by Joseph Fink
Then there is a twelve-foot drop to the ground behind City Hall, next to a dumpster. A car driven by Mayor Dana Cardinal is there. Then that car drives to Old Woman Josie’s house out by the used car lot.
This has been traffic.
“Can I speak to Erika?” I said to Old Woman Josie.
“Which Erika?” she asked.
“All of them. I need to speak with the angels.”
Old Woman Josie winced.
A couple miles off, I heard the Angel Acknowledged Siren go off down by the firehouse, but I was certain law enforcement was dealing with bigger problems than a radio host who happened to acknowledge an angel or two.
There are way more than two, though. A bright black light filled Old Woman Josie’s living room, illuminating at least a dozen tall winged beings. Dana and I shaded our eyes. My body tingled. I swore I could hear a cello and smell confectioners’ sugar. Dana and I explained the sheriff’s plan to lure the strangers to the Dog Park.
“How do you lure something that wants nothing?” one of the Erikas asked.
“Technically wanting nothing is actually wanting something,” one of the Erikas explained
“We’re not having this argument with you again, Erika,” another Erika shouted.
“We just need to do something,” I said. “If what they want is nothing, then we must make sure that we are always doing something. Can you help us?”
The black light grew painfully bright. I took that as a yes.
Let’s have a look now at today’s horoscopes.
The stars are silent. They have been absent from the sky for weeks now. They refuse to tell us anything. Perhaps the silence is for our own protection.
This has been horoscopes.
On the drive back to town with Dana.
“I know he tried to kill you,” I said carefully. “I know he’s on Death Row now for his crimes, but what if . . . What if we made a deal—.”
Dana interrupted. “I’m not offering Hiram a deal.”
We drove past the dark and empty radio station. I thought about Khoshekh, our station cat, who hovers four feet off the ground in what used to be the men’s restroom. All of our restrooms are unisex now, which is great because everyone can visit Khoshekh. He’d been much happier with the extra attention, buzzing and licking visitors with his chest tongues.
But when I had last checked in on him before we lost all power to the radio station, he was gone. His kittens were also gone. No sign of a fight. Just gone. I missed him. I missed the radio station.
All over town, no electricity or gas, barely any drinkable water. I could smell distant smoke. The sky was completely gray even though there was not a single cloud.
Dana said: “I’ll talk to Hiram, Cecil. I’ll find out if he knows anything about the strangers and if he could be of some help. But I’m not cutting a deal with him.”
We pulled up to a mob of about fifty people. In the front was the sheriff, hand in hand with a woman in long yellow robes and a wide, rectangular hat. I recognized the medallion on the front of her chest. She was one of the leaders from the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, the church that most of Desert Bluffs and a few Night Vale residents belonged to.
In the crowd I saw John Peters, you know, the farmer? And also John Peter, remember, the pharmacist? I saw Tamika Flynn and her teenage militia. In Tamika’s left hand was Sarah Sultan, who is a fist-sized river rock and current president of Night Vale Community College. Around them were many faces I didn’t know. Former Desert Bluffs residents. I could see it in their eyes.
Dana and I got out of the car and joined them, a prayer march against a common enemy. How strange humankind is that two cities—Night Vale and Desert Bluffs—could hate each other so much and then hold hands so tightly in mutual hatred of something else.
We marched toward the center of town, chanting prayers. I have never been a believer in the Smiling God, so some of the chants were new to me, but a lot of them were similar to recitations, verses, and prayers common across most religions. Basic stuff like “Please God, Destroy Our Enemies. Amen”; some really long gurgling sounds; and one chant that sounded identical to an old prayer I was taught in Torah school where everyone just shouts “DE-FENSE!” while clapping in rhythm.
Our crowd grew. We saw strangers on the street, not moving, just breathing and watching. We were nearing a thousand, our mob, feeling invincible, united to save our town, a town we all loved and believed in no matter how long each of us had lived here.
