68 - Faceless Old Women

Hey hey, Jeffrey Kraner from welcome to Night Vale here.

Apart from Night Vale, we make other podcasts.

If you're already a big Night Vale fan, check out Good Morning Night Vale, where cast members Meg Bashwiner, Symphony Sanders, and Hal Lublin break down each and every episode.

Or if you're looking for more weird fiction, there's Within the Wires, an immersive fiction podcast written by me and novelist Janina Mathewson.

Each season is a standalone tale told in the guise of found audio.

Finally, maybe you like horror movies or are scared of horror movies but are horror curious, check out Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9, where me and the voice of Night Vale Cecil Baldwin talk about a randomly drawn horror film.

We have new episodes every single week.

So that's Good Morning Nightvale Within the Wires and Random Horror 9.

Go to nightvalepresents.com for more or get those podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello listeners.

I'm back from vacation and I'm feeling great.

I of course miss being with Carlos in that desert otherworld and miss having so much time to relax with my boyfriend, but as with any vacation, it always feels good to come home.

We had such a delightful time.

Carlos and the massed army of nomadic giants that inhabit that place have managed to build a little paradise there.

There's now a roller coaster, and an ice cream parlor, and a beach resort hotel and spa.

Unfortunately, they don't have operators for the roller coaster, nor any milk for making ice cream, nor any water along the beach resort.

So most of those things just sit empty.

Except for the roller coaster, which is constantly running, and filled with the same people who got on it over two months ago.

Unable to stop because no one knew how to build a brake system.

There were terrified screams Dopplering up and down the otherwise quiet nights.

Those people are just having the time of the rest of their lives.

More on my trip later, but first...

Some breaking news.

The Sheriff's Secret Police just announced that they have captured the faceless faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

The faceless old woman is one of two fugitives the Secret Police have been tracking for the past few months.

She and literal five-headed dragon, Hiram McDaniels, are wanted in connection with a series of attacks on Mayor Dana Cardinal at City Hall.

A Secret Police spokesdeer made today's big announcement by riding it in dirt with its hoof.

The announcement began a couple of hours ago, but we're just now getting to the good stuff, and reporters have grown impatient with the spokesdeer, who can only scratch one or two words at a time, and then has to erase them before continuing with the next words.

The press conference turned ugly, as a couple of reporters shouted, speak English, at the deer, but then a couple more shouted, Paruski!

and the spokesdeer, looking relieved, began speaking in fluent Russian.

Which fummicks those reporters who only spoke English, despite their adamant demands that others develop a mastery of multiple languages.

But the big news is that they captured a dangerous fugitive, which is so shocking because to my knowledge, no one has ever seen the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Because she lives there secretly.

Of course, without a face, I imagine it would be simultaneously easy and difficult to identify her.

More on this story as it develops.

Okay,

so back to our vacation.

Carlos showed me the apartment he built using his scientific knowledge of physical materials and spatial relations.

It was a cute little one-bedroom on the side of a low, craggy mountain.

Yeah, I know, I could hardly believe it.

A mountain, right?

We took turns making each other breakfast whenever we thought it was morning.

Carlos cooks a delicious vegan omelette using thick fillets of ginger root for the eggs and filling it with dried cranberries and capers.

I'm not a great cook, but I make excellent coffee.

I generally don't let Carlos make the coffee because I have a specific way I like to make it using a coffee hammer and angry chanting.

I like my coffee like I like my nights.

Dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through.

After a week's staycation in Carlos' apartment, we went with the giant masked warrior Alicia on several hiking trails around the desert canyons.

Carlos and Alicia showed me the brilliant array of flora that grows in that desert otherworld.

While the desert around Nightvale is mostly red and brown dust, with a smattering of white and brown rocks, topped with gray and brown brush, the canyons of the desert otherworld are flush with rich brush of charcoal and tan, rocks the color of snow and leather,

and dust that was striped in shades of sunset and mahogany.

And there were mysterious lights in the sky, just like here in Nightvale.

We could not understand the lights, but we understood our lack of understanding, which is all most understanding is.

