Nick was not a man to scare easily. Years of trying not to get caught cheating in back-alley card games with the roughest and toughest of guys and a six month long marriage to possibly the vilest woman on Earth had hardened him to most other horrors. Emotions (besides irritation) were rare to see openly written on his face. Joy and sorrow had no place in his steely heart, and fear had not permeated that heart in years. Not even the zombie apocalypse had managed to do more than surprise him, and his will to live was not so much a product of fearing death than it was a result of his not wanting to die until he had become a millionaire.

That being said, Nick was absolutely, out-of-his-mind, wetting-his-pants terrified right now.

He had faced the gorillas on steroids called Tanks many times before. He had run for his life on a bad leg with a Witch shrieking at his heels. He had nearly been humped over the side of a roof by a creepy little Jockey and practically eviscerated by a Hunter and he had never been as petrified as he was at this moment.

"Clowns," Ellis said in that stupid accent, "it just had to be clowns, didn' it?"

Apparently, it did just have to be clowns, because God hated Nick. Who would have ever thought that out of all the horrors Nick had faced down with steely resolve, the one thing in his life he had ever truly feared would appear in front of him with a ring of blood around its mouth and glowing pin-points for eyes?

His arms seemed to be stuck to his sides, and if it weren't for Rochelle neatly severing the demon's head with her axe, it would have been on Nick in a second, gnawing at his throat and clawing at his ribcage and squirting water from a fake flower in his face. He breathed a shuddering sigh of relief and felt all of the tension immediately leave his body.

He also immediately felt silly for being afraid. It was just a zombie, for Christ's sake; no different from all the others they had faced in Savannah. It wasn't even one of the especially dangerous mutated versions. Just a normal zombie.

Yep, just an everyday zombie in the perfectly normal apocalypse in the run-of-the-mill overrun demonic amusement park, Nick thought to himself as he followed his team past the abandoned booths littered with stuffed animals and dead bodies.

Everything was, surprisingly, going well for them. They had crept (albeit a bit slowly) from the safe room, through the gates, and past the game booths without any significant injuries or mishaps. Not even Ellis had-

"Hey ya'll, check this out!"

Scratch that.

Their resident hillbilly had pulled up short in front of a larger game booth, one of those shooting corrals. Nick surmised that it was one of those pointless games that challenged you to amass enough points to win a prize you would take home with you and promptly forget about. Exactly the kind of thing Ellis would love.

The younger man was excitedly bouncing on the balls of his feet and staring at the rest of them with an eager expression. "Guys," he began, "I know we gotta move and all, but can I please, please just try this out real quick? Man, when me and Keith came down here last summer we played a game just like this one –"

"Ellis, sweetie, I don't think we really have time to stop and play games," Rochelle said gently. The kid's face fell.

"Are ya sure, Ro? I promise I'll be real quick and I just wanna see what the prize is."

Nick spoke up. "Why don't you just pry open the prize box and look for yourself? It's not like any of the staff is going to try and stop you."

Ellis said, frowning, "That ain't really fair, Nick. You shouldn' take stuff without earnin' it first." Nick snorted and started walking again.

"Whatever, we don't have the time to goof off with dumb kids' games. Unless you want to waste ammo shooting at cardboard cutouts and attract a horde to you, I suggest you just come on," the conman said. If he hadn't been staring resolutely ahead, he might have seen Ellis's expression twist itself into one of intense disappointment. In any case, Coach saw, and with a pang of sympathy remembered a time when he had been much younger (and smaller) and his mother had drug him away from a similar game that he had wanted so badly to play. It had been in this very park, in fact.

"Now hold on, Nick," he said. "We haven't seen a single infected in at least ten minutes. If there were any around, they would have been on us by now. I don't see no reason that we shouldn't all take a little rest while Ellis plays his game. Shoot," he grinned, "maybe we should all try it out. We all deserve to have a little fun, I think."

