88 - Things Fall Apart

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.

If you're dying for the next batch of Wednesday Season 2 to drop on Netflix, then I'll let you in on a secret.

The Wednesday Season 2 official Wocast is already here.

Dive deeper into the mysteries of Wednesday with the Ultimate Companion Video podcast.

Join the frightfully funny Caitlin Riley along with her producer, Thing, as she sits down with the cast and crew.

Together, they'll unravel each shocking twist, dissect the dynamics lurking beneath, unearth Adam's family lore, and answer all of your lingering questions.

Guests include Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Steve Buscemi, Fred Armison, Catherine Zeta Jones, the Joanna Lumley, also show creators Al Goh and Miles Miller, and of course, Wednesday herself, Jenna Ortega, plus many, many more.

With eight delightfully dark episodes to devour, you'll be drawn into the haunting halls of Nevermore Academy deeper than ever before.

But beware, you know where curiosity often leads.

The Wednesday Season 2 official Wocast is available in audio and video on todoom.com or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

Citywide utility failures continue to haunt us, but not as much as the strangers who do not appear to move.

Welcome to the Night Vale Public Utilities phone line.

If you're calling with a water, power, gas, phone, or surveillance camera malfunction, please press one.

If you just called to chat,

Nightvale is currently experiencing citywide power power outages as well as polluted water supplies and several gas leaks.

It's not our fault, but HR says we should apologize for the inconvenience.

Sorry, I guess.

It's not like we're not experiencing the same thing, though, so maybe you could reciprocate the sympathies.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

To pay your bill, press 1.

To compliment the fine work of the utilities department, press 2.

To whine about your personal problems.

I can repeat that last option if you need.

To complement the fine work of the utilities department, press 2.

Okay, fine.

To whine about your personal problems, press 3.

To schedule a service technician, press.

You pressed 4.

I didn't give you an option for.

You just assumed the next number and then cut me off mid-sentence.

Oh, good God.

I'm sorry.

Is this hard for you?

Do you need a hug?

Do you need me to sing you a lullaby and feed you?

Here comes the airplane spoon to feed the hungry, hungry boy.

Tasty carrots.

Feel better now?

Wow, the phone tree is getting snippy.

Don't be rude.

I am a person, not a phone tree.

This is my job.

To record every possible phrase for every possible person's possible need.

I recorded all of it.

I'm a real human with a body and needs and a family, and I have a name.

I am Maggie Pinnebaker.

I'm not a disembodied lady voice who will passively ignore your whiny entitlement.

I'm sorry, Maggie.

Are we speaking live?

You selected Schedule a Service Technician.

Please hold.

Our next available service date is between the hours of 1 and 5 p.m.

on September 4th, 2005.

In the common era.

That was 11 years ago.

To have time explained to you like you were a five-year-old, please hang up now and give up on ever having realistic expectations.

To confirm this appointment, press 1.

To speak to a customer service representative, press 2.

All operators are currently shouldering the immense burden of societal displeasure.

Please continue to hold.

Current wait time is super long.

Hey, Poot.

Hey, bunny.

Listen, Carlos the Power is out here at the station.

I can't even do my show.

I've been trying to get through to the utilities, but they're slammed with calls.

Oh, I talked to my friend

Even John Peter stopped by.

You know John Peter.

He's the

farmer.

I know.

No, John Peter, remember?

The pharmacist.

Anyway, he dropped off your prescription this morning.

Oh, well, that was nice of him.

Listen, since you don't have to work today, you should come back home.

It's bad out there, and if you're going to get killed or possessed by one of the strangers, I'd rather you do it here with me.

I'll make us some lunch and we can play cards in favor of humanity.

Oh, that sounds great, but I still need to get to the bottom of what is going on in this city.

Intern Kareem pulled some documents for me that he says I need to read through, and I have some calls to make.

The invasion by these strangers is a big story, and even if I can't broadcast it, I still need to find some way to report it.

I'll call you later.

You're so good at your job.

You are too, Carlos.

Oh, how's your research going?

