49 - Old Oak Doors Part A

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And we'll be going from Austin all the way up through the middle of the country into Toronto, Canada in October.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Listen, this brand new live show is so much fun.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 These tours are always so much fun, and they are for you, the Die Hard fan, and you, the Night Vale new kid alike.

Speaker 1 So feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your co-workers, your cat, whatever. They don't got to know what a night veil is to like the show.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Get your tickets to our live U.S. plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com/slash live.
And hey, see you soon.

Speaker 1 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 Woecast is already here.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Together, they'll unravel each shocking twist, dissect the dynamics lurking beneath, unearth Adam's family lore, and answer all of your lingering questions.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 The Wednesday season 2 official Wocast is available in audio and video on todoom.com or wherever it is you get your podcasts. And now,

Speaker 6 listeners of every kind,

Speaker 2 the voice.

Speaker 7 I'm so sorry. Are we interrupting something?

Speaker 7 I'm sure it's nothing important.

Speaker 7 The sun is bright. The moon is irrelevant.
And we are light and light and light and light.

Speaker 7 We're light.

Speaker 7 Listeners, this is Lauren Mallard, vice president of StrexCorp, owner, I mean

Speaker 7 community supporter of the Night Vale and Desert Bluffs metropolitan area.

Speaker 7 I'm here with Kevin, who has been a radio host for Night Vale's sister city, Desert Bluffs, for how long has it been, Kevin?

Speaker 11 I can't say.

Speaker 7 Kevin, don't be modest. You are the voice of our community.

Speaker 11 I literally am incapable of saying, Lauren.

Speaker 7 Kevin and I are broadcasting from a secret location because of some recent changes to the town of Knightvale.

Speaker 11 Strex Corp? Strex Corp was in the process of bringing together the two cities, but there was some...

Speaker 12 Miscommunication.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 11 Thank you, Lauren.

Speaker 11 You're so helpful with your words.

Speaker 11 Miscommunication.

Speaker 11 and now the little town of Nightvale is upset.

Speaker 7 We tried to bring them endless searing sunshine and delicious transdimensional orange juice and adorable furry pets with adorable gnashing teeth.

Speaker 11 I love my Strex pet, Lauren.

Speaker 11 Oh, it is the cutest. I take it for walks.
I throw sticks at it.

Speaker 11 I tell it my worst secrets. I feed it mice every night before bed.

Speaker 7 They're not supposed to eat mice, Kevin.

Speaker 11 I've trained it to.

Speaker 11 It took some weeks, but it is accepting its meals now.

Speaker 11 Lauren, did you know that in Night Vale, people are not even allowed to visit the public dog park?

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 7 You know what? They also cannot eat wheat or wheat byproducts.

Speaker 3 Delicious wheat.

Speaker 11 Delicious byproducts.

Speaker 7 Or have computers or writing utensils, and their community radio interns keep having accidents.

Speaker 7 Or in the case of that intern Dana, meeting her own double, one of them killing the other, and then the remaining one, not sure if it's her or her double, being trapped for over a year in a strange other desert world where she's been making trouble for us with an unruly pack of angels and dumb masked warriors.

Speaker 7 Ugh, it's a a very beautiful but very unproductive town, not reaching its full productive potential.

Speaker 11 My grandmother used to embroider pillows with the phrase, reach your full productive potential.

Speaker 11 I loved those pillows so much, she sold one to me.

Speaker 7 That is a good story, Kevin.

Speaker 7 So, we at Strexcorp, not wanting our neighbors to flounder under the oppressive terror and darkness, brought bright yellow helicopters here to rid the town of all its terrible horrors.

Speaker 7 The weird shape in Grove Park that kills people if you look at it or talk about it.

Speaker 7 The hooded figures that infiltrate everyone's deepest fears and dreams, the vague yet menacing government agencies that record everyone's conversations, and the glowing cloud that drops dead animals, the rip in time that allowed dinosaurs to come through.

