Bonus Episode 5 - Excerpt from the novel

Hey y'all, it is Jeffrey Kraner speaking to you from the year 2025.

And did you know that Welcome to Night Vale is back out on tour?

We are.

We're gonna be up in the northeast in the Boston, New York City area, going all the way over to the upper Midwest in Minnesota.

That's in July.

You kind of draw a line through there and you'll kind of see the towns we'll be hitting.

We'll also be doing Philly down to Florida in September.

And we'll be going from Austin all the way up through the middle of the country into Toronto, Canada in October.

And then we'll be doing the West Coast plus the Southwest plus Colorado in January of 2026.

You can find all of the show dates at welcome to nightvale.com/slash live.

Listen, this brand new live show is so much fun.

It is called Murder Night in Blood Forest, and it stars Cecil Baldwin, of course, Symphony Sanders, me, and live original music by Disparition, and who knows what other special guests may come along for the ride.

These tours are always so much fun, and they are for you, the diehard fan, and you, the Night Vale new kid alike.

So feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your co-workers, your cat, whatever.

They don't gotta know what a night veil is to like the show.

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvelle.com/slash live.

Don't let time slip away and miss us when we are in your town because otherwise we will all be sad.

Get your tickets to our live US plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.

Summer is turning to fall, which frankly, rude of summer to do.

But don't worry, Quince is here with fall staples that will last for many falls to come.

We're talking cashmere, denim.

This is quality that holds up at a price that you frankly just won't believe.

We're talking super soft, 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters, which sounds like the kind of item that you need a credit check to even imagine, and it starts at just $60.

Plus, Quince partners directly with Ethical Factories, so you get top-tier top-tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price.

I got an adorable dress for my daughter, which she helped pick out.

She wore it at her first day of school.

She loves that dress.

It has pockets, if you know, you know.

I also got myself a mulberry silk sleeping mask, and every night since has been a luxury, I have never gotten better sleep than with mulberry silk draped upon my eyes.

Experience what it must be like to be wealthy without having to, you know, have a bank account that doesn't make you wince when you check it.

Keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash nightfail for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

That's quince.com slash nightfail.

Free shipping and 365 day returns.

Quince.com slash nightfail.

This episode is all about the Welcome to Nightfail novel.

And so I have a bunch of news that I'm going to reveal right now about all of that.

If you didn't know, we have a novel, over 400 pages of brand new Night Vale story coming out on October 20th.

What you are about to hear in this bonus episode is the first chapter of that novel directly from the newly recorded audiobook.

It literally was recorded last week.

More on that in a moment, but first...

In the last month, we have announced a UK live tour.

We have announced a Canada and US live tour.

Well, here we are announcing a third tour because we love you and we hate home.

So Jeffrey and I will be doing a book tour all over this country to celebrate the release of the Nightvale novel.

This book tour will feature us in conversation with some of our favorite people including Hank Green and John Darnell of the Mountain Goats and Cecil Baldwin of Welcome to Nightvale and every event we'll have a book signing where you can have a scribble all over that nice new book you just bought.

This tour will be starting on October 21st, the day after the book comes out, and we'll be going to get ready for a big list of places.

Boston, New York City, Chicago, Ann Arbor, St.

Paul, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, that one's on Halloween night.

Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Chapel Hill, Dallas, Waco, Austin, yes, Austin, in November you'll get both a live show and a book tour author event.

Two different events and only one of which you'll be able to get signatures at, so you know, keep that in mind.

Toronto, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Miami, which is similar to Jersey City.

That is a lot of places.

I'm going to be spending a lot of time in airports, and I'm doing it all for you, and also because it's how I make a living.

Some of these events are free, some have tickets.

Most of the ones with tickets will be on sale today, July 15th.

A few of them will be on sale in the next couple weeks.

Go to welcometonightvale.com and click on live shows for a full list of venues and event details.

And of course, also click on live shows to see more about the UK and Ireland tour this September and the Canada and US tour this October.

Stuff's getting close to selling out on those, so don't wait.

If you can't make one of the book events, or if there's not an event near you, you can now pre-order a signed copy.

Signed editions are available for pre-order from Barnes ⁇ Noble, Books a Million, and Hastings.

Or, if you're in Canada, and recently I found out not many of you are, Canada has a surprisingly low population for its size.

You can order a signed copy from Indigo.

And for UK fans, which has a surprisingly large population for its size, did you know there's twice as many people in the UK as Canada?

Well, Waterstones is offering an edition with exclusive bonus content.

