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This is my first attempt at doing a . . . fanfic? podfic? fanpod? ficcast? original podfic in the style of the show, anyway. It's intended to be listened to, not read. If you can't listen for whatever reason, I've provided my script below, but I hope you'll listen if you can. And that you'll forgive my occasionally Canadian Cecil. :)
Download the audio file as an MP3 or listen to it streaming below:
SCRIPT:
There is a stranger speaking with your voice. They have your emphasis, your intonation, and your rhythm, this stranger. When they speak, they speak with your words, and when they sigh or laugh it is your breath that is borne from their body. Perhaps you are the stranger. Perhaps not.
Welcome to Night Vale.
*
Listeners, we are very lucky tonight to have a guest in the studio. Carlos, our local scientist and utterly beautiful investigator of strange phenomena is here with us. Carlos, would you like to say hi to everyone at home?
Carlos is shaking his head no, perhaps because he is too shy to go on the radio – isn't that adorable, listeners? Anyway, Carlos is here to keep me company before we head out on our second date, the location and activities of which Carlos has kept secret from me, though I know I will be delighted by whatever he chooses for us to do, provided that it is within the bounds of municipal regulations on second dates.
Carlos is blushing now, and an unearthly howl is beginning to emerge from behind the frosted glass door of Station Management's office, and so I think that I had better turn my attention to . . . the news.
*
Spokesperson Trish Hidge from the Mayor's office recorded the following announcement today:
"There are no strange, black, chittering . . . things, visible only out of the corners of your eyes, capable of jumping on your back and digging down into your spinal cord. I repeat: nothing like that exists at all."
In response to questions from gathered reporters as to the nature of these . . . things, Hidge clarified,
"Just, things. Look, it's really better if you don't think or say their name, so I'm not going to tell you what it is. No, Leann, I cannot draw you a picture. We simply ask that you take comfort in the knowledge that they don't exist, and be sure to jam towels into the gaps at the bottom of your doors, just in case."
Due to continued community pressure as the result of the swiftly increasing rate of spinal cord injuries, however, the City Council has passed a new regulation making it illegal to acknowledge or attempt to explain any strange black chittering . . . things. The Sheriff's Secret Police will be roaming the streets today to enforce this statute, armed, completely coincidentally, with bug spray and giant flyswatters. So there you have it, Night Vale! You can rest easy behind your sealed and locked doors and within your salt circles.
*
I am now being handed a piece of paper – and the hands, dear listeners, are perfect, strong and soft and well-proportioned, belonging to none other than the lovely scientist Carlos, who as you may recall is visiting with me in the booth today – and on this piece of paper Carlos has used the non-pen that I recently helped him construct to write me a message. How kind! I cannot tell you what a delight it is to hold in my hands this simple note that Carlos has – what?
Oh, yes, of course. [clears throat]
Upon reading the message, I learn that Carlos is attempting to draw my attention to the weather conditions outside. Here in my soundproof booth, of course, I do not have a window, but curious Carlos popped out during the last segment to see what all the ruckus and screaming was about. He did not get a clear view of the source of the excitement, but he did notice that the sky has turned a deep indigo, contrary to yesterday's forecast, and that it does appear to be raining . . . something. If you are out on the streets of Night Vale tonight, please call in or email to let us know what's going on in the community! We'd love to hear from you.
*
And now, traffic.
You are locked in a small, cramped space, strapped to five thousand pounds of arcanely crafted metal and plastic, hurtling through time and space at such speeds that, should you lose control for even a second, your sudden impact against any large, solid object would be enough to rip your flesh to pieces, split and crush your bones, twist and mutilate your body until it was no longer recognizable. Strapped in next to you are people you love: your friends and members of your family, all of whom could easily be compressed into one bloody mass of torn dripping animal tissue if your attention were to waver for just one moment.
You grip the steering wheel tightly, knuckles going white, aware that you are but one among many, that thousands of others are suffering the same fate, strapped down and careening forward, just barely under control, twisting and turning desperately in an effort to cling to the thin thread of life represented by the winding black highway, by the boundaries of the white lines on the pavement and the six inches between the machine you ride in and the tall expanse of concrete alongside it. You are all always almost dying; you are all always almost dead. Occasionally you see lumps of smoking metal off to the side of the road, bodies, an empty child's shoe thrown clear: the inevitable carnage of this terrible game, the price in blood exacted by the machines. You grit your teeth; you pray that you can maintain control until this hellish nightmare is over; you do not glance at your friends, at your family, whose lives you could end in an instant. If you can hold on long enough, it will be over, and you will be allowed to stop, to unstrap your body from this killing machine and emerge, blinking, into the sunlight. If you can hold on long enough, you will survive to do it all again tomorrow.
