walking Dead!” Icky shouted as she marched towards the 
undead and unlicensed gun peddler, flanked by Lolly on one side 
and Manny on the other, with Noodles bringing up the rear. “Who 
the hell are you and what the hell are you doing at my Circus?” 


"I'm Gary. Owner of Gunmetal Gary's. | make guns and oh man, oh 
boy are they good guns. You can use them for all kinds of things. 
But mostly killing, probably, if you're a smart guy. You're a smart 
guy, right?" the man replied as he handed Lolly a flyer and blew 
cigar smoke in her face. 


"Okay, even though | believe gender identity is a fluid spectrum, do 


not call me 'guy',” Lolly said indignantly as she swatted the smoke 
away from her. 


"No offense intended little lady. Gunmetal Gary's does not 
discriminate - free fully loaded and automatic firearms for everyone! 
God, | love this country! Do you want a shotgun? You look like you 
want a shotgun." 


"No, | don't want a shotgun,” Icky said through gritted teeth. "Why 
are you doing this here?" 


"'Cuz it's a pretty good spot. | can feel the wobbles in the air. 
Y'know, like a flavour, but made out of energy instead of meat. It's 
real good and | like it." 


"Sir, this is a private circus. We never said you could set up shop 
here," Manny said firmly, his arms folded intimidatingly across his 
broad chest as he glared down at the interloper. 


"'Course you didn't. Nobody tells me to do anything. Because | don't 
know if you know this, but I'm super ugly. Look at this face. Not the 
face of a guy you tell stuff to," the undead man said as he huffed 
more smoke out of the hole where his nose used to be. 


"Well we're telling you now: you need to get your zombie ass and 
your truckload of guns out of our Circus right now, or I'm going to 
lose my shit!" Icky growled, her eyes beginning to glow with purple 
flames. 


"Hey now, hey now. Buddy. Pal. Chief. Friend. Compadre. Amigo. 
This doesn't have to get sticky. We're off on the wrong tooth here, | 
think. Look, these are free. Anyone can have them, for free. See, 
you can even advertise! 'Free gun with every ticket purchased!’ 
That's a slogan. A real good one. | think we can help one another 
out. Wink. See, because I'm implying stuff." 


"This is a family circus! There are kids here! We can't sell, or give 
away, weapons!" Icky screamed at him. 


"| Know you don't! That's where | come in. /can give them away for 
you! Problem solved! Everyone gets safer, and you get to set your 
customers up with some real nifty door prizes. It's a win-win! Check 
it out!" 


At this, the dead man manifested a large, mechanically complex, 
triple-barreled device from nowhere and aimed it into the air, 
releasing a massive jet of flame into the sky. 

"Now tell me that's not an attention-getter!" 

Icky's left eye began to twitch. 


"Manny, I'm going to lose it," she said in a quiet, sing-song voice. 


"Don't worry, | can handle this joker. Lolly, try to keep her calm, 
would you?" Manny said. "Sir, with all due respect, we don't believe 
that freely distributing high capacity firearms to our patrons makes 
anybody any safer." 


"Not a problem fella; each and every one of my weapons comes 
with a 100% safety guarantee! Friendly Fire and shooting yourself in 


the foot are things of the past when you shop at Gunmetal Gary's!" 
"What the hell are you talking about?" 


"Real simple pal, my guns only kill bad guys. Don't know how much 
simpler | can make it. Oh, | do know actually! | can give you a 
demonstration! Picture's worth a thousand words and what not, 
except this is better than a picture 'cause I'm actually doing it." 


Gary carelessly discarded his triple-barrelled flame-thrower and 
manifested a rocket launcher. 


"That tent over there empty?" 
"No \" 
"Perfect!" 


The four Circus members gasped in horror as Gary fired off a 
missile. It pierced through the nearby tent which immediately 
erupted into panicked screams, but no actual fire. A few seconds 
later the missile flew back out, did a few figure-eights in the air, and 
then dropt down to Gary's feet. 


"See, not one singed hair! Am | amazing or what?" he asked as he 
bent down to retrieve the missile. He then proceeded to swallow it 
whole, only to have it explode in his stomach. 


"Oh, excuse me," he said as he belched out smoke. "Anyway, it's 
not just rockets either. It's everything. Check it out!" 


He tossed away the rocket launcher and replaced it with an assault 
rifle, which he fired wildly into the air. No one was hit, with the 
exception of Eugene who looked like Swiss Cheese. 


With a sigh of resignation, he decided to make the best of it. He 
grabbed a nearby drink and chugged it down, with the beverage 
spurting out of him like a watering can with holes in it. 


