30 - Dana

Speaker 1 and I don't just write Welcome to Nightville, we also write books that are not about Nightville, and here are some of them.

Speaker 1 Alice Isn't Dead, a lesbian road trip horror love story for fans of Stephen King.

Speaker 1 The Halloween Moon, my book for kids of any age about a Halloween where things really start to get weird for everyone.

Speaker 1 The First 10 Years, a memoir from me and my wife about our relationship told year by year without consulting each other about our differences in memory.

Speaker 1 And from Jeffrey, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, an apocalyptic novel that takes place in the same universe as the Within the Wires podcast.

Speaker 1 No matter what you're looking for, we've written a book just for you. Find them where you find books.
Okay, bye!

Speaker 2 Hi, this is Ben from the band Caged Animals.

Speaker 2 You've heard our songs Radio Down and Wildflowers on the weather, and I wanted to let you know that we've got a new album called Make Strange Friends, which blends nine character-driven songs with a nightvale-inspired radio play.

Speaker 2 If you're curious to hear it or pick up a copy on Ruby Red Vinyl, you can visit us at cagedanimals.bandcamp.com. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 Two feet from the street

Speaker 2 with the radio down

Speaker 2 Don't turn it up for me

Speaker 2 It takes heart

Speaker 2 It takes guts

Speaker 2 It also takes cash

Speaker 2 It just needs your payment immediately.

Speaker 2 Welcome to Night Vale.

Speaker 2 Mayor Pamela Winchell announced again today that she is stepping down as mayor later this year.

Speaker 2 This is the fourth announcement this week.

Speaker 2 She said again through tight teeth that this is totally her call and was never ever discussed in a room with no windows by small men wearing large pelts and decorative soft meat crowns.

Speaker 2 That is not how we do things, she said.

Speaker 2 That is not how we do things,

Speaker 2 she whispered.

Speaker 2 That is not how we do things.

Speaker 2 She mouthed silently as a single dark red tear formed in the corner of her eye and then slowly rolled down her taut olive cheek and onto her clay-stained smock.

Speaker 2 Elections for a new mayor will be held at some later time. When asked by the press for a specific date and location, masked representatives from a vague yet menacing government agency purred loudly.

Speaker 2 They then began rubbing their sides against the journalists' legs. Several reporters began sneezing.

Speaker 2 Listeners, many of you recall our station intern Dana, who, while reporting on strange goings-on,

Speaker 2 was locked in the Forbidden Dog Park back in April. I've received occasional texts and emails from Dana, but then this morning, well,

Speaker 2 let's listen.

Speaker 3 Cecil, it's Dana. I found a way out of here.
I walked the perimeter of the dog park looking for a crack or a hole or a weak spot in the obsidian walls.

Speaker 3 I never found an opening, but this is very strange. The walls just keep going.

Speaker 3 If you stand still, the dog park seems to take up a single city block, but I walked one direction for about two weeks and I could no longer see the monolith where I started, or the people I was with, or even hear the tinfoil rustling of the leaves from the tall black metal trees that protect us from clouds.

Speaker 3 There's something else.

Speaker 3 I found a door. An old oak door standing unsupported by any other structure.
I didn't know if it was an exit from the dog park or an entrance to something much worse, but I went through it.

Speaker 3 Now I am in some old house.

Speaker 3 Cecil,

Speaker 3 I can hear someone moving around upstairs.

Speaker 2 I need to go.

Speaker 3 I will try to call you soon.

Speaker 3 Thank you for everything, and I hope our time and place match again soon.

Speaker 2 Oh, listeners, I so wish I could have talked to Dana this morning. They were showing Cat Baloo again on TBS, and I just couldn't break away.

Speaker 2 I tried to call Dana back, but my phone caught briefly on fire, and something sharp cut open my thumb as I selected her number.

Speaker 2 And now a public service announcement from the Night Vale SPCA.

Speaker 2 Thinking about getting a dog? Dogs are not only great family companions, but also help childhood development.

Speaker 2 By regularly feeding, walking, fighting, denying the existence of, and ultimately soul merging with the family dog, young children learn about responsibility, empathy, and pyrokinesis.