This traffic segment has been brought to you by AAA.
*
In other news, Old Woman Josie, out by the car lot, has called in to report that she and the angels who live with her have been working with Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, John Peters – you know, the farmer? – and the sales people from the car lot to turn her home into a bunker and garrison. Old Woman Josie says that they are doing this to defend against an invasion of strange, black, chittering . . . things, though I don't know what they could mean by that, given that we have an official statement from the Mayor's Office assuring us that such things do not exist. Of course, according to local authorities, angels do not exist either, so perhaps it is appropriate that one non-existent thing should fight against another non-existent thing. I just don't know that much about metaphysics or ontology, listeners! So I'll have to leave it to you to decide.
Regardless of the existence or non-existence of any of Old Woman Josie's friends or the strange black chittering . . . things that they claim to be defending themselves against, Old Woman Josie would like the townsfolk to know that they are welcome to join her in boarding up windows and stockpiling canned goods and ammunition. In this reporter's opinion, a worthy activity, regardless of our current state of siege. So head on out to Old Woman Josie's house, out by the car lot, if you would like to engage in some community bunker-building fun!
*
I've just received a last minute update to our traffic report: the Sheriff's Secret Police would like to remind you that any reports of strange, black, chittering . . . things swarming over the road on Route 800, crunching horribly under squealing tires, stopping traffic with their sheer numbers and the bulk of their chittering black forms, skittering up the sides of vehicles and squeezing their bodies impossibly to pour through the gap between the door and the frame of the car, are not true and should not be believed if encountered.
*
Listeners, I must confess that I am growing somewhat concerned, because dear lovely Carlos slipped out of the booth again during the last segment, presumably to check on the mysterious rain, but he has not come back and it has been a while now. I do hope that he is all right. Until he returns I will have to simply continue broadcasting, chained as ever to my microphone, hoping that nothing . . . chittering has befallen him. If you are at or near the radio station and you see Carlos, I implore you, urge him to come back inside. In the meantime, let's go to the community calendar.
*
Coming up this Tuesday, the Girl Scouts will begin door-to-door cookie sales; all proceeds go towards new uniforms for the girls and towards the purchase of sacrificial animals for their shadowy masters. If a Girl Scout appears at your door, avoid eye contact, do not make any sudden movements, and please dig deep in your pockets to support this worthy cause. This year, to add to the fun, one in twenty boxes of thin mints has been poisoned.
On Wednesday, Big Rico's Pizza will be holding its twenty-third annual tenth anniversary bash. All slices will be half off, though you will still be required to pay full price for them. Patrons will be provided with complementary party hats at the door – but remember, it's one hat per customer, regardless of the number of heads you have!
And speaking of multiple heads, on Thursday the Night Vale Scorpions, led by star Quarterback Michael Sandero, will be going head to head to head against . . . against . . . [gulping sound] against longtime rival Desert Bluffs. Listeners, I am – Carlos has returned to the booth, and – it's fine. I think . . . I think he's fine.
[pause, papers shuffling, a voice in the background, too indistinct to hear]
Fri – Friday is the . . . bi-monthly Sheriff's Secret Policemen's Ball, to support the Sheriff's Secret Police Widows and Orphans Fund. If you have not yet purchased a ticket, please keep in mind the words of our Sheriff: widows and orphans are exceedingly easy to create.
Breaking news, Night Vale. I have just received word from the Mayor's office that there are, contrary to earlier reports, strange black chittering . . . things falling from the sky. In a recorded statement, Spokesperson Trish Hidge said,
"Oh god, oh god, they're real and they're here. Run, run if you can, and hide! Cower in a corner and hold your loved ones close, because they are here and they are many and they can fit through any crack. There are so many of them! Leann, Leann, I'm sorry. I love you. I have always loved you. Wherever you are, Leann, I just hope you're safe. I hope you're safe and that you will come to find me when this is all over. I've wasted so much time! [crying] We're all doomed!"