Speaker 11 Pteranodons are not dinosaurs, Lauren.

Speaker 3 They are arachnids.

Speaker 1 You are right.

Speaker 3 No,

Speaker 2 you are right.

Speaker 11 It is hard to get work done in such a dystopia.

Speaker 12 Right?

Speaker 2 Right? Right.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 11 And then they just allow that teenage girl, what was her name?

Speaker 3 Tamika.

Speaker 11 To start a militia.

Speaker 7 Well, luckily she's in prison.

Speaker 11 And then they bring these ugly scientists to study things that should not be studied.

Speaker 7 Luckily, he's trapped in the same desert otherworld as Intern Dana.

Speaker 2 Lauren.

Speaker 2 I think...

Speaker 11 I think maybe this is our fault.

Speaker 2 How so, Kevin?

Speaker 15 We loved Night Vale

Speaker 2 too

Speaker 2 much.

Speaker 7 We cared for them more than they could understand.

Speaker 11 We showed them sympathy beyond which they could receive.

Speaker 7 Let's show them empathy.

Speaker 7 Yes!

Speaker 7 Empathy!

Speaker 7 Did you hear that, Night Vale? No more sympathy from Strex Corp. No more emotional symbiosis.
We will give you empathy. We will give you the room to understand

Speaker 7 what you need.

Speaker 7 But what you need is sunshine and structure and jobs.

Speaker 11 They don't want a handout. They want a hand around their neck.

Speaker 11 In a show of friendly solidarity,

Speaker 9 a strong pat on the neck.

Speaker 7 Let us show you empathy in a handful of dust, nightvale.

Speaker 1 Just look at all this empathy.

Speaker 2 Look at it.

Speaker 11 Look at it every day.

Speaker 12 Look at it forever.

Speaker 7 Okay, um, talk to you all again soon.

Speaker 12 Sorry for interrupting whatever this silly little thing is.

Speaker 7 As I was saying,

Speaker 7 and now

Speaker 6 listeners of every kind,

Speaker 6 the voice of Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin.

Speaker 3 Think back,

Speaker 3 look

Speaker 2 forward,

Speaker 18 listen

Speaker 19 timelessly

Speaker 20 Welcome to Night Vale,

Speaker 20 Night Vale

Speaker 3 Hello listeners.

Speaker 24 I speak to you now from the one spot in Night Vale that remains truly ours.

Speaker 18 The studios of the Night Vale Community Radio Station.

Speaker 25 I have learned well from my misunderstanding about how barricading a door works.

Speaker 25 And so I have, for two weeks, managed to keep this studio free of Strex Corp influences and employees.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 22 enough of the preamble.

Speaker 19 Now

Speaker 22 to the amble.

Speaker 18 Today is the day.

Speaker 22 There is only one thing for today,

Speaker 23 and that is the destruction of the hated Strex Corps

Speaker 23 and freeing our town of nightbale.

Speaker 2 We will work no longer.

Speaker 4 We will worship a smiling God no longer.

Speaker 4 We have failed before.

Speaker 25 We have failed so many times at so many tasks, but at this,

Speaker 4 we will not fail.

Speaker 2 I hope.

Speaker 22 I mean, I really, really hope that we will not fail.

Speaker 18 In any case, we will be devoting all of today's broadcast to the revolution with no interruption.

Speaker 14 Excuse me.

Speaker 19 Excuse me.

Speaker 26 Cease speaking or I will cease your speaking for you.

Speaker 27 Hey, is it there, Greenhead?

Speaker 28 Oh, listeners, I'm sorry.

Speaker 20 Mayoral candidate and literal five-headed dragon.

Speaker 29 Hiram McDaniels has just burst into the studio.

Speaker 31 I am also here.

Speaker 32 Did someone just speak?

Speaker 33 Yes, it's me.

Speaker 31 The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Speaker 31 I'm crouched in the crawl space under your studio right now.

