by Joseph Fink
“Put your hands down. I don’t know why you’re doing that, it looks weird. Fine. Yes. I’ll come with you.”
Diane clapped once and hugged her.
“I’ll do my best to help,” said Jackie, “but my best might not be anything at all.”
She pulled herself gently from Diane’s hug and pointed out the window at the bike.
“Neither of us has a car now. So how are we getting there? We gonna take that cute ride of yours, or what?”
Diane frowned.
“No, I don’t suppose.”
Diane considered several options. The obvious was to rent a car, but she was basically out of money. Diane’s only credit card was an American Express Uranium Card, which was a dangerous card to use because it does not allow revolving credit and is made entirely of enriched uranium. Few merchants accept American Express Uranium Cards, or even allow them in their stores, but she did get double mileage points if anyone accepted it and survived.
Diane leaned her head back, exhaling upward, hoping for a solid thump of a thought to fall into her mind. She blinked. She stared up. Nothing.
“Is there anyone whose car we could borrow?” Jackie said.
“Steve would definitely do that. He’s always so helpful and nice. But he’s not been so reliable these da—” A solid thump of a thought. “What about that?”
On one of the highest shelves, there was a Mercedes, only a few years old, and once offered with urgency by a young man wearing a gray pin-striped suit stained with dirt. The luxury sedan was perfectly balanced across the drive train, resting perpendicularly on the ten-foot wooden shelf.
Jackie smiled, and then winced. It hurt to smile. It hurt not emotionally but physically, due to the trauma to her muscles. She had not smiled since the accident.
“Keys are in the ignition,” she said.
“Great,” Diane said but didn’t do anything because: “How are we going to—”
“I don’t know.”
“But how did you in the first place?”
“I don’t remember.”
“So we’re stuck again.”
“Looks like.”
No time passed and nothing happened, but the Mercedes was down from the shelf and out in the parking lot. Around them was an open toolbox, a trail of feathers, and a large quantity of ball bearings. The air smelled like a burnt match.
They took a long moment to absorb this new reality, and then, like good Night Vale citizens, categorized it as unexplainable and set it aside forever.
“Guess we took it down the same way I put it up,” said Jackie.
She couldn’t remember what way that was.
“Wow,” said Diane. “I’m impressed with us. I hope I helped somehow.”
“Dude, I’m sure you did.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
“Shall we?”
While Jackie headed upstairs to her desk to pack a couple of personal items, Diane wandered around the store, looking at what had been pawned. She found her tear, and was disappointed that no one had bought it yet, but pleased that Jackie had displayed it so prominently on her shelves. And then she saw something that gave her pause.
Below a series of cute porcelain figurines depicting young couples committing thought crimes and hiding evidence, there was a trash can. Resting on top of the trash can was a box. It was a simple brown cardboard box. She knew exactly what kind of box it was. It was the box that No. 9 envelopes come in. She was familiar with this kind of box. The only office that used No. 9 envelopes in Night Vale was the one that she had, until recently, worked at.
She crouched down to examine it. There was a long wood handle leaning against the side, belonging to a four-foot garden hoe. The metal edge of the hoe was stained and sticky with clumps of dark brown fur.
She set down the hoe and touched the lid of the box. She grew sad. She did not know why she was sad. She grew scared. She did not know why she was scared.
She lifted the lid and saw. She saw. And she felt. And for a moment she was not. And then she was. She held her hand to her mouth.
When Jackie got to the Mercedes, slow and limping, Diane was already in the passenger seat.
“Let’s do this,” Jackie said.
Diane’s elbow was on the window ledge. She had lost some of her color and was staring out the window at nothing in particular.
Jackie did not know exactly what it must be like to have a son go missing, but it must be exhausting. She knew about exhaustion. She knew about pain.
“You feeling okay?”
“I pawned that tear to you because school was starting and I needed the money,” Diane said. “That was the only reason. I made up that other stuff because I thought it might get you to come with me.”
“I know.”
“Okay then.”
Jackie started the car, pressed her feet to both pedals, and backed out with a squeal of vulcanized rubber and a puff of gray smoke. The agent in the black sedan nearby snapped photos of their going, each one ruined by the flash, each ruin followed by a muttering of curses. The women drove away leaving two black curls, like horns, across the crumbling asphalt lot.
Two beings, definitely not angels, both named Erika, stepped out from behind the pawnshop, where they had been hiding. They were drenched in sweat and their hands were covered in black grease.
40
Jackie guided the Mercedes onto Route 800. It drove so differently from her old car. Her old car had felt like making a plan, whereas this car felt like an improvisation. Or maybe it was that she was driving with one arm.
Diane grinned at her and she grinned back. It was hard to fight the feeling of triumph. Diane clutched hard at the slip of paper that said “KING CITY” in Josh’s handwriting. She couldn’t let go of it. Or, unlike Jackie, she could, but, unlike Jackie, she wouldn’t.