Hang in there, Trish.
City Council has reversed their earlier legislation and has instead mandated that every citizen take up arms to defend themselves and the town against this now-acknowledged scourge. Here at the station we have had multiple calls and emails from concerned citizens, and Carlos – beautiful, brave Carlos – has given me a first-hand account. He says that the strange black chittering . . . things are still raining down outside, that the streets are flooded with them, crawling and skittering, invading every building, and that soon even the radio station with its steel lockdown barriers will be overwhelmed. As I speak, Carlos is fashioning rudimentary weapons out of the coat rack and the letter opener, hoping that he will be able to defend this booth against the onslaught. But oh, they skitter so quickly, Night Vale, and they jump so high, and Carlos says that even well-armed citizens are falling to them in the street.
*
We here at the station are now receiving reports from various concerned Night Vale citizens. Old Woman Josie, out by the car lot, reports that the bunker they have built is not, I repeat, not preventing the . . . things from entering, but that they are holding their own with cunning, ingenuity, and an impressive shared arsenal of machine guns. No word yet on whether the guns are actually capable of killing the . . . things, or whether they are just frightened by the noise.
We're also getting word that Night Vale Elementary is surrounded by a garrison of schoolchildren, all bearing their government-issued automatic weapons and led by Summer Reading Program star Tamika Flynn. It seems that, in accordance with school policy, all of the teachers have left the students to fend for themselves, and that the students have organized themselves into a fighting force to defend their school.
*
The . . . things are beginning to enter the booth now. I can see the first of them oozing in through the crack in the door! Its pincers and its eyes are bulging through, clacking and rolling, and now, listeners, now it is in the booth – but no! Moving with breathtaking grace and speed, Carlos has stabbed it through with a spear fashioned out of the letter opener, thereby pinning it to the floor, and it has twitched and died there beneath his strong, soft, well-proportioned scientist's hands. But now there are more, and Carlos is hefting his makeshift coat rack club and readying himself, a fierce, beautiful look of determination on his face.
Night Vale, if you are listening, know that the strange black chittering . . . things can be killed! Stabbing them through the main . . . body . . . area seems to be working, and now Carlos is hitting them with blunt force and that seems to be working too, they are smashed and broken and when they stop moving they do not start again. Citizens, take up arms and have faith that these things cannot overtake us, that they can die by violence and that we will beat them back. Carlos is now standing at the door, laying about himself with his club, and he has killed every single one that has come into the booth so far. Stabbing kills them, and blunt force trauma kills them, and – oh, now, listeners, Carlos has retrieved something from his pocket –
[indistinct, in the background: "hydrochloric acid!"]
Carlos has informed me that it's hydrochloric acid! Gosh, I hope he wasn't saving that for our date, it'd be too bad if he ran out – but, yes, it does seem to be working too!
[indistinct, in the background: "tell them to use household acids!"]
Carlos is advising that you use any household acids you have to douse the . . . things, as they seem particularly susceptible to that. Use vinegar, lemon juice, grout cleaner, or that locked, carefully sealed container of fluoroantimonic acid you've been keeping under the sink. Indeed, they are now dying all around us, bubbling and screaming, and it doesn't seem like any more of them are coming through the crack in the door.
Carlos, no, be careful – !
[pause]
Listeners, Carlos has just opened the door to the booth and looked out, and it seems like the terror has passed! There are no more of the strange black chittering . . . things in the hallway, and now I am being informed that outside the sky is clear and the rain has stopped! It seems that we are soon to be free of this menace forever – so, citizens, keep stabbing and bludgeoning and throwing acid at these little scamps, for your labors will soon be at an end!
Carlos has re-entered the booth, and oh, if I could come close to describing the way he looks now, covered in blood and ichor, breathing hard, eyes wild, sweat beading on his perfect brow, dampening the perfect flairs of grey hair at his temples. His labcoat is torn nearly to shreds. The muscles of his arms are still corded where they clutch his makeshift club, and his mouth is red like the red of the blood that is splattered across his cheek. He has defended this station – defended me – against certain death, and, oh, now that he is victorious I could die happily in his bloodied, powerful arms.
Uh.
And now, I give you: the weather.
[The Strumbellas' "Carry My Body" plays]
[sounds of shuffling and scraping around. Indistinct, in the background: "No, I am a radio professional – " ]
Listeners, let me – uh. Please enjoy this pre, pre-recorded – stop it, stop it, stop it – word from our sponsors.
