The Buying of Lot 37

by Joseph Fink

  So that’s another example of a scientifically accurate joke.

  Things are going really well here. With the help of Doug and Alicia and the other members of the masked army that live in this strange desert otherworld, we’ve been starting to build out an infrastructure. Of course, I had already set up a temporary lab, but now we’ve dug up the stones that were used in the old settlements up on the mountain and have been building important basics of life, like shelter, and roads, and Bloodstone Circles. It’s starting to look downright homey around here, if you ignore the disquieting wasteland beyond. So it’s just like the rest of the world, really.

  There’s lots of material to work with because, get this, we’ve been just finding stuff lately. Microwaves, toolboxes, old tennis balls. They look like they’ve been here awhile. I’m not sure how this stuff ended up here, but I’m going to find out.

  Oh, that reminds me, I’m thinking of getting a tattoo with the definition of science straight out of Webster’s dictionary. So it’ll say: “I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out, okay?” And then it’ll have a skull and some roses. Maybe an anchor. To make it look old-timey.

  I’m still working on how to get you here, but I will. How? I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out, okay? Okay? Okay.

  I love you. Talk again soon.

  [BEEP]

  MICHELLE:Hey, Cecil. Michelle from Dark Owl Records calling. The new . . . ugh . . . Woody Guthrie album is in for you. I can’t believe you’re still listening to that stuff. He hasn’t been cool since his electropunk period. We’re all listening to archival recordings of bees now. Come in for your stupid album and I’ll show you the bee sounds while you’re here. And maybe you can hang out for a while because I’m lonely and I need more human contact. Ugh, Woody Guthrie?

  [BEEP]

  [Faintly in the background, we hear Lee Marvin’s “Wand’rin’ Star.”]

  STEVE:Hey, Cecil. I know you said that I wasn’t allowed to leave any voice mails on your phone and you marched around the room waving your arms and saying, “NO, STEVE CARLSBERG, NO VOICE MAILS” and then you tried to convince me that voice mails aren’t real but you couldn’t because I know what is what around here. I know what is what.

  But anyway I just wanted to make a quick call to see if Janice could stay with you in a few months. Abby and I are looking at doing a nice little vacation, you know, just the two of us, somewhere romantic like the Warehouse District or the Sandwastes or Arby’s. You of all people know how romantic a long weekend at Arby’s can be. Which, listen, by the way, I meant it as just a nice gift when I printed up all those T-shirts of you and Carlos there looking up at the lights and you got all weird about it but I don’t mind. Sorry I made you upset again.

  Just get back to me about the Janice thing, or answer me on your radio show while ranting about me, either way is fine. Hope everything’s going well with Carlos. Hope everything is just going. Hope everything goes. Hope it’s gone. We all do.

  Okie doke.

  [BEEP]

  TAMIKA:Cecil, Tamika Flynn here. I’m calling to let you know that me and the rest of the missing children are having a book drive. We’re taking books and herding them out on the long trail, sleepless nights on our horses, books clear from our feet out to a horizon gone dusty with the dreary stomp of spine and page upon earth, the sad yelp of books taken in the night by coyotes or librarians. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but when my horse is neck deep in the Colorado and I’m watching the drowned carcass of some book that will never find a reader again float away on that relentless current, I’ll think about you. Also it will probably be Thursday. We’ll be back Thursday. We’re not taking the books far. They can’t walk and they’re not even sentient, so this’ll be a short one. Oh, gotta go. Night Film by Marisha Pessl is looking restless and I’m worried it’ll start a stampede.

  [BEEP]

  EARL:Hi, it’s me. Sure, I’d love to come back and do another segment of “Cooking Stuff with Earl Harlan.” I have this great recipe for pumpkin pie. There’s so much less blood splatter than you would think, but listen, I’m trying to schedule a little more time in my life for my son.

  It’s hard, for both of us, what with me having a full-time kitchen job plus going straight from being a childless teenager to a middle-aged man with an eleven-year-old. I mean, they have Sesame Street episodes about it that you can show your kid but even with PBS’s help, trying to explain how weird time is, it’s hard.

  Time is unimaginably weird.