Speaker 2 There are, of course, some breeds of dogs that are not right for children.

Speaker 2 Those breeds include spider wolves, double wolves, switch-bladed mountain dogs, secret terriers, flesh-eating spaniels, pit vipers, and table saws.

Speaker 2 Visit the SPCA for more information on the right dog for your family.

Speaker 2 Hello? Dana?

Speaker 3 Cecil? I can barely understand you. Cecil, are you there?

Speaker 2 Yes, I'm here. Dana, are you still in the old house?

Speaker 3 No, I'm still in the old house. I made my way out of the basement, which was empty except for a single photograph of a lighthouse.
It's a framed 5x7 black and white photo of this old lighthouse.

Speaker 3 It hangs crooked just to the right of center on one wall. The lighthouse in the photo looks to be in the middle of a field.
There's no water. Why would there be a a lighthouse not near the water?

Speaker 2 I have no idea.

Speaker 3 No, that doesn't sound right. Maybe it's some other reason.
Anyway, once I heard the footsteps above me stop, I opened the door to the first floor.

Speaker 3 I saw a man standing in the middle of the living room, staring straight ahead at the wall.

Speaker 3 I couldn't see his face, Cecil, and I knew that I had been through this moment before.

Speaker 3 Not like deja vu, more like a clear but fleeting memory of a dream. I was scared he might hear me, Cecil.

Speaker 2 What did you do, Dana?

Speaker 3 Yes, that's exactly what I did. I got up the nerve and I spoke to him.
I said, Hello, sir. My name is Dana, and I'm sorry to intrude, but I was wondering, is this your home?

Speaker 3 And he didn't move. He didn't make a sound.
He just kept staring at another small photo on the wall. I walked closer to him and I said, Excuse me, sir.
Excuse me, but

Speaker 3 And then I saw

Speaker 3 Cecil, I saw who it it was.

Speaker 2 Who was it?

Speaker 3 No, it wasn't her. It was John Peters, you know, the farmer? He was staring at this photo, and I walked closer and said, John, it's me, Dana.
But he didn't respond.

Speaker 3 I looked at the photo he was examining, and it was just a picture of a window, a worn driftwood frame inside of which was a photograph of a worn driftwood pane with gently warped glass.

Speaker 3 I couldn't see what was beyond the window in the photo, but there was a shape. Maybe a tree, maybe a person.
John just stared ahead, looking sad. No, not sad.

Speaker 3 Concerned. He looked concerned.

Speaker 3 I didn't say another word to him. I waved my hand gently in front of his eyes, and he didn't notice me.
I tried to touch his shoulder, but my hand went right through him, like through a cold wind.

Speaker 3 He wasn't even there, Cecil. He eventually turned and looked at another photo on another wall of another window, but he never saw or heard me.

Speaker 3 This home has no furniture, no furnishings, no belongings, only photos. Single, small photos on occasional walls.

Speaker 3 Most of them are windows, different windows with different panes and different photo frames.

Speaker 3 The house itself, I realize, has no windows of its own, so I don't really know if there is a basement or a first or second floor. The upstairs is the downstairs, is the ground floor.

Speaker 3 But I know one thing, Cecil.

Speaker 2 What is that?

Speaker 3 No, but you're close. I know that John Peters entered through a door in the kitchen.
I can see the door right now, Cecil. It is open, and beyond that door is sunlight.

Speaker 3 I can see sunlight and sand.

Speaker 3 I'm going through.

Speaker 2 Yes, Dana, do that. Go through the door now.
Go through that door.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, Cecil, you make a good point, but I have to go through that door, no matter what. I've got to get back home.

Speaker 2 Do it, Dana. Yes.

Speaker 3 Here I go.

Speaker 2 Dana?

Speaker 2 Hello? Dana, can you hear me?

Speaker 2 Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know where Dana has gone now.

Speaker 2 I do hope that we hear from her again. I would try to call her back, but my phone has grown spiny legs and is crawling away now.

Speaker 2 If you are the type to pray, please pray for Dana's safe return home to Nightvale.

Speaker 2 If you are not the type to pray, please know that you are violating several laws and you will receive a knock on your door from armed agents very soon.

