by Joseph Fink
The pastor’s desk had been empty before the prayer began, but now there was a huge tome bound in a leather none of them recognized (it was centipede skin). There was an intricate design made from nails driven into the cover, connected by bits of wire.
“This is The Book of Devouring,” she said, patting it proudly. Despite the vastness of her desk, the book seemed to take up a great deal of space. “With this, we will call upon our God. This is called the Invocation.”
“Where did the Congregation get this book?” said Stephanie, interested as always in the academic side of things. She could not wait to become a Church Elder and be allowed to read the great histories, stories, and secrets of the church. “Have we always had it?”
“It was written by the prophet Kevin,” the pastor said. Kevin was a great figure in the history of the church. He had once been a radio host in a town called Desert Bluffs until one day he had found an old oak door. He had gone through that door, and had entered heaven, where he had met the Smiling God. When he returned, it was with the message of the Smiling God, a message that he spread through his radio shows until he disappeared. It was said that he had returned to heaven, to join the Smiling God there. “Kevin loved the Smiling God more than anyone. And he was able to observe Its habits, and from that he wrote this book. And this book was passed down to me. I mean, not passed down for long. We’re not an old religion.”
“Really aren’t,” said Jamillah.
“Relatively recent,” said Stephanie.
“But we are the first religion with the gratifying knowledge that we have found it. The true explanation for everything. Centuries of searching, and we hold the answer here in our hands.”
“Joyfully,” said Gordon, holding up his hands and closing his eyes.
“So joyfully!” said Stephanie.
Jamillah ran her power drill.
“Joyfully,” said the pastor, placing both hands on the book in front of her.
Darryl stood. He was crying, and his smile was wider than it had ever been.
He looked to the needlework on the wall, hanging uncharacteristically crooked. He repeated its boisterous message.
“Joyfully,” he said, “It devours!”
28
Nilanjana sat straight up in bed, panting, sweating. She was cold. It was bright out. She had slept through the sunrise somehow. She had had a terrible dream. Like most dreams, it was lasting and memorable, but only in the part of the brain that hides information. The part of the brain that takes drama and trauma and buries it like whatever those specks are that grow into things (she still didn’t remember what they were called), where it can grow over time into something that takes on a larger, more distinct shape, unrecognizable from its original form. Darryl had been in the dream, but she couldn’t remember what he had been doing. She only knew that she didn’t trust him.
It was too late in the morning to even think about getting back to sleep. She was discombobulated from the nightmare, the components of which had dissolved so much, she could only assume it was a nightmare based on her body’s current state: clammy arms and chest, sweat on her upper lip, the kind of headache that doesn’t hurt but that makes your head feel like styrofoam, and a deep worry for something or somebody unknown.
She and Carlos had been up late last night going over the information they had. Hooded figures were attracted to entrances to the otherworld. They had been attracted to the pit at Big Rico’s. So this pit had something to do with the otherworld. It was possible that the pits were being created by the movements of a giant, devouring centipede that was worshiped as a smiling god. If so, then this centipede was related to the otherworld. But what was the city’s role? Why did Pamela keep showing up around these disasters? And what motive would a centipede have to disrupt Carlos’s experiments? On a motive level, it was more likely that the city was behind these attacks. But then how was the centipede involved, if at all? Back and forth, until the night became technically morning, although this had more to do with the imperfect labeling created by humans than with any change in the actual nature of the night.
Nilanjana had apparently fallen asleep with the television on. She almost never watched television. She had a television and a cable subscription because it was mandatory for all Night Vale citizens to own a television and pay for cable. Even though she didn’t think of herself as a citizen of Night Vale, the law still applied to her. This was fine by Nilanjana, as she didn’t mind paying taxes and government fees if they were supporting the less fortunate. Cable television executives had fallen on difficult times in the last few years and were now the most poverty-stricken demographic. So at least the money she paid for cable was going to a good cause, even if she didn’t watch it much.
