Black Balloons
The balloons flew over a month after the economy collapsed. It had been hanging on by a thread for a while, but eventually, our government couldn’t afford basic human needs anymore. We were left to rot in the streets, local and corporate business began their shutdowns, raiders had gotten to everything anyway. Hospital staff, construction workers, government officials, bank tellers, librarians, police officers, food service workers, everyone you could imagine began to quit their jobs. We all sensed it coming, but there was no preventing it. Occupations seemed futile against the economic collapse. It was a national agreement between us that we would not be saved. Our government had waved its white flag while America burned. Poverty and crime rates increased as money was on a rapid decline. Students dropped out of schools as teachers put in their resignations. Prisoners were left to roam mindlessly in their institutions as prison guards packed up. Patients were left to rot in their beds as healthcare workers bunkered down with their families. That was when I began to understand our world. Every man for himself. A once thriving economy–businesses on every block, entertainment for all ages, easily accessible technology–was now in dreadful ruination. Strip clubs and casinos were ghost towns, businesses lay shattered and rundown in hopeless potential, technology stores raided and equipment smashed to ruin. America once had so much money to spare, it was the occupational dream of a lifetime. Where had it all gone? The men and women in fancy attire that’d flash their exorbitant outfits and accessories. The sports and muscle cars I’d see rev their engines down the streets. The advertisements that blocked out every building and billboard from New York to Los Angeles. Everything was eradicated, demolished, and sunken into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Fiery blazes ate up every flammable object in the vicinity, but there were no more fire trucks, no more cop cars blaring their sirens and rushing to the scene. Buildings crumbled into a buildup of drywall and brick, burnt and beaten bodies of the innocent decorated the streets and alleyways, and our government didn’t bat an eye. This violence and destruction wouldn’t be exploited on the news, newscasters and journalists alike cowered in their domains and ignored the storm of brutality that rained outside. The elite no longer had an inside look into what they had caused, they bunkered down in unknown areas, sipping wine and eating steak bought with the money they withheld from us. They needed it for their own personal expenses: cars, yachts, designer clothing, purses, shoes, trinkets, the basic necessities for greedy people in power. Who cared about the starved, the ill, the elderly? None of us would’ve ever made it in the end of the world anyway. I lived north of Manhattan, near the Bronx, which soon became the Waste, a nickname locals found suitable to describe its dilapidated appearance. A derelict ruin of a city and the people no better. I couldn’t trust anyone here nor did I want to. I’ve seen it all too well: one second they’d be making friendly conversation and the next second you’d have a knife in your gut and your pockets overturned. It would be my 87th birthday in October, I kept careful track of the days in the calendar on the wall of the uninhabited office cubicle I passed my time in. As an old man in the apocalypse, I was just slowly passing the days until I died. The only thing that brought me comfort was my little, old pocket radio which only emitted static and unintelligible sounds, I kept it turned on to help me sleep. It’d drown out the screams of anguish and breaking glass that formed a raucous cacophony in the nighttime. One morning, I was lying under the office desk curled up under a battered, old comforter and resting my eyes as the radio static droned on comfortably. I was a second away from drifting off to sleep when I heard distant noises overlapping with the white noise. I focused my hearing on making out the noises, assuming it was just another violent altercation or break-in. “What is that?” I overheard a woman shouting from just outside my building. Fellow office-dwellers arose from their cubicles and hobbled outside to investigate. At first, I stood my position, too riddled with anxiety to indulge in my curiosities. But as the crowd outside grew and a choir of chatter commenced, I fluttered my eyes open and apprehensively adjusted my arthritic joints into a sitting position. I faced the shattered windows to get a view of the chaos but all I saw were heads elevated toward the sky, necks upright, and mouths agape. Everyone was speaking all at once and I struggled to make out a singular sentence. I picked up a few stray words here and there but none of them gave me a clue on what possible event was taking place. “Floating.” “Black.” “Far.” Then, “Balloons.” If there were any words that could heave my old body up and get me to step over broken glass to investigate, they were spoken. I cautiously tiptoed through the empty windowpane and herded in with the rest of the noisy troupe. I joined in their mindless goggling and craned my neck to the skies. As abnormal as it sounds, there were balloons. Black balloons. Bobbing through the blue like fishing tackle they slowly breezed above our heads. Twenty or so swam just overhead but there were hundreds more in the distance. I squinted my foggy, old eyes and was curious to see white lettering lining the sides