Welcome to Night Vale

by Joseph Fink

  The light of Jerry’s Tacos was the most inviting thing she’d seen all day. It was a small stand, only recently reopened after an ugly incident a few years back involving a time traveler, but already word was around that the food was worth the years of waiting and silence that had preceded it.

  She pulled into the lot, relieved to have so simple a task in front of her as ordering food and then consuming it. Reaching into her pocket, she added paper of a different sort and with a different kind of value than the paper already in her hand.

  The only other car in the lot was a silver pickup. Full-size. Well worn. Tall. Long. The windows gray with dried dirt. She had seen it many times. It belonged to John Peters (you know, the farmer?).

  He was at the window, already picking up an order of the house specialty, a mysteriously crunchy enchilada.

  “Hey, John,” she shouted as she walked up.

  He turned, crunchy enchilada in hand.

  “Howdy there, Jackie. How goes it with pawning?”

  She posted an elbow up on the counter and waved away the shadow on the other side of the frosted glass that was waiting for her order.

  “It goes. For sure it goes. I’m just, well, taking a break I guess. People take breaks. How goes it with, you know, farming?”

  “Ah, it is what it is. It’s farming, you know.”

  “Sure.”

  A big crunchy bite of enchilada.

  “Man, that looks good.” She turned to the shadowy figure behind the glass. “I’ll take one of those and one Jerry’s Special Taco. How much do I owe you?”

  A receipt popped out from under the glass. She took a look at the price.

  “Really? Jesus.”

  John Peters watched her force a tear out onto the receipt and push it back under the glass. The price paid, the food was delivered through a hatch moments later.

  “Prices here have gone up a bit,” said John.

  “Tell me about it.”

  They both dug into their food. When nothing else works, eating sure does.

  “What do you know about a man in a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase?” Jackie asked, not wanting to break the easy quiet of eating, but also not wanting to hang on to the question.

  John stopped chewing.

  “Have you seen a man in a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Except I don’t remember much about him.”

  “No,” said John. “Wouldn’t suppose you would. He has that effect on people.”

  Jackie looked out from the pool of light they were standing in to the dark desert beyond. There was movement there. She swore that she could see the tan-jacketed man in question sprinting just at the edge of the light. More blur than person, but still with the desperate run that was away from something rather than toward.

  “Is that—?” she asked what could only be herself, given that John wasn’t looking.

  She dropped her food on the counter and started away from the stand, but John stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

  “Don’t bother. Wouldn’t catch him, probably. And wouldn’t remember if you did. He’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “If I were you I’d stay away from his town.” He pointed at her hand. She held up the paper.

  “King City?” Jackie asked.

  “KING CITY,” the paper confirmed.

  “He’s here because of Diane, I think,” he said.

  “Diane Crayton?”

  “Don’t know if he’s helping or hunting her, but he certainly always seems to be lurking around wherever she is.”

  “Diane Crayton,” Jackie repeated, in answer to her own question. She considered this information.

  “Wouldn’t go anywhere near that town of his if it were me,” he said. “Who knows what you’d find, or what you’d find out and then wish you hadn’t.”

  He picked up a Styrofoam cup full of horchata and took a long slurp from it, his eyes on where the man may or may not have been running.

  “Mostly we don’t get destroyed,” John said. “Mostly we destroy ourselves.”

  Another car pulled into the lot. It was a well-preserved Chrysler from at least a couple if not a few decades past. Out of it came a woman about which much the same could be said.

  “Mom?” Jackie said, as the woman entered Jerry’s Tacos.

  Jackie’s mom smiled. She was wearing the exact same clothes as she had been that morning.

  “Hello, John. How goes the farming?”

  “Till we get some of that federal water here, mostly I grow imaginary corn. Grows just as well as anything else. Sells pretty well too. Plus doesn’t take much work.”

  “I would not imagine it would, no.”

  Her mother said hello to the shadow (Jerry?) behind the glass, glanced over the regular menu, and, not finding anything to her liking, said the code phrase to receive the secret menu.

  “I am comfortable with secrets,” she said, then did a quick scan of the proffered yellow page. “Well, I have to say, it all sounds so good. I’ll take the number four, and I’ll never tell a soul.”

  “Mom, did you always have that car?”

  Her mother looked up from the menu.

  “Yes, of course, dear. I’ve only ever had that car. Who ever would have more than one car in their life?”

  “Right. Yeah, no. I know.” But why did Jackie not remember it at all?

  “Have to get back to farming I suppose,” said John, standing in the open doorway.

  “It’s dark out,” Jackie’s mother said.

  “Indeed it is,” he said, shading his eyes and looking up at the night sky. “It’s completely dark out. Well, better get back to it.”

  He winked, tossed the wrappers and cup into a trash can, and tossed himself back into his truck.

  “Mom, you were saying earlier about me as a kid.”

  “Yes, dear, suppose I was.” Her mother pulled some napkins from the dispenser and sat down. She didn’t look at Jackie.

  “What was that about?”

  Her mother laughed. She kept laughing.

  “Mom, what is going on? Why won’t you tell me?”

