Welcome to Night Vale

by Joseph Fink

  Josh didn’t say anything. He vigorously rubbed his legs together because that was something he had seen flies do, but he didn’t know why they did that.

  “Why did you want to ride downtown with me?”

  “Just to hang out. Maybe go to the video store or something.”

  “First, you don’t get to skip school. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Second, you don’t get to hide from me. That is deceitful, Josh.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “And third.” She hesitated. “You were going to dig up records on your dad, right?”

  Josh didn’t respond.

  “I don’t want you doing that. He’s your father, yes, but I don’t trust him.”

  “You did at one point.”

  “I raised you for fifteen years. I fed you and clothed you. I loved you and still do. I love you because you have been with me for fifteen years. I am your mother because we have been together your whole childhood. I have earned you as my son.

  “Troy does not get to be your father simply because he participated in your creation. Troy does not get to earn your love as a son because you are biologically his. I have done the work. I have put in the time. I have loved you. Troy does not get to be my equal in your life because he has not earned it. I need to protect myself. And I need to protect you.

  “So promise me you will leave this all alone. And I will promise you that I will find out more about him, and, when the time is right, I will tell you.”

  “Okay,” the horsefly said. He didn’t sound like he thought it was okay.

  “Get moving, so you don’t miss your bus. No more of this, okay?”

  Diane pressed her finger to the automatic window button for the front passenger side. With a robotic whir, the window cracked open. The horsefly flew up and out in a loose spiral.

  “I love you,” she called out. “No flying.”

  “Okay,” came back the soft buzz from the human boy with the horsefly face.

  Later she would go over this conversation again and again in her head, one of the last they would have before he disappeared.

  24

  Jackie hit the steering wheel of her car, which did not hurt the car at all. Sometimes it is easy to forget which things in the world can feel pain and which cannot.

  What did Diane know about this? What was her connection? Could she be the mastermind behind the blond man and the man in the tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase and maybe even Jackie’s mother’s strange behavior?

  John Peters certainly seemed to think she was involved. And why not Diane? Wasn’t Night Vale a town full of hidden evils and the secretly malevolent? That was what the Tourism Board’s new brochures said right on the front (“A town full of hidden evils and the secretly malevolent”) along with a picture of a diverse group of townsfolk smiling and looking up at the camera in the windowless prison they would be kept in until enough tourists visited town to buy their release.

  If it was possible that Diane was behind any of this, then Jackie needed to talk to someone who knew her. Sure, she seemed nice, but lots of people and things seem nice yet are terrible underneath: like poisonous berries, rabid squirrels, or a smiling god. (Is that a smile?)

  This was how it was that Jackie ended up at the Night Vale Elementary Multipurpose Room, which was, among its multiple purposes, the headquarters of the Night Vale PTA. Diane had been the treasurer since back when her son was a student at the school, and had kept it up even as he had gone on to high school and puberty (and the myriad physical forms it had brought him). Josh was just a few years younger than Jackie, and she liked him well enough. Some of his shapes were a little scary, especially the dream forms, but in general he was a good kid. Jackie had always hoped that things would turn out well for him, in the vague way one feels goodwill toward semi-strangers. May his life turn out better than hers had.

  The multipurpose room was a cluttered space befitting its many uses. There was a small stage where school plays could be put on. There were stacks of folding chairs for PTA meetings and the various support organizations (Alcohol, Narcotics, Immortality) that used the room after school. There was a full bloodstone circle for bloodstone demonstration and worship, and a child-size bloodstone circle so that the students could try out the rites on their own. There was also a popcorn machine, but no one was allowed to touch it. No one was quite sure why touching it was disallowed, but warnings like that are worth heeding in Night Vale, and so it had been left alone for decades, in its supremely inconvenient place in the center of the room.

  “Diane?” Jackie said, hoping she wouldn’t be there. The best person to run into would be Susan Willman, who was known to be chatty and who was not on friendly terms with Diane. Susan would be thrilled to pass on any gossip she had about Diane. She also, Jackie knew, would be only too happy to make up gossip about Diane, so perhaps she wouldn’t be the best option after all. Jackie would have been fine with an empty room, so she could root around in PTA records and check for files or notes from Diane that might give her any new information. Her worst-case scenario was:

  “Oh, hi, Jackie!” Steve Carlsberg said. “Diane’s not around. I’m just tidying up for a meeting in here.”

  He gestured, and in gesturing knocked a cardboard box of files off a table, spilling them all over the floor.

  “Whoopsie-daisy! Let me just pick those up. Now what can I help you with?”

  Jackie sighed. Steve was fine. He was a nice man. But he was so . . . he was just . . . well, he was Steve Carlsberg. There’s always that guy. And Steve was him.

  “Hi, Steve,” she said, and helped him pick up the files. As she did, her paper did its mystical yo-yoing bit, which she had ceased to even notice. Steve gasped.

  “Woooow. So you got one of those papers? Luu-uu-uuucky.” He whistled, hands on his hips.

  “Lucky?” she said. “I can’t work, I’ve been seeing visions, and some creepy blond dude is following me around town. Plus, some days I feel like I can’t walk, can’t hardly breathe. Yeah, so this paper is superlucky.”