They passed Old Woman Josie’s house, next to the used car lot. She was standing in the front yard with all the Erikas, as if she knew they were coming by. The Erikas seemed out of breath. Josie had her hand up but she wasn’t waving. She was gesturing, but Jackie couldn’t understand what the gesture was. She gave her own meaningless gesture back. A used car salesman stood on the roof of an old Toyota hatchback and howled. Jackie howled back. She hadn’t been this happy since before the trouble had begun. The highway was a simple path laid out for her.
Diane turned around, watching Night Vale retreat into the distance.
“Seems small,” she said. “I mean, not just from here. It just seems so small now. Such a small place to live a whole life.”
“You haven’t lived your whole life yet.”
“I really hope you’re right.”
Larry Leroy’s, out on the edge of town, was the last house they passed. Larry was nowhere to be seen. His house sagged into itself, an unmaintained heap of wood barely holding the shape of a house. It thought about nothing at all.
Then they were out in the open desert. Jackie tried to think of a time she had been even this far outside of Night Vale. All she could remember were endless days at the pawnshop. For the first time, she felt sad thinking about those days rather than nostalgic. She didn’t know what that meant.
“Diane, what does it mean when you know you’re feeling something but you don’t know what that feeling is?”
Diane considered this seriously for a long time.
“It means you’re growing older.”
“I never grow older.”
“I guess we all thought that once.”
The desert went on so far out into the distance that it was easy to imagine that it constituted the entire world. But Jackie knew, even though she didn’t quite believe it, that the desert was barely a fraction of the world. It frightened her, the possibility of space. The tininess of home. Her chest felt like a bubble about to pop, and she tried to hold still.
“Is it hard getting old?”
“Only as hard as you let it be. Easier than the alternative.”
“Dying?”
&nbs
p; “Oh no. No, that’s actually easier than anything. I meant getting younger.”
Jackie laughed, although she didn’t find it funny. There are other reasons for laughter.
They settled in for a long drive. Diane was closing her eyes for a nap before it was her turn to drive when Jackie pointed, swerving the car since her pointing hand was also her steering hand, straightened the car back out, and said to the now wide awake Diane, “Look!”
There was a sign that said KING CITY with an arrow pointing at an exit looping away from the highway out into the sand.
“I guess we take that.”
Jackie pulled the car onto the exit. As she did, she felt her stomach start to rise, like she was being carried.
“Do you feel that?”
“Yes. Something’s not right.”
The exit loop kept turning. She couldn’t see how the loop could possibly be that long. The curve just wouldn’t end. They went and went. For ten minutes they did a long, slow curve along the exit loop.
“This isn’t good,” said Jackie.
“Well it’s not great.”
Jackie started to wonder if she would be turning the car in to the gentle curve for the rest of her life, and just as she started to wonder that, the road straightened them out and spat them out on a highway. They drove past a house sagged into itself, an unmaintained heap of wood barely holding the shape of a house.
“Oh goddammit.”
Up ahead was Old Woman Josie’s house, and the used car lot. This time Josie was alone. Her arms were crossed. She nodded at them, as if this, and everything else, was exactly as she suspected.
“Turns out working together doesn’t make King City any easier to get to,” said Jackie.
“I was wrong,” said Diane, furiously staring at the paper in her hands. Tears were pouring from her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound.
She looked up at Jackie, not making any move to wipe the tears. Jackie held her gaze for a long moment, letting the car roll down the highway without watching where it was going.
“Okay, we’ll find another way,” Jackie said.
“There is no other way.”
Jackie nodded at the houses and strip mall parking lots they were passing.
“This is Night Vale. Our mayor once led an army of masked warriors from another dimension through magic doors to defeat an army of smiling blood-covered office workers. There is definitely, definitely another way.”
They continued into Night Vale, without aim, listening only to the sound of the wind in the windows and the voice of Cecil Palmer from the radio.
THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE
CECIL: . . . fate worse than death. Most fates are. This has been health news.
Listeners, I’m excited to have here in my studio this afternoon two of my favorite people, Old Woman Josie and Carlos.
Josie, you have been a lifelong resident of Night Vale.
JOSIE: Everyone in Night Vale has been a lifelong resident of Night Vale.
CECIL: Not everyone, Josie. A certain handsome scientist comes to mind, as he often does. But anyway, you headed up the board of the Night Vale Opera for many decades until the puppy infestation in the late 1990s. You claim to know several angels.
JOSIE: They’re here in studio with me today. Say hi, Erikas.
ERIKAS: [off mic, distant] Hi. Hello. Good to be here.
CECIL: You are all very tall with beautiful wings. I do not believe in angels, of course, no one does or can, but if I did, I bet they would look a lot like you.
We also have here today Carlos, who is a scientist.
CARLOS: Hi, Cecil. It’s good to be here.
CECIL: An attractive scientist who is a good cook.
CARLOS: Stop.
CECIL: An attractive scientist who is a good cook who maybe can pick up some toothpaste and paper towels on the way home this evening?
CARLOS: Already done. Also dog food.
CECIL: Scientists are so vital to our community. Now, Josie, you’re here today with Carlos because of something to do with flamingos?
JOSIE: Right. Plastic lawn flamingos. Everyone is familiar with these things.
CARLOS: Flamingos, a common desert bird, have six long legs, and are well known because of their bright pink feathers and double beaks and many eyes.