Well, I've been examining some of the places where the strangers have been spotted.

I have a meter that makes squawking sounds sometimes, you know, and I'm uncertain if those last two sentences are related.

Cecil, be careful.

And if you see one of the strangers, just get out of there quickly and call me, okay?

We've survived one at the station before.

I think I'll be fine.

Well, past performance is not an indicator of future results.

But

I love you.

Okay.

Bye.

Howdy, Sheriff Sam.

Sheriff, hi, this is Cecil Palmer over at Nightvale Community Radio.

What I just said was off the record.

Don't play it on air.

You only said howdy.

No, I didn't.

Okay, Sheriff, I'm not even on the air right now.

No one is listening to this call except the secret police, the city council, the mayor, and well, some neighborhood espionage clubs, but they have our community's best interests at heart.

Look, I'm calling because I wanted to find out what the secret police know about the strangers who are showing up all over town.

Are the structural failures related to their presence here?

Now, by strangers, do you mean the foreigners from Desert Bluffs who are taking over our beautiful city after they managed to run their own city into the dirt?

Or are you referring to the people who don't seem to move except for their breathing?

who stand and stare at seemingly nothing and who without any noticeable motion suddenly appear much closer, and who cause our citizens to stand trance-like until they're taken, or killed, or subsumed, or converted into non-moving strangers themselves.

The latter.

Cecil,

there are two sinkholes opened up on Route 800.

The dam along Night Vale Lake broke.

Fortunately, our lake is just an empty dust hole, but it still broke wide open.

Also, I have a caffeine headache, even though I don't drink caffeine.

That just sounds like a headache, then.

Look, I don't want the media dictating to me what is or is not a caffeine headache.

The point is, things are falling apart, but not in the fun way.

In the awful way.

There's a fun way?

Yes, like during a scheduled earthquake, or

when the lizard people dig new tunnels below old buildings.

Oh, oh, oh, of course, of course.

Oh, what about the former Desert Bluffs residents who moved to Nightvale?

Are the strangers doing the same to them?

Who cares?

Well, I care.

The people who know them care.

They're humans, Sheriff.

And as a reporter, I will report that you said that.

Well, I'm the sheriff of a secret police force, so no, you won't.

You won't do that at all.

I'm just playing with you.

I have a dry sense of humor.

You might have missed that.

I was delivering a real threat to your life, but in a teasing way.

You definitely won't report anything I tell you.

Some of those desert bluffs people, we can't even track.

Not all of them stayed here.

Some of them moved away.

In our regular interrogations and detentions of these non-citizens, we've learned that a lot of them moved to some other place, which they say feels a bit more like home.

I don't know anything about that, except that I'm happy to get them out of here.

They can set up all the joyous congregations of the smiling god that they want some other place.

Just tell your listeners that everything is fixed and everyone is safe.

The sheriff saved the day.

But you didn't do anything.

Got to go, Cecil.

Just got some new calligraphy pens I need to break in before the press conference to announce that all is lost.

Ah, it's Cecil.

Thanks.

Dark L Records, please shut up about music before you embarrass yourself.

Michelle, hey, it's Cecil.

I hate to bother you, but I'm trying to track down Maureen.

I heard that you two are friends.

I only talked about Maureen privately into my audio journal.

Did you listen to the monologue I recorded?

Yes, I played it on the air six weeks ago.

I didn't want anyone to hear that.

That was personal.

Michelle, you mailed me a cassette with a note that said, Here's my monologue to play on your show, Cecil.

But that was me from more than a month ago.

I hate that me.

Haven't you ever made mistakes in your youth?

Yes.

Many.

Michelle, you've talked to Maureen recently.

How is she?

She's fine.

I mean, she's not that into leading an army or whatever, but it's just a thing she does for a living.

I sell records, you talk on the radio.

Maureen leads the army of unmoving strangers.

She's the leader of the strangers?

Or whatever.

Maureen was sweet, and let me see one of the strangers up close.

They smell like compost and are all gray and they make you feel cold.