Carlos joined, along with my sister, Abby, her husband, Steve; and my young niece, Janice. I was worried for their safety out here, surrounded by the strangers. But I was also worried for their safety at home, hiding from the strangers. I was worried for their safety, always and everywhere.
Our huge crowd stopped near the Dog Park. There were hooded figures in the Dog Park. The gates were open. They are rarely open.
We looked to the strangers. Their numbers had grown as well. An equal motionless mob to our heaving, praying one. Being at the front of the crowd, I could feel the steady breath of the stranger directly in front of me.
They weren’t dead. They weren’t undead. They were nothing.
I was afraid of dying, of becoming one of them, of existing only in the dark, wet cavern. Frances’s voice in my head, I’m still in the mud. I’m still in the mud. And also her voice from right in front of me, suddenly at the front of the crowd of strangers, eyes wild as though struggling against the complete stillness of the rest of her body, screaming, “I’m still in the mud. I’m still in the mud.”
The crowd of strangers parted—although none of us saw them move—revealing the beagle puppy on his hind legs, his front paws dangling crookedly against his chest.
Huff huff huff.
The breathing wasn’t coming from the dog, but from behind me. I turned to see Sheriff Sam, their jaw hanging limp and open. The dog’s breath came from their mouth.
Huff huff huff.
“Who’s a good boy?” said the voice coming from Sam. “Who’s a good boy?”
Huff huff huff.
“Am I the good boy?” said a different voice from right next to me. My brother-in-law, Steve, his eyes locked to mine, confused. “Am I the good boy?” he said.
I cried out “No!” and held him tight. Janice, Abby, and Carlos all put their arms around him too. Trying to hold him in place, keep him from being taken to the cavern. Helping him to resist the pull of a dark and muddy hell, dragging at him from within.
We heard a sound above us. Like wings. Many wings. We looked up and saw all of the Erikas circling above.
“There are angels,” said Janice, in awe. No one corrected her.
There was also the sound of a different kind of wing, not angelic. Reptilian.
We saw the five heads of Hiram McDaniels, four of them with prison tracking collars. Fire spewed from Hiram’s mouth, and for a moment the gray cloudless sky shone blue. And I finally noticed, in the heart of all this fear and tempest, how calm the weather was. No, not calm. The weather was. It was—
WEATHER: “The Queer Gospel” by Erin McKeown
Night Vale, we have power once again. We have electricity and water. I’m back on the air, and many of you are back in your homes.
The strangers and the dogs are gone. Defeated, question mark.
Frances, Sam, Steve, those who were taken or who were about to be taken, all humans once again. But here’s where we run into the problem of my narrative. Because I don’t know what caused it to happen.
Our crowd had chanted and prayed. I’m not a religious person mostly, but I do think we had an impact driving away that Thing summoned from the dark wet caverns of hell. And even if it wasn’t the bloodstones or the Joyous Congregation’s Smiling God, or any other kind of god, the mere spiritual coming together of so many people may have been enough to rid the town of this hound and his army.
But then, Intern Kareem reported that Khoshekh is back in the station restroom. Khoshekh was
badly scratched up, as though he had been in a great battle, and Kareem noted that inside Khoshekh’s second row of teeth was a small piece of fur-covered flesh. Kareem thought it was a piece of a dog’s ear. Is Khoshekh our hero?
Janice says Tamika Flynn drove away the strangers with her militia of book-loving children. Abby and Steve told Janice she’s still too young to join a militia. Tamika is running drills out in the desert and will not comment on what happened.
Old Woman Josie claimed the angels used their powers of heavenly good to push back the brazen evil of the beagle. Who else can destroy a creature of hell other than angels? Maybe that’s true, if you believe in angels, which you are not allowed to do.
Melony Pennington, celebrated computer programmer, managed to get the power utilities back on, and claims that, with the help of young prodigy Megan Wallaby, she wrote a deadly computer virus to bring down the strangers. I’m not really an expert on programming, but I feel like you need a computer to catch a computer virus.
