165 - Charlie

Did you know that Nightfall is not just a podcast, it's also books?

That's right.

It's like movies for your ears, but in written word form.

We have four script collections that are fully illustrated with behind-the-scenes intros for every single episode.

And then we have three novels.

The first Welcome to Nightfall novel, in which two women have their lives turned upside down by a mysterious man in a tan jacket.

We reveal the origin of that, the man man in the tan jacket in that one.

Then the New York Times best-selling thriller, It Devours, in which we really try to get to the bottom of a certain smiling god.

Finally, my favorite, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.

Part Pirate Adventure, Part Haunted House, all Faceless Old Woman.

Find the three novels and four script books wherever you get books.

Okay,

enjoy this episode of a podcast.

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are written about on Wikipedia.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Charles Raynor grew up in Beckett, Massachusetts, nestled in the rolling small hills of the Berkshires.

The fiery fall leaves, pristine winter snowfall, lush spring flowers, and sparkling summer lakes belied the average life of young Charles.

He went to school, passed his classes.

He spent time with friends seeing popular movies and playing popular games.

His family ate food together and generally got along.

When he wanted to be alone, he went to a small pond hidden in the woods to fish.

He studied sociology at Amherst College and graduated in the top 50% of his class.

Nothing about his unremarkable upbringing indicated he would one day be standing in the middle of a desert.

behind a roadblock holding a rifle and a flashlight and searching for fugitives from his own asylum.

Last month, a dozen inmates of the Night Vale Asylum escaped during a production of a play.

As an attendee of that play, I would say that while the escape was clearly not part of the original draft of the script, it made for an exciting resolution.

I mean, about 30 minutes in, Carlos and I were like, Is there going to be a car chase or a shootout or something?

I mean, that play was boho-horing.

And then suddenly, there was both.

But the warden, Charles Raynor from Beckett, Massachusetts, did not like the last-minute edits to the plot, as he and the sheriff's secret police have yet to round up any of the inmates now on the run, somewhere in our vast desert.

Nightvale citizens have expressed deep concerns about their safety.

A scathing op-ed in yesterday's Daily Journal by Leanne Hart read, Warden Raynor should never have been in charge of such an important institution.

His unchecked irresponsibility will lead us all to be killed by psychopaths, who surely hide now inside our basements, our attics, our laundry hampers, perhaps inside our own pants pockets.

The editorial continued.

They wield knives, ropes, wrenches, candlesticks, or pipes.

And when we least expect it, these crazed killers will leap out at us screaming about eating our faces, or feeding us to rodents, or whatever other evil actions those two very funny women are always describing on my favorite murder.

Charles Rayner called Hart's claims neurotypical ableism, saying that we've become too biased from movies and TV shows that play up harmful tropes about mental illnesses.

He added that none of the people inside were of immediate danger to any individual in Nightvale.

The Nightvale chapter of the ACLU then responded, calling for an investigation into a public facility that would imprison people who had committed no criminal acts.

and were of no harm to society.

Charles Raynor replied, I said they wouldn't wouldn't hurt any individual.

I didn't say they were of no harm to society.

But who were the people in the asylum?

Carlos and I attended the production of the play 1-8713 backslash NTSB,

partially to have a nice date night, just the two of us, but also because I was curious if I would see Amelia Anna Alfaro there.

The air traffic controller has not been seen since 2012 after hearing voices from the missing flight, Delta 18713.

There were rumors she was checked into the asylum, other rumors that she had gone off to find the missing plane, and other, other rumors that she was disappeared by a vague yet menacing government agency.

Amelia was not inside the asylum the night of the breakout, but Doug Biondi was there.

He played the pilot of the missing plane in the play we saw.

Doug was the impetus for this entire story, really, because it was Doug who, according to Sheriff Sam, had real information about the missing plane.

Members of the National Transportation and Safety Board had also come to Nightvale to talk to Doug about what he knew.

And Sheriff Sam obliged by sending those agents from Washington, D.C.

on an undercover investigation into the asylum.

Yet, like Doug and the dozens of other inmates in that fearful place,

they did not return.

According to Doug Biondi's journal, which Carlos and I found inside the asylum after the play, Warden Charles Rayner developed a paradoxical logic for dealing with his inmates.

He encouraged them to talk openly about their feelings under the guise of healing them.

But the more they expressed their thoughts and emotions, the more the warden used this information as proof of their insanity and, by extension, ineligibility for release.

But, as Doug elaborates, if inmates refused to talk, they were deemed uncooperative and, of course, course, ineligible for release.

Reading further into Doug's journal, I realized it's just like that novel, Catch 22,

in that there's a bunch of talk about airplanes.

What stood out most to me, though, was the fact that every other inmate Doug mentions also talked about the missing Delta flight.

Every single person in there either heard voices of the passengers, or had theories about what happened, or were, in the case of the NTSB agents, just hoping to find survivors of a missing plane.

Doug railed against the collusion between the warden and the sheriff to imprison people simply because they knew something, anything, about Flight 18713.

This is the last thing Doug wrote the day he escaped.

This nefarious conspiracy runs deep.

Deeper than we can imagine.