Speaker 2 Let's have a look at sports.

Speaker 2 This weekend, the Nightvale High School Scorpions kick off their season against the Pine Cliff High School Lizard Monitors.

Speaker 2 Scorpions quarterback, Senior Michael Sandero, had off-season surgery to remove the second head he grew in the middle of last season's division title run.

Speaker 2 Michael's mother, Flora Sandero, said she had her son's original head removed instead, as she liked the new head much better.

Speaker 2 This new head's much handsomer and doesn't talk back as much, Flora explained from the roof of the pink berry, where she was installing several long pikes with dead vultures and rodents on the ends.

Speaker 2 This new head only speaks Russian, so I don't have to listen to him on the phone with his girlfriend all night long, and he doesn't hog the television anymore because he can't understand any of the English or Spanish programs here.

Speaker 2 He's a better boy now, she said, jamming another pike into the roof of the trendy Froyo store before yelling skyward, causing the sparse clouds to part quickly, revealing a giant floating crystal glowing faintly red in the mid-afternoon sun.

Speaker 2 And now, a word from our sponsor.

Speaker 2 McDonald's wants to remind you that the most important meal of the day is breakfast.

Speaker 2 So, why would you let a morning go by without staring deeply into the mirror until you no longer recognize the face staring back at you? Mimicking your every gesture, mocking your every movement?

Speaker 2 How else will you get the energy you need for a full day's work or recreation if you aren't silently screaming into the visage of a man or woman who gives you such uneasy spirit, such unshakable terror, a queasy feeling every time you make the connection between what that thing is

Speaker 2 and what you are becoming.

Speaker 2 What you have become.

Speaker 2 Where does the void end?

Speaker 2 Where do you end?

Speaker 2 When do you end?

Speaker 2 What time is it now? You are late for work. You are lying on your bathroom floor, half dressed in a cool sludge of toothpaste and hair gel.
You've been crying, but for how long?

Speaker 2 McDonald's, I'm loving.

Speaker 2 Listeners, I just received word from Carlos, lovely Carlos, with his perfect teeth and hair and penchant for sometimes chewing a little more loudly than is preferred, Carlos, who is with other scientists at the Desert Creek Housing Development.

Speaker 2 For the past year, Carlos has been studying a house that does not exist.

Speaker 2 It seems like it exists, like it's just right there when you look at it. And it's between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not.

Speaker 2 But it does not exist.

Speaker 2 Carlos said, the scientists asked him to come over and ring the doorbell just to see what would happen. They offered him $5,

Speaker 2 but he turned it down, saying something about scientific integrity and blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, $5 is a taco lunch at Jerry's Tacos, so whatever, rich guy.

Speaker 2 Carlos said that before he could take a step to the house, a woman emerged from the side door talking on her cell phone.

Speaker 2 He and the scientists ran up to the woman calling out to her as she walked quickly away from the house. She looked panicked.
No,

Speaker 2 not panicked. Concerned.
She looked concerned, Carlos said.

Speaker 2 She kept talking on her cell phone, never responding to them.

Speaker 2 Carlos said she kept walking until she walked right through them,

Speaker 2 right through the scientists, like she were a cold wind.

Speaker 2 And then she stopped talking into her phone, stared back toward the house, and with a look of panic, no,

Speaker 2 with a look of concern, ran away. Carlos said, and this is very strange,

Speaker 2 Carlos said,

Speaker 2 it sounded like the person she was talking to was you, Cecil.

Speaker 2 Listeners, I do not know where or when Dana is, but I am going to sit by this phone and wait for her call.

Speaker 2 I know she is alright.

Speaker 2 I hope she is alright.

Speaker 2 I fear she is not alright.

Speaker 2 With great anxiousness, no

Speaker 2 concern.

Speaker 2 With great concern, I take you now

Speaker 2 to the weather.

Speaker 2 Oh, I bled on the bed from a wound in my head On the night before I sent this

Speaker 2 Welling with dread from the things that were said In the boardroom that left me defenseless

Speaker 2 And though you weren't there, I could still feel you stare And your voice rang cold and contemptuous

Speaker 2 So forgive me this morning if I should fall worn in the arms of the lethal temptress

Speaker 2 At a nightclub engagement, you sang on the stage in a voice that was broken and tuneless.