  Steve nodded. “That sounds like a blast. Nothing strange ever enters into my life, turning it upside down and forcing me to go on a journey of discovery in order to right things again. Not that I mind, of course. The PTA is rewarding in its own way, and it’s nice to get involved with what Janice is up to.”

  Janice was Steve’s stepdaughter. Her mother was the sister of Cecil, the local radio host. Steve and Cecil did not get along at all. It was something of a local joke, although Jackie guessed it was less funny if it was your family that had that kind of feud in it. She’d always felt bad for Janice, but Janice wasn’t the type of kid who let you feel bad for her.

  “So you know about these papers?” Jackie said.

  “KING CITY,” the proffered paper said.

  “Oh boy, yes,” Steve said. “Lots of folks have been getting those. Some fellow with a tan jacket, oh, what’s his name? I forget. I keep forgetting a lot about him. He’s been handing them out. I saw some folks at the bowling alley the other night. A whole team on lane nineteen just sitting there crying and clutching their left fists. I saw some of the stockers at the Ralphs standing in front of empty shelves, staring to the sky, small slips of paper hanging from their slack fingers. Every now and then I’d see someone shake the paper away, and it would spiral toward the linoleum floor, only to flutter back up into their hands, and collectively they would moan.

  “Once you get one, you can’t let go of it. Suppose that guy handing them out has a reason, but it might just be a hobby. I’ve been thinking of taking up beekeeping, but, you know, bees need a lot of space to run around and they’re expensive unless you keep them on a farm, and then what’s the point of having a pet you can’t keep in your apartment?”

  This was how it was what with Steve. The important bit buried in a lot of meandering digression.

  “A man in a tan jacket?”

  “Sure. Holding a deerskin suitcase. Don’t reme
mber much more about him than that. I took a picture of him. I think I have it around here somewhere.”

  He stuck the upper half of his body into a shelf and started shuffling papers around. As he searched, several other stacks of paper fell on the floor, and he came back up, sweating a bit from the exertion.

  Jackie felt repulsed by Steve. She had no idea why. He had never been anything other than kind to her, kind to everybody. As the old saying went: “Not all windowless vans have residential surveillance equipment.” In other words, not everything can be as good as it seems.

  “Well, isn’t that funny? I just can’t seem to keep it in my mind where that photo is,” Steve said. “It’s the darndest th——Whoa!”

  He waved his arms at her. She held her hands up, fingers splayed. The paper dropped, and dropped again, and dropped again.

  “You were almost leaning on the popcorn machine there,” Steve said. “Don’t want to do that.”

  “It’s not even hot, man,” Jackie said, about to touch the machine to demonstrate.

  “No, don’t!” His voice cracked.

  She sighed at the oppression of conventional wisdom but dropped her hand.

  “So the man in the tan jacket has been giving the paper to lots of people?”

  “Not sure how many, but certainly a good amount. Old Woman Josie has one, but I suppose you know that. I hear even Stacy got one recently, and she’s a sentient patch of haze. Lovely being. Once told me the best way to pickle grapes. It was a fun recipe. Never did try it.”

  “How well do you know Diane Crayton?” Jackie pressed.

  He laughed, although not at a joke. He laughed because he was happy. Jackie winced, although she could not say exactly what it was that annoyed her.

  “Great woman. Been working on the PTA with her for years. Never could get her to come around on invisible pie, but other than that we’ve never had a real difference on anything. We’ve talked a lot lately because she needs someone to talk through the whole Josh thing with. And all that stuff with Troy.”

  “Oh?” Jackie said. She failed to make her voice casual or patient. “Who is Troy?”

  “I really shouldn’t say.” Steve frowned. “Not my story to tell and all that. Hey, so can I see your paper?”

  “Yeah.”

  He sat down across from her, taking the paper from her hand. He studied it, admired it. His face was so full of excitement it was difficult for him to keep the words in order as they came barreling out of his mouth.

  “So you know how we’re always being watched by agents of a vague yet menacing government agency right? (“Sure.”) And how they’re linked somehow with the World Government? (“Mm.”) Well. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in Night Vale who thinks about this stuff but have you thought about why the World Government is interested in us? Or why there are always lights over the Arby’s? Or what those ghost cars are that come roaring down Route 800 late at night at impossible speeds and angles? I don’t know why those questions don’t eat at other people. Cecil gets downright mad when I ask them. (“Oh yeah?”) No one else sees them. But I do. Glowing arrows in the sky. Dotted lines. The entire world is a chart telling you how to understand it if you just look for them. (“Cool. Sure.”) Anyway, so what I think is that the World Government was so unwieldy at first that the leaders, green-skinned, yellow-eyed creatures that do not blink and refuse to ever physically look at the world they rule, they got together and split it into eight committees. And those committees were split into six subgroups each. And each of those subgroups had three chapters. It was all done to keep things organized, but in this way everyone lost sight of what they were supposed to be doing. (“. . .” [Jackie had given up even trying to pretend she was paying attention.]) Instead of governing the world, the chapters and the subgroups and the committees just bickered with each other over who was in charge of what, and which Red Roof Inn the World Government holiday party would be held in. And all of their agents no longer understand whose agenda they should be following, let alone have even the smallest idea of what that agenda would look like. So these agents are as vague as their agency, practicing their skills without any direction but keeping whatever competing committee or chapter or whatever is in the area out of its way, even though they’ve lost track completely of what they’re competing over. What is terrifying, I think, about the World Government is not that the world is held under an iron fist, but that the world is sand scooped up in a sieve. The people running it have no more idea than us why there are lights in the sky above the Arby’s or why there are ghost cars. Terrifying, right? I think the grand conspiracy of our world is just an argument between idiots.”