of the black latex. It was hopeless trying to read what the scribbles spelled out for the balloons were yards away, practically cutting through the clouds. None of us could recount the last time we’d seen a balloon, in fact, none of us could say we’d ever seen this multitude of balloons before. As they continued to roll over us, more appeared in the distance but we couldn’t tell where they were coming from. We watched them in awe, it struck such peculiarity in every one of us. Like seeing a clown at a funeral, we were perplexed but faintly hopeful. Radios and communications had been down since the decline, maybe this was– “A message,” someone amidst the group raised his voice. “It’s gotta be a message for people in major cities. Can anyone read what they say from here?” A muscled man in his forties or fifties stabbed a finger at the sky and scanned his eyes across the crowd. I made my eyes into slits and attempted to read the white lettering that distantly hovered, but it was to no avail, my eyesight had been on a rapid decline since my sixties and my glasses flaunted a thick crack through the right lens, nearing it impossible to read anything farther than ten feet away. A woman a few feet in front of me held up a hand in front of her eyes to shield the sun and craned her neck upward a little more to assist in reading the words. She spun her heel around to face the crowd and I was greeted with her bewildered expression. She looked as if bombs were descending from the sky, eyes wide as saucers and mouth agape in an O shape. “Escape. It says escape.” Most of us stared back at her dumbfoundedly but a few more pitched in with their agreements. “Yes, escape. She’s right.” I didn’t question their judgment. But what could it mean? Escape from what? Others joined in my bafflement, exchanging looks of perplexity and wonder while simultaneously babbling away. It was safe to say that this was the first sense of community we’d felt since the collapse, and looking back, I should’ve appreciated the moment a little more.. . . . . The balloons floated on through the night, passing over us silently and nonchalantly. Some chose to stay and watch as if they were stargazing, others like me returned to their hermit caves to rot away, unperturbed by the presence of the balloons. The day continued to pass by like any other, leisurely and painfully gradual until myself and others had found the peaceful escape of sleep. The night the balloons flew over, I dreamt of them. In my dream, the balloons were above me, bobbing and darting in the wind but unmoving in any particular direction. They adjusted their latex bodies until they were circling directly over my head. They lowered to the Earth, but as they did so, they transformed, shape-shifted into something ever-so-ugly. Their round bodies expanded and tied around themselves until they faintly resembled birds. But what kinds of birds you may ask? Only the worst of the worst: vultures. Daunting and sickening parasites that consumed rotten flesh and targeted the helpless. They swarmed me, and as they neared, their faces revealed hideous beaks, curled and crooked. Their eyes were poked out and raining dark blood onto me like a demented storm cloud. Half of their feathers were lost to the wind, exposing dirty, white flesh scratched and muddled from unknown attackers. My jaw dropped to my wrinkly neck as I unleashed a guttural scream, but no sounds were emitted. The vultures spotted my open mouth and dove toward me like angry arrows, quick and calculated. They closed in and I felt the tip of a beak scratch my upper lip before I was awake, hyperventilating and tingling in terror. My upper lip twitched and stung but when I swiped a finger across it, it remained bare, with the exception of a slight stubble. My eyes were still fatigued and my body was worn from the nightmare. Something about its vividness unnerved me in a way that the violence I’d seen since the collapse could not. The Waste was deteriorating swiftly, we were all desperate to find basic resources and if someone had something the other needed, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill for it. Survival was essential, especially for those who had a will to live. As for me, I took what I could get, like finding leftovers in a dumpster or a blanket in an alleyway. If you couldn’t put up a fight, you kept to yourself and stayed out of everyone else’s way, that was common sense. Some of us still clung onto our last remaining dollars in hopes we’d be evacuated and have use for it elsewhere. Most of New York’s residents retreated to Canada, but the remainder of us, the Wasted, stayed back due to illness, injuries, age, or pure lack of transportation. We were a pathetic bunch, like a pack of raccoons, we scavenged what was left and succumbed to the rabies inside, scratching and biting at one another over a cup of instant noodles. Yet every last one of us still alive clung on to that last bit of hope that we would get out, escape from this pestilent existence. But how? That is what we questioned. That morning, I was aware of a distant arguing as shouts and cries permeated the polluted air. What now? I selfishly thought in my groggy mood. The drone of radio static called for me to rest longer, but the argument sounded so close in proximity. Surely it wasn’t a hassle for me to investigate. So I craned my neck to peer over the office windowpane and I wasn’t surprised to see a trio of ragged Wasted, all turning their heads to shout profanity at each other. One of them, a