Speaker 2 Still, it's better to work than to beg like a jerk for the kinds of things we all find useless.

Speaker 2 And hell have no fury, and dear, I'm not worried. I will see to my eternal penance.

Speaker 2 Just one more glass of gin before I fall back in to the arms of the lethal temptress.

Speaker 2 So you frighten the ghost down and ground them all down

Speaker 2 until one day you'd reach your consensus.

Speaker 2 And I know from you worship America first

Speaker 2 And all others you simply beat senseless

Speaker 2 And to worship like this is to honor the fist And to conjure what's cruel in the centrists And I don't know what's fair and I really don't care In the arms of the lethal Temptress

Speaker 2 I won't play so bad,

Speaker 2 That one day we'd come to regret this.

Speaker 2 And that what once was love can turn quickly enough into something so hard and contentious.

Speaker 2 And hell have no fury, and death is no jury. Our lives ended before I commenced this.

Speaker 2 But for one final sin, you won't see me again

Speaker 2 in the arms of the lethal temptress.

Speaker 2 But for one final sin, you won't see me again

Speaker 2 in the arms of the lethal temptress.

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Speaker 4 First saved message.

Speaker 3 Cecil, I'm sorry I lost your call.

Speaker 3 I made it out of the door, out of the empty house and its empty photographs into an empty desert, and I don't know if anything has improved.

Speaker 3 I can see nothing but endless sand and a single distant mountain, a mountain I've never seen because I don't believe in mountains.

Speaker 3 But there is a mountain, and there is a tiny red light up on the mountain, intermittently blinking.

Speaker 3 As I exited the house, the door shut behind me, and now it's gone.

Speaker 3 As I walked, I moved through something that wasn't there.

Speaker 3 I heard voices through digital static and felt a cold wind across my body. The others are here, but not here, Cecil.

Speaker 3 What or whom did I just walk through?

Speaker 3 Cecil, something is coming. You can feel it in the ground.
Something very large is coming. I've got to go.
I will call when I can.

Speaker 3 And tell my mother and brother I am out of the dog park and I am safe for now.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Cecil.

Speaker 2 Oh, listeners, I wish I had more news than this.

Speaker 2 I wish my phone would have rung.

Speaker 2 I wish I could have had that conversation instead of another voicemail.

Speaker 2 I wish Dana were home, safe.

Speaker 2 I wish I could feel something other than overwhelming concern. No,

Speaker 2 not concern,

Speaker 2 uncertainty.

Speaker 2 I wish a lot of things.

Speaker 2 But as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses, those wishes would all run away, shrieking and bucking, terrified of a great, unseen evil.

Speaker 2 So instead, what I want to say is, I am thankful Dana is out of the dog park.

Speaker 2 I am thankful I had my first conversation with her since Poetry Week. I am thankful Carlos did not ring that doorbell.

Speaker 2 I am thankful that people listen to this show and the stories about our wonderful little community, the most scientifically interesting community in America, as my Carlos once said.

Speaker 2 And of course, I am thankful for you, Night Vale.

Speaker 2 Stay tuned next for loud, shortwave radio squelches followed by a lifetime of tinnitus.

Speaker 2 Good night, Night Vale.

Speaker 2 Good night.

Speaker 5 Welcome to Night Vale's 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.

Speaker 5 The voice of Dana was Josica Nicole. Original music by Disparition.
All of it can be downloaded for free at disparition.info. This episode's weather was The Lethal Temptress by the Mendoza Line.

Speaker 5 Find out more at misracords.com.

Speaker 5 Comments? Questions? Email us at nightvale at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at Night Vale Radio.

Speaker 5 Check out commonplacebooks.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.

Speaker 5 That'd be cool of you. Today's proverb, look to the sky.
You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.

Speaker 2 Are you squeamish about horror movies, but kind of want to know what happens? Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre?

Speaker 2 Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly weekly podcast, Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No.

Speaker 2 Nine, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order. Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine wherever you get your podcasts.
Boo.