Chapter XVII: The Dead Zone

The containment lights had once meant safety.

When Runecorp first sealed the roads surrounding Boron, survivors looked toward those cold white lights on the horizon and believed someone had finally come to save them. Barricades were erected. Checkpoints appeared along the highways. The infected were supposed to remain inside while whatever remained beyond the perimeter stayed untouched.

For a while, it almost worked.

Then sections of the perimeter began going dark.

One light disappeared along the eastern road. Hours later, three more vanished near the forest. Radio transmissions became increasingly frantic as Runecorp teams reported failures at checkpoints that had been considered secure only hours earlier.

By morning, nobody was talking about containment anymore.

They were talking about The Dead Zone.

It was the name survivors had given to the land between the carnival and Runecorp's failing perimeter: abandoned roads, dark forests, empty farms, and forgotten neighborhoods where nobody knew what waited around the next corner. Entering meant accepting that help might never reach you.

Something had escaped into it.

Something the carnival knew very well.

Before the outbreak, children would search the midway for The Balloon Man.

He had been impossible to miss. His stand overflowed with brilliant reds, blues, yellows, and purples. Balloons floated above his wagon in enormous clusters while children gathered below, pointing toward whichever one they wanted to carry home.

Few knew the truth about those balloons.

Fewer still understood the man handing them out.

But whatever darkness existed inside The Balloon Man before the outbreak was nothing compared with what The Stranger's infection had turned him into.

The sickness had found him sometime during the first night.

Nobody knew exactly when.

Perhaps he'd eaten one of The Stranger's treats. Perhaps he'd encountered one of the infected while trying to escape. By the time anyone saw him again, the transformation had already begun.

The Balloon Man was still wearing his clown paint.

That somehow made it worse.

The infection had twisted what was once theatrical into something horrifying. His painted smile remained even when the expression beneath it no longer did. His carnival clothes were torn and filthy from wandering beyond the midway, and wherever he traveled, balloons followed.

Always the balloons.

Survivors began finding them along the roads.

A red balloon tied to an abandoned fence.

A yellow one floating above an empty farmhouse.

Three blue balloons tangled in the branches of a dead maple.

At first, people assumed they had simply escaped from the carnival.

Then they noticed the strings.

Someone had tied them there.

Warnings began spreading through Boron.

If you see a balloon, turn around.

Nobody knew whether The Balloon Man was hunting people intentionally or whether enough of his former self remained to understand what he was doing. It didn't matter.

People disappeared.

The balloons remained.

Soon stories traveled between the surviving shelters. Someone claimed they'd heard laughter in the forest after midnight. Another swore they had seen a cluster of balloons moving between the trees without anyone holding them. A family hiding inside an old farmhouse reported hearing something gently tapping against an upstairs window.

When they finally looked outside, a single crimson balloon floated against the glass.

They left before sunrise.

The Dead Zone grew larger every day.

Runecorp's perimeter continued collapsing as the infected pushed farther into the surrounding countryside. Roads once considered secure were abandoned. Radio towers went silent. Checkpoints stopped responding.

Whatever experiment Runecorp believed it could control had become something else entirely.

And somewhere inside that expanding darkness wandered a creature that had been dangerous long before the infection ever reached Boron.

Night fell early beneath the heavy autumn clouds.

A small group of survivors made their way along one of the old highways, hoping to reach the northern perimeter before another checkpoint disappeared. They had been warned not to stop for anything.

Then they found the balloon.

It floated above the center of the highway.

Bright red.

Perfectly still.

Its string had been tied carefully around a rusted road marker.

The survivors stopped.

Nobody spoke.

Beyond the road, the forest was completely dark.

Then another balloon rose slowly above the trees.

Yellow.

Then blue.

Then purple.

One after another, colorful balloons appeared among the branches until the forest looked almost festive beneath the moonlight.

Almost.

Somewhere beyond them came the faint sound of carnival music.

The survivors backed away.

A balloon popped.

Then another.

The music stopped.

For several seconds, the only sound was the autumn wind moving through the trees.

Then came laughter.

Low at first.

Distant.

Growing closer.

The survivors ran.

Behind them, dozens of balloons slowly lifted above the forest canopy.

The Runecorp checkpoint was still several miles away.

Whether it was still operating, nobody knew.

Whether they would reach it didn't matter nearly as much as another question.

One that everyone remaining in Boron would soon have to answer for themselves.

The carnival was no longer contained.

The infected were no longer contained.

And now The Balloon Man was somewhere beyond the gates.

Welcome to The Dead Zone.

Will you survive?