Balloons Are Out There

(or, “The B-Files”)

“I take it you have a working theory,” said Molly, looking away from the crime scene to her partner Scalder.

FBI agents Molly and Scalder had been on many strange cases before, but few were perplexing local authorities as much as this series of disappearances. Agent Scalder looked around the destroyed flat, finding smashed furniture, overturned bookshelves, scattered fragments of latex, and shredded clothing on the floor.

Scalder, kneeling on the floor and examining the torn clothes, gave only the faintest hint of a grin. “Maybe.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Molly asked.

Scalder rose to his feet to face his lovely, heavily freckled partner. Unlike his fellow male co-workers, Scalder seems curiously immune to his tall, leggy partner’s undeniable physical charms, despite her totally inappropriate-for-work attire, which included skin-tight black leather pants and and high-heeled boots. Two nearby agents had been so distracted by her ass that they accidentally tied each other up in crime-scene tape.

“Would you believe me?” Scalder asked, ever-so-slightly amused.

“Probably not,” Molly admitted. “But we’ve seen a lot of really weird cases, so just spit it out.”

“This girl exploded.”

Molly tilted her pretty head, her long red hair cascading down her shoulder. “Residents said they heard an explosion, yes,” she conceded, “but where’s the body? Where’s the bomb residue?”

“It wasn’t a bomb,” her taciturn partner explained. “She blew up like a balloon until she popped.”

Molly giggled. “Scalder, really. People don’t pop like balloons. And again, I ask you: Where’s the body? The bones, the internal organs?”

“That’s all that’s left of her,” said Scalder, pointing to the shredded latex pieces littering the floor. “I tested pieces just like that at the last crime scenes. They’re organic.”

“Everything’s organic.”

“That used to be skin,” he said seriously. “I think we’re dealing with a new drug, one that hasn’t been identified by police yet because any trace of it disappears with the victim. I think the person is transmogrified into a balloon and inflates until they burst. Or they inflate and transmogrify at detonation. The result’s the same.”

“That’s crazy. Based on what evidence?”

“The torn clothes, the latex-like skin fragments, the explosions that ear-witnesses hear but with no fire or concussive force.”

“So, obviously, they inflated like balloons and popped,” Molly said sarcastically.

“Yes,” said Scalder, the sarcasm either ignored or unperceived. “The room is a shambles because she outgrew her room. There’s nothing stolen. The door was locked from the inside. No forced entry.”

“So she committed suicide?”

“Of sorts.”

“But there’s no note. Friends say she suffered no depression.”

“Oh, I assure you, she wasn’t depressed,” Scalder said. “She was most likely in total ecstasy. Inflating was probably her dream. She wanted to be bigger, to turn into a big helpless ball. Maybe she even wanted to explode. But I’m positive she went out happy.”

“And with a bang,” Molly said, chuckling briefly before stifling it, perhaps sensing it was inappropriate.

“That she did.”

“So all these recent disappearances, you think they’re all self-inflicted?”

“No, this is the only one. The disappearance of those two cheerleaders? That was probably an initiation gone wrong. Or maybe they dared each other to take the drug to see who could be bigger. Cheerleaders take their rivalries VERY seriously.”

“And the others?”

“Not sure,” Scalder admitted. “They may have been force-fed the drug, or maybe tricked into taking it, thinking it was harmless. Again, until we verify that this WAS a new kind of drug, this is just speculation. But you know the adage: Eliminate the impossible—”

“—and whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the answer,” Molly finished. “But this still seems awfully impossible to me.”

“Like you said, Molly,” said Scalder, “we’ve seen weirder things.” He turned and headed back to his car.

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Molly, before following him out, with other agents watching her ass.

Michelle awoke on the floor, an odd taste in her mouth, like a mix of blueberries and rubbing alcohol. She struggled to remember her last conscious thoughts. She was dressed only in her bra and knickers, as she had been heading to bed when—

She shuddered at the recollection and bolted upright. A shadowy figure had grabbed her from behind, forcing a cloth into her face. Chloroform? In any case, she’d half expected to awaken in the boot of a car, so waking on the floor of her own flat gave her mild, but palpable, relief.

Until she saw, seated in an unlit part of the room, the same shadowy figure, who just gazed back at her.

Michelle swallowed. “What do you want?”

“I already have what I want.”

Michelle waited for more, but got nothing. “Are—are you keeping me prisoner?”

“Not at all,” said the voice. “You’re free to go if you wish.”

Michelle thought there had to be a catch. But she decided not to wait around with this stranger any longer. She stood up and raced to the door.

She never made it.

She quickly stopped running when her belly shot out over her knickers, as if she’d suddenly become pregnant in just an instant. “What did you do to me?”

The shadowy figure just watched. Michelle’s belly continued to expand until it became comically large. Then her breasts expanded, quickly stretching her bra to its limits. Then her legs, torso, and extremities all billowed out, puffing up and outward.

Michelle tried to scream, but all she could do was gasp. She was hyperventilating, unable to control the air that was filling her up like a balloon.

As her body grew rounder, her bra strap snapped, sending it shooting over her sphere-like midsection and into the far wall. Ripping sounds from her panties soon followed, which dropped to her puffy feet.

Her over-filled arms stuck out to her sides and her legs shortened as she continued growing into a large ball that seemed to absorb her.

“You’re getting bigger,” the shadowy figure told her, stating the obvious in a way that suggested that Michelle’s ordeal was somehow erotic. “Let’s see if you touch the ceiling before you explode.”

Explode? At that, Michelle let out a plaintive whimper.

But Michelle could only stare at her body in fascination as she continued to expand. Soon her middle was nothing but a smooth, round sphere. Her inflated head, as well as her stubby hands and feet, were all the only human touches left on this growing balloon.

Admittedly…it didn’t feel too bad. In fact, Michelle admitted that she was feeling almost an orgasmic sense of well-being, one that only increased along with her size. But explode? Would she really meet her end in this humiliating way? Just for this sick pervert’s kick?

The thought made her struggle against her condition, but all she could do was to wobble helplessly.

Her struggles seemed to only amuse her tormenter. “Do you feel it? Do you feel yourself about to burst?”

Michelle could only grunt in a mixture of pleasure and terror. Then she heard a rubbery squeak. Then another.

“Bye bye.”

Michelle’s could almost touch the ceiling—

BANG.

Michelle exploded like a bomb—but with no accompanying flames, only shreds of latex-like pieces fluttering around the room like balloon shrapnel.

The shadowy figure sighed in satisfaction before rising and stepping out of the shadows, to finally stand out in the moonlight.

Molly sighed, feeling the wet spot in her tight, leather pants. “So good…,” she murmured to herself.

There was a slow clap at the doorway, and Molly gasped, spinning around.

Scalder stood watching her, his ironic applause fading. “Quite a show, Molly.”

Molly approached him. “You knew?”

“Not until recently,” he admitted. “You got careless. An eye witness spotted that tight leather ass of yours.”

She gave her sexy head tilt again. “So are you going to turn me in?”

Scalder paused for a long, pregnant moment. Then he gave only the slightest of grins. “Of course not. You’re my partner.”

“So now what?”

He leaned close to her. “That depends on how much of that drug you have left.”