  Deep breath. Both of them. Jackie had been watching a leaf on a branch outside wave back and forth, almost falling but not.

  “And this piece of paper.” Steve held up empty, pinched fingers attempting emphasis. He looked at his paperless hand. Jackie showed him the paper in her own.

  “What about it?” Jackie asked.

  “What? Oh. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I forget. There are so many things to know, so many things to find out. I lose track of where I am in the maze.”

  He used his hands to indicate a maze. (Think of the common gesture for maze.)

  “The main thing,” he said, “is to just enjoy what you have. The paper trick is cool. Do it again.”

  She did not.

  “But definitely don’t go looking for King City,” he said. “People like to think that there are places other than Night Vale out there what with all the desert, but it’s just not true. You try to go to a place like King City, you probably would never come back.”

  Steve paused.

  “I don’t think that man has given the paper to the person who was supposed to get it yet,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” she said, trying to encourage without seeming too eager.

  “I think he’s looking for one particular person, and he hasn’t found them. It’s a message, and the message hasn’t been received yet, you know? I wonder what happens when whoever is supposed to get that message finally receives it. Could be something very bad. Real bad.”

  The door opened. Diane walked in. The noise brought Steve back to himself.

  “Hey there,” he said. “Your friend Jackie and I were just talking about you. Good things, of course.”

  Diane glared at the nineteen-year-old, who returned her glare defiantly.

  “Not my friend, Steve. Jackie, whatever it is that fascinates you about my life and the people in it, I need you to let go and leave us alone.”

  Jackie felt herself regarded not as a woman or a human, but as a teenager. She had a rush of anger that felt embarrassingly young but that she couldn’t suppress.

  “I’m looking after my own life, man. What I want to know is why you always seem to end up involved.”

  “I’m sorry, Diane,” said Steve. “I thought. I mean, I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay, Steve,” said Diane. “I know you love a good conversation. Jackie, what are you doing here? Are you researching me? Following me?”

  “You’d love it if you were that interesting.” Jackie stood up so quickly that her folding chair tumbled backwards into the popcorn machine. Steve and Diane winced, but nothing visible happened, and so they relaxed.

  Jackie didn’t like how the situation was going, but she also didn’t know how to change the momentum. She came right up to Diane’s face, like a child fighting on a playground, or like a larger, older child fighting in a bar. Jackie felt unsure and silly and young, and she channeled the discomfort of that feeling into anger and projected that feeling onto Diane.

  “I already have one sullen teenager in my life. Go home, Jackie.”

  Jackie felt stupid (Oh, Jackie, did you ever think of just turning twenty?), and so she yelled: “Do you have to show up everywhere I am all the time?”

  “This is the PTA room. I am on the PTA.”

  “Whatever. I’m out of here,” Jackie said, and then point
ed at Steve. “Steve, we’ll talk more about King City later. Tell Janice I said hi.”

  “Okie doke. It sure was nice to chat.” And he meant it, which was the worst part about Steve Carlsberg.

  Jackie stormed out of the door, not wanting to leave this way and hating herself for doing it.

  Diane stared at Steve with new curiosity, wondering if this was the first time she had ever actually wanted to know something that Steve could tell her.

  “Steve. What do you know about King City?”

  25

  There was a Troy who swept up at the movie theater.

  There was a Troy who never left his home.

  There was a Troy who was a therapist.

  There were so many Troys, and Jackie tracked them all. She had a notebook and a camera, and soon she had a record of every Troy in town. She kept a lot of notes, not because she was good at investigating, but because it gave her something to do, and helped keep her from drifting off into confusion and despair over the terrifying implications of Troy’s multiplicity.

  If she stopped note-taking long enough to think, she would grow dizzy in a spiral of questions: Do they know each other? Are they the same age? Were they all born, or were they just there one day? When she found herself thinking for too long, she would make another note, maybe about how humid it was (“neck feels sticky, even in the shade”) or what color the clouds were (“green with purple stripes—looks like rain”).

  Today Jackie was following the Troy who was a loan manager at the Last Bank of Night Vale (“We put our customers second, and our apocalyptic prophecies first!”). This Troy had very regular hours, not just at his work but in his life outside of work, and so he was especially easy to tail.

  It was the third hour of work for him, and he would be going to lunch soon. Lunch was usually a salad or something light, except for the one day a week he went to Big Rico’s Pizza. She watched him through the window, humming and smiling at customers.

  There was a Troy who drove a cherry red Vespa while wearing a light blue helmet.

  There was a Troy who drove a 1997 Plymouth minivan.