Speaker 31 There are many interesting insects and pipes down here.

Speaker 29 Well, it is great to have you both, but listen, there's this revolution to do.

Speaker 5 Far be it from me to get in the way of your revolution.

Speaker 27 I'm all for liberty.

Speaker 35 The tree of liberty must be periodically watered with blood and mulched with detached limbs and prunes using shears made from bones.

Speaker 35 It's my favorite tree.

Speaker 3 I hear your purple head.

Speaker 34 Right on.

Speaker 31 We are here because you are forgetting the most important thing that is happening today.

Speaker 31 Today is Election Day.

Speaker 31 Today is that day when finally Nightvale citizens will be able to affect change.

Speaker 31 Or not affect change, but they will be affected by it. Sure.

Speaker 30 Well, there is also an election today, and we will certainly cover that as well, okay?

Speaker 32 But for now, please go stand in the alley behind City Hall and await the results, as is traditional.

Speaker 12 Thanks, Cecil.

Speaker 36 Absolutely.

Speaker 5 Thank you very much.

Speaker 17 We'll check back in with you soon.

Speaker 26 Yes, what my goldhead said!

Speaker 2 Pitiful wealth of a man!

Speaker 29 Let us go immediately to the news.

Speaker 37 Many citizens are reporting that old oak doors with brass knobs have been appearing all over town.

Speaker 30 The doors open onto a desert landscape quite like this one.

Speaker 20 Through these doors are arriving tall creatures with long faces and broad wings.

Speaker 3 These creatures are difficult to categorize.

Speaker 23 But the best I can do is definitely not

Speaker 3 angels.

Speaker 24 The not at all angelic creatures are joined by enormous men and women wearing masks.

Speaker 23 The Knot Angels and the Masked Army have torn down the electric fences trapping the people at the Strexcorp Company picnic.

Speaker 3 And this is great news.

Speaker 3 But unfortunately, the news

Speaker 20 is not over.

Speaker 4 Strexcorp has responded with a seemingly unending force force of eyeless, blood-drenched office workers,

Speaker 3 dressed in smart but affordable business casual clothing

Speaker 20 and armed with jagged knives and toothy smiles.

Speaker 29 They are backed by a swarm of yellow helicopters that have filled the sky and yet, strangely, have not blotted out the sun.

Speaker 20 In fact, the sun seems brighter than ever.

Speaker 25 Unnaturally bright, if a ball of highly compacted gas that sustains life through mere proximity could ever be called natural.

Speaker 18 The horrible, smiling office workers have driven the tall, winged creatures and the masked army back from the picnic.

Speaker 18 The Strex force is too much.

Speaker 29 For even these rescuers from another world to handle.

Speaker 40 Whatever unspecified powers they have are unspecifically not enough.

Speaker 20 And they are quite specifically

Speaker 13 losing.

Speaker 21 They are fleeing.

Speaker 20 Some have fallen as the ravenous office workers swarm over them.

Speaker 28 The angels, or, you know, not angels,

Speaker 18 have entered the juvenile detention center looking for a certain little girl no

Speaker 3 a young woman

Speaker 21 no

Speaker 29 a human being

Speaker 3 and her well-trained militia of other human beings but The cell that once contained Tamika Flynn

Speaker 42 was empty.

Speaker 3 Instead, there were only shackles that had been pulled completely apart and the words, I am found.

Speaker 23 Written on a bookmark laying across page 210 of a paperback copy of Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing.

Speaker 39 The current whereabouts of Tamika Flynn are not known.

Speaker 4 The winged creatures who are all named Erika,

Speaker 18 and the army of masked giants, have continued their retreat before the onslaught of eyeless office workers all the way past the Old Town Drawbridge.

Speaker 30 Listeners, given the urgency of today,

Speaker 30 I plan to skip some of our regular features as well as sponsored ads.

Speaker 16 But since forcing out our current ownership, we've gotten a bit behind on our bills.

