48 - Renovations

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 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 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.

True beauty is on the inside, where everything is red and glistening and full of practical organs and sharp rocks.

Welcome to the Greater Desert Bluffs metropolitan area.

Hello listeners!

You look nice today.

This is an assumption, but it is a safe assumption.

I am positive you look nice.

Yes, a very safe assumption.

Probably the safest of the many, many assumptions I'll make today.

It's a very good day, Kevin.

The company picnic is still going strong.

It's been over two weeks in every resident of Nightvale.

And by extension, every employee of Strikes Corps has been enjoying our first annual company picnic of indeterminate length.

So many fun activities, Lauren.

Nobody wants to leave.

Nobody can leave.

But they wouldn't want to.

Oh, absolutely not.

Not with all the fun activities like work.

Yes.

But there's even more exciting news.

We are renovating this old radio station.

We redecorated the studio a couple of weeks back, but now that we have so many new Strex Corp employees arriving each week, we wanted to create a welcoming, work-friendly office for them.

Right.

It's always exciting to get a new job, to take on a new career.

You know that thrilling moment after all the resumes and letters and interviews?

That moment when one day a van pulls up next to you, say, just outside your favorite ice cream store or on the sidewalk outside your girlfriend's house, and you are blindfolded and sedated and lightly beaten and driven around in seemingly random directions, and then after breaking down spiritually, hurled upon the concrete front steps of your new office, ready to start your new career.

This is an exciting moment in anyone's professional life.

And here at Strexcorp, we want that excitement to continue.

So we are remodeling and redecorating this old building.

We've added some new sales offices, a room of questioning, complete with fun steel chairs and executive restraints, and lots of wonderful framed paintings of human teeth.

We're even completely redoing the bathrooms.

Which reminds me, there are some stray cats floating at various heights in the men's room here at the station.

They look to be about a year old.

If you want them, come get them before the demolition crew arrives this afternoon.

Good point.

I'll send our producer Daniel in there to take some pictures of the little guys.

We'll post them to the website, and listeners can figure out which ones they want to take and come and get them.

Unfortunately, everyone's having too much fun at the company picnic.

I doubt anyone will have any time or the physical ability to leave the picnic and adopt a stray floating cat.

Oh, too bad.

Well, I'll have Daniel post the photos anyway, just so you can all see what you're missing.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

Thanks, Kevin.

Listeners, are you cold?

Just a little bit.

Feel a thin chill on your skin?

Maybe you've wrapped your arms over each other and you're rubbing them softly but vigorously.

You're so cold.

And now you've pulled your arms entirely into your shirt, trying to maximize the body heat of skin contact.

You've pulled in your arms and you're rocking your body forward and back.

What about your ears and nose?

So very, very cold.

Ask a friend to borrow a sweater.

Try that.

Go on.

No one's around.

Uh-oh.

You don't actually know a single person, do you?

Your life may be a total lie.

Well, at best, a fever dream.

Or someone else's night terror.

That's probably it.

You're very cold.

And no one to help you or hear you.

Look around.

All grey, windowless walls, right?

Not even a door.

How much air do you have left?

How are you even breathing?

There can't be much air left.

This message brought to you by Best Buy.

Best Buy can serve your oxygen.

Listeners, the renovations have brought so much joy here to the radio station that we thought we'd extend the fun throughout the town of Nightvale.

We've sent our contractors all over the city to tear down other things too, like the abandoned missile silo outside of town, several active but low-achieving elementary schools, and that weird forest along the eastern edge of Nightvale.

Oh, I know that forest.

It's a really nice forest.

It complimented my outfit as I drove past it the other day.

It whispered, That vest fits you well, Kevin.

It also whispered, You have a clever and colorful fashion sense.

You are a delight to be near.

That forest never whispers anything at me.

I actually stopped my car along the side of the road because I was feeling welcomed, even beckoned by such a nice community of trees.

But as I approached, it whispered, No,

your eyes, no, please go, please leave us be.

And I did, because I have such a healthy respect for nature.

I know you do.

Vile, vile nature.

Anyway, we're tearing that forest down to build a new corporate training facility.

Great.

We've also hired the small civilization living under lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex.

Since building owner Teddy Williams is busy at the company picnic and hasn't paid his lease, the small army of tiny people are using the building as a headquarters.

They've renamed it the Cathedral of Huntokar, after their god.

They've also torn down the Arby's and put in a contemporary sculpture, which is a one-to-one scale model replica of the Arby's they just tore down.

It feels so good to redecorate.

Does it?

I rarely feel anything.

I rarely feel anything at all.

Let's have a look at financial news.

The markets are really fantastic today.

Counterpoint, you're really fantastic today.

You're too kind.

I'm kind because everything looks good in the financial markets.