They're really beautiful, but they'll devour your soul and turn you into one of them.

Maureen says it's super painful when they do that, and the transformation is for forever.

That's why they can only stand and breathe and not really move, because they're in so much pain for so long, trapped in immortal bodies.

It was cool.

Kind of cool.

I mean, I don't know.

Will you hate me if I like something?

Michelle, how did you get up close to one without being devoured?

Maureen said she'd keep me safe from them because we're each other's only friend.

Maureen's a

kind person.

She does like country music, but I think friendship is sometimes about compromise.

If it means getting to be around her, I'm perfectly happy covering my ears and humming the Bob's Burgers theme.

What about the boy in the hoodie who hangs out with Maureen?

Chad?

Chad's okay, I guess.

He's just Maureen's boss, though.

She has to hang around him a bunch and watch his evil dog.

It's just work, you know?

Michelle, I.

Cecil, music sometimes calms me.

You want to hear a song I really like?

Sure.

Okay, here you go.

Who is ready to be saved?

Shouts the trevenazreen

who is ready to be saved

tonight

in Paddy's team

last

night of revival

who is ready for salvation,

who wants her soul washed clean

tonight

in parentheses.

She sways

to the music

and the shouts.

She's ready to be saved

tonight

in Paddy's sea.

Ten legs and a summer dress.

He

burns to save her soul.

He burns to wash her clean

behind the tent

in Palestine,

Palestine,

Palestine

Ho

Palestine.

We got Satan on the run,

Shepherd

the Nazarene

Her people came from Nineveh

His people came from rural shade.

They met

in the tent of the traveling Nazarene.

She took his big hand in hers.

She led him from the tent to the piney woods.

They both 16.

A few months later, they got married.

A few more months, Rosa Sharon got born.

While he was out, he's cutting pulp.

A logging chain whipped,

he'd never walk again.

It was an accidental thing,

so he drank when they had money.

And she worked as a serving girl

in the rich folks' houses in town.

Rosie Shern,

she grew up, she's cutting pictures out of magazines

of houses big

and clean.

Rosa shouting, sheep ran away

with a boy selling Bibles

and crossed the line at Streetport

Turn 16

She calls her mother from a payphone

a lingering man down in Natchez

It's not exactly what I dreamed

Palestine,

Palestine,

oh

Palestine

We got Satan on the run,

Shouts and Azerie

Palestine,

Palestine.

We got Satan on the run,

Shouts and Azure

Palestine

Palestine.

Palestine.

We got Satan on the run.

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That was a wonderful song, Michelle.

Are you still talking about that song I started playing five minutes ago?

I've moved on from that.

Glad you like oldies so much.

Anyway, Maureen's new phone number is Old Town 57614.

Thanks, Michelle.

Hi, this is Maureen.

I am probably at work or asleep or somewhere else.

Somewhere listening to the sound of the moon, slowly trying to peel off our oceans with its gravity, pulling its weak little chalky speck of a body, grabbing this blue giant and tearing away at its watery skin.

A futile fight, a spinning battle of large and small.

And in the sky, you can hear the whirling of the battling siblings.

Or maybe I just don't want to take your call.

Or maybe I'm dead.

Or maybe you're dead.

And this is the voicemail you get when you die.

Hi, Maureen here.

Sorry you're dead.

For some reason, I'm the one person you wanted to call the moment you left behind your short life, and I'm not even here to take it.

So sorry, newly dead person.

Make sure you leave a phone number where I can reach you because I certainly don't know how to call dead people on the phone.

Or maybe I lost my phone.

And it's in my car, or under a pillow, or I left it in a movie theater, theater, or a raccoon ate it.

Maybe there's a raccoon somewhere in the brush, or in a trash can behind a house, walking with a limp, because it just ate a phone.

A rectangle of glass and metal and electronics that's a quarter the length of the raccoon's body.

And now that phone is inside the raccoon's guts, stretching its tiny tummy impossibly long, pressing against the masked pro-cyon's little heart and lungs as it walks tenderly to one side to alleviate the discomfort of such an intrusive foreign object.