Speaker 14 So there's now a sentient patch of haze in my studio.

Speaker 6 Hello, Cecil. Hello, listeners.
My name is Deb.

Speaker 23 And Deb

Speaker 23 won't actually leave my studio until she has told us all about

Speaker 8 what are you promoting? Whole foods.

Speaker 15 Ah, right.

Speaker 10 So even though we've got this whole big revolution to do, let's take a moment to listen to Deb, the sentient patch of haze, about

Speaker 2 Whole Foods. Yes.

Speaker 6 Thanks, Cecil. At Whole Foods, we don't have any rotting, decaying matter mixed into our products.
There are no secret blood rooms in our stores where we keep the secret blood.

Speaker 6 None of the boxes of cereal contain spiders. And if they did, they would be very friendly, helpful spiders.
Why wouldn't you be lucky to find a spider like that in a box of Whole Foods cereal?

Speaker 6 Or not just one, hundreds of them. But anyway, you won't.

Speaker 6 Whole Foods serves only the freshest food, and we certainly do not keep venomous snakes under the fruit in our produce section. Why would we? That would be dangerous and not good for business.

Speaker 6 No one has died of a snake bite at Whole Foods.

Speaker 11 No one you know.

Speaker 2 Whole Foods.

Speaker 6 Why in the world would we poison our frozen dinners? We definitely do not do that.

Speaker 15 Well, thanks, Deb.

Speaker 6 Oh, no, thank you, Cecil. Good luck with whatever you got going on here.
Seems uninteresting and human.

Speaker 8 Oh, okay.

Speaker 20 Well, goodbye, Deb.

Speaker 29 Listeners, I apologize for these noises you might be getting. That there is some other radio signal.
It's interfering with our own.

Speaker 7 Cecil, hi, it's Lauren Mallard.

Speaker 11 Sorry to interrupt. interrupt.

Speaker 7 Kevin and I just had to break into your signal. We wanted a moment to talk with you.
Gently talking solves a lot of things.

Speaker 11 Violent revolution has never solved anything.

Speaker 34 I beg to differ.

Speaker 32 America was founded on a revolution.

Speaker 30 And I mean, sure, we still are ruled by the reptilians, but

Speaker 1 the lizard kings let us have our own country after they saw how hard we tried during that revolution thing.

Speaker 7 That was decades ago, Cecil.

Speaker 7 Anyway, we want to know what we can do to keep your business. We here at Strex Corp Cynercists Inc.
are dedicated to the betterment of life through branding, social networking, and upbeat music.

Speaker 14 And hard work.

Speaker 7 I'm pretty sure it's implied that hard work is part of it, Kevin.

Speaker 11 I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for your feedback.

Speaker 7 Cecil, Strex Corp values the effort you put into making this station what it was.

Speaker 7 Is

Speaker 7 what it is.

Speaker 7 But when employees are refusing to participate in our trust exercises and boycotting our products and attacking us with our own helicopters, then I think we have failed our mission statement.

Speaker 30 And what is your mission statement?

Speaker 44 This.

Speaker 7 We got so caught up in thinking about our business that we didn't think.

Speaker 7 We didn't think. We didn't use our brains.
We didn't think about the people. People matter at StrexCorp.
They matter because of the business.

Speaker 7 We are here to set things right. First things first, we will rebuild the Night Vale Harbor and waterfront recreation area and

Speaker 7 divert thousands of gallons of necessary drinking water from other towns to provide it with its namesake. We will also fill in the giant hole out back of the Ralphs.

Speaker 37 But where will the people who huddle there go to huddle?

Speaker 16 Oh,

Speaker 7 Cecil, you are simply resistant to change. Your revolution is cute.
Community togetherness is adorable, but money, money is power. We will invest

Speaker 7 to make Nightvale a better place to live.

Speaker 11 Thus increasing the resale value.