*
Reach out. Touch someone. Connect. Raise your trembling hands and stretch your fingers into the deep void of space, hoping for contact, fearing contact. Reach out. Listen for a voice that emerges from the unfathomable silence; feel for the brush of fingers against yours; look for the glint of light in the eyes of a being far away, lost in the vastness of the universe. Touch someone. Seek out the press of flesh to your body and the bite of sharp teeth against your ear as whispered words fall from stretched alien lips to tumble, pregnant and dripping with meaning, into the soft spongy surface of your consciousness. Make a connection. A child stands motionless, holding a balloon, the birthday party long over. Reach out. An old married couple sits together on a porch swing on a warm autumn morning, bereft of the company of their long-dead friends. Touch someone. A human being stands in a crowded supermarket, arrested by the sudden possibility of hearing a voice from long ago, half-remembered; and, trembling with unspeakable emotion, they glance hurriedly around the busy public space, seeking out a face that comes to them now only in dreams. Reach out. Touch someone. Make a connection.
Brought to you by Verizon Wireless.
*
[panting, out of breath] We are – [exhales] we are getting word that the Mayor's office has released another statement, and so we go now live to spokesperson Trish Hidge, standing on the front steps of City Hall.
"It may look to some like the City Council and the Mayor's office made a mistake, and those people will be rounded up before the day's end by the Sheriff's Secret Police. But it was no mistake to say that there were no strange black chittering . . . things, because as you see, Night Vale, there are no such things, anymore. The Mayor's office and the City Council admit no fault, since, as usual, the fault was yours, in your failure to correctly interpret our words. There is no need for anyone to admit the existence of any strange black chittering . . . things, because as a town we have killed them all, and driven yet another species to extinction. The Mayor's office and the City Council were right all along, and nothing we said can be interpreted any other way.
I would like to add, on a personal note, that any admissions of love and affection made by this office to one Leann Hart were . . . also, uh. Quite correct. And cannot be interpreted in any other way. And that I'll be at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner in half an hour, so. Just to . . . inform the populace. In case the populace wanted to know."
So there you have it, Night Vale! We have once again emerged from disaster, have once again come together as a community to beat back the forces that would seek to jump chittering onto our backs and dig down into our spinal cords with their terrifying teeth and pincers. We survived because our community spirit cannot be dimmed, because when we are united there is little that we cannot do. Guided by the wise and retrospectively unerring advice of our great civic leaders in the Mayor's office and on the City Council, and aided by the hands-on scientific inquiry of Carlos – beautiful, masterful, powerful, vocal Carlos – we have prevailed. Remember that tonight as you scrub the ichor from your flagstones and the viscera from your clothes: remember that it was only as a community that we survived.
That force of love, whether admitted in a dire moment and in the face of probable death, or manifest in the fierce protectiveness of those who rally citizens together in a common cause, or shown by the manner in which your boyfriend takes you hard and fast against a desk –
[Carlos, laughing: "Cecil, Jesus Christ!"]
– in perfect accordance with City Council mandates on second dates –
[Carlos laughing]
–is inescapable, inexorable, and far too precious to be denied, even by those who would seek to deny everything else. So hold your loved ones carefully tonight, Night Vale, and feel the softness of their flesh, the fragility of their bones, the susceptibility of their internal organs to trauma and rupture. Feel the rush of blood beneath skin and the easily interrupted beating of a single small heart, and be glad, for now, that we live on.
Good night, Night Vale. Good night.
Second Date is a production of fanfiction, made for fun and not for profit, and inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, a production of Commonplace Books. It was written and produced by thingswithwings. The voice of Cecil Baldwin was thingswithwings, and the voice of Trish Hidge was livrelibre. If you want to listen to the original Welcome to Night Vale, you can check them out at commonplacebooks.com or on itunes. This episode's weather was Carry My Body by the Strumbellas; you can learn more about them by going to thestrumbellas.ca. Want to give me feedback on this podfic? Check me out at archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings or at thingswithwings.dreamwidth.org. Today's proverb: Using your lungs, throat, vocal cords, teeth, mouth, lips, and tongue, produce vibrations. Those vibrations are now moving throughout the universe forever, a piece of you, but now separated from you forever.