The raccoon, and this is kind of cute, kind of sad to think about, walks diagonally, all the while emitting a little

ringtone, all muffled from within its quivering torso and questioning its eat everything it can find dogma, and thinking perhaps to just limit that life philosophy to trash cans.

Of course, I bet people throw away phones all the time, so that's probably not a big help.

Although in my case, I'm positive I didn't do that because my job is too important to just throw my phone away.

Too, too important.

Too many evil beings to manage.

Too fragile, portaled into another dimension.

A dimension which is probably how

IDK.

I'm not a religious studies major, although if I were, I bet I would have graduated by now.

I mean, so much can go wrong if I lost my phone.

Like, no one could get hold of me to help me fix it.

Which is not to say I know how to fix an interdimensional portal between hell and this world, but just that I could be a person to be like, oh no, I'm sorry to hear the portal is malfunctioning.

Let me panic a little bit and make some phone calls to feel like we're all doing something about it.

And that would be helpful.

Because sympathy is critical to good teamwork.

And if you don't care about your job, you're not going to make anything of yourself.

I am.

I am making something of myself.

Just sculpting away.

Here's a clump of maureen.

Let's work it a bit with these hands yeah this is looking great this is a really nice maureen here all ready to be put in a fire and cooled and painted and set up on an alabaster pedestal in the foyer

so leave me a message and i'll get back to you

maureen i finally figured it out chad boinger that boy i've seen you with He used to intern here just like you.

He went to report a story on that used sporting goods store that we thought was a front for the world government and never came back out.

I guess it was something much worse he found in that shady old building.

Now the two of you have a really successful startup.

I'm proud of our internship program here at the station.

I'm also proud of you for becoming a professional.

You're leading an army, Maureen.

That's very impressive.

Much more so than filing papers, fetching me lunch, and updating my erotic fanfiction blog.

It sounds like a great job with good benefits.

It's a tough job market for you young people these days.

Lots of changing technologies, making old jobs like print journalism, cardiology, and computer programming obsolete.

Plus, all these new people moving here from Desert Bluffs?

Kudos to you, Maureen.

Here's my question, though, and it's an important one.

So, Carlos, my boyfriend, earlier when I talked to him, I forgot to say, I love you, at the end of the call.

I was...

I was preoccupied.

No big deal.

My love was implicit in the way we talked to each other.

Love needn't be verbalized when it exists in intuition and physical contact.

He knows I love him.

But part of me wonders...

What if one of those rare times I forgot to hug him goodbye or failed to say, I love you, turns out to be the last time I have that chance.

Lots can go wrong in an indifferent universe.

I'll see him in a couple of hours, right?

I'll see Carlos later.

Right, Maureen?

Please call me back.

I want to talk more about what you and Chad are doing to my town.

I.

Oh, I'm getting another call from an unknown number.

I'm hoping this is the sheriff.

Call me back.

Hello?

Hello?

Who is this?

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

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

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voices of the automatic phone line were Erica Livingston and Christopher Lohr.

The voice of Carlos was Dylan Marin.

The voice of Sheriff Sam was Emma Franklin.

The voice of Michelle Wynne was Kate Jones.

The voice of intern Maureen was Maureen Johnson.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was Palestine by Sam Baker, featuring Carrie Elkin.

Find out more at sambakermusic.com.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio.

Check out welcometonightvale.com for more information on this show as well as all sorts of cool nightfail stuff you can own, like a horse.

Just kidding.

We don't have a horse.

We should get a Nightfale horse.

And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link.

That'd be amazing.

Today's proverb: Want to feel old?

People born in 2014 have already graduated college, don't know what a trombone is, and are all named after gourds.

Hi, Jeffrey.

It's Maureen again.

You don't know it's me again.

I've been doing this over and over in an attempt to nail this thing in one.

Here we go one more time, and I'm not going to f it up this time.

I am definitely going to f up this time.

Here we go.

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 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-season, 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 Ganja and Hess.

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

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

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 9, 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.