  My son’s name is Roger. I finally asked him. He told me. It was that easy and it wasn’t easy at all.

  I gotta get back to the kitchen. We have a lot of orders coming in, plus it’s on fire. Cook with you soon, Cecil.

  [BEEP]

  FEY:Seventeen

  Eighty-eight

  [DING]

  Forty-nine

  Eighty-six

  Eighty-one

  Sixty-eight

  [singing] Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

  [sigh]

  Eighty-one

  Eighty-three

  [DING]

  Four

  [BEEP]

  CARLOS:Hey, sorry to call again so soon. I know we talked about space and boundaries and all that, especially with this whole Lot 37 thing you’re going through. Got to have time to think, and Ceec, I understand time to think, but I have made an important scientific discovery and you know the rules are different when an important scientific discovery is made. An important scientific discovery is grounds to interrupt anything.

  I found people. Here in this desert otherworld. We—me and the members of the masked army—saw human shapes coming towards us. The masked army opted, as is their way, for something of a warlike response, but I convinced them that it was important to discover the facts before formulating a response, an idea to which Doug roared in a fearsome voice, “THAT MAKES TOTAL SENSE. LET’S GO CHAT WITH THEM AND SEE WHAT’S UP.”

  And here is, my sweet Cecil, what was up: These people were citizens of Night Vale. They had been lost from their home, as of today, for exactly two years, and they have apparently been wandering this desert since.

  They are a tad traumatized by their years in a featureless wasteland, accompanied only by a distant rumble and a bright light that they felt primarily in the roots of their teeth, and so they haven’t told me yet how they got here. But I have them resting in the hot yoga studio we recently built, so I hope to hear their story soon. And when I hear the story, you will, too. And then, I’m sure, everyone who listens to your show will, you old blabbermouth. It would upset me if it weren’t just who you are. So much of each other would be annoying if they weren’t also the essence of us.

  Okay, more soon.

  [BEEP]

  DEB:Hello Cecil, it’s Deb, the sentient patch of haze. I have some new ad copy I want to run by you. And then I want to disregard any petty human feelings you have about it. And then I want to run the ad on the air. Here goes, okay?

  I drift above you. I see mostly the top of your heads. You are pitiful from that perspective. Your hair droops or falls out or hangs flat. I haze above you, sentiently. You slug below me, humanly.

  Sentient patches of haze. We are the future. We are also the past. You aren’t even the props. You are the backdrop.

  So if you have any issues or questions at all about that ad, don’t hesitate to not tell me. Hope you’re having a great day. Okay, Cecil, bye-bye!

  [BEEP]

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN:Hello, Cecil, it’s the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. I’m in your closet, listening to moths eat one of your suits. They make such a lovely crunch and tear.

  I just wanted to reach out in regards to you protecting your former Intern Dana against Hiram and I’s good work toward destroying her. You’ve foiled us more than once. I won’t forget that, Cecil. I forget nothing. Unlike you, your brain a dusty surface so easily blown clean. My memory cakes on, it stains, it warps. My memory is erosi
on, it is on the very surface of the earth.

  Do you feel my fingernails on your back? No. You don’t. I could do so many things to you without you feeling it. Remember that, if you remember nothing else, which seems likely these days.

  Tell Carlos I said, “Hi.” I always liked him. And stay out of my way or I will destroy you just as these moths I caught outside and carried into your closet are destroying all of your clothing.

  [BEEP]

  OLD WOMAN JOSIE:Cecil, I’m here with Erika and Erika, just checking to see if we can get a ride to League Night later. My car’s in the shop because I stopped believing in it, so if you can fit us all in there we’d appreciate it. Also I can’t use my left hand lately, so it might be a little tricky but we’re still going to win. We’ll crush ’em, Cecil.

  [BEEP]

  DANA:Hi Cecil,

  It’s Mayo—It’s Dana.

  I hope you’re doing okay. You seem kind of . . . I mean lately. Lately, you’ve been.

  Isn’t it weird how we talked more when I was trapped in that distant desert otherworld than now when we work a five-minute drive from each other? It’s funny how life works. That word meant the opposite of its usual meaning. That’s funny too, I guess.