middle-aged man with a sun visor, waved some sort of weapon near a short man’s head while a lanky, white man shouted unintelligible words at the pair. I surveyed the scene more intently and discovered that what the man was holding was not a weapon at all but…a stack of cash. Crumpled-up bills slipped from his curled fingers, peeking their green heads out in my direction. Others around me had seen it as well and began slowly spilling out of the office to get closer. Their heads blocked out my view so I gently rose to find a better spot to spectate. I veered left of the crowd of people and settled in the corner of the office where I could lean against a window beam and watch. As the shouting intensified, the man with the swinging arms full of cash must’ve loosened his grip, for a few dollars slipped free and spiraled toward the asphalt. Before the bills could reach the ground, people were springing to action. They leaped out with extended arms and flailing knees for the money, like mice trying to score a few crumbs. Over the wriggling heads of the people, sprawled out between the trio of men, I thought I spotted something. Yes, there was something on the ground. In the center of the circle between the men’s feet…was black latex. And attached to the mess of latex, there was a long string. Could it be? It was one of the balloons, messy and smeared across the street, it had popped. This couldn’t possibly mean…there was cash inside of them? The man with money stomped at grasping fingers as the people went for his treasure. They continued to dodge his boots and grab at the green until one by one, they backed away leaving nothing. “You greedy idiots!” The man cursed at the people who scampered away in shame. While he was distracted, the two men he was fighting with pounced at the remaining stack of cash, tearing it free from his grip. In an instant, the man being robbed sprung his other arm toward the short man, seizing his neck in his left hand while the lanky man scuttled down an alley. The short man endured the choking, still grasping onto the little bit of cash he had grabbed. If anything, his grip tightened around the stack as the man with the sun visor continued to choke him. His face was fading to a bruise and I slowly watched the stack fall from his hand. But it was too late. The taller man jumped for the money, dropping the short man to the ground who fell with a crack, blood pouring from his split scalp. I glanced around and realized I was the only one left watching. I looked back to meet the gaze of the only man left. Eyes frantic and teeth bared together, he shocked me with sudden, hysterical laughter. I took a step back in fear, intimidated by the man’s feral actions, but he simply shoved the stack of money into his baggy shorts pocket before turning heel and sprinting away. Shadows did a pirouette across the asphalt and on the corpse of the short man. My gaze ascended to the skies and there they were. The balloons, this time much lower than cloud level, their helium was depleting. Money awaits.. . . . . Night had fallen into a treacherous abyss, the balloons were blended into the black canvas. You would’ve thought they disappeared if it weren’t for the occasional one passing in front of the moon like an eclipse. The short man decayed on the asphalt, sagging skin molded into the street. He was nothing but a stain on the road now. The Wasted lined the streets and alleys, searching for any sharp object to throw to the skies. Bits of glass, rock, aluminum, and plastic were all being thrown upward toward the floating masses. Every thirty minutes or so, someone would finally pop a balloon, sending flurries of green toward the pavement where groups of scavengers would immediately rush to catch it. They’d shove, hit, and kick at one another to collect their savings. A bald man sliced the air with a pocket knife, signaling to the others to back off as he guarded his falling treasure. I cowered under my office desk, fiddling with stations on my pocket radio and trying to distract myself from the savagery outside. And that’s what I continued to do; call it depression, surrendering, relinquishing my sanity, whatever. The days passed, and as they passed, so did the balloons, and so did the people. The screams of anguish I’d once heard from blocks away were ceaseless now and nearing by the day. It was an overcast day, rainy and dark gray. The balloons were coming down from the pressure of the rain like hail. Squeaks and pops played like music through the rain and static. I sat up on my rear with my legs criss crossed facing the street outside where the short man’s corpse swiftly decomposed in the muggy weather. Though it was raining, the air was hotter than ever and beads of sweat were dripping from my pores. I needed to cool off and quickly. My body rejected homeostasis in my old age and it was increasingly difficult to moderate my body’s heat. I used my weak arms to raise me off the ground and outside to be baptized in the rain. It was the first time I’d been outside in the past three days or since that man was choked to death. The cold droplets dribbled down my body as I held my arms outward and spun in a circle. It was enlightening and terrifying at the same time. The outside wasn’t a secure place for a senior like me. I squinted my eyes slightly to still block out the rain but I wanted to see them. The balloons. So ominous, so desirable, so inexplicably strange. They twitched and dashed around on abstract paths under the strength of the rain and