Speaker 7 Also, we know everyone fears libraries in Nightvale, which is why Strex Corp will tear down the library, destroy the dangerous librarians, and replace it with Strixbooks purchase centers.

Speaker 3 Don't you dare.

Speaker 26 Don't you dare try talking about books.

Speaker 2 Tamika, is that you?

Speaker 45 Yes.

Speaker 45 I found their secret location using a radio triangulation technique I learned by reading an anthology of Emily Dickinson poems.

Speaker 14 Lauren, be careful.

Speaker 11 She has a slingshot and a heavy-looking edition of John Osborne's successful play, Look Back in Anger.

Speaker 45 Thank you, Kev.

Speaker 7 But I will happily deal with this myself. I just so happened to have my own slingshot and an extremely heavy edition of the Strex Employee Handbook.

Speaker 11 Well, Lauren, you have this situation under control.

Speaker 3 I'm just gonna go and oversee important things elsewhere.

Speaker 11 Let me know if...

Speaker 3 when

Speaker 3 you take care of this child

Speaker 4 I love books

Speaker 45 Take that book you're holding. It looks ill-written, ill-conceived, full of bad ideas expressed badly.
I bet it lacks narrative arcs and an appreciation for the flow of language.

Speaker 45 It looks like the worst book in the history of books. But here's the thing.
It's still a book. And I love books.

Speaker 45 So, you do not deserve to even hold it.

Speaker 7 Then come and get it.

Speaker 18 Tamika, stay alert.

Speaker 7 Let me throw some ideas at you.

Speaker 16 Ugh.

Speaker 2 Yes! Tamika!

Speaker 4 Tamika, are you hurt?

Speaker 12 Cecil, Tamika won't be a problem for us any longer.

Speaker 3 Now, what were we talking about?

Speaker 7 Right, money, success.

Speaker 16 It's just...

Speaker 18 Tamika!

Speaker 3 Tamika, can you hear me?

Speaker 2 Well, drapped.

Speaker 7 Hold on, Cecil, seeing she's still up and about. This will just take a second.

Speaker 45 Lady, I've trained for months. I've taken down your helicopters with only a slingshot.
I've looked at a librarian right in the area where most creatures would have eyes.

Speaker 9 You

Speaker 45 do not scare me. Oh no.

Speaker 45 Oh no.

Speaker 7 Where did all these children come from?

Speaker 45 It doesn't matter. What matters is that in a few moments, you will start running as fast as you can in the direction of Desert Bluffs.
All right, book club.

Speaker 2 Books as clubs. Go! No.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 7 May the smiling god show me mercy. No, no, I give up.

Speaker 35 I give up. I'm ow out.
I'm going.

Speaker 28 Well done, young Ms.

Speaker 30 Flynn.

Speaker 45 I'm securing this frequency. We'll keep broadcasting instructions from here.
Stay vigilant, night veil.

Speaker 45 Thank you.

Speaker 32 Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

Speaker 46 I lit the fuse, and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be. He's going the distance.
He was the highest-paid TV star of all time. When it started to change, it was queer.

Speaker 32 He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Speaker 46 Now, Charlie's sober. He's gonna tell you the truth.
How do I present this with any class? I think we're past that, Charlie. We're past that, yeah.
Somebody call action. Yeah.

Speaker 46 AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Speaker 48 I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

Speaker 36 And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from the League Veef or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

Speaker 48 We come together to host Unschooled, 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.

Speaker 36 From Grease to the Dark Knight.

Speaker 31 So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Speaker 36 Listen to Unschooled wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 48 And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Speaker 39 Listeners,

Speaker 3 Night Vale

Speaker 28 is coming alive.

Speaker 4 After weeks of the company picnic, the citizens are remembering who they are.

Speaker 25 They are members of a pseudo-democracy run by lizard kings through a Byzantine maze of puppet governments and paperwork.

Speaker 20 A crowd of those grinning Strex Corp drones surrounded one of the winged not angels, who was wearing a hand-tailored suit coat, but was otherwise totally nude.

