It takes heart. It takes guts. It also takes cash. It just needs your payment immediately. Welcome to Night Vale.
Mayor Pamela Winchell announced again today that she is stepping down as mayor later this year. This is the fourth announcement this week. She said again, through tight teeth, that this is totally her call and was never ever discussed in a room with no windows, by small men wearing large pelts and decorative soft meat crowns.
“That is not how we do things,” she said. “That is not how we do things,” she whispered. “That is not how we do things!” she mouthed silently, as a single dark red tear formed in the corner of her eye, and then slowly rolled down her taut olive cheek and onto her clay-stained smock.
Elections for a new mayor will be held at some later time. When asked by the press for a specific date and location, masked representatives from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency purred loudly. They then began rubbing their sides against the journalists’ legs. Several reporters began sneezing.
Listeners, many of you recall our station intern Dana who, while reporting on strange goings-on, was locked in the Forbidden Dog Park back in April. I’ve received occasional texts and emails from Dana, but then this morning, well…let’s listen.
DANA: Cecil, it’s Dana. I found a way out of here. I walked the perimeter of the Dog Park looking for a crack or a hole or a weak spot in the obsidian walls. I never found an opening, but…this is very strange. The walls just keep going! If you stand still, the Dog Park seems to take up a single city block, but…I walked one direction for about two weeks, and I could no longer see the monolith where I started. Or the people I was with. Or even hear the tinfoil rustling of the leaves from the tall, black metal trees that protect us from clouds.
There’s something else. I found a door. An old oak door, standing unsupported by any other structure. I didn’t know if it was an exit from the Dog Park or an entrance to something much worse, but…I went through it. Now I am in some old house.
Cecil, I can hear someone moving around upstairs. I need to go. I will try to call you soon. Thank you for everything, and I hope our time and place match again soon.
CECIL: Oh, listeners! I so wish I could have talked to Dana this morning! They were showing Cat Ballou again on TBS and I just couldn’t break away. I tried to call Dana back, but my phone caught briefly on fire, and something sharp cut open my thumb as I selected her number.
And now a Public Service Announcement from the Night Vale SPCA.
Thinking about getting a dog? Dogs are not only great family companions, but also help childhood development. By regularly feeding, walking, fighting, denying the existence of, and ultimately soul-merging with the family dog, young children learn about responsibility, empathy, and pyrokinesis.
There are, of course, some breeds of dogs that are not right for children. Those breeds include spider wolves, double wolves, switch-bladed mountain dogs, secret terriers, flesh-eating spaniels, pit vipers, and table saws. Visit the SPCA for more information on the right dog for your family.
Hello? Dana?
DANA: Cecil? I can barely understand you. Cecil, are you there?
CECIL: Yes, I’m here! Dana, are you still in the old house?
DANA: No, I’m still in the old house. I made my way out of the basement, which was empty except for a single photograph of a lighthouse. It’s a framed 5x7 black and white photo of this old lighthouse. It hangs crooked just to the right of center on one wall. The lighthouse in the photo looks to be in the middle of a field. There’s no water. Why would there be a lighthouse not near the water?
CECIL: I have no idea!
DANA: No, that doesn’t sound right. Maybe it’s some other reason.
Anyway, once I heard the footsteps above me stop, I opened the door to the first floor. I saw a man standing in the middle of the living room, staring straight ahead at the wall. I couldn’t see his face, Cecil, and I knew that I had been through this moment before…not like deja vu, more like a clear but fleeting memory of a dream. I was scared he might hear me, Cecil.
CECIL: What did you do, Dana?
DANA: Yes, that’s exactly what I did! I got up the nerve and I spoke to him. I said, “Hello sir, my name is Dana and I’m sorry to intrude, but I was wondering…is this your home?”
And he didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. He just kept staring at another small photo on the wall. I walked closer to him and I said, “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, but–” And then I saw. Cecil, I saw who it was!
CECIL: Who was it?
DANA: No, it wasn’t her. It was John Peters – you know, the farmer? And he was staring at this photo, and I walked closer and said, “John, it’s me, Dana!” But he didn’t respond.
I looked at the photo he was examining and it was just a picture of a window – a worn driftwood frame inside of which was a photograph of a worn driftwood pane with gently warped glass. I couldn’t see what was beyond the window in the photo, but there was a shape. Maybe a tree? Maybe a person? John just stared ahead looking sad.
No, not sad. Concerned. He looked concerned.
I didn’t say another word to him. I waved my hand gently in front of his eyes, and he didn’t notice me. I tried to touch his shoulder, but my hand went right through him! Like through a cold wind! He wasn’t even there, Cecil!
He eventually turned and looked at another photo on another wall of another window, but he never saw or heard me.
This home has no furniture, no furnishings, no belongings – only photos. Single, small photos on occasional walls. Most of them are windows – different windows with different panes in different photo frames.
The house itself, I realize, has no windows of its own, so…I don’t really know if there is a basement or a first or second floor. The upstairs is the downstairs is the ground floor. But I know one thing, Cecil.
CECIL: What is that?
DANA: No, but you’re close.
I know that John Peters entered through a door in the kitchen. I can see the door right now, Cecil. It is open, and beyond that door is sunlight. I can see sunlight and sand. I’m going through.
CECIL: Yes! Dana, do that! Go through the door now! Go through that door!
DANA: I’m sorry, Cecil, you make a good point, but I have to go through that door, no matter what! I’ve got to get back home!