wind. They couldn’t have been farther than twenty feet above me, there were hundreds. I wondered if I’d be able to reach out and grab one by tomorrow. Then I felt a tickle on the back of my neck. My blood froze and I held my breath apprehensively. I rotated my body as my cramped neck struggled to move, and there was a string. That little worm of plastic attached to none other than the round black orb of a balloon. It was beckoning for me to pop it, and a quick scan of my surroundings showed no nearby trespassers. So I grabbed it like the tall man grabbed the short man by the neck and squeezed with my arthritic hands as hard as I could muster. Pop! It exploded into shreds and I heard the familiar thunk of a stack hitting the ground. I gathered it up in a hurry, straining my back as I bent over and scooped up the cash, shoving it down the leg of my trousers and hobbling back under my desk. No one had seen. It was mine…all mine. I could escape this place, I could start a whole new life. I could die peacefully.. . . . . Soon, the blood would wash down the gutters and the bodies would return to the Earth. The Wasted have gone mad, have I? I need the money as much as they do, and the balloons with their prophetic inscriptions. I know what it means now. Escape. Our escape is the balloons and their bellies full of treasure. I could imagine myself collecting hundreds of them and floating away into the clouds to a better place. I would be okay then. The Wasted with their crooked, violent fingers. A man with a pipe broke the knees of a woman who reached for his balloon. Another who tried to sneak cash from a man’s pockets was curb-stomped into a mess of teeth and muscles. Anything for the balloons. Those flashy, post-apocalyptic advertisements that promised better days. Soon I will escape. They will come for us, and when they do, I’ll be readily equipped with a fortune. I’ll retire and spend the rest of my days in a cabin in the mountains of Canada. I would be okay then. When was the last time I’ve eaten? Who cares, I’ll be out of here soon enough. I’ll treat myself to a steak dinner with red wine once I’m saved. A man perched up against the side of a run-down restaurant shot me daggers with his eyes. I wasn’t scared. I needed food. My hands tingled. Just keep your head down. I felt his eyes burn holes in my skull as I passed, but he must’ve assumed I didn’t have anything as he let me slip by. Little did any of these fools know, I had been covertly collecting stacks from neglected balloons. I know the others have also been stocking up, but they aren’t as anonymous. They scream, beat, and kill for their portions. No matter. I keep my riches concealed away beneath stacks of paper in the filing cabinet next to my desk. The idiots wouldn’t look. They targeted what was right in front of their eyes, not what they couldn’t see. It was easier for them that way. It gave them an excuse to mutilate one another. I was growing weak. Radio static hummed for me to rise, but my body hurt. My skin felt tight around my bones and I was bruising in abnormal spots. I saw a balloon float past the windowpane outside. As quickly as I could, I rose in a cacophony of cracks and pops from my joints. As soon as I was up, however, I spotted a tall man across the street stomping toward the balloon. He was facing me and could noticeably see my eyes set on the prize. To my surprise, he began ferociously barking and biting in my direction. With a snap of teeth and airborne saliva, he picked up pace straight toward me. I was in such utter shock, that I fell backward onto my rump. I felt a lightning strike of pure pain zap my tailbone and dance up my spine. The tall man bounded for the latex and hooked onto it, emitting a squeak from the thing as if it were a cornered rabbit. Pop! Everyone perked their ears up. Heads snapped up around me in the office. The Wasted arose to investigate, sniffing out the scene like a couple of hound dogs. The tall man took a few steps backward after meeting the gaze of the rabid office-dwellers. They were after him before he could even snatch up the bills, teeth clacking and arms extended with long fingernails ready to claw. The Wasted were on him in an instant, clawing, shouting, shoving, biting, hitting, blood-spattered out from the fight like a lawn sprinkler. There were sounds like trudging through mud, wet, repetitive squelches. As the Wasted dispersed with fists full of green, I saw now what the sounds were. A man and a woman took turns stomping their feet into the tall man’s face, caving his skull in until he was utterly unrecognizable. He was limp now, another useless cadaver left to fester on the sidewalk that people scrambled over to collect their winnings from the balloons. It was all beginning to feel like a sick game and the Wasted were the players. Watching the players accumulate their profits daunted me into protective mode. Like an angry dog guarding his food, I curled up close to the filing cabinet with my share of cash inside. They wouldn’t take it from me. I wouldn’t let them. If I had to, I would become one of them. With no laws, no rules, no regulations, I had to fend for myself to preserve what was rightfully mine. That night, it wasn’t the radio static that lulled me into a blissful sleep. It was the money. I slept knowing I would be okay then.. . . . . It rained all through the night and into the next day, sounds of rushing water roared past the office building. But it wasn’t the rainwater pouring down the street drains that awoke me. It