"Huh. That has literally never happened before," Gary said, 
scratching his head and staring down the barrel of the possibly 
defective weapon. "So how many can | put you down for?" 


"| can load you up like you wouldn't believe! | can arm every man, 
woman, child and mentally unbalanced convict in your Circus with 
rifles, handguns, ammo bandoliers, grenades, you name it | got it!" 


"Look au 


"I'm here to help you with your all your wartime needs! I'm having 
the sale of the century; everything absolutely positively 100% off! 
How are such unbelievable deals possible? Easy, I've got no 
overhead. | make my stock out of thin air with magic and being dead 
my cost of living is non-existent. You will not find finer weapons are 
at a lower price anywhere this side of Undervast!" 


Manny waited to be interrupted again. 
"What's the matter Picasso, why aren't you saying anything?" 


Manny sighed, and did an upside-down facepalm that looked like he 
was stroking his chin. 


"| admit that the fact your weapons can somehow determine friend 
from foe is impressive, but we already have defences of our own, 
and frankly they're a lot more discreet than yours," he told him. 


"Discretion is not the better part of valour my good man. Trust me, 
you want weapons that put the fear of the Big Boss into your 
enemies’ hearts. You want them to go 'oh my god we're all going to 
die' because they are and it's common courtesy to let them know 
that." 


"That's it, we've wasted enough time with this idiot," Icky said, 
stepping back in front of Manny. 


"Veronica, please don't attack the man with a truckload of weapons, 
Manny said. 


"I'm not going to attack him. I've got it under control," she insisted, 
taking several deep breaths. "I'm going to make this real simple for 
you. We paid to use this fairground for the day, which means you 
have no right to set up shop here. You're taking up our space and 


upsetting our customers and staff with your reckless gunfire! 
Remove yourself from this Circus, or | will remove you!" 


Icky was baring her teeth now, which were beginning to transform 
into fangs. 


Gary took a puff of his cigar as he seemed to consider the situation. 


"Okay, counteroffer; | join your Circus so that this is all legit," he 
said. 


"What?" 


"Just part-time, in between road trips. It gets kind of lonely, out on 
the road all the time. Might be nice to have a place to call home." 


"No way. You scared that little girl with your guns and your ranting, 
and that is not okay!" Lolly said defiantly. 


"And we don't need an arms dealer!" Icky added. 


"That's cool, | can dig that. | can do a show, a big pyrotechnic show 
with explosions in all the colours of the rainbow! It will be like if a 
Michael Bay movie had sex with a bag of skittles. And not vanilla 
sex either, but some real kinky Japanese tentacle porn sex. Plus | 
can use the publicity to promote my wares." 


"No, you can't! It's a liability thing! You cannot, under any 
circumstances, hand out weapons to our patrons!" 


"What if instead of handing them out | drop them in by little 
parachutes?" 


"Manny, this guy's not listening to reason. Do some mind stuff on 
him," Icky ordered. 


"Mind stuff? What are talking about mind stuff? That don't sound 
Kosher!" Gary shouted. 


"Sir, just pack up your truck and leave and no harm will come to 


you," Manny assured him. 
"I... no, listen. Just hear me out." 


"We're done hearing you out. This is your last warning,” Icky 
threatened. 


"| haven't even told you about my Civil Defense Points yet! Collect 
enough and you redeem them for even awesomer weapons, like a 
three-story tall tank!" 


"Noodles, escort this gentleman to the Kaleidoscope and make sure 
he is sent somewhere very far away." 


The giant Clown growled menacingly as he approached Gary, 
reaching out to grab him by the scruff of the neck. 


"No wait! You really don't want to do that!" Gary protested. "Every 
time someone tries to arrest me my truck -" 


The instant Noodles placed his hand on Gary, his truck blew up ina 
devastating explosion. Everyone screamed at the thunderous boom 
and looked on in horror as the plumes of smoke and flame rose into 
the air from the smouldering crater. 


"Is anyone hurt?" Lolly shouted as she ran towards the fire. 
"Lolly, careful!" Icky yelled after her. 


"It's okay, no one's hurt," Manny announced, his eyes scanning the 
scene thoroughly for any sign of death or injury. "It scared the crap 
out of everyone, but no one's hurt." 


"Where'd Gary go?" Icky demanded. 


"| don't feel him anywhere. He's gone," Manny replied. "I'll oversee 
clean up of this, you settle the crowd down." 


"Right. Lolly, come on, you're with me. Noodles, grab some more 
security and search the entire Circus for any sign of that asshole!" 