Some mornings, Alicia and Doug and the other giant masked warriors would see other masked armies, and they would head off to war, gone for days at a time, only to return bloodied and fewer in number.

Carlos and I didn't mind because it gave us more time to ourselves.

Oh, more about our vacation later, but there's some news or something.

An update on today's arrest of the faceless old woman.

Several residents across Nightvale are reporting vandalism inside their homes.

Old town residents Christopher Brady and Stuart Robinson report their living room walls were covered in writing that reads, You talked,

I see you, and I cannot hate you, but I I cannot forgive you.

The text seems to have been written with hand-smeared mayonnaise.

Also, all of the toes were cut out of their dress socks.

Said Robinson of the damage, I think it's because I reported to the sheriff that the faceless old woman who secretly lives in our home was secretly living in our home.

I regret this now.

Brady added, I told you not to do do that, Stuart.

Robinson then replied, head in his hands, I know, Chris.

You were right.

You're always right.

You should have listened to Christopher,

came a cold whisper over their shoulders.

Stay tuned here, as we bring you more news.

of today's arrest.

And now it's time for another edition of my popular advice segment.

Hey there, Cecil.

Let's get to your questions.

Hey there, Cecil.

I date a lot of people, but never for very long.

I find that while I sometimes say I love you to my girlfriend or boyfriend at the time, I don't think I have ever meant it.

How do you know if you're in love?

Signed, Loveless in the Barista District.

Hey there, Loveless.

I think when you're truly in love, you'll know it.

But you have to be in the right place with yourself to find that love.

As my mother used to tell me, you can't learn to love others until you learn that others are fiction, and that self is unreliable.

Next question.

Hey there, Cecil.

My husband and I regularly host dinner parties for our neighbors and vice versa.

When our neighbors come over to the house, they never take off their shoes.

I personally don't have a problem with that, but my husband thinks it's rude.

What's your take?

Signed Unshod in Old Town.

Hey there, Unshod.

This is a pretty clear cut to me.

It is customary when you enter a person's home that you must always remove your shoes.

Then you must remove their shoes.

You must hold that person down, take their shoes, just get their shoes off.

This is standard etiquette.

We've got time for one more question.

Hey there, Cecil.

Do you know the tower?

The one that casts no shadow?

It also sounds like an untuned cello?

Do you know the one?

Smells like sulfur?

Well, it's glowing now.

Signed, Malevolent in Mission Grove Park.

Hey there, Malevolent.

You know as well as I do that tower was destroyed a century ago.

Never write me again.

Please write me again.

Old woman Josie and her friends who are not angels, just a bunch of really tall people with wings named Erica, whom we cannot bear to look directly at, said that the new old nightvale opera house was coming along nicely.

Although I drove past the construction site the other day and it's still a mostly empty lot.

The only difference is that they changed the sign from Josefina Contractors Inc.

to Strex Corp Operatics Limited.

Also, there's a giant opera house there, but other than that, it still looks nearly the same as when they broke ground months ago.

Opening night of the new old opera house will be June 15th and will feature the world premiere of an original opera by the famous actor and composer Lee Marvin, Nightvale's own immortal legend of stage and screen.

Still no word on what an opera is.

I'm being told it's like a petting zoo, but with fewer starving wolves and more intermissions.

Breaking news from City Hall as the sheriff's secret police say they have now arrested more than a dozen faceless old women.

The spokesdeer, still speaking in Russian for the Russian-speaking press, while also writing English words in the dirt for the embittered English-speaking press, say that the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home seems to be several bodies connected to a single sentience.

She seems not to be omnipresent at all, merely multipresent.

The secret police spokes dear, then laughed in Russian while writing he, he, he in English in the dirt.

Oh.

Oh dear, that's.

That's simply not true.

I.

Okay.

Now there's a very long

insect

crawling into my ear.

Um

it's all the it's all the way in my ear now.

Um, I am not okay with this faceless old woman.

Faceless old woman?

Listeners, hang on while I get this silver fish out of my ear canal.

Okay.

Okay, um,

so

traffic.

Uh, it looks pretty bad out there.

We've got a jackknifed 18-wheeler on the shoulder of westbound Route 800 near exit 4, causing serious delays.