  I know you think I bought Lot 37. But you’re wrong. I wasn’t in Night Vale at the time. Yes, I projected myself into the auction that day, but I only bought some collectible spoons and a Lee Marvin–autographed baseball for my brother. That’s all, though.

  It’s awful when you can see the reasoning for someone’s feeling toward you while knowing wholly that they’re wrong.

  I wonder sometimes if my double could have done better. Or, if I am the double, whether the original me would have done better. Did I destroy my better half? Then maybe I was lucky that even half of me was better, once upon a time.

  Cecil, I do my best with what I have. I don’t have much. I hope we’ll talk soon.

  Night Vale needs me as much as it needs you. And when it comes down to it, I’ll stand for that before anything else. It’s my job.

  Okay.

  [BEEP]

  [weird alien sounds]

  [BEEP]

  CARLOS:Hey, quick update, and then—poof—I’m gone again from your voice mail. I’ve put some of the junk we’ve found and some of the people we’ve found in my lab and I’m studying them using microscopes and vials of bubbling liquids and me making thoughtful expressions and saying hmm. So I’m really using all of the available scientific tools right now.

  I feel like I’m on the verge of something big here. Something new. I’ll call you soon. This is so exciting!

  [BEEP]

  HIRAM-GOLD:Well howdy, Cecil, uh, Frank Chen here.

  HIRAM-BLUE:Yes, Frank Chen with 1000-percent certainty that is who I am.

  HIRAM-GOLD:Right. So, Frank Chen, normal human with one voice. No other voices interrupting that main voice making me sound anything less than human.

  HIRAM-GREEN:WHAT’S GOING ON? SOMEONE PUT THE PHONE NEAR MY EARS. I CAN’T HEAR.

  HIRAM-GREY:Well, there’s that busted.

  HIRAM-GOLD:Just normal human Frank Chen playing a joke with funny voices, wanting to hear if the mayor told you any plans she might have. I’m curious because I’m a citizen and a voter.

  HIRAM-PURPLE:This was a bad plan. I told you I didn’t want any more to do with your foolish plans.

  HIRAM-GOLD:Purple! Green! Blue! Grey! Come on, guys. We’re in this together. And ugh. Just. All right. Frank Chen, average person of normal head amount saying good-bye. See you around, Cecil.

  [BEEP]

  AUTOMATIC PHONE VOICE:[words with ** are performed by a separate voice, in a dry manner] Hello this is your *DAILY* update from the automated *WEATHER* service. Here is the current *WEATHER*.

  WEATHER: “Tag!” by Scarves

  Thank you for using our automated *WEATHER* service. Have a *NICE* day.

  [BEEP]

  CARLOS:Cecil! Cecil! I did it. I understand. I hooked everything up to computers and I said hmm a lot and then I asked the people to talk about how they ended up in the desert and it turned out that they were all lured into the Dog Park during Poetry Week, and then the gates closed on them and they’ve been in this desert ever since.

  And I thought about this. I thought about how Dana came in here with them on that same day. And about all of the stuff I found, which I think is junk that people got rid of by throwing them over the walls of the forbidden Dog Park. And I realized.

  This is the Dog Park. This whole desert. The mountain. The light up on the mountain. We’re in a vast, perhaps endless, and definitely endlessly forbidden Dog Park.

  Which means . . . you can visit now. You just have to walk through that Dog Park gate and then, you know, walk a few more hundred miles after that to wherever we’re at in this huge desert and then you’ll be able to take that vacation here.

  Call me as soon as you get this. Cecil! Oh honey-voiced honey! You’ll be able to visit. Talk soon. Love you.

  [BEEP]

  KEVIN:Hey, friend. We haven’t spoken in awhile. Not since all that . . . unpleasantness happened. I hope everything has been super pleasant since then. Oh but hey. I’ve been working on something I’d like to show you. I think you’ll be just jazzed about it. Get back to me ASAP, okay?

  Until next time, Cecil. Until next time.

  PROVERB:Instead of a proverb today, I just have some important news about the stray cats that live outside my apartment. There is the usual one, named Bisquick, who is missing one ear and is terrifying, but today I saw a second one, who is fatter and less terrifying and who I have named The Baron. I will keep you updated as events unfold.