But this morning the television was on. It was the Channel 6 local news with Tim and Trinh. They were identical half insects in identical suits, like all news anchors, and the second most trusted source for news in Night Vale, after Cecil’s radio show, which was the heart of the community, and well ahead of the Night Vale Daily Journal, which had an editorial stance against differentiating fiction and journalism. Everyone loved Tim and Trinh because, as many citizens said, “they really speak to me.”
And this was true. Tim and Trinh often spoke directly to people who were watching the news. Sometimes a viewer might watch a story in disbelief or smile at a cute feature on animal adoptions or cry because a news item affected them personally. It was in those moments that Tim and Trinh would address that person directly and tell them, “It’s going to be fine, Tavin,” or “It’s not okay but you can only make change in your own life, Diane,” or “That dog is cute, right, Earl? You should get a dog. You’d be happy with a dog.”
Channel 6 also had the government-enforced power to turn on at any time in any home. Sometimes this was to present important news events, like an Amber Alert. Sometimes it was because ratings were low that period and they needed some “juice.” Either way, Nilanjana thought, it was possible that she hadn’t fallen asleep watching television. The television could have just turned itself on to Channel 6.
“ . . . still missing despite the Sheriff’s Secret Police efforts to find him” was the first thing Nilanjana processed Tim (or maybe Trinh) saying.
“Police have found no sign of Larry or even his home. Both were reported missing a week ago by a citizen named Erika, who also claimed to be an angel,” said Trinh (possibly Tim).
“Hahaha. There are no such things as angels, Trinh,” said Tim.
Great, now I know which is which, Nilanjana thought.
“No, there certainly aren’t, Tim,” said Trinh. “And the police have taken this supposed angel Erika into custody for illegally proclaiming the existence of themself.”
“We’re getting a report right now that Erika escaped police custody by flying up and away to the heavens using their great feathered wings. Witnesses said they could hear what sounded like a French horn and a children’s choir.”
“People will go to any lengths to protect their delusions, won’t they, Tim?”
“Hahahaha,” said Tim, slapping the desk with a human hand. The nail on Tim’s right ring finger was three inches long and painted in green and black stripes. “Hahahaha,” Tim repeated after a breath.
“If you have seen Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, please call the number below.”
At the bottom of the screen was a phone number. Next to Trinh’s triangular face was a photo of Larry. He was smiling, his forehead glistening. The flash was too bright. The smile was the artificial smile of a posed picture, the kind of lip curl that happens when a person calls to the group, “Okay, everybody, say ‘broken feet’” and then everyone says “broken feet,” and somehow that is supposed to generate a natural happy face.
Nilanjana could see Larry’s diorama over on her bookshelf, the diorama she’d found in the desert where his home used to be. The crisp details of Dorothy’s face, the accurate texture of the aluminum sides of her war balloon, the fires of what had onc
e been Kansas below her. Nilanjana could almost make out individual houses, children and dogs on lawns. Larry’s coloring demonstrated a masterful gradient of an unseen setting sun. Bright yellows and oranges, fading to ocher and mauve with long shadows.
In his art, he communicated life. Journalists and orators must use language to craft their understanding of the world. Nilanjana and other scientists had to use numbers and gather data to form a structure for the universe. Larry used color and strokes and gentle hands to build his worlds. No historian or novelist could, in a thousand pages, verbalize a story quite as rich as one of Larry’s shoe-box-size dioramas. Each one a masterpiece, Nilanjana thought. She was crying now. It was fine. She was just exhausted from a nightmare she couldn’t remember.
She felt for Larry. She didn’t know him. Nobody knew him. He made brilliant art, and it was in no museum, no magazine. He had no children and lived as far from the city as one could live and still live in Night Vale. He had so much to give the world, and no one knew what that “so much” was. It was only in his death—eaten by a centipede? Murdered by the City Council?—that anyone could see what he had made. Not even a body or ruins of a house, just a pit marking where all of that had been buried.