  Her mother didn’t stop laughing. Also, she was crying. Jackie wasn’t sure what to do. Her mother’s food showed up and her mother was still laughing and also crying. Pausing several times along the way, Jackie moved toward where her mother was hunched at the counter, extending an arm and placing it across her mother’s back. Jackie looked out the windows toward her own car. She wished she could laugh and weep, too. She felt as though everything had been taken away from her, even though only most things had.

  Jackie stared past her car at the dust of John’s departure swirling in the edge of light and darkness, where she could still see movement that looked like a running man.

  “Diane Crayton,” she said to herself. She couldn’t hear her mother anymore.

  19

  Diane watches the local news quite a bit.

  Even when the cable is out, she watches the local news. The local news has a strong broadcast frequency, so even if one did not have cable, one would still receive the local television newscast. Even if one had working cable, the local news broadcast would come in on all channels. Or even if one did not have an antenna. Even if one turned one’s television off, sometimes the frequency is just so strong. So very, very strong. It is hard to turn off the news.

  That’s the local news station’s slogan: “It’s hard to turn off the news. Go ahead. Try. See?”

  In any case, Diane watches local television news because it speaks to her. It literally speaks to her.

  One of the morning news coanchors—who was wearing a necktie and a coat and who had hollow eyes and sharp teeth and who cannot see themself in still photographs—said, “Diane Crayton. Hello.”

  Diane said nothing at first, because she was eating cereal. It was the morning and she had just gotten out of the shower before work. In the shower, she had suddenly had a thought about all the space w
ithin the walls of a house and how much space that would add up to if it were all turned into one hollow cube. She had no idea where the thought had come from.

  “Hello, Diane,” said the coanchor’s coanchor.

  “Hi. Hello. Good morning,” Diane replied, politely covering her face and chewing the remainder of her mouthful of Flakey O’s, cereal made by a local company known for its aggressive and controversial advertising.

  “How is Josh?” said the second coanchor, who wore a brown suitcoat with ivory lapels, who wore their hair down, who had shiny maroon lips and nails and bright red eyes.

  Josh had already caught the bus to school. The day after their talk was good. The day after that day was less good. The days after those days had returned to averted eyes and closed doors.

  Diane had gotten some concerned calls from the school about Josh skipping classes and doing dangerous things like expressing public curiosity about the mysterious lights that pass over Night Vale at night, and trying to enter the City Council chambers without protective gear. He had also been coming home late each day.

  She had tried to talk to him about Ty, but Josh looked annoyed when she brought it up. He would just roll his thin, yellow eyes, his long ears flat across the top of his skull, and say, “It’s fine,” or “Nothing new,” or “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Is Josh all right?” said the second news anchor.

  “He’s fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  Diane did not answer.

  “He’s going through a lot, Diane,” said the first coanchor, and the two coanchors shared a smile. (Was that a smile?)

  “He had a crush on someone, I think, I guess, and it didn’t work out,” Diane said. She wasn’t eating cereal anymore.

  “Is that all that’s bothering him? Just a failed crush?” the second coanchor pushed on, showing at least some background in journalism.

  “I don’t know. I wish I knew. I don’t know. He seems different or like something has gotten off the rails inside him, and I don’t know how to nudge him back. He’s been texting in class. When he even shows up for class.”

  “Is he texting a particular person?”

  “Not that I was told.”

  “Definitely check your phone records, Diane,” the first anchor said, leaning farther over the desk than seemed possible.

  “It’s a little invasive.”

  “You’re his mother. You are allowed to be invasive as long as he is living under your roof with you paying the bills,” the second coanchor said.

  “And it’s not like you’re averse to checking other people’s phone records,” the other added.

  And here the two coanchors laughed tinnily, with trained rigor, and there was a low rumble felt by many people across Night Vale for the next few seconds.

  “I don’t think it’s just about a crush,” said one of the anchors.

  “I agree with Tim,” said the other.

  “Thank you, Trinh.”

  “Last night, when I saw him,” said Diane, “he was small, about the size of a basketball. And like a basketball, he was round. Unlike a basketball, he was smooth and dark and heavy. I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s like that.”

  “You do not know how many parents say that, Diane,” Tim purred, smiling, eyebrow tilted. There was a rapid clicking sound from the back of Tim’s throat, or “thorax” as news anchors call it.

  “You must be there for him,” Trinh said.

  “But what does that mean? I stand outside his door. I knock. I say ‘Josh.’ I say it twice. I tell him there is dinner. I tell him there is television. He says ‘cool.’ That’s all. Everything is ‘cool.’ And he stops going to class.”

  There was a high scream from somewhere in Diane’s house, and the sound of a mirror cracking. The refrigerator opened, and a carton of almond milk hit the floor as if it had been slapped off its shelf. (It had.) The faceless old woman who secretly lives in her home was on one of her rampages again.

  “Dammit.” Diane rolled her eyes and stood up.

  “Relax, Diane. The milk is not a disaster. It does not need tending to right away.”

  “Yes, finish your story.”