Speaker 4 But then Leigh Ann Hart managing editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal hacked her way through the crowd with a hatchet.

Speaker 4 I am imagining you all as news bloggers.

Speaker 4 You are destroying years of journalistic tradition.

Speaker 24 And then, at the urging of Sarah Sultan, the president of the Nightvale Community College, Leanne then threw Sarah at the few remaining Strex workers who were still intact.

Speaker 23 Sarah, who is a smooth, fist-sized river rock,

Speaker 4 hit her target magnificently before bouncing off somewhere.

Speaker 4 And so this Erika, who looked both wealthy and mostly nude, was saved.

Speaker 8 Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 10 I'm seeing a flickering, listeners, and this flickering is becoming a shape.

Speaker 43 And the shape...

Speaker 4 The shape is becoming a woman.

Speaker 7 Hello, Cecil.

Speaker 7 It's me, Dana.

Speaker 15 Dana, why haven't you returned to Night Vale?

Speaker 7 I will soon, I think. But there is something here that has me worried.
That rumbling is getting louder, and the light on the horizon is quite close. I can feel heat, but I am not warm.

Speaker 7 The more the heat grows, the colder I feel. It is a terrible light, and it is so close now.
I feel as though the universe is unraveling.

Speaker 7 Plus, I found someone here in the desert.

Speaker 47 Hi, Cecil.

Speaker 47 I am manifesting myself in your radio station for both personal and not personal reasons.

Speaker 14 Carlos, oh, thank the imperfect heavens.

Speaker 4 I haven't seen you in weeks.

Speaker 15 I didn't know where you had gone.

Speaker 47 So when I entered the house that does not exist, I found myself in this other desert world. But something happened to my team of scientists and there was no one to let me back out.

Speaker 47 Then I couldn't even find the door. Eventually, your friend Dana found me.

Speaker 15 Now, Carlos, why did you not call?

Speaker 3 Or Snapchat?

Speaker 23 Or reblog any of my wood carvings of Kaushak?

Speaker 18 I worked really hard on those.

Speaker 47 Cecil, how would I do that? I'm in the middle of a desert that is not of this world.

Speaker 47 There's no cell towers or Wi-Fi or any kind of communication system. Plus, I have to save my battery until I can find my way back to...

Speaker 7 Oh, no, no, your phone totally works here.

Speaker 8 Really?

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Also, I haven't charged my phone in like a year. The battery never ran down.

Speaker 47 Is that a Samsung?

Speaker 7 No.

Speaker 7 No, same one you got.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 7 And the Wi-Fi is pretty decent, too.

Speaker 45 Oh, look at that, Cecil.

Speaker 47 I'm on your tumbler right now.

Speaker 47 And I gotta say, the artwork is amazing.

Speaker 8 Oh, thank thank you.

Speaker 7 I mean, time is pretty messed up, so sometimes you reply to emails before they're even sent to you, but other than that.

Speaker 9 Carlos,

Speaker 5 how do I get you home?

Speaker 29 Dana, Dana, how do we get Carlos home?

Speaker 10 I would like Carlos to come home.

Speaker 47 I'll be able to very soon. I am working on inventing something right now.

Speaker 7 Cecil, every time the doors are open, it lets that terrible light into night veil. And the light is so close now, we can't risk it.
Right.

Speaker 47 You're very smart.

Speaker 47 Cecil, you have very smart interns. I know.

Speaker 39 So.

Speaker 47 I'm building a highly scientific device to keep the light away from the doors. Now, the device looks a lot like a big umbrella, okay?

Speaker 47 But it is way more complex and scientific than that. For reasons I do not have time to explain right now, my danger meter is in the red.
And scientifically speaking, red is the most dangerous color.

Speaker 2 Carlos?

Speaker 18 Carlos, you're fading.

Speaker 3 Dana, where did Carlos go?

Speaker 7 He's still here.