There are innocent people on a missing plane, and our government wants to destroy us for seeking the truth.

Oh well, in other news, they fixed the TV in the rec room, so I'm hoping to finally watch Cheer on Netflix.

Everyone says it's super good.

Doug Doug makes a compelling claim here, but

he is wrong.

About the conspiracy thing.

Not about cheer.

That show is super good.

So,

back in 2015, my devoted husband and devoted scientist, Carlos, was heading a research project into a desert otherworld.

a place very similar to our own.

We spent almost a year apart while Carlos was in this alternate dimension performing experiments and drawing charts and pouring bubbling liquids back and forth between flasks.

It was hard.

We had only been dating a year when he left, but we kept in touch, talking almost every day, sending each other text messages at night, like a Kissy Face emoji with a big red heart emoji.

Or sometimes we sent racier messages like the safety goggles emoji with the police siren emoji and the first place ribbon emoji.

Oh, sorry if that's a little too graphic.

Anyway, Carlos made friends during his many months out of town, and so when he finally decided to return to Nightvale, some of those he met followed him.

They came through a portal Carlos discovered in the desert otherworld.

a one-sided door.

It was difficult to find in a never-ending sandscape, but it is still there.

And, as Carlos said, once you know the way, you never forget it.

One of the people who came with Carlos through the portal in 2015 was Charles Rayner of Beckett, Massachusetts.

It was not easy for most of these new arrivals to find comfort or employment in Nightvale, but in just a few months, Charles had become friends with our new sheriff and secured himself a job at the Nightvale Asylum.

Few people looked deeply at the asylum nor at Charles Raynor's quick appointment as warden.

Few people, in fact, look closely at anything to do with mental disorders.

It is almost as if we prefer not to see mental illness at all.

It is almost exactly like that.

Well below the radar of public attention, Charles settled into his new position.

And because there are no accounts of what went on in the asylum and thus no stories of failure, it was inferred that he did a good job.

But Carlos discovered something this week.

In reading Doug Biondi's journal, Doug makes passing mention of Warden Rayner cautioning his inmates against listening to the voice of the pilot.

The warden warns them that the pilot can control other beings with his mind.

It is odd that the head of a mental health institution would patronize his patients with their own inner demons.

Carlos at first thought the warden was manipulating the mental stability of his charges to stir up their fear and confusion in order to keep them there.

We don't know if the warden profited from retaining retaining inmates or if he just felt an evil thrill from playing these games.

But in Doug's notes, the warden apparently said,

It is possible to escape the allure of the pilot, the power of his voice.

Some have,

but it is rare.

And it is dangerous that you can hear him at all.

Carlos remembered when he first met Charles Raynor five years ago in the desert otherworld.

Charles was

so enthralled with Carlos' stories of Nightvale.

Charles Raynor could not wait to see this fantastic town and, more importantly, to leave the terrible place in which he lived.

He told Carlos that he escaped some frightening people there.

Charles Raynor said he had lived in a commune for a couple of years.

It began okay.

They foraged and hunted their food.

They helped each other and shared shelter inside the fuselage of an old plane.

Everything was fine.

They were alive, but soon the group became cult-like and aggressive, fashioning weapons and manufacturing enemies.

The constant threat of violence toward others, towards themselves, shackled Charles's every move.

But he could not leave.

Every time he tried, he heard a voice that called him back.

So he trained himself to block out the voices.

It took him weeks of determined practice, but finally he broke free.

Carlos said to me, Cecil, sweetie, my hypothesis is Charles Raynor was flying home from Detroit to Albany on June 15th, 2012.

And I said, What are you saying, honey pup?

And Carlos said, Babe, his plane blipped out of the sky and into the desert otherworld.

And I said, Are you saying, Kitty Cake, that Charles was a passenger on Delta 18713?

But then Carlos said, You know, little piggy pie, all this work talk is exhausting.

Let's have a glass of wine, sit out on the deck, and enjoy the nice weather.

Breathe in,

breathe out,

take your time, slow down.

It's all a bit too much today,

but in time you'll be okay.

You've

got this,

you'll be fine.

And if it's helping you, you don't need to stop crying.

Just breathe in,

breathe out,

take your time, slow down.

Some days you'll run out of spoons,

but you will recover soon.

You've got this.

You'll be okay.

Today

doesn't have to be your day.

Just breathe in,

breathe out.

Take your time, slow down.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Take your time, slow down.

Breathe in,

breathe out.

take you

time

slow down.

When you look into the shadows, do you ever feel something looking back?

If you're looking for your next great fiction podcast, something dark, immersive, and just a little unsettling, listen to The Void, the new series from Fable and Folly.

It's made for fans of horror, sci-fi, and seriously spooky stories.

In the town of Milton, the darkness isn't just in your head, it's in the woods.

They call it the void, a cursed expanse that surrounds the town and swallows anyone who dares to leave.

But when a strange old man shares a mysterious pamphlet that promises a path through the void, Sam and his friends set off on a journey that unravels everything that they thought they knew about their home.

The void is dark, atmospheric, and relentlessly tense with cinematic sound design, a full voice cast, and a haunting musical score.

