by Joe Hill
7:28 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE God this is the stinkiest circus ever. I don’t know what I’m smelling. Are those the animals? Call PETA.
7:30 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE I can’t believe how many people there are. Every seat is taken. Don’t know where this crowd came from.
7:31 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They must’ve had us park in a secondary parking lot. Oh wait, they just flipped on a spotlight. Showtime. Beating heart, restrain yourself.
7:34 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Well, that got Eric and Dad’s attention. The ringmistress came out on stilts and she’s practically naked. Fishnets and top hat.
7:38 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She’s weird. She talks like she’s stoned. Did I mention there are zombies in clown outfits chasing her around?
7:40 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The zombies are waaay gross. They have on big clown shoes and polka dot outfits and clown makeup.
7:43 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE But the makeup is flaking off, and beneath it they’re all rotted and black. Yow! They almost grabbed her. She’s quick.
7:44 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says she’s been a prisoner of the circus for 6 weeks and that she survived because she learned the stilts fast.
7:47 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She said her boyfriend couldn’t walk on them and fell down and was eaten his first night. She said her best friend was eaten the 2nd night.
7:49 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She walked right up to the wall under us and begged someone to pull her over and rescue her, but the guy in the front row just laughed.
7:50 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Then she had to run away in a hurry before Zippo the Zombie knocked her off her stilts. It’s all very well choreographed.
7:50 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE You can totally believe they’re trying to get her.
7:51 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They rolled a cannon out. She said, Here at the Circus of the Dead we always begin things with a bang. She read it off a card.
7:54 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She walked up to a tall door and rapped on it, and for a minute I didn’t think they were going to let her out of the ring, but then they did.
7:55 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Two men in hazmat suits just led a zombie out. He’s got a metal collar around his neck with a black stick attached.
7:56 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They’re using the stick to hold him at a distance so he can’t grab them.
7:57 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eric says he has fantasies about a certain goth girl putting him in a rig like that.
7:58 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE This show would be a great date for the two of them. It’s got a hint of sex, a whiff of bondage, and it’s really really morbid.
7:59 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They put the zombie in the cannon.
8:00 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Auuuughhh! They pointed the cannon at the crowd and fired it and fucking pieces of zombie went everywhere.
8:03 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The guy in the row in front of us got smashed in the mouth with a flying shoe. He’s bleeding and everything.
8:05 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Fucking yuck! There’s still a foot inside the shoe! It’s totally realistic looking.
8:08 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The guy sitting in front of us just walked off w/his wife to complain. Same dude who laffed at the ringmistress when she asked for help.
8:11 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Dad had a zombie lip in his hair. I am so glad I didn’t eat lunch. Looks like a gummy worm and it smells like ass.
8:13 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Naturally Eric wants to keep it.
8:13 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Here comes the ringmistress again. She says the next act is the cat’s meo
8:14 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE OMG OMGthat was not funny. She almost fell down and the way they were snarling
8:16 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The men in hazmat suits just wheeled in a lion in a cage. Yay, a lion! I am still girl enough to like a big cat.
8:17 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Oh that’s a really sad, sick-looking lion. Not fun. They’re opening the cage and sending in zombies and he’s hissing like a housecat.
8:19 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Roawwwwr! Lion power. He’s swatting them down and shredding them apart. He’s got an arm in his mouth. Everyone cheering.
8:21 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eeeuuuw. Not so much cheering now. He’s got one and he’s tugging out its guts like he’s pulling on one end of a tug rope.
8:22 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They’re sending in more zombies. No one laughing or cheering now. It’s really crowded in there.
8:24 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE I can’t even see the lion anymore. Lots of angry snarling and flying fur and walking corpses getting knocked around.
8:24 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE OH GROSS. The lion made a sound, like this scared whine, and now the zombies are passing around organ meat and hunks of fur.
8:25 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They’re eating. That’s awful. I feel sick.
8:26 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Dad saw I was getting upset and told me how they did it. The cage has a false bottom. They pulled the lion out through the floor.
8:30 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE You really get swept up in this thing.