Speaker 47 Dana,

Speaker 47 I can't see Cecil anymore.

Speaker 7 He's still here.

Speaker 2 Carlos, thank you.

Speaker 7 I make it to see my mother and my brother again because of you. You are a hero.

Speaker 47 I'm not a hero. I'm a scientist.

Speaker 7 Well, then scientist will always be my word for hero.

Speaker 14 What is he saying? I can't.

Speaker 11 We should go.

Speaker 47 Tell Cecil we won't be long at all. The doors should be safe to open now.
I just need to finish stabilizing the device.

Speaker 7 Cecil, we have work to do, but we will be home soon.

Speaker 18 Okay, I cannot wait to see both of you.

Speaker 47 Like an hour or two max.

Speaker 14 Did he say something? Was it...

Speaker 30 Was it cute?

Speaker 7 Goodbye, Cecil.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 28 It is good to know we have such a talented former intern and a brilliant scientist working together.

Speaker 30 Once again, listeners, I'm also getting several frantic phone calls that have reminded me it is also election day.

Speaker 32 So let's check in at the alley behind City Hall.

Speaker 3 Hiram, faceless old woman.

Speaker 4 Your revolution is meaningless!

Speaker 16 I will burn all detractors.

Speaker 25 Yeah, Cecil, all of us are in agreement here.

Speaker 5 Me, my green head there, and them other three heads.

Speaker 34 Sure, just lump us all together as the other three.

Speaker 14 It's always just gold talking away like he's the most important one, and sometimes green yells something, green and gold, green and gold.

Speaker 35 Also, please call me violet. You always say purple, but I prefer violet.

Speaker 28 Right, yeah.

Speaker 5 So also my gray, blue, and violet heads there. Anyway, we all agree that once we become mayor, this whole revolution, well, it's just sort of moop.

Speaker 14 If Strex Corp is still here and the people want them gone, we'll just, you know, throw some flames at the problem.

Speaker 31 The real issue now, the real issue is getting these doors shut. There's a blinding light pouring from them, and it's causing the world to become translucent.

Speaker 31 We can hear a deep rumbling sound, which I do not like.

Speaker 31 The helicopters seem unaffected. I think a terrible thing is trying to come through.
Something that's secrets I do not know.

Speaker 31 The unraveling of all things.

Speaker 31 Fire breathing will solve none of this.

Speaker 5 Basically, the angels are, you know, the not angels. They just need to shut the doors when they're done going through them.

Speaker 5 Yeah, what were they born in a bun?

Speaker 12 Well, according to religious texts, yes.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 38 Did you not know that? I mean, that's pretty standard.

Speaker 31 Anyway, I agree with Hiram. A revolution in the unraveling of the universe is all fine, but it would be great if you could cover the election more comprehensively.
We've worked really hard.

Speaker 48 Right.

Speaker 21 All of this.

Speaker 38 I will do my best.

Speaker 15 Or, well, actually, maybe not my best, but some level of effort.

Speaker 25 Well, thank you for the updates, both of you.

Speaker 8 You got it.

Speaker 4 Listeners, you heard the candidates.

Speaker 27 The doors are open and there is a powerful rumbling below the earth and a bright light turning everything translucent.

Speaker 30 Probably that's bad news.

Speaker 32 But you know, weather is weird here, so who knows?

Speaker 8 Oh, oh, oh, this is fantastic.

Speaker 20 Um, a couple of old friends just came by the studio.

Speaker 29 How to say so, uh, listeners, it is John Peters, you know, the farmer

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 intern Maureen?

Speaker 25 Is that you?

Speaker 12 Yep, sure is.

Speaker 17 Cecil, now, Dana, and your science fella, they helped us get out of that other desert place.

Speaker 17 I mean, I'm the one who found all those old oak doors, and Maureen here figured out that physically going back and forth between the two worlds was possible.

Speaker 37 But those two, they helped a bunch.

Speaker 38 Great, great work, all of you.