Oh, speaking of the audiobook, the one you're about to hear an exclusive excerpt from, it is narrated, of course, by our own Cecil Baldwin and features guest voices including Dylan Marin and Retta and brand new music by Nightfale's composer Disparition.

It will be a beautiful production of the novel and it can be pre-ordered now.

Go to welcometonightfail.com and click on novel for pre-order links for for hardcover, signed hardcover, e-book, and audiobook versions.

Now that's a lot of different versions.

Think how many different ways you can read this story.

Alright, that's all of my news.

We'll be back to regular episodes on August 1st, starting with a heist episode.

You heard me right.

See you then and enjoy chapter one of Welcome to Nightvale, a novel.

The history of the town of Nightvale is long and complicated, reaching back thousands of years to the earliest indigenous people in the desert.

We will cover none of it here.

Suffice it to say that it is a town like many towns, with a city hall, and a bowling alley, the desert flower bowling alley and arcade fun complex, and a diner, the moonlight all-night diner, and a supermarket, Ralph's,

and, of course, a community radio station reporting all the news that we are allowed to hear.

On all sides it is surrounded by empty desert flatness.

It is much like your town, perhaps.

It might be more like your town than you'd like to admit.

It is a friendly desert community, where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Welcome to Night Vale

1

Pawn shops in Night Vale work like this.

First, you need an item to pawn.

To get this, you need a lot of time behind you, years spent living and existing, until you've reached a point where you believe that you exist, and that a physical item exists, and that the concept of ownership exists, and that, improbable as all those are, these absurd beliefs line up in a way that results in you owning an item.

Good job.

Nicely done.

Second, once you believe you own an item, you must reach a point where you need money more than you need the item.

This is the easiest step.

Just own an item and own a body with needs and wait.

The only pawn shop in the town of Nightvale is run by the very young Jackie Fiero.

It has no name, but if you need it, you will know where it is.

This knowledge will come suddenly, often while you are in the shower.

You will collapse, surrounded by a bright glowing blackness, and you will find yourself on your hands and knees, the warm water running over you, and you will know where the pawn shop is.

You will smell must and soap and feel a stab of panic about how alone you are.

It will be like most showers you've taken.

Before you can offer Jackie your item, there will first be some hand washing, which is why there are bowls of purified water throughout the shop.

You need to chant a little as you wash your hands.

You, of course, should always chant when you wash your hands.

It is only hygienic.

When you have been properly purified, you will lay the item on the counter, and Jackie will consider it.

Jackie will have her feet up on the counter.

She will lean back.

Eleven dollars, she will say.

She will always say $11.

You will not respond.

You are, ultimately, unnecessary to this process.

You are ultimately unnecessary.

No, no, she will say, waving her hand, and then she will name her actual price.

Usually it is money.

Sometimes it is other things.

Sometimes it is dreams, experiences, visions.

Then you will die, but only for a little while.

The item will be given a price tag, $11.

Everything in the pawn shop is that price, no matter what she loaned you for it.

Once you are no longer dead, she will give you a ticket, which later you will be able to exchange for the item, or at any time you may look at the ticket and remember the item.

Remembering the item is free.

You are leaving this story now.

You were only an example.

And it is probably safer for you not to be in this story anyway.

Jackie Fiero squinted out the window at the parking lot.

There was no one coming.

She was closing soon.

Relatively speaking, she was always closing soon, and also always just opening.

Beyond the window was the parking lot, and beyond that, the desert, and beyond that, the sky, mostly void, partially stars.

Layered from her vantage, it was all distance, equally unreachable from her post at the counter.

She had recently turned nineteen.

She had been recently nineteen for as long as she could remember.

The pawn shop had been hers for a long time, centuries maybe.

Clocks and calendars don't work in nightvale.

Time itself doesn't work.

For all her years as the newly nineteen owner of the pawn shop, she left the shop only when it was closed, and then only to her apartment, where she sat with her feet up on the coffee table, taking in the community radio and the local cable news.

Based on what the news told her, the outside world seemed a dangerous place.

There was always some world-ending cataclysm threatening Night Vale, feral dogs, a sentient glowing cloud with the ability to control minds, although the glow cloud had become less threatening since its election to the local school board.

Old oak doors that led to a strange desert otherworld, where the current mayor had been trapped for months, it seemed safer to not have friends or hobbies, to sit at work, head down, doing her job, and then sit at home, glass after glass of orange juice, radio on, safe from anything that might disrupt her routine.

Her days were spent in silence, mostly void, partially thought.

Some days she would recatalog her inventory.

Other days she would clean the shelves.

Every day she would sit and think.

She would try to think about the day she took over the store.

There must have been a day like that.

But she could not think of the specifics.