was…breathing. I felt hot breath blowing on my face before I had the chance to open my eyes. It was rancid and stinking, vomit-inducing. I scrunched up my nose when I inhaled it, like the breath of a dead person. My eyes shot open in a flash to be met with the open mouth of a dirty man in disarray. Yellow and black teeth like broken piano keys and skin scarred and blemished from years of age. He wasn’t looking at me though, but above me. He hadn’t noticed my eyes open, instead, his attention was fixed on something else. My pupils slowly scanned upward to see where he was looking. To my dismay, he was peeking through the filing cabinet drawers directly above my head. His mouth hung open in concentration as his dirty fingers picked through papers and files. He knew what I was hiding. He was there to steal it. He was so frail and emaciated, it wouldn’t take much of a fight to fend him off. I couldn’t let him take what I had earned. I was on him in the blink of an eye, I chose to go for his neck. I didn’t have a weapon so I used my teeth. I clamped my canines around his jugular and pulled backward, attempting to tear out his throat. He howled like a wounded dog and thrashed around, grabbing at my face with force and digging his grimy nails into my saggy jowls. I wouldn’t relent. Letting him go would mean letting him have a second chance to rob, or possibly even murder me. He tore himself free, but the skin of his neck remained hanging from my teeth. His throat was exposed and squirted dark blood from the opening, soaking his clothes and the ground beneath. His jaw chattered and he choked as he tried to spit out words. “I just…needed…some water.” Then he collapsed onto his back like a sack of flour. “Get up!” I shouted at him in regret and denial. “I’m so sorry, sir. Get up! Have some water!” I pleaded to the stiff man. I had deprived an innocent human being of life. Over what? A few stacks of cash I had no use for? He was as desperate as the rest of them and wanted to survive as much as I did. The rubbery flesh still draped over my chin and I spat it out like you would a flavorless piece of gum. I gagged at the salt and iron taste in my mouth until I was dry heaving repeatedly, no food or liquid in my stomach to come up. For the first time in my life, I had killed a man. But what did it matter? We were all going to die anyway. It was the fight that would get me to the end. And the end was sure to come, right? I would be okay then.. . . . . The static from my radio has died. My world is in complete silence now. All I have is my money and my guilty thoughts. I dragged the man’s body outside to bathe in the rain and hopefully wash my sins away. It didn’t make me feel any better but he deserved a proper sendoff into the afterlife. He couldn’t have been older than 30 and I had taken every chance of a future away from him. So young. And I, so selfish. The balloons had fallen. The sky was empty now. Black latex adorned the streets along with the bodies of the greedy. The Wasted were all concealed away now, counting their cash with blood-soaked hands. I couldn’t rid my mouth of the taste of blood and skin. It lingered and taunted me. My body was so very feeble and indisposed, that I found it tedious to even raise an arm. It was still raining. Why was it still raining? My little, old radio lay right by my head but it would not speak to me. All I heard was the rain now, the neverending rain. How I longed for the static to return. I decided I would buy myself a radio when I was saved. It would bring me peace, forgive me for my sins for they were necessary. Why does my body ache this way? I can’t move. Stop raining. My money, can’t let them find the money. God, help me. Then a noise. Muffled whispers tickled my ears. Someone was telling me something, but who? Their voice was interrupted by a crackling noise, static. My radio. It wasn’t just the static speaking to me, there was a woman. She was trying to tell me something. I strained my hearing to decipher her words, they sounded so broken, so alien. For once, I wished the static would go away, I needed to hear her, whoever she was. “Doomed.” She cut through. “We are all doomed.” What? I couldn’t of heard correctly. Any second now she’d notify me that rescue was on its way. I would be lifted up on a stretcher and they’d take me to a hospital where I’d finally be fed and given fluids through an IV. “I hope you received our message.” Her voice came through low and distorted, my radio didn’t have much longer. “But I must tell you, all of you, of what is to come.” Yes, salvation. We’re going to make it and our pockets will be heavy with money to spend. She continued speaking but the static was overtaking what little I could hear. “Escape…its coming…Godspeed.” And then silence. No voice. No static. My radio had held on long enough, it deserved to rest. I shed a tear down my sunken face and it stained my cheekbone. Escape, of course. The balloons foretold it all. Then, a sudden, rushing noise pervaded the air and shook the building. It sounded like a jet engine. They were here. I was saved. My eyes scanned the sky outside, pure white. I didn’t understand. There were no gray clouds, no rain, no sun. The sky was bleached and colorless and the rushing noise grew louder above me. The sound of something cutting through the air overtook the deafening rushing and I knew they’d be here soon. My eyes fluttered shut as I awaited my escape. I would be okay then. Credit: Mia Gridley Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.