Speaker 29 And, you know, I'm so glad to get to see all of my lost friends again.

Speaker 17 Well, I just stopped by to tell you that we have seen the rumbling in the desert.

Speaker 42 We have heard the bright light entering Night Vale.

Speaker 42 Cecil, that light, it is the great glowing coils of the universe unwinding.

Speaker 8 It is the unraveling of all things.

Speaker 27 It is a smiling God

Speaker 40 of terrible power.

Speaker 38 Now, how do you know all of this, John?

Speaker 42 Well, I was in 4-H club in high school.

Speaker 27 I'm a farmer, you know.

Speaker 29 You learn all this kind of stuff from 4-H.

Speaker 38 Seemed obvious. No, no, of course.

Speaker 8 I mean, yeah, of course.

Speaker 27 Now, Maureen, it is so nice to see you again.

Speaker 28 I mean, it's been how long?

Speaker 47 This has been me, you monster.

Speaker 7 Oh.

Speaker 12 I got you coffee, and I made mimeographs. And I sang sea shanties to the ants every single day.
I even copy-edited your jaws slash pic, even though that wasn't in the job description.

Speaker 3 I did.

Speaker 12 And then one day, oh, get me some orange juice, Maureen.

Speaker 12 I mean, I won't even tell you how it's making people blink in and out of existence.

Speaker 12 And not only did it make me blink out of reality, but you didn't even want it when I brought it.

Speaker 12 Do you even know the mortality rate of your internship program?

Speaker 28 I'm not terribly sure what you mean.

Speaker 12 Chad,

Speaker 12 Jerry, Leland, Rob, Brad, Stacey, Richard, Paulo, Dylan, Vivia, and Ziv. Do you know what they all have in common?

Speaker 28 They all got great training for a future career in radio?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 33 No, that's not it at at all.

Speaker 3 Oh, excuse me.

Speaker 38 Speaking of interns,

Speaker 29 intern Jeremy had a recent run-in with the scorpions in the break room

Speaker 28 and will be missed.

Speaker 29 Oh, hey, now that you're back home, are you still looking for college credit?

Speaker 9 Yeah. Oh.

Speaker 4 Great.

Speaker 25 Can you start today?

Speaker 47 Yeah, okay. Thanks.

Speaker 29 Thank you for stopping by, John.

Speaker 17 Oh, sure, thanks, Cecil.

Speaker 27 Beware the unraveling of all things and support your local farmers.

Speaker 40 Yes.

Speaker 23 And Maureen, can you just pop down to the library and do some research on smiling gods for me?

Speaker 12 Fine.

Speaker 30 Great.

Speaker 23 Listeners, if John and Maureen are back, then that must mean that the doors are working again.

Speaker 29 And this is fantastic news.

Speaker 39 I am now receiving reports that the rumbling is growing louder.

Speaker 20 And people are saying that they can feel it in their feet.

Speaker 18 and in their teeth.

Speaker 43 And they are becoming forgetful and objects are becoming transparent.

Speaker 24 The darkness of Night Vale is washing away.

Speaker 30 And what are we, Night Vale, without darkness, without shadows, and without secrets?

Speaker 20 Listeners, there is someone knocking on my station door, which must mean Carlos.

Speaker 18 Carlos, is that you?

Speaker 2 End of part A.

Speaker 9 Hi, we're Meg Bashwiner.

Speaker 44 And Joseph Fink.

Speaker 2 Of Welcome to Night Vale.

Speaker 33 And on our new show, The Best Worst, we explore the golden age of television.

Speaker 44 To do that, we're watching the IMDb viewer-rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows.

Speaker 33 The episode of Star Trek, where Beverly Krusher has sex with a ghost. The episode of The X-Files, where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat.

Speaker 44 And also, the really good episodes, too.

Speaker 33 What can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like, for example, is it really a bad episode, or do people just hate women?

Speaker 44 The best worst, available wherever you get your podcasts.