She had been doing this for decades.

She was very young.

Both of these were true at the same time.

She knew college was a thing 19-year-olds did.

She knew being unemployed in a difficult job market and living at home was a thing other 19-year-olds did.

She was content doing neither of those, so she continued on and on and on at the pawn shop.

She understood the world and her place in it.

She understood nothing.

The world and her place in it were nothing, and she understood that.

Because of the lack of working time in Night Vale, she went off her gut feeling about when the shop should close.

When the feeling came, it came, and the doors had to be locked, removed from their frames, and safely hidden.

The feeling came.

She swung her feet off the counter.

A decent day.

Old Woman Josie, who lived out by the car lot, had come in with a great number of cheap plastic flamingos.

She had carried them in a large canvas sack and emptied them onto the counter like loose change.

It is not for myself that I I give up these little ones, said Old Woman Josie, addressing a bare wall several feet to the right of Jackie in a strong, formal voice, making the occasional sweeping gesture with her palm.

But for the future

Josie stopped, her palm still out.

Jackie decided the speech was over.

All right, man, I'll give you eleven dollars, she said.

Old Woman Josie tightened her eyes at the bare wall.

Okay,

Jackie softened, prodding at one of the flamingos and looking at its weak plastic belly.

Tell you what, I'll give you a good night's sleep.

Old Woman Josie shrugged.

I'll take it.

A good night's sleep was a wildly generous offer.

The flamingos were worthless, but there were so many of them, and Jackie couldn't help herself.

She never refused an item.

Be careful not to touch those directly, Josie said, after she was finished being dead.

Using shop rags, Jackie laid the flamingos out, side by side, on a shelf, each one tagged with a single handwritten $11 price tag.

Most things shouldn't be touched anyway, Jackie thought.

Goodbye, dear, said Josie, taking the ticket that Jackie had filled out.

Come by sometime and talk to the angels.

They've been asking about you.

The angels lived with old woman Josie in her small tract home whose tract no longer stood, leaving it alone at the edge of town.

The angels did chores for her, and Josie made a modest income selling items they had touched.

No one understood why the angels lived with her.

Very little was understood about the angels.

Some things were.

Of course, angels do not exist.

It is illegal to consider their existence, or even to give them a dollar when they forget bus money and start hovering around the Ralphs asking for change.

The great hierarchy of angels is a foolish dream, and anyway is forbidden knowledge to Nightvale citizens.

All of the angels in Nightvale live with Josie out by the car lot.

There are no angels in Nightvale.

Around the middle of the day, Jackie had acquired a car.

It was a Mercedes, only a few years old, and offered with urgency by a young man wearing a gray pin-striped business suit stained with dirt.

It was impressive how he got the car onto the counter, but there is a way these things are done, and it had to go on the counter.

He washed his hands and chanted.

The water went brown and red.

She settled on an offer of $5,

talking him down from eleven, and he laughed as he took the money and the ticket.

It's not funny at all, he explained, laughing.

And finally, a woman named Diane Creighton arrived late in the afternoon, almost closing time, according to Jackie's gut.

Can I help you?

Jackie asked.

She was unsure why she asked this, as Jackie rarely greeted people who came in the store.

Jackie knew who Diane was.

She organized PTA fundraisers.

Diane sometimes came by to distribute flyers that said things like, Night Vale High School PTA Fund Drive.

Help give kids the municipally approved education they deserve.

Your support is mandatory and appreciated.

Diane, in Jackie's mind, looked just like a woman who would be an active PTA mom with her kind face and comfortable clothing.

She also thought Diane looked like a woman who would be a loan officer, with her conservative makeup choices and serious demeanor.

She would look like a pharmacist if she ever were to wear the standard white coat, gas mask, and hip waiters.

She looked like a lot of things to Jackie.

Mostly she looked like a person lost in both a and a moment.

Diane took a handkerchief from her purse.

Without changing her upward distant expression, she wept a single tear onto the cloth.

I'd like to offer this,

she said, finally looking at Jackie.

Jackie considered the handkerchief.

The tear would dry soon.

Eleven dollars, that's the deal, she said.

I'll take it, Diane said.

Her loose hanging arms were now drawn up near her purse.

Jackie took the tear dabbed handkerchief and gave Diane her ticket and the money.

After her brief death, Diane thanked her, and hurried out of the shop.

Jackie tagged the tear with its $11 price tag and placed it on a shelf.

So, a decent day.

Jackie flipped the sign on the door to closed, her hand touching the window, leaving its ghost upon the glass, a hand raised to say, stop, or come here,

or hello, or

help,

or maybe only

I am here.

This hand, at least, is real.

