'Dead inside. Do not open': Story behind chilling sign in front of store
A tattoo parlour has erected a haunting sign on its shopfront amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced countless non-essential businesses to close their doors.
Wolfpack Tattoo, based in downtown Las Vegas has had the eerie sign out the front of the parlour since the end of March.
“Dead inside,” the sign says in red paint, reminiscent of blood.
“Do not open.”
The business has coupled the foreboding display with audio playing on a loop, featuring what sounds like screaming.
“If it’s fear they want, it’s fear they get,” Wolfpack Tattoo wrote on Instagram alongside a video of the shop.
The sign is a reference to the TV show, The Walking Dead, which is about a zombie apocalypse.
The owner of the tattoo parlour Bobby Ponte, who goes by Bobby Blood, told Yahoo News Australia the sign was originally put up to protect the windows of the business during the closure but said it also serves as a tongue-in-cheek “protest” about the lockdowns and what he sees as the hysteria surrounding coronavirus.
“The sign on the windows is meant to be a humorous exaggeration of the environment I feel the leaders of our city are trying to convey to the public. Doomsday, anarchy, fear, death awaiting you around every corner,” he said.
“I guess you could call it a protest, just not a wildly blatant one.”
Mr Ponte said he and other Las Vegas residents feel abandoned by their leaders.
“The Wolfpack team is holding it together OK, but there really isn't any assistance for us that they speak about in the news. There's no way for us to sign up for unemployment and the small business loans don't respond or even acknowledge our application. Yet, the owner of our building still expects our lease to be paid,” he lamented.
“The reason we put the sign up over the windows started out as just a way to protect our windows and the shop from break ins. It's asking for trouble to vacate the Las Vegas Strip and not provide any security.
“There are police monitoring the main part of the strip, but not the section we are located. We have one officer that patrols our shop because he is a friend,” he told Yahoo News Australia.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced non-essential businesses around the world to close down to stop the spread of the virus.
According to the Wolfpack Tattoo parlour’s post on Instagram, the shop shut its doors on March 3, stating it “will not be performing any tattoo or piercing services until given the OK to do so”.
“If we all do our part, we can get back to our normal way of living as soon as possible,” the post said.
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The state of Nevada is probably best known for Las Vegas, a vibrant city which is usually bustling, however like most of the world the pandemic has brought the city to a standstill.
The state of Nevada has more than 4,700 reported cases of the coronavirus, and 206 deaths.
Nevada is dependent on tourism to keep the economy afloat so it particularly vulnerable to the lockdown. One in three jobs in the state are in the leisure hospitality and gambling industries, according to the Associated Press.
If the tourism industry in the state is shuttered between 30 and 90 days, workers can expect to lose roughly $US7.7 billion (A$11.78 billion) in wages and salaries, according to a study from the Nevada Resort Association.
The United States is among the worst-hit countries, with the number of confirmed cases nationwide amounting to more than one million, according to Johns Hopkins data.
More than 58,300 COVID-19 related deaths have been reported, a higher death toll than the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War.
Despite the high number of coronavirus cases, states are making moves to reopen business, while others will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
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