Would you be less kind if the markets were doing poorly?

I would.

Down markets mean people aren't working hard.

And if people aren't working hard, that must mean they're sad and lazy.

And when people are sad and lazy, I become less kind.

Interesting.

What are you doing?

Hang on.

Listeners, Lauren is doing something on her phone.

And done.

Let's see if that...

Yep.

Yes, it seems to be.

Wonderful.

What did you do?

I just liquidated nearly all of my domestic stock, and the the market is reacting quickly to it.

Stock prices are plummeting.

The markets are really terrible today.

That's awful news.

It's a shame how people just don't value hard work like they used to.

You shouldn't let your sadness and laziness destroy our economic future.

Cheer up!

Wow.

I think you were wrong.

You didn't become less kind at all.

I didn't?

No, you became more helpful.

You're right!

Telling sad people to cheer up is like an extra level of kindness.

It totally is.

That was a very informative financial report we just had.

The markets are still terrible now, though.

There might have to be layoffs or disappearances, but I think it was worth it.

Lauren?

I just noticed all these new framed pictures of human teeth on the studio wall.

They're lovely, right?

Yes, very.

But that one?

I don't remember that picture.

I don't recall choosing to put a picture of a lighthouse in my radio studio.

I would only choose pleasant images to look at.

It

is a very unpleasant image.

I agree.

I do not like it one bit.

Let us try for a moment not to look at it.

I can't stop looking at it.

Me neither.

I'll ask Daniel to take care of it when he's done photographing those doomed floating cats in the bathroom.

Good plan.

We're receiving word from downtown that there's a slowdown in our renovations.

Our demolition crews have been stalled outside the empty lot across the street from the rec center, the lot with the sign that says, Future home of the old Night Vale Opera House.

It seems the outgoing mayor of Nightvale, Pamela Winchell, some old lady, and a line of impossibly tall people with long heads and wings have escaped or um

skipped out early from the company picnic, and are blocking our contractors from building the town's third Sharper Image.

But that's impossible.

We invoked Eminent Domain.

I'm getting word that the Mayor has veto power over both Eminent Domain and Sharper Image.

How is she still mayor even?

Daniel Daniel, where are you?

I'm going to find Daniel.

I'm going to have him drive me downtown, and I'm going to deal with this directly.

I'm tired of messing around with

What was that?

Listeners, the lights just went out in the studio.

Daniel?

Kevin, why has Daniel not come back from taking pictures of the cats?

That should not have taken this long.

He's very efficient.

Shh.

There's someone here, Lauren.

There's someone else in this room.

Listeners, there is a bright black glowing coming from the middle of our studio.

It is glowing around the shape of someone neither man nor woman, tall, long, with great black wings, beating softly through filtered and recirculated seventy one degree air.

It is holding something.

Something small and round.

Listeners, it is holding a light bulb.

It's moving now.

The person the the what?

The the angel.

Angels are, of course, real and very dangerous.

This dangerous being is walking to the wall, to that new piece of art.

The art that, unlike any other art in history, is not depicting teeth.

Oh, smiling God.

That picture.

Kevin, that picture, it's it's different now.

The lighthouse?

Moments ago, the picture was of a lighthouse on a desert mountain in the clean light of midday.

Now the photo is a lighthouse at desert's dusk.

purple-orange sky and a blinking red light atop the mountain

the light in the photo is actually blinking

There's a door at the foot of the stone tower and that door is opening a deep purple glow slowly silhouetting a man it looks like a man I cannot tell if he is tall or if he is short

He is holding something

I cannot tell what it is, but it moves in his arms

the man is he is entering the lighthouse.

He.

Kevin, the door.

Our studio door.

Daniel!

Is that you?

Are the kittens dealt with?

I see only the intruder's shadow in that deep purple glow.

It is.

It is the man from the lighthouse.

He is holding something.

The dangerous, dangerous angel is with him.

The man is holding something.

No!

How did you?

He is holding.

Don't come any nearer.

He is holding a cat.

Thank you for bringing me here, Erica.

And while whatever happens next happens,

I take you,

Night Vale,

to

the weather.

There's a big storm coming

And I don't care

There's a big storm coming

And I don't care

So you,

baby,

just give me my ticket to hell.

There's a high tide rising

and I don't mind.

There's a high tide arising,

yeah.

And I don't mind.

So, you,

baby,

just give me my ticket to hell.

So, you,

baby,

just give me my ticket to hell.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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Olivia loves a challenge.

It's why she lifts heavy weights

and likes complicated recipes.

But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

You were made to take the easy route.

We were made to easily package your trip.

Expedia, made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.

Listeners, it is good to be back

after so long away in such a terrible, terrible place.

Let us never fall again for the wicked ruse of the company picnic, no matter how many badminton tournaments or chilly cook-offs the flyers and masked picnic captains advertise.