She looked down to adjust the items on the counter, and when she looked up, the man was there.

He was wearing a tan jacket and holding holding a deer skin suitcase.

He had normal human features.

He had arms and legs.

He might have had hair, or maybe was wearing a hat?

Everything was normal.

Hello,

he said.

My name is Everett.

Jackie screamed.

The man was perfectly normal.

She screamed.

I'm sorry, he said.

Are you closed?

No

that's okay.

No.

Can I help you?

Yes, I hope so,

he said.

There was buzzing coming from somewhere.

His mouth?

I have an item I would very much like to pawn.

I

she said, and waved her hand to indicate everything she might have said next.

He nodded at her hand.

Thank you for your help.

Have I introduced myself?

No.

Ah, I apologize.

My name is Emmet.

They shook hands.

Her hand continued to shake after he let go.

Yes, well,

he said, here is the item.

He set a small slip of paper on the counter.

On it, written in dull, smeared pencil, were the words King

City.

The handwriting was shaky, and the pencil had been pressed down hard.

She couldn't stop staring at it, although she didn't know what about it was interesting.

Interesting,

she said.

No,

not very, said the man in the tan jacket.

The man washed his hands and quietly chanted, and Jackie forced herself to lean back and put her feet on the counter.

There is a way these things are done.

She looked a few times at the man's face, but she found she forgot it the moment she stopped looking.

Eleven dollars, she said.

The man hummed, and other small voices joined him, apparently from within the deer skinned suitcase.

Where did this come from?

she asked.

Why are you offering it to me?

What would I do with it?

Her voice was high and cracked.

It did not sound like her at all.

The man was now harmonizing with the voices from his suitcase.

He did not seem to register her questions.

No, no, I'm sorry, she said, fully aware of, but unable to stop, her poor negotiating technique.

My mistake.

Thirty dollars and an idea about time.

Done, he said, smiling.

Was that a smile?

She gave him the thirty dollars and told him her idea about time.

That is very interesting,

he said.

I've never thought of it that way.

Generally, I don't think at all.

Then he died.

She usually used this time to finish up the paperwork, get the ticket ready.

She did nothing.

She clutched the slip of paper in her hand.

He wasn't dead anymore.

I'm sorry.

Your ticket.

There's no need,

he said, still possibly smiling.

She couldn't get a good enough look at his face to tell.

No, your ticket.

There is a way these things are done.

She scrawled out a ticket, with the information tickets always had, a random number, twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, the quality of light at the time of transaction, fine, the general feeling of the weather outside, looming, her current thoughts on the future, looming, but fine, and a quick sketch of what she thought hearts should look like instead of the pulsing lumps of straw and clay that grow cancer-like into our chests when we turn nine years old.

He took the ticket as she thrust it at him, and then, thanking her, turned to leave.

Goodbye,

she said.

King City, said the paper.

Goodbye, waved the man, saying nothing.

Wait, she said, you never told me your name.

Oh,

you're right, he said, hand on door.

My name is Elliot.

A pleasure to make your acquaintance.

The door swung open and shut.

Jackie held the slip of paper in her hand, unsure for the first time in however long her life had been what to do next.

She felt that her routine, unbroken for decades, had been disrupted, that something had gone differently.

But she also had no idea why she felt that.

It was just a slip of paper, just clutched in her hand.

Just that.

She finished her paperwork.

On the line that said Pawn By, she stopped.

She could not remember his name.

She couldn't even remember his face.

She looked down at the piece of paper.

King City.

She looked up to get a glimpse of him out the window, just to jostle her stuck memory.

From the counter she could see the man in the tan jacket outside.

He was running out to the desert.

She could just barely see him at the edge of the parking lot's radius of light.

His arms were swinging wildly, his suitcase swinging along.

His legs were flailing, great puffs of sand kicked up behind him, his head thrown back, sweat visible running down his neck, even from where she sat.

The kind of run that was from something

and not toward.

Then he left the faint edge of the light and was gone.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

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 podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Hey, Jeffrey Kraner here to tell you about another show from me and my Night Vale co-creator, Joseph Fink.

It's called Unlicensed, and it's an LA Noir-style mystery set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles.

Unlicensed follows two unlicensed private investigators whose small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg.

There are already two seasons of Unlicensed for you to listen to now, with season three dropping on May 15th.

Unlicensed is available exclusively through Audible, free if you already have that subscription.

And if you don't, Audible has a trial membership.

And if I know you, and I do, you can binge all that mystery goodness in a short window.

And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, please rate and review each season.

Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience engagement.

So go check out Unlicensed, available now only at Audible.com.