8:30 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The Mickey Rooney guy who led us back to the seats just showed up with a flashlight. He says we left the headlights on in the van.
8:31 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eric went to turn them off. He said he has to pee anyway.
8:32 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The fireswallower just came out. He has no eyes, and there’s some kind of steel contraption forcing his head back and his mouth open.
8:34 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE One of the men in the hazmat suits isFUCK ME.
8:35 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They shoved a torch down his throat, and now he’s burning! He’s running around with smoke coming out of his mouth and
8:36 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE fire in his head coming out his eyes like a jack o lante
8:36 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They just let him burn to death from the inside out. Realest thing I’ve ever seen.
8:39 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE What’s even realer is the corpse after the hazmat guys sprayed it down with the fire extinguishers. It looks so sad and shriveled and black.
8:39 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The ringmistress is back. She’s really weaving around. I think something is wrong with her ankle.
8:40 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says someone from the audience has agreed to be tonight’s sacrifice. She says he will be the lucky one.
8:41 PM – 2 Ma
r from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE He? I thought the sacrifice was usually a girl in this sort of situation.
8:41 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Oh no he did not. They just wheeled Eric out, cuffed to a big wooden wheel. He winked on the way past. Psycho. Go, Eric!
8:42 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They hauled out a zombie and chained him to a stake in the dirt. There’s a box in front of him full of hatchets. Don’t like where this is going.
8:43 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Everyone’s laughing now. The lion scene was a little grim, but we’re back to funny again. The zombie threw the first hatchet in the crowd.
8:45 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE There was a thunk, and someone screamed like they got it in the head. Obvious plant.
8:45 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eric is spinning around and around on the wheel. He’s telling the zombie to kill him before he throws up.
8:46 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eeeks! I’m not as brave as Eric. A knife just banged into the wheel next to his head. Like: INCHES. Eric screamed too. Bet he wishes now
8:47 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE OMGOMGO
8:47 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Okay. He must be okay. He was still smiling when they wheeled him out of the ring. The hatchet went right in the side of his neck.
8:50 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Dad says it’s a trick. Dad says he’s fine. He says later Eric will come out as a zombie. That it’s part of the show.
8:51 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Yep, looks like Dad’s right. They’ve promised Eric will reemerge shortly.
8:53 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Mom is wigging. She wants Dad to check on Eric.
8:54 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She’s being kind of crazy. She’s talking about how the guy who sat in front of us never came back after he got hit by the shoe.
8:55 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE I don’t really see what that has to do with Eric. And besides, if I got hit by a flying shoe . . .
8:55 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Okay, Dad is going to check on Eric. Sanity restored.
8:56 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Here comes the ringmistress again. This is why Eric agreed to go backstage. With the fishnets and black panties, she’s very goth-hot.
8:56 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She’s being weird. She isn’t saying anything about the next act. She says if she goes off script they don’t let her out of the ring.
8:57 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE But she doesn’t care. She says she twisted her ankle and she knows tonight is her last night.
8:58 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says her name is Gail Ross and she went to high school in Plano.
8:59 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says she was going to marry her boyfriend after college. She says his name was Craig and he wanted to teach.
9:00 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says she’s sorry for all of us. She says they take our cars and dispose of them while we’re in the tent.
9:01 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE She says 12,000 people vanish every year on the roads with no explanation, their cars turn up empty or not at all and no one will miss us.
9:02 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Creepy stuff. Here’s Eric. His zombie makeup is really good. Most of the zombies are black and rotted, but he looks like fresh kill.
9:03 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Still got the hatchet in the neck. That looks totally fake.
9:03 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE He’s not very good at being a zombie. He isn’t even trying to walk slow. He’s really going after the ringmistress.
9:04 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE oh shit I hope that’s part of the show. He just knocked her down. Oh Eric Eric Eric. She hit the dirt really really hard.
9:05 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE They’re eating her like they ate the lion. Eric is playing with guts. He’s so gross. He’s going totally Method.
9:07 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Gymnastics now. They’re making a human pyramid. Or maybe I should say an INhuman pyramid. They’re surprisingly good at it. For zombies.