CECIL: Do it, Dana. Yes!
DANA: Here I go!
CECIL: Dana? Hello? Dana, can you hear me?
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know where Dana has gone now. I do hope that we hear from her again. I would try to call her back, but my phone has grown…spiny legs and is crawling away now.
If you are the type to pray, please pray for Dana’s safe return home to Night Vale. If you are not the type to pray, please know that you are violating several laws, and you will receive a knock on your door from armed agents very soon.
Let’s have a look at sports.
This weekend, the Night Vale High School Scorpions kick off their season against the Pine Cliff High School Lizard Monitors. Scorpions quarterback senior Michael Sandero had off-season surgery to remove the second head he grew in the middle of last season’s division title run. Michael’s mother, Flora Sandero, said she had her son’s original head removed instead, as she liked the new head much better.
“This new head’s much handsomer and doesn’t talk back as much,” Flora[1] explained from the roof of the Pinkberry, where she was installing several long pikes with dead vultures and rodents on the ends. “This new head only speaks Russian, so I don’t have to listen to him on the phone with his girlfriend all night long, and he doesn’t hog the television because he doesn’t understand any of the English or Spanish programs here. He’s a better boy now,” she said, jamming another pike into the roof of the trendy fro-yo store, before yelling skyward, causing the sparse clouds to part quickly, revealing a giant floating crystal glowing faintly red in the mid-afternoon sun.
And now, a word from our sponsor.
McDonald’s wants to remind you that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. So why would you let a morning go by without staring deeply into the mirror until you no longer recognize the face staring back at you – mimicking your every gesture, mocking your every movement?
How else will you get the energy you need for a full day’s work or recreation if you aren’t silently screaming into the visage of a man or woman who gives you such uneasy spirit, such unshakable terror, a queasy feeling every time you make the connection between what that thing is and what you are becoming?
What you have become?
Where does the void end? Where do you end? When do you end? What time is it now? You are late for work! You are lying on your bathroom floor, half-dressed in a cool sludge of toothpaste and hair gel. You’ve been crying, but for how long?
McDonald’s. I’m lovin’!
Listeners, I just received word from Carlos – lovely Carlos, with his perfect teeth and hair and…penchant for sometimes chewing a little more loudly than is preferred – Carlos, who is with other scientists at the Desert Creek Housing Development. For the past year, Carlos has been studying a house that does not exist. It seems like it exists, like it’s just right there when you look at it, and it’s between two identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not…but it does not exist.
Carlos said the scientists asked him to come over and ring the doorbell, just to see what would happen. They offered him five dollars but he turned it down, saying something about scientific integrity and blah blah blah. But I’m like, five dollars is a taco lunch at Jerry’s Tacos, so, whatever, rich guy!
Carlos said that before he could take a step to the house, a woman emerged from the side door talking on her cell phone. He and the scientists ran up to the woman, calling out to her as she walked, quickly, away from the house. She looked panicked.
No, not panicked. Concerned. She looked concerned, Carlos said.
She kept talking on her cell phone, never responding to them. Carlos said she kept walking until she walked right through them, right through the scientists, like she were a cold wind. And then, she stopped talking into her phone, stared back toward the house, and with a look of panic – no, with a look of concern – ran away.
Carlos said – and this is very strange – Carlos said, “it sounded like the person she was talking to was you, Cecil!”
Listeners, I do not know where or when Dana is, but I am going to sit by this phone and wait for her call. I know she is all right. I hope she is all right. I fear she is not all right.
With great anxiousness – no, concern. With great concern, I take you now to the weather.
[“The Lethal Temptress” by The Mendoza Line]
AUTOMATED PHONE VOICE: First saved message:
DANA: Cecil, I’m sorry I lost your call. I made it out of the door, out of the empty house and its empty photographs into an empty desert, and I don’t know if anything has improved. I can see nothing but endless sand and a single distant mountain – a mountain I have never seen, because I don’t believe in mountains. But there is a mountain, and there is a tiny red light up on the mountain, intermittently blinking.
As I exited the house, the door shut behind me and now it’s gone. As I walked, I moved through something that wasn’t there. I heard voices through digital static, and felt a cold wind across my body. The others are here, but not here, Cecil.
What, or who, did I just walk through?
Cecil, something is coming. You can feel it in the ground, something very large is coming. I’ve gotta go. I will call when I can, and tell my mother and brother I am out of the Dog Park and I am safe. For now.
Thank you, Cecil.
AUTOMATED PHONE VOICE: End of message.
CECIL: Oh, listeners, I wish I had more news than this. I wish my phone would have rung, I wish I could have had that conversation instead of another voice mail. I wish Dana were home, safe. I wish I could feel something other than overwhelming concern.
No, not concern – uncertainty.
I wish a lot of things.
But, as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses, those wishes would all run away shrieking and bucking, terrified of a great unseen evil.
So instead, what I want to say is, I am thankful Dana is out of the Dog Park. I am thankful I had my first conversation with her since Poetry Week. I am thankful Carlos did not ring that doorbell. I am thankful that people listen to this show and the stories about our wonderful little community – the most scientifically interesting community in America, as my Carlos once said.
And, of course, I am thankful for you, Night Vale.
Stay tuned next for loud shortwave radio squelches, followed by a lifetime of tinnitus.
Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.
Today’s proverb: Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.
Footnotes
- ↑ Production note to Cecil: I would love it if Flora had a Boston-ish accent. - Jeffrey Cranor
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