Think stranger things meet Super 8, but in podcast form.

Search for the void wherever you get your podcasts and step carefully.

The woods are watching.

Hey, it's Jeffrey Kraner with a word from our sponsor.

You're on a desert island, but not a deserted island.

Someone else is there.

Something else is there.

In the water, surrounding you lurks a mythical beast with two large eyes and many long arms.

You're just now hearing of this beast, but you're not afraid because you don't plan to swim.

Though that water looks nice, you're good at talking yourself into things, and soon you are in the sea, frolicking and splashing.

You even squeal, thinking you're all alone.

But you forgot what I just said.

You're not alone.

Something wraps itself around you.

It lifts you high in the air, waving you about at dizzying heights.

You look down and see the mythical kraken.

You start to scream, but in its other tentacles are bottles of kraken black spiced rum and kraken gold spiced rum.

I love kraken rum, you say.

It's bold, smooth, and made with a blend of spices.

You high-five the beast as it sets you back down on the island, along with the bottles of kraken rum.

It winks and tells you kraken rum is ideal for Halloween cocktails and disappears back into the dark, briny depths.

Visit the official sponsor of Welcome to Night Vale, Kraken Rum.com to release the Kraken this Halloween.

Copyright 2025, Kraken Rum Company, Kraken Rum.com.

Like the deepest sea, the Kraken should be treated with great respect and responsibility.

Listeners, I called Charles Rayner and I told him what Carlos and I talked about, and he confirmed what we discovered.

He was indeed a passenger on 18713.

They landed roughly but safely in the desert of the world in June 2012.

They ate their few food items and drank their water stores in two days, and soon they began spreading out to find civilization.

But the desert was vast and seemingly uninhabited.

They were too afraid to venture far from the plain, the only symbol of recognizable society.

The pilot led expeditions to find plant life and sources of water.

He exuded calmness and clarity, and the passengers followed his example, occasionally finding peace in this unpleasant and frightening desert.

Within a few months, They had developed a rhythm.

They were finding food to eat, water to drink.

The pilot seemed to know exactly where to hunt, exactly what to say, exactly how to behave.

Every passenger fell in line.

They all had jobs to do, roles to fill in this little commune.

The fuselage kept them sheltered from the searing white days and the icy black nights.

Sometimes they sang together.

walked together, taught each other how to sew, how to cook, how to make tools.

The passengers' fear became camaraderie, which became unity,

which became family, which eventually became religiosity.

One day, they were making salves from cacti, and the next, they were crafting weapons.

Charles hadn't realized it at first, but every person on that plane could communicate telepathically.

They could speak without talking, know without learning.

They were becoming a single organism separated into dozens of bodies.

The loudest voice in their heads was the pilot.

They had grown too complacent, and the pilot began to fill them once again with fear, fear of outsiders, of the rest of the world.

They began to make barbaric expeditions, hoping to find people or things to destroy.

I tried to escape, Charles said to me.

I tried to escape over and over, but the voice was too strong.

It was only when I thought about a little fishing hole down near Stockbridge that I would go to in summers, by myself, to get away.

to be alone.

Charles said he began to pantomime fishing, casting his imaginary lure on an imaginary line into an imaginary pond on hot desert sand.

And when he did this,

the voices quieted in his mind.

He could free himself from the pilot's voice, from the pilot's control.

I asked Charles why he and Sheriff Sam were locking away people just for knowing about the plane.

He said, Cecil, I locked up Doug Biondi before anyone else.

He's from that otherworld, and he knows how to get back.

And if he knows how to get back, he'll join the 18713 and lead them into Nightvale.

Charles said he was protecting our little town from the threat of the passengers of Delta Flight 18713.

If the pilot enlists Doug and gets into Nightvale, he'll recruit who he can and destroy the rest.

But why does he communicate only through Doug?

I mean, why not Carlos or ordain a cardinal or Sheriff Sam themselves?

Why not recruit everyone who knows the way into Nightvale?

I don't know, Cecil.

Charles snapped back.

But I don't will it into existence by yapping about it either, so drop it.

Listeners,

Doug Biondi is about six foot tall

with an unsettlingly

long smile

and dark nightmarish eyes.

If you see him,

contact the sheriff's office immediately.

If you do not see Doug Biondi, then close your windows, hold your family close, and repeat a mantra that that will clear your head of all outside thoughts.

Stay tuned next for a meditative

OM.

A single

O

for one full hour, uninterrupted by breath and commercial-free.

Good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents.

It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Disparition.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Original music by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com.

This episode's weather was Breathe by Tanya Daub.

Find out more at tanyadaub.bandcamp.com.

That's T-A-N-J-A-D-A-U-B.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio or live your most medium life.

Today's proverb.

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I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

You might know me from the League Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We love movies and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

It is.

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, From Greece to the Dark Knight.

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks, we've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look, and we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

So, if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Are you squeamish about horror movies, but kind of want to know what happens?

Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre?

Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightvale, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator, Horror Podcast Number Nine, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order.

Find, here's the short version, Random Horror 9 wherever you get your podcasts.

Boo.