And the bus depot on Somerset, um,

a fire hydrant was cracked open, and now space and time have collap.

Okay, I'm sorry, listeners.

I...

I'm taking my headphones off.

I'm I'm having a hard time hearing myself.

I think the faceless old woman really did damage to my ear.

Anyway, traffic's awful, of course, always is.

Don't drive on Somerset unless you want all of your matter collapsing into a singularity.

Really glad to be home.

Great homecoming.

An update now on the multiple arrests of the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Apparently they've managed to find 15 more versions of her in homes all over town.

But according to the spokesdeer, the secret police are running out of room in the jails.

Also, even at the homes where they have arrested these faceless old women, there are still reported cases of vandalism and whispers and suggested violence and sudden but inscrutable movements in the corners of vision.

In fact, these reporters are happening even in homes where an arrest of the faceless old woman had already been made.

Many city buildings, especially the secret police's secret police station hidden in a hover cloud, have received quite a bit of damage.

Bird parts in filing cabinets, bullets replaced with worms, badges reading rotted meat instead of secret police.

Mayor Dana Cardinal has called on the police to temporarily cease their crackdown on the faceless old woman.

The mayor claims she's been terrorized by falling televisions and window-mounted AC units, as well as all of the carpet in her city hall office being replaced by dark, heaving fur as if the floor were now the back of some terrible beast.

Listeners, I'm not falling for this bit again.

Mayor Cardinal, once my friend, has abused my good nature too much.

She bought me at an auction and has since been using me against my will to rescue her from danger.

Well, she's just going to have to figure it out on her own this time.

Oh, gross!

Stop it, faceless old woman!

Stop it!

Weather, let's go to the weather.

The reason that I'm not a nihilist is someday I wanna live like in Star Trek And I know that we'll never build starships until we tackle all been war and hardships So we fight overnight and over lifetimes Organize for that warp drive And of course I realize that we're a long way from it But what better reason to start running?

Cause if you're gonna do the work, then it's gotta be honest

Because the best of us have all already been forgotten And if you're in it for the recognition I hate to disappoint but if you do all right you'll never get it yo we don't don't remember the farmer, we remember the fruit.

We don't remember the inventor, we remember the boom, the impact through the eons.

So I know what's out of history I wanna be on.

Got a lot of ancestors on my side.

Got an ancestor, took an arrow to the chest and survived.

I got an ancestor who cheated and lied.

I got an ancestor who taught her children how to fight.

Right, so much spirit in my corner.

Can't help a color outside every border.

To every ancestor who kept my song alive.

I swear on your unmarked graves, I will sing it till I die.

No friction, no flame.

No struggle, no progress.

How many times do we have to win?

Till you realize we have not lost yet.

No friction, no flame.

No struggle, no progress.

No sway.

How many times do we have to win?

Till you realize we are not lost yet.

What is it?

Yeah, yeah.

What is it?

Yeah, yeah.

What is it?

Yeah, yeah.

What is it if it ain't something that's the other thing that's bothering me?

I get the horrible, most rhetorical I should ever receive.

Was there was no need for no money, no greed, only prophecy.

Shit, I'm inspired by this openness and nothing matters.

Scream at the wall and open shatters.

And two a thousand pieces, enemy of the state.

Is what I became, wearing bloody Smith's musket shoes.

Rock and roll, nigga, I became econom.

Why am I the only one who looks different?

Pay me as a new eccentric.

If I had it my way, Minneapolis would be pissed price.

She's feeling an air of the lakes.

No one even knows the names of it.

If you do, you have too much time on your fucking hands.

That's why you pace about the room, trying not to give a damn, yeah.

I'm kicking down the door like I did inside the boom.

Pause till the interlude is something fucking suit you.

Forget whatever you thought you knew, cause none of that moves shit will serve you.

I'll be there in due time.

Until then, no friction, no flame.

No struggle, no progress.

No sweat.

How many times do we have to win?

Until you realize we have not lost yet.

Lost yet.

No friction, no flame.

No struggle, no progress.

How many times do we have to win?

There are no stories told in a vacuum.

There is no prophecy lighting our way.