And this diorama, inert and private, in her home. The sole evidence left of his gifts.
She promised when all of this was resolved, she would make sure Night Vale knew who Larry was and what he had created.
“I promise, Larry,” Nilanjana said at the diorama.
“What do you promise?” Tim asked from the television screen.
“What?”
“Tim wants to know what you promise, Nilanjana. Did you just talk to that diorama?”
“What? No. I—”
"That’s an excellent diorama. Did you make it?” Tim asked.
“No.” Nilanjana did not want them to think she had been out digging through Larry’s stuff. The pit was a crime scene after all. “I mean, yes.”
“Hey, so what are you doing with Darryl?”
“Yeah, what’s going on with you two?” Tim asked, forgetting about the diorama. “You make a cute couple.”
And here a photo appeared next to Tim’s face, showing the couple, both in sunglasses, exiting Nilanjana’s apartment building.
“Hey! I’m not a public figure. You can’t run photos like that!”
“Sounds like forbidden love, Tim.” Trinh grinned (was that a grin?). “Two young lovers, one a logical scientist, the other, a member of one of the most evangelical churches in Night Vale.”
“Quite star-crossed these two,” Tim added, their one long nail gently caressing Trinh’s left hand. Trinh did not acknowledge it.
Nilanjana didn’t want to talk about Darryl right now. At her most positive, she tried to think of him as a means to an end, a way to find out what the church was up to. More often, she thought of him as a mistake. Mostly, she tried not to think of him at all.
“Yes, Tim. Wrapping up, in final news, Pamela Winchell, Director of Emergency Press Conferences for the city”—her image appeared on screen—“is holding an emergency press conference about the great, bottomless pit which appeared a few moments ago in the floor of the Night Vale High School gymnasium.”
“What?” Nilanjana leapt up.
“Yes. Pamela’s quite excited to have a real emergency to hold a press conference about. Most of her press conferences tend to be existential emergencies—bigger-picture issues, less specific to . . .”
“No, the gym! What happened at the gym?”
“We’re getting to that. Don’t interrupt. Also, we can see you, Nilanjana. Maybe put some pants on,” Tim said. She scrambled for the blankets. “Ah, I’m just playing.” Tim laughed. “But please put your pants on.”
“This morning, during basketball practice, the floor of the NVHS gymnasium disappeared. Several students and faculty disappeared along with it.”
Janice was on the school’s wheelchair basketball team and was an equipment manager and trainer for the varsity team. What if she had gotten hurt or was one of the missing? And Carlos. Oh, Carlos must be beside himself right now. Or what if he didn’t even know yet? She needed to go. She scrambled around for clothes, muttering “shit, shit, shit.”
“Calm down, Nils.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down. And don’t call me Nils, Timmy.” Nilanjana snapped.
“No, I’m Tim,” the other one said.
The screen cut to a shot of a student outside the high school being interviewed. The chyron said, “MISTY ALVAREDO, JUNIOR.”
“I was in band and felt a rumbling under us. I thought it was great because I had finally pressed down all the valves correctly on my baritone and I thought that had unlocked some great mystery, that perhaps the firmament had split to reveal a face and that face had spoken and the great truths in its words had shaken the ground, just like our old music teacher Louie Blasko used to tell me would happen when I finally mastered my instrument. But the rumbling was something else entirely. It destroyed the floor of the gym,” Misty said. “So I guess I didn’t press the buttons in the right order. I don’t know how brass instruments work.”
“Did you know anyone in the gym at the time this happened?” the off-screen reporter asked.
“What? In sports? No. Probably not. Is basketball a sport?”
"Yes, it is,” the reporter said. “That’s who was practicing.”
“Then yes.” Misty’s face did not change.
Nilanjana had gotten her pants on and grabbed her keys.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” she repeated.