What? Oh. Kareem is telling me you don’t anymore. Computer viruses are totally airborne. Wow. Technology.
Sheriff Sam and the City Council claimed their plan to lure the strangers to the Dog Park worked perfectly and the strangers were rounded up and locked away.
Sam also added, “Now that the situation is under control, the Dog Park is no longer open.” And then they folded an origami sea urchin, elaborate thin spines and everything. “Yeah, no, it’s off-limits once again,” Sam said.
Michelle and Maureen, over at Dark Owl Records, claimed they were playing a copy of Beyoncé’s newest album, the follow-up to Lemonade. An album no one else has heard. According to Michelle, the strangers wanted to hear that album quite badly and this human desire filled in the hollow that the years in the mud had carved in them, turning them back into nonstrangers. Into friends. Michelle and Maureen claim to be the real heroes, or whatever.
I asked Michelle if I could hear the album. She said no because Beyoncé asked her to stop playing it.
“Beyoncé called you?” I asked, astonished that Michelle knew such a famous musician.
“Well, her lawyers called,” Michelle said. “They were really angry and also confused and scared because Beyoncé hasn’t actually written or recorded the album yet.”
Chad, my former intern who summoned the beagle in order to destroy the World Government, says that he thinks the reversal of his summoning worked. He is no hero, he says, but perhaps he is not a villain either.
“He’s pretty okay, I guess,” Maureen said. “At least I got my internship credit.”
And then there was Hiram McDaniels’s brave fighting against the strangers. If anything was more powerful than our coming together as a town, it was the brute force of an eighteen-foot-tall dragon with five heads. He fought valiantly for a town he had once threatened, a town who had recently condemned him to death. And we all saw his bravery, and we all knew that he must be pardoned. “Pardon him!” we cried.
He was not pardoned. They locked him back up. He is still scheduled for execution.
So perhaps Hiram was the hero.
But there is one more theory. One more possible story.
Just before coming on the air, I felt a presence behind me. It was the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.
“We didn’t drive them away, Cecil,” she said. “We didn’t win. They chose to leave.”
I argued that surely it was because we, or someone, forced them.
“They don’t need a reason,” she said. “They never did. They left and they may return. It won’t be for any reason but it could be at any time. They want and need nothing, Cecil. The computer programming and Dog Park and Beyoncé album. It’s all noise.”
She added, “They left because they decided to leave. And if they return, it will be because they decided to return. And it will be unrelated to anything we do.”
Night Vale, we live with the illusion of safety, that we can use caution and care in order to preserve our lives. The strangers came and we don’t know why. And then they went, and we don’t know why. We are always in danger. It was just that while they were here, we were made aware of the danger. They simply revealed to us that personal control is an illusion. We live and die, and we never get to learn any reasons for that.
In any case, the strangers are gone, and we can go back to living the lie of reason and control once again. It is a very, very comfortable lie.
Stay tuned next for a deep sigh. Deep. Deep. No, deeper than that.
Good night, Night Vale. Good night.
[after the credits]
KEVIN: Hi, friend. It’s Kevin. So many of my old pals from Desert Bluffs came to live here in the desert otherworld with me. We’ve built quite a little city with roads and a school and a radio station! I’m back on the air, Cecil! We even built our new little town to look just like our old little town. In fact, we just decided to call this new place Desert Bluffs Too. Too as in also, not the number two. Although we debated that. But we thought it was too charming. We need to build to that level of charming. Someday we will. Someday we’ll be so charming, it will hurt.
PROVERB: You can tell a lot about someone by coming into our office and confessing everything you know about them.
“The Investigators”
PERFORMED MARCH 26, 2015 AT THE KESWICK THEATRE, GLENSIDE, PENNSYLVANIA
Cast
Cecil Baldwin—CECIL PALMER
Meg Bashwiner—DEB
Mark Gagliardi—JOHN PETERS
Jeffrey Cranor—SECRET POLICE SPOKESMAN
Mara Wilson—FACELESS OLD WOMAN
“THE INVESTIGATORS” WAS THE SHOW THAT CEMENTED NIGHT VALE AS a live touring podcast.