There is just a lot of darkness to be afraid of.

So it's a good thing we are not afraid.

There is no Superman in that phone booth.

There is no rewarding our faith.

There is no one who can save us.

So it's a good thing we don't need to be saved.

There are no starships in low Earth orbit.

No aliens to save us from ourselves.

There is no voice willing to speak for us.

So it's a good thing we know how to yell.

There is no chosen one, no destiny, no fate.

There's no such thing as magic.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel.

So it's a good thing we brought matches.

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

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

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Well,

I have cotton swabs in both ears now, listeners, and am more than a little bit irritated.

But on with the news.

The secret police just retracted their earlier reports that they had captured the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

They thought they had been arresting several corporeal forms of her across town, but in actuality they had just been arresting a bunch of faceless old women who openly live in their own homes.

It seems in retrospect that the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home still secretly lives in your home, and has never stopped vandalizing your home in protest of these arrests of innocent women.

These faceless old women are now filing a civil suit against the sheriff's secret police for unfair profiling practices against elderly women who happen to have no faces.

And the sheriff just issued the following public apology.

Nonspecifically

my bad, said the sheriff from his hover office in the clouds.

In general, really sorry about all kinds of things.

We're cool now, right?

The sheriff added before dissipating into tiny crystalline droplets which fell gently, a silver moment to the hardened earth below.

Maybe I did speak too soon about being happy to be back home.

Oh, while I was reporting the weather, I received this voicemail from Carlos.

Hi, babe.

I heard you were apparently off saving the mayor again just now.

I'm sorry I missed you.

So I wanted to ask.

I was so afraid to ask while you were here because I didn't want to complicate our peaceful vacation with difficult choices, but

here it goes.

Cecil, remember that building?

The simple rectangular building with a tall point atop it covered entirely in a tarp?

You asked several times what that tarp was covering, and I said I didn't want to say yet.

And you remember the familiar seeming man wearing dark sunglasses with what looked like bloodstains on his shirt, but I assured you was just barbecue sauce?

Well, he built that building under the tarp.

Cecil, it's a radio station.

Kevin built a radio station.

He doesn't seem to be planning anything evil.

In fact, he seems pretty relaxed and friendly these days.

He built it for anyone who wants to broadcast or listen to broadcasts.

And it got me thinking, and I mean, you don't have to decide now.

And you don't you don't even have to decide yes at all.

But would you ever think about...

Would you ever consider...

This is tough to ask on voicemail.

Just call me, okay?

Call me when you're off the air.

I love you.

Yes.

Yes, I would, Carlos.

I think I really would.

It was so serene there.

So lovely.

Okay.

Private thoughts done.

Let's turn my microphone back on now.

Well, listeners, I wonder what Carlos might be trying to ask me.

I mean, it's probably nothing, and even if it was something, I don't think I would move away or anything.

Move away?

No one said anything about moving away.

Who moves away?

I have to stick around a bit anyway, because my sister and brother-in-law are going out of town for a a couple of weeks and need me to look after my niece, Janice.

I don't want to disappoint Janice.

I mean, how could I disappoint Janice?

By moving away?

Why do you keep saying that?

Who's moving away?

Not me.

So, I'll be sure to stay very focused on being a good uncle and guardian.

Plus, apparently the mayor needs me around to save her all the time.

I hate to leave that behind.

Stay tuned next for the sound of folding cardboard and long strips of tape.

And to all of the faceless old women, living secretly or living otherwise, fight the good fight.

Just leave me out of it, okay?

Yeah, these cotton balls are already soaked.

And to everyone else, good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of commonplace books.

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

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Carlos was Dylan Marin.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was matches by Sifu Hotman.

Find out more at sifuhotman.bandcamp.com.

That's S-I-F-U Hotman.

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 night veil stuff you can own.

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

That'd be cool of you.

Today's proverb.

Don't be afraid of the dark.

Be afraid of all of the terrible things that are hiding there and the terrible things they will do.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

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

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a 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-season, and 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 cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

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 going to 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 welcometonightvale.com slash live.

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

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 Die Hard 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 got to know what a Night Vale is to like the show.

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvale.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 U.S.

Plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.