Despite the best efforts of Noodles the Clown, they never did find 


any trace of Gunmetal Gary. He had disappeared as mysteriously as 
he arrived, with nothing to indicate he had been there at all except 
for the plethora of high-capacity firearms haphazardly scattered 
about and the massive flaming crater that caused the Circus to lose 
their safety deposit on the fairgrounds. 


Though his visit had been brief and confusing, he would be 
remembered by the Circus for many years to come, primarily in the 
form of an artistic depiction at the admission's booth reminding the 
ticket seller to deny him entry. 


« A Circus Come To Not | Dread & Circuses Hub | A Vale of 
Tears » 


A Vale of Tears 


« Undead, Insane and Fully Loaded | Dread & Circuses Hub | 


“This city is enormous,” Victor remarked as he stared out the 303rd 
story window. The adjacent buildings stood around 1600 meters, 
with the tallest building being nearly double that, four times as tall as 
the tallest skyscraper in his world. These titanic spires were forged 
with frames of carbon nanotubes and diamondoid windows that 
sparkled in the sunlight. Just as impossible as their height and 
composition was their abundance, as the city stretched onwards for 
as far as Victor could see. “Why is it so huge?” 


“Hmmm? Oh, well according to what information Skitter was able to 
find in the Library, this whole reality was ruled by a pseudo-Catholic 
theocracy for over three hundred years,” Iris replied distantly as she 
appraised a laptop she had found. “Extremely patriarchal and 
puritanical, and thus they experienced an above-average birth rate. 
But they also possessed the advanced technology that had been 
gifted to them by Him, and so were able to support a large 
population. This world’s population grew much bigger than ours ever 
did; at least tens of billions of people, maybe hundreds.” 


Victor turned his gaze down to the streets below. Where once there 
surely must have been uncountable swarms of citizens going about 
their day, now there were only the Unclean; faceless half humans 
bigger than any non-anomalous animal that had ever lived, crawling 
through the ruined streets in a desperate search for something they 
could no longer comprehend. 


“And now, all those hundreds of billions of people are just... gone?” 
he asked softly. “Jesus. This, this is even worse than that world 
where the sun turns people into wax monsters. At least those things 
seemed kind of happy. But the Unclean, you said that they -” 


“In the words of another interdimensional traveller, ‘don’t think about 
it’,” Iris told him. “Step away from the window Victor.” 


“Right, sorry,” he said. He turned his back to the horror outside and 
took off his glasses to clean them. “Maybe the next post-apocalyptic 
wasteland we visit can just be a regular nuclear holocaust?” 


“Turns out those are surprisingly rare. | guess nuclear deterrence 
isn’t as crazy as it seems.” 


“Speaking of nuclear and crazy, | haven't heard a peep out of Lolly 
in a while," he said. "Maybe we should check on her." 


"I'm sure she just found something to keep her distracted." 
"And quiet?" 

lris finally took her eyes off the laptop. 

"You're right, let's go check on her." 


Shutting the laptop and placing it in her bag, the two of them went to 
search for Lolly. 


The floor they were on was primarily an open office, with all the light 
coming from a wall of windows on the far side. Numerous mundane 
personal items dotted the room - briefcases, hats and jackets, 3D 
photos of loved ones - still laying where their owners had 
abandoned them over half a century ago. Numerous chairs were 
askew or overturned, left to fall where they would in a mad dash to 
escape the city, with no one ever coming back to right them. 


Victor and Iris were momentarily startled by the sound of an angelic 
chime over the somehow siill functional PA system. 


"All pause for the midday prayer," a serene male voice announced. 


"He who art above, forever Pure be His name. His Kingdom is 
come, and His will shall be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. 


May He grant us the clarity to avoid Sin, and may His Tears Purify 
us when we stray. May He forgive us our deviances, and may He 


never forgive the Unclean. 


May He lead the Blessed Militia to victory against the Unclean, and 

may the Unclean suffer for all Eternity for their unspeakable Sin, for 

His is the Kingdom and the Purity and the Virtue, forever and ever, 
amen." 


Another set of angelic chimes signalled the end of the prayer break. 


"That's been playing to an empty building for sixty years? So 
creepy," Victor remarked. 


"Blarg!" Lolly shouted as she swung down from an air vent, having 
shape-shifted her face into the same blank visage of the Unclean. 
To her disappointment, neither of her colleagues seemed especially 
frightened. "Marp?" 


"This is what you were doing instead of collecting electronics?" Iris 
asked with a raised eyebrow. 


Lolly dropped down to the floor and shook her face back to normal.