JOSIE: These plastic ones are basic, cheap lawn decorations.
CECIL: Josie, you garden quite a bit. You bought these ornaments for your place?
JOSIE: Yes, we were going through that new place, Lenny’s Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, trying to find something new for the garden to replace the buried idol dedicated to long-dead gods we had recently taken out. It’s fun to collect those idols, but the long-dead gods demand so much worship and sacrifice, and if you don’t do it, they start throwing a real fit, causing the idol to float and speak to you and sending terrible visions to your dreams. Blegh. Not worth the bother just to have something decorating your lawn. It was Erika over there who discovered the flamingos.
ERIKA: [off mic, distant] Hey.
JOSIE: They were just too adorable to pass up, and they seemed like they couldn’t possibly be as much trouble as those damn idols.
Erika over there—
ERIKA: [off mic, distant] Hey.
JOSIE: Hi, Erika. They took the plastic flamingos from Erika to put them in the grass, and as they lifted their mallet, Erika disappeared from our view. Just vanished. Only to reappear what seemed like a few minutes later standing next to us. Erika said—Erika, tell everyone what you said.
ERIKA: [off mic, distant] I said, “Hey, y’all, what’s up?”
CARLOS: Erika had jumped back in time and also in space after touching the flamingos.
JOSIE: Right.
CARLOS: And at other times, Erika jumped forward in time and into a different physical space. Josie called me to run tests and experiments. So we brought all of the flamingos to my lab.
JOSIE: There were more than two dozen of them now. Every time Erika jumped in time, the flamingos duplicated.
CECIL: How did you get them to the lab? Does anything that touches them become affected by their . . . what’s the scientific word for it . . . weird magic?
CARLOS: That’s not the scientific term for it, but it’s cute. So we’re examining the time-shifting pink flamingos and—
JOSIE: Oh, to answer your question, Cecil, we had to wrap them in blankets and towels and marley, which is the rubbery material modern dancers perform on. Erika was not pleased that we took up part of their rehearsal studio floor, but science is important.
CARLOS: Right, and we took them to the lab and I hooked the plastic flamingos up to a wall-size computer that was covered in blinking lights and big red, green, and yellow buttons while a single strip of paper filled with numbers came out of a small slot on the front.
CECIL: Science is remarkable. So complex and mysterious. I’m always in awe of what you and your team can do.
CARLOS: Thanks. But it’s pretty simple. We just follow the scientific method. No matter how advanced the scientific field gets, the foundation of scientific discovery is the scientific method we all learned in elementary school.
CECIL: I’m not sure I ever learned that.
CARLOS: Oh, it’s easy. Here, I’ll tell you and your listeners right now. The scientific method is four steps:
1. Find an object you want to know more about.
2. Hook that object up to a machine using wires or tubes.
3. Write things on a clipboard.
4. Read the results that the machine prints.
CECIL: Of course. I totally remember this now.
JOSIE: What Carlos found was that the flamingos were from another place, and obviously another time. They must have been brought here by an outsider.
CARLOS: Their parts are not made of materials indigenous to Night Vale. Plastic does not grow naturally here in the desert, nor do long, thin metal stakes.
JOSIE: The reason we wanted to come on the air with you toda
y was to let others in Night Vale know about the danger these plastic flamingos pose. We’ve managed to gather a lot of them up, but there could still be more about town.
Before I knew what they were, I had tried giving them away and selling them, but they kept reappearing.
If you see a plastic flamingo, do not touch it. Call Carlos at his lab and he’ll come get it.
CARLOS: Yes, I have a storage locker next to my lab where I am safely keeping them all. We are managing to get them all off the streets. Fortunately, we have locked away all of the ones we could find in my lab storage so that they can no longer threaten Night Vale. We’re pretty certain we’ve found them all, but just in case you find any, do not touch them. I repeat, do no—
41
“Let’s touch them.”
“What?” Diane was enjoying listening to Cecil. She loved the end of his show, where he said, “Good night, Night Vale, good night.” No matter how difficult her life was or how troublesome the news he was reporting, his voice and his sign-off put her at such ease.
“The flamingos.”
“Touch them?”
“They jump people into different times and spaces. Maybe that’s the thing we need to get out of Night Vale and into King City.”
“Maybe.” Diane, sounding off mic, distant.
“We’ve got to try something.”
“Sure. I thought working together was the key too, but it didn’t work at all.”
“If we didn’t work together, we wouldn’t have this car. We wouldn’t be listening to the radio.”
Diane sat up. “The tear. When I sold you my tear. On the shelf behind you. There was bundle of plastic flamingos. I remember this now. I remember thinking about the color of those beautiful birds with their double beaks and six stringy legs. About how Josh loves flamingos. Jackie, they’re in your shop.”
Jackie was quiet.
“They’re not? Who’d you sell them to?”
“No one.” Jackie had pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot of Patty’s Hardware and Discount Pastries, just a few blocks from the barista district of Night Vale. “When I came back to the shop after the hospital, they were just gone. A lot of things were gone actually. Maybe stuff was stolen, but that seems impossible, because I make sure to remove and hide my doors anytime I’m not there.”