The conman stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned to face his teammates. Ellis's usual bright smile had returned to his face and the other two were looking at him expectantly. "Oh no," he said, raising his hands. "There is no way I'm going to agree to…" That idiot hick's smile… "To this ridiculous…" Rochelle's stupid mommy face… "This is just the worst idea that…" Coach looked hungry…

Finally he just threw his hands up in surrender and sputtered out a reluctant "Fine!" before coming over to rejoin the group. Ellis looked ecstatic as he practically floated over to start the game. Coach and Rochelle moved to join him as Nick sulked in the background.

The young Savannah native pressed a small red button and raised his magnum. Cheerful carnival music spilled forth from the mounted speakers. Nick did a quick check for any unseen infected drawn by the sound, but found the area to be clear.

"Alright everyone, rules real quick- you gotta shoot at the guys who run across here, but make sure ya don't shoot at the Lil' Peanut or you lose points, hit Mustachio and ya get extra points and ya need 700 points to win!" Ellis shouted excitedly. "GO!"

Various characters began traveling the width of the shooting gallery, some painted in blue or red, some decorated to look like the park's mascots: the creepy Lil' Peanut and the cliché villain Mustachio. Rochelle, Coach and Ellis furiously shot at the red and blue cutouts and the Mustachios, but carefully avoided the Lil' Peanuts. Coach gave a victorious shout as he blasted a hole in a Mustachio's smirking face with his combat shotgun.

Against his will, Nick was starting to get a little caught up in the game. He took in a sharp breath as a stray bullet from Ellis almost took down a Lil' Peanut figure, and he had to stifle a cry as Coach and Rochelle each shot a Mustachio simultaneously. That was probably why he didn't hear the squeaking until it was too late.

Nick was standing a little way behind the rest of the group, giving them all a better shot at the gallery. Because of this, the clown latched onto him first. God only knows why it hadn't made any of the typical infected noises before lunging: screeching, garbled screaming. It was a silent attack, and Nick fell to the ground under the weight of the zombie.

It was at this point that the man probably should have called for help. Infuriatingly, though, he felt that strange terrified paralysis steal over him, binding his limbs and closing his throat. As the clown silently beat him with its gloved fists, Nick could only stare helplessly in wide-eyed horror at its partially painted face. Surely, this creature was the embodiment of pure evil.

While this was going on, Nick's companions, who were supposed to be watching his back, whooped and hollered as they finally broke the 700 point barrier. A whistle sounded as the prize box lit up and unlocked. Ellis, with the others following closely behind, pranced over to it and opened the doors. With a squeal of delight (yes, the 23 year old mechanic squealed) Ellis withdrew from the box a-

A…

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Nick thought as Ellis triumphantly held a plastic garden gnome over his head.

A garden gnome. A garden gnome was the reason they had stopped in the middle of this godforsaken place to waste ammunition playing a stupid little kids' game, was the reason the at this very moment Nick was having his life force drained by a cannibalistic clown monster.

"Hey guys, this says its name is Gnome Chompski!"

Screw this.

With a mighty shove, Nick forced the clown to relinquish its hold on him. The monster bared its teeth but remained silent as it scrambled to regain its hold on its prey. Nick, however, swiftly drew his Desert Eagle and stuffed it between the infected's red (from both paint and blood) lips. He grinned fiercely in triumph as he pulled the trigger.

The resounding bang created by the gun drew the attention- finally- of the other three. They all gaped as they beheld him, kneeling on the ground beside the body of a clown with its head thoroughly destroyed and smiling manically.

Silence reigned as Nick got to his feet and wiped the bloody muzzle of his magnum on his already dirty jacket. It was a peaceful kind of silence, Nick thought, the kind of silence that should be taken advantage of and used for quiet reflection.

Suddenly there was a grinning young Southerner in his face. The mechanic presented the gnome to Nick and asked, "You wanna see our prize, Nick?"

He punched Ellis in the face.

Author's Notes: I wrote this after playing a game online with some friends. Three of us (as Coach, Rochelle, and Ellis) were playing the Gnome Chompski game while the guy playing Nick was just standing there watching. We got so distracted by the game that we didn't notice when a clown snuck up on "Nick" and incapacitated him. XD (We were on Expert, by the way.)