9:10 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Eric is climbing the pyramid like he knows what he’s doing. I wonder if they gave him backstage training or
9:11 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE He’s up high enough to grab the wall around the ring. He’s snarling at someone in the front row, just a couple feet from here. Wait
9:13 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE no lights fuck thta was stupid whyd they put out the
9:14 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE someones screaming
9:15 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE this is really dangerous its so dark and lots of people are screaming and getting up. im mad now you don’t do this to people you don’t
9:18 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE we need help we areacv
9:32 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE gtttttgggtttggttttttttgggbbbnnnfrfffgt
9:32 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE I cant say anything theyll hear. were beinb ver y qiuet wevegot a plas
10:17 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE were off i70 mom says it was exit 331 but we drove a long way the last town we saw was called ucmba
10:19 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE cumba
10:19 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE the people in the stands were all dead except for us and a few others and they were roped together tethered
10:20 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE please someone send help call UT state police not making this up
10:22 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE @caseinSD lease help you know me you know I wouldnt isnta joke
10:23 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE have to be quiet so I can’t call got the ringer is turned off
10:24 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE AZ state police mom says its arizona not UT our van is a white econlein
10:27 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE its quiet less screaming now less growling
10:50 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE theyre dragging people into piles
10:56 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE eating theyre eating them
11:09 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE the man who got hit by the shoe earlier walked by but he isn’t like he was he hes dead now
11:11 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE just mom and me i love my mom shes so brave i love her so much so much i never ment it none of the bad things not one i am with her i am
11:37 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE imso csared
11:39 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE theyresearching to see if anyone is left with flashlights the men in hazmat soups i say go out mom says no
11:41 PM – 2 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE were here were waiting for help please forward this to everyone on twitter this is true not an internet prank believe be
lieve believe pleves
12:03 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE ohgod it was dad went by mom sat up and said his name and mom and dad and mom and dad
12:09 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE notdad oh my oh bnb nnnb ;;/’/.,/;’././/
12:13 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE /’/.
12:13 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Were you SCARED by this TWITTER FEED???!?!?
9:17 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE The FEAR–and THE FUN–is only just BEGINNING!
9:20 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE “THE CIRCUS OF THE DEAD” featuring our newest RINGMISTRESS the SEXY & DARING BLAKE THE BLACKHEARTED.
9:22AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Watch as our newest QUEEN OF THE TRAPEEZE introduces our PERVERSE & PERNICIOUS performers . . .
9:23 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE . . . while DANGLING FROM A ROPE ABOVE THE RAVENOUS DEAD!
9:23 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE A CIRCUS so SHOCKING it makes THE JIM ROSE CIRCUS look like THE MUPPET SHOW!
9:25 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Now touring with stops in ALL CORNERS OF THE COUNTRY!
9:26 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE Visit our Facebook page and join our E-MAIL LIST to find out when we’ll be in YOUR AREA.
9:28 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE STAY CONNECTED OR YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’LL MISS!
9:30 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE “THE CIRCUS OF THE DEAD” . . . Where YOU are the concessions! Other circuses promise DEATH-DEFYING THRILLS!
9:31 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
TYME2WASTE BUT ONLY WE DELIVER! (Tix to be purchased at box office day of show. No refunds. Cash only. Minors must be accompanied by adult.)
9:31 AM – 3 Mar from Tweetie
An Excerpt from NOS4A2
Nurse Thornton dropped into the long-term-care ward a little before eight with a hot bag of blood for Charlie Manx.
She was coasting on autopilot, her thoughts not on her work. She had finally made up her mind to buy her son, Josiah, the Nintendo DS he wanted, and was calculating whether she could get to Toys “R” Us after her shift, before they closed.
She had been resisting the impulse for a few weeks, on philosophical grounds. She didn’t really care if all his friends had one. She just didn’t like the idea of those handheld video-game systems that the kids carried with them everywhere. Ellen Thornton resented the way little boys disappeared into the glowing screen, ditching the real world for some province of the imagination where fun replaced thought and inventing creative new kills was an art form. She had fantasized having a child who would love books and play Scrabble and want to go on snowshoeing expeditions with her. What a laugh.