  Episode 66:

  “Worms . . .”

  APRIL 15, 2015

  GUEST VOICE: MARA WILSON (FACELESS OLD WOMAN)

  SIMILAR TO EPISODE 64, AN EARLY STUDY FOR THE “ALL HAIL” LIVE show we would write two years later, Episode 66 is an early study for the second Night Vale novel, It Devours!, which was published in October 2017.

  The moment we finished the first novel in late 2014, we started discussing the second novel. It didn’t take long (like thirty minutes, really) to conclude that novel number two would be about the Smiling God. Exactly what about the Smiling God, we didn’t know. Just that the Smiling God seemed like a cool thing to write a book about.

  This is how all novels are written. Jane Austen was like, “You know what’s a good name? Emma. I freaking love that name. I should write a book called ‘Emma.’ It’ll be about . . . someone named Emma!” Octavia Butler famously had an entire yellow legal pad that was completely empty save for the phrase “Parables? Parables are p cool tbh” on the top page.

  So with Carlos still living there, we spent some of 2015 exploring the desert otherworld and its relationship to Night Vale. This liminal space between universes and timelines seemed a great place to start building some of the basic elements around the Smiling God—creepy wormy things under the earth, rumblings, and giant holes.

  This episode is not explicitly about the Smiling God. The worms, like cicadas in our actual world, kind of go through multi year cycles of proliferation. And unlike a lot of titular concepts in Night Vale episodes, they’re not really the main conflict. They’re a scary news story, yes, but it’s all in Cecil’s lack of attention to them, as he ponders how to go visit Carlos in a distant land.

  —Jeffrey Cranor

  We all lie dreamily upon damp earth spotting clouds shaped like animals we have yet to invent.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  If you woke up today, you’re probably already well aware of the worms. It’s been about twelve years since the last round of worm-based terror in this town, but they’re back. They’re doing all of the usual worm things: flying around and dropping trees onto cars and houses, spitting venom at people, and eating stray cats and then leaving large, mewling pellets all about town.

  Thousands of worms have managed to completely envelop the rec center annex, which is where today’s “Con
tinuing Education Course: Counter-Terrorism Techniques for Beginners” was taking place. Sadly, despite frequent pleas by many to classify worm attacks as terrorism, worms remain classified as a low-grade infestation and, thus, were not covered in today’s Continuing Education coursework. This means more giant, squirming pellets to clean up.

  [sound of flipping pages]

  Yeah yeah. Worms. Great.

  Hey, unrelated to anything. Just wondering, but have you ever asked yourself why the Dog Park is off limits? I mean, I know it’s a municipal park and all, but shouldn’t citizens be able to use it? Seems kind of weird, right, that you can’t just go to the Dog Park and hang out? Maybe even bring your dog? I don’t know.

  It’s not like it contains any kind of vast desert otherworld where my boyfriend lives. It’s, I’m sure, just a plain old Dog Park and not an alt-dimensional portal.

  Maybe our mayor will try to open up the Dog Park for public use. Just temporarily, say for a few minutes. Maybe our mayor can help me out for once. That would certainly be a friendly and mayoral thing to do.

  After years of applications for city approval, there is finally an official Night Vale Book Club, listeners. The Book Club, which is run by fourteen-year-old bibliophile and heroic vigilante Tamika Flynn, will feature weekly discussions of popular and classic fiction, as well as Q&A’s with book experts about some of literature’s most famous controversies, like last week’s heated argument about whether or not Herman Melville really wrote all of the novels which bear his name, or just Fight Club.

  The Book Club meets Tuesdays from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. at Patty’s Hardware & Discount Pastries. Members can candidly discuss the books without fear of most government repercussions while noshing on some delicious wheat and wheat-by-product–free pastries, sold at great discount to you. Patty’s also specializes in hammers, crowbars, and anything heavy that fits in your hand and can be easily swung. “Shop at Patty’s! They’ll never suspect a thing!” Patty shouts in the looped recording playing from her perpetually squirming animatronic statue out front of her flagship store.