The community calendar bit was the piece that we decided to do on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because it was funny, it was self-contained, and we’d done it live so many times. We performed eighty shows of “The Investigators”—approximately sixty-two thousand people saw it live in six different countries—and that was all the rehearsal I needed for my late-night talk show debut. Side note: You never realize just how indie-cult you are until Oprah is in the dressing room right upstairs (and no, you are NOT allowed to go talk to her).
I have been touring professionally since I was twenty-two years old. My first national tour was right out of college, a group called the National Players, the oldest classical touring company in the nation. For nine months we drove a box truck, a van, and a sedan all over the lower forty-eight, playing Shakespeare and Molière in community and university theaters. So the task of taking “The Investigators” on the road for three months sounded like a dream. I think, however, some of the others on the Night Vale crew may have described the experience a bit differently.
The live show of “The Investigators” is over two hours long with anywhere from four to seven guest spots.
I think the LA live show was like two hours and twenty minutes and the only time I got to sit down was for two minutes during the weather. While I was pulling faces onstage, everyone else was in the greenroom, drinking Jim Beam and eating LA guacamole. I wouldn’t have it any other way though. Building my performance in “The Investigators” over those eighty plus performances was one of the greatest joys of my career. The moment you walk onstage, all you have to do is trust that you’ve created a package where each note you hit is solid in voice, in body, in psychology, in emotion, in tone. And by then, you’re already on the ride, and there’s no stopping, so why not just enjoy yourself!
When people say they hate audience participation, I can only agree with them. Audience participation as we know it is torture, or at best ritualized bullying usually hiding behind a two-drink minimum. What was fun about Night Vale was the way we transformed “audience participation” into something positive and organic. We had the audience interact with each other—a random other third party, who is equally bewildered with the whole thing. By the end of the show, theoretically, if they follow their cues, those audience members take some
of the bonhomie that the fans have for Cecil Palmer (or dare I say Cecil Baldwin) and plant it in another member of the audience. It was just a show, but the interactions that they shared with another person were real. Sustained eye contact is a real interaction. Waving hello to someone is a real interaction. And then, those two people will undoubtedly see each other in the lobby, buying a T-shirt or waiting for their parents to pick them up. Maybe they exchange info or look each other up on Twitter or Tumblr. And somehow, what began as an artificial relationship has transferred into a real one. It’s magical, creating human connection from nothing but a willingness to be present, an openness to play, and a trust in the folks onstage to take you on the journey.
—Cecil Baldwin
The writing is on the wall. It’s not written in English. It’s not really even written. Clawed, more like. The claw marks are on the wall.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
Listeners, be warned. There is a murderer in our midst.
Oh, wow, sorry that was megadramatic of me. Let me start off with some pleasantries. Hi. I’m Cecil. Welcome to my show on Night Vale Community Radio. Got some news and stuff coming up later. How are things going with you?
I can’t hear you.
I can’t hear you.
I really can’t hear you because I’m sitting in a radio studio by myself but I hope you were yelling your heads off out there in your homes and offices and cars and witching caves.
Now that the small talk is out of the way, a quick bit of news: Be warned, citizens. There is a murderer in our midst. Last night, at the corner of Sausalito and Somerset, a body was found. Police suspect foul play.
Specifically, they suspect murder, but they don’t want to get you all upset, and foul play sounds less alarming, more fun.
A Sheriff’s Secret Police spokesperson said, “Murder is just so final, you know. So scary. We like foul play. It’s like people were having fun, like a game, but a little rougher. But murder is . . . just so harsh.
“But yeah, anyway, someone died pretty violently from foul play. It’s really gross, but don’t worry. The first rule of any murder investigation is to immediately clean up the murder scene and make sure it’s tidy,” the spokesperson said.