  “Well, when he does come out of his room, he sits without speaking. His eyes retract. His hair grows long around his hands and feet, silky and straight and soft. His nostrils expand. What am I supposed to say to that? What is the right thing to do?”

  She sighed, watching the almond milk spread across the floor.

  “Honestly, there are times when I want to hit him,” she said. She had not known she was going to say it.

  The coanchors glanced at each other and shuffled blank papers on their fake desk. The almond milk pooled against the cabinets. She needed to get a paper towel to wipe it up but didn’t feel like she could move.

  “I mean I would never do that. I just think it. Does this make me a bad person?”

  “You are only a bad person if you do bad things,” said the second anchor.

  “Thank you.”

  “That’s not an acquittal, Diane. The counterpoint is that you are only a good person if you do good things.”

  “Turn off the television and look at this knife I found on eBay,” whispered the voice of the faceless old woman over Diane’s shoulder. She turned and looked down the hall, more out of habit than out of interest. It was empty and unnaturally dark. She felt a finger brush her cheek.

  The faceless old woman does not like it when people watch television. Diane didn’t see her, had never seen her, but she looked down and there was a long hunting knife on the table. It was dull from use, but clean and otherwise in excellent shape.

  “It’s a nice knife, Faceless Old Woman. Did you get a good deal on it?”

  No reply.

  She turned off the television. The anchors remained on-screen, talking about tornado safety in the desert, and her mind raced with the possibilities of how to better express her love to Josh.

  A good person is a person who does good things. It was a deceptively simple prescription because it implied that she or anyone else knew what good things are. What could she do in this situation that was good, and by what standard?

  She grabbed her phone and typed, “Son, I’m sorry I can be difficult. I’m sorry for whatever you are going through, and you don’t have to tell me. But I’m your mother, and if there’s something we—” She reached the text character limit.

  Diane does not like sending a single message in multiple texts. She deleted words. She wrote words. She changed the part about not needing to tell her anything to something about how there are some things mothers need to know about, and if it’s a serious prob——

  Character limit.

  She deleted things and retyped things, something about setting aside one night. Just one night. An hour even. To talk. Even if they just talked about TV shows.

  Delete.

  Rewrite. Something about knowing how hard it is to be a teenager.

  Delete.

  Something that started with “How’s class?” but then devolved into wanting to talk later.

  Delete.

  Diane stared at her phone. The last text exchange between Josh and her was from a couple days ago. The final message was her: “what time u home?” The text before that was also from Diane: “running late; stopping for food; want anything?” She scrolled back through her and Josh’s texts. A few weeks prior, there was this one from Josh: “sorry sent to the wrong person.” The text before that was Josh on the same date: “i definitely want to meet him.”

  Diane had forgotten this misdirected text. She read it again with the recent context of his note about meeting a boy. Invasive, she thinks, when she sees something not meant for her. Good parenting, she thinks, when she has concern for her son’s well-being.

  Josh wanted to meet a boy. It wasn’t complicated. He was having a difficult time allowing her into a world that was already fraught with self-loathing and discomfort. Josh simply wanted to meet some b
oy, and her prying put him on edge. A crush. A teenager in an early approximation of love. It was sweet.

  She did not cry, but she pre-cried.

  “Reminder: I love you very much. That is all.” She sent the text.

  The pre-crying turned to crying. A good cry. A sad, but good cry. The anchors on the television glanced over at her with concern but continued to report the news. She felt a hand rub her back gently.

  “Thanks, Faceless Old Woman,” she said. “That feels nice.”

  Her phone buzzed. She looked down. Josh had texted back.

  “I want to meet Troy.”

  THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE

  CECIL: And now, the community calendar.

  Saturday is a softball game between Night Vale Community Radio and Night Vale Local News TV. I don’t mind telling you, this is not a game I enjoy. The creatures that work in television news, because of the shape and quantity of their appendages, often hold the bat in ways that are unsettling to the human eye. They usually win by creeping out the other team so much that the opposing team all goes to sit mutely on the bench while the TV News team plays their way to a win on an empty field. Come out for what should be a great game!

  Sunday is the annual Imaginary Corn Festival and Fun Fair, celebrating our town’s most important crop. Come try out some simple and healthy imaginary corn recipes and take part in a costume contest sponsored by the Night Vale Daily Journal. They are asking that everyone dress up as the decline of the printed word in a society reverting to a state of brainless animality. The best costume wins one year of not being forced to purchase several Daily Journal subscriptions by newspaper employees armed with hatchets. There will also be rides and carnival games and apprehensive excitement and hoped-for futures and stomach pains and sweat and disappointment and sweat and sweat and love and glances that mean more than they should but less than they need to and a dunking booth.

  Monday will be free-sample day at the Sheraton Funeral Home.

  Tuesday will be reversed. We will rise tired from sleep to find that it is night and brush plaque onto our teeth. We will move backwards to work, where we will undo spreadsheets, lose ideas to dissipating meetings, and unsee hundreds of cat pictures. Then, returning with a buzz of caffeine to our homes, we will spit liquid alertness into cups and, refreshed but groggy, return to dreams that we faintly, just faintly, remember.