There was one escape attempt during the unending, deadly horror that was the staff softball game.

But

there were helicopters everywhere, and we were captured, trying to dig a tunnel under second base with staple pullers.

But

last night, just when,

as all picnic goers eventually do, we had given up all hope of someday being free.

Former intern Dana appeared to me.

There was an old oak door, which I swear had not been in the heavily electrified volleyball nets before,

or

no,

no,

no more euphemisms,

no more talking around it.

They were high-voltage electric fences, fatal to any who touched them.

The door in the fence opened, and she stepped out and, taking me by my hand, led me with her into whatever strange other world she has been trapped in for so long.

She brought me to the lighthouse, in her strange desert, that is like our own but is not our own.

She introduced me to an army of men and women who have taken great care of her

and introduced me to several tall winged creatures, each named Erika, with a K.

Dana said they were angels.

I informed each of them that angels are not real, and that's ridiculous.

I

might

have howled this while covering my eyes.

Dana took me to the peak of the mountain, which is also not real.

From atop this monstrosity of rock and earth and lies,

we looked out across an empty pink desert, past the lighthouse, over the army.

to a curved horizon under a placid ocean of cloudless forever.

And I saw for myself, on that horizon, the terrible light rushing toward us.

Former intern Maureen is the one who showed everyone it was possible to pass fully back and forth, with her disappearing and reappearing.

And it was John Peters, you know, the farmer, who stumbled on how to open the old oak doors that lead to so many places, but also to here, this one beautiful place in space and time.

Old Woman Josie and her definitely not angelic companions are in that other world too.

So many have fled,

but we will not flee anymore.

I have returned, Koshek, to his home here at the station, floating four feet off the ground in the men's restroom.

I found Strex Corps former radio producer Daniel lying dead or

perhaps inoperative.

I do not know if Daniel identified as organic or not outside the restrooms.

Apparently, No one ever told him the deadly consequences of taking photos of cats.

Listeners,

all is not well.

Most

is not well.

Strex Corp still owns all that can be owned here, and so much also that cannot be owned.

Many of you are still trapped in the company picnic.

Others of you are trapped in mistaken impressions of how your life should supposedly be.

But that started long before this whole Strex thing.

That's something only you can fix through reflection and laughter and acceptance.

Lauren and Kevin ran away when faced with whatever you call Erika, but I do not think they will be gone for long.

And then there is Dana and her army of masked warriors, standing in the the path of that deep rumbling light, that searing, blinding hum,

that

smiling God.

And

I'll be honest,

I don't know exactly where

Carlos is.

They captured his scientists, but they did not capture him.

I'm sure he is fine.

A scientist is always fine.

Listeners, so much is wrong.

Here is what's right.

Nightvale Community Radio is ours again.

We are the only thing in Nightvale not owned by Strex, and I swear.

I swear,

we will stay that way.

And soon this whole town will be as this station is now.

Not without struggle, not without loss, not without grave injury and a lifetime of what-ifs.

But we will do it.

We may be controlled by the city council, and the vague yet menacing government agency and chemtrails and the secret order of reptile kings and the mysterious lights that hover above us, but we will not be controlled by a smiling god.

We are nightvale and we are in our own way free.

We must continue to fight and resist.

We must be the heroes we look for in others.

We must no longer speak in code, but in action.

Return to your homes if you can.

But do not lock your doors tonight.

Do not hide yourselves away from danger.

Be brave.

Be truly brave.

I mean,

don't get carried away.

Stay out of the dog park.

And don't run with knives.

And for crying out loud, don't cry out loud.

You'll upset the bears, which are emotionally fragile animals that are already very uncomfortable with themselves.

Stay tuned next for that nagging feeling that you left the coffee pot on.

Surely it's no big deal, but...

Oh geez, what if it is a big deal?

Oh no,

I can't believe you left the coffee pot on.

And as always,

good night, Nightvale.

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 Kevin was Kevin R.

Free.

The voice of Lauren Mallard was Lauren Sharp.

Original music by Joseph Fink and by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com where he has a brand new album with guest work from Cecil Baldwin and Gabriel Royal.

This episode's weather was High Tide Rising by Fox.

Find out more at foxtheband.bandcamp.com.

Comments?

Questions?

Email us at nightvale at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio.

Check out welcome to nightvale.com for more information on this show as well as all sorts of cool nightvale stuff you can own.

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

That'd be cool of you.

Today's proverb: feeling lost?

Like you have no goal in life?

Like you're covered in dirt and wet leaves?

Like you're an earthworm?

Are you an earthworm?

Kind of sounds like you're an earthworm, actually.

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

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

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

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

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

He's too old.

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

It is.

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

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

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

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

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

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.

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