“Well, Trinh, it’s a horrible story. Just tragic,” Tim said.
“Yes, absolutely. Children are our future, after all. They are a noisy and unruly future, full of unearned self-confidence and silly ignorance. Children are quite an unintelligent future.”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” Nilanjana was trying to call Carlos. She had the phone to her ear as she was pulling on her shirt.
“Carlos, are you watching the news?” she said into his voice mail.
“We already told Carlos, Nilanjana. Why would we not have told Carlos?” Nilanjana couldn’t see which one said it. She was already at the front door.
“Carlos, I’m on my way to the school. Please call. Let me know Janice is okay. I’m so sorry.”
She let the front door slam shut behind her, forgetting to lock it or even fasten the belt she was wearing. Her bag and hair and shoelaces and belt buckle waved behind her like battle flags as she ran. Her heart pulsed in her ears and she felt the sweat on her upper lip like a cold mustache.
Inside, on the television, Tim said, “For more on this let’s go to Emma in sports. Emma? What does a gaping pit in the middle of their practice court and the loss of almost all of the players do to this team’s chances to make the playoffs?”
29
Almost the entire gymnasium floor was gone, a deep pit now. Only the bleachers were left, with students scattered across them. Two students were huddled together, their faces puffy from crying. They had their arms on each other’s shoulders and were slowly rocking, heads down, and silent. Another group of kids were clearing away the debris, chunks of wood planks and pieces of plexiglas backboard. Several of the Sheriff’s Secret Police were conducting interviews of their own for a full report. They were asking students questions like “You didn’t see anything, right?” and “You’re not that reliable, are you?” Three other students were helping fix a broken wheelchair.
A broken wheelchair. Janice, Nilanjana thought. Her face flushed, her eyes itched, and she involuntarily rubbed her chest as she tried to breathe normally. Janice, she thought again, as she scanned the room. Her eyes fell upon Carlos in the doorway, with Cecil and Steve and Abby. Steve had his big arm over Carlos’s shoulder. Cecil had his arm around Carlos’s waist while trying to nudge Steve’s arm away. Nilanjana hurried toward them as best she could along the bleachers.
“Janice?” she said, as she got to them.
Car
los, too overwhelmed to speak, only let his mouth dangle open, saying nothing, and Nilanjana felt some vital part of her heart snap. Thankfully Abby, who approached life with an absolute practicality and who wouldn’t let herself collapse with the trauma of the moment until hours later when she was alone in the shower, pointed to the handball court. Janice was sitting there, staring at the handball wall, not talking.
“She’s okay,” said Abby. “Or physically at least. The collapse damaged her wheelchair, but some of the kids are working on that.”
“I’m so glad,” Nilanjana said, knowing it sounded monstrously understated, but not knowing how else to express that she was really fucking glad.
“Us too,” said Steve, understanding exactly what she meant.
Immediate concern addressed, she scanned the scene for any new information that could be collected. Among the crying parents and students, and the sand drifting up from the pit, she saw a kiwi bird. She did a double take. The kiwi bird wasn’t moving, just watching everyone around the gym. She got closer to examine it. She couldn’t be looking at a kiwi, as they are not native to Night Vale, or America for that matter. But she was.
The bird turned and looked at her.
“Hey,” said the bird. “It’s Josh. From the pizza place.”
“Josh! I’m sorry I didn’t . . . it’s just last time you looked different.”
“I’ve been trying out the bird thing lately. I don’t know.”
“It looks cool,” she said. It did look cool. Birds are cool-looking.
“Maybe.” He seemed unconvinced by her compliment, while also happy to have gotten it.
“Are you okay?” She sat next to him.
“I’m fine, I guess. I mean, physically. The team was warming up. A few players were still in the locker room. I was sitting in the stands watching. My boyfriend is on the team, but he wasn’t on the court yet. If he was . . . I don’t know. That’s him over there trying to fix our friend’s wheelchair. Hey, Grant!”