The sign didn't come in the form of major news or a corpse in an alley.
It came in the form of a short, almost silly message that Brittany received on Friday afternoon.
Her cousin from Trenton had written again. This time, she wasn't talking about the dead man or the smile on the wall. She was talking about something more recent and closer to Morris than any of them would have liked.
> They say they saw balloons near a parking lot on the road toward Morristown last night.
I don't know if it's a lie.
But people are acting strange again.
Brittany read the message twice before calling Vivian.
—It's not Trenton —she said without preamble when Vivian answered—.
It's closer.
Vivian remained silent for several seconds.
—Balloons?
—That's what it says.
No confirmation of a clown. No confirmation of a dead body.
Just balloons. And scared people.
That same night, they managed to tell Ana and Madeleine. It wasn't a full meeting; the distance was still a problem. But the four of them talked long enough for the message to be clear:
Something had started moving again.
And this time, it wasn't that far away.
Ana was the most direct:
—If things start showing up in Morris, then it's no longer another county's problem.
Madeleine, her voice quieter, simply said:
—Then the limit of waiting has gotten shorter.
No one argued with that.
---
The next day, Vivian and Brittany stayed after school on the empty bleachers by the field. The wind stirred up a little dust, and the distant shouts of the soccer team practicing could be heard.
Brittany held her phone between her hands, as if she were waiting for another message.
—What now? —she asked—.
Do we keep holding back, or do we admit that this has gotten too big for us to just write it down in a notebook?
Vivian looked out at the field.
—We're not going to search parking lots at night.
That would be stupid.
—I know.
But I can't pretend nothing happened either.
Vivian nodded slowly.
—We tell the others.
We stay more alert.
If something more concrete happens… we talk about it again.
All four of us.
It wasn't a heroic decision.
It was the only thing they could afford to do without crossing the line Ana had made clear.
---
Ryan found out that same night.
Not because he was glued to them twenty-four hours a day. He had simply gone up to a rooftop out of boredom, as he had done before, and caught the tone of the conversation on the bleachers. Balloons. Closer. The change in the way Brittany squeezed her phone and Vivian tried not to rush into anything.
He sat on the edge of the roof and let out a quiet laugh.
—Of course…
Just when they were starting to get tired of waiting.
He hadn't left the sign. At least, not consciously. But the effect was the same: the board had moved again, and the four of them could feel it.
Now came the part that interested him the most.
How should he enter?
He had spent days thinking about it.
He had written ideas in his notebook and discarded them one by one.
The most direct option was to appear out of nowhere.
Walk into Vivian's room one night, or into whichever room they happened to be gathered in, sit down as if nothing were wrong, and start talking in the same voice he had used in the letters.
Ryan imagined the scene and immediately shook his head.
Too much.
It would scare them in a way that wouldn't be fun anymore.
Ana would probably shut down completely.
Madeleine would freeze.
Brittany would react with anger.
And Vivian… Vivian would think too quickly, and her fear would mix with calculation.
No.
Appearing inside a room was a bad entrance.
Dramatic, yes.
But cheap.
Another idea: a balloon first.
A short letter.
Something announcing that he wanted to talk without forcing them to do anything.
More elegant.
More similar to what he had already done when he "hired" them.
He also thought about appearing at a distance.
On an empty street.
At the edge of a parking lot.
Letting them see him, recognize the silhouette, and disappear before they could do anything. Just enough to remind them that he was watching them too.
He discarded that one too quickly.
Fear without conversation again.
It wouldn't serve his purpose.
What he wanted wasn't simply to scare them.
He wanted to measure them.
He wanted to see how far they were willing to go now that the rumor had moved into their own county.
Ryan ran a hand over his face.
—Not yet…
But the "yet" no longer sounded as long as it had the week before.
---
At Vivian's house that night, the notebook was opened again.
Brittany wrote the new entry with tense handwriting:
Balloons – near the road toward Morristown – clown and victim unconfirmed – people scared.
Below it, Vivian added:
Shorter distance.
Possible pattern.
Do not act.
Observe.
When they finished, they stared at the page.
—If this keeps getting closer —Brittany said quietly—, at some point we're going to have to make a real decision.
Vivian closed the notebook.
—I know.
But not today.
---
Ryan returned to his room later.
He turned on the lamp, opened his notebook, and firmly crossed out the idea of appearing inside a room.
Next to it, he wrote:
Discarded: too aggressive.
It closes them off instead of opening them up.
Below it, he left two other lines uncrossed:
Letter / balloon beforehand.
Controlled appearance from a distance + brief conversation.
He stared at those two options for a while.
He still hadn't chosen.
He could still wait a little longer.
But the sign had already arrived.
And both the girls and he
knew that the time for simply watching
was coming to an end.
Ryan closed the notebook.
He smiled faintly in the darkness.
—Their turn to get nervous.
Then… it'll be my turn to decide how I enter.
He turned off the light.
Outside, in Morris County, four girls tried to sleep with the feeling that the balloons
weren't as far away
as they had been the week before.