23 - Eternal Scouts

Transcript

Speaker 1 Hey hey, Jeffrey Kraner from welcome to Night Vale here. Apart from Night Vale, we make other podcasts.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Each season is a standalone tale told in the guise of found audio.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We have new episodes every single week. So that's Good Morning Nightvale Within the Wires and Random Horror 9.

Speaker 1 Go to nightvalepresents.com for more or get those podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 Summer is turning to fall, which frankly, rude of summer to do. But don't worry, Quince is here with fall staples that will last for many falls to come.
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Speaker 3 She wore it at her first day of school. She loves that dress.
It has pockets, if you know, you know. I also got myself a mulberry silk sleeping mask, and every night since has been a luxury.

Speaker 3 I have never gotten better sleep than with mulberry silk draped upon my eyes.

Speaker 3 Experience what it must be like to be wealthy without having to, you know, have a bank account that doesn't make you wince when you check it.

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Speaker 3 Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com/slash nightfail.

Speaker 4 We report only the real,

Speaker 5 the semi-real,

Speaker 6 and the verifiably unreal.

Speaker 8 Welcome to Night Vale.

Speaker 12 Here at the station, we have been receiving many calls and emails over the last several months asking us about Koshik, the cat found hovering in the men's bathroom.

Speaker 16 Well, he is doing just fine, and thank you very much for your concern.

Speaker 11 In fact, he recently gave birth to an adorable litter of kittens.

Speaker 12 How does a he cat give birth?

Speaker 19 Well, how does a he cat hover in an immobile spot in a radio station bathroom?

Speaker 5 Some things just aren't meant to be questioned.

Speaker 20 Most things,

Speaker 2 actually.

Speaker 20 We slipped a note under station management's door asking if we could keep all those adorable floating kittens.

Speaker 24 Management responded with a great thrashing behind the closed door of their office.

Speaker 16 and a localized rainstorm in the break room.

Speaker 5 We are still working with the station oracle to understand their message, and we will let you know soon what we do with the kittens.

Speaker 25 Exciting news from the Night Vale chapter of the Boy Scouts.

Speaker 10 Two of their members, Franklin Wilson and Barton Donovan, have achieved all the necessary requirements to advance from the rank of Fear Scout to that final and most terrible of ranks, ranks, Eternal Scout.

Speaker 26 The ceremony will take place at an unspecified time today in the hole in the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs, and anyone is invited to attend.

Speaker 11 Those who wish to view the ceremony should wear loose-fitting clothing and tell everyone they know that they will be going on a long trip.

Speaker 10 Oh, just somewhere to clear their heads, you know?

Speaker 12 And that they don't know when they'll be back, but it won't be for a long time, probably.

Speaker 12 I just really have to find myself, and I think the open road is the place to do it, you should say.

Speaker 32 Don't look for me, you should continue, taking hold of your loved one's shoulder and maintaining an intense eye contact.

Speaker 18 Don't look for me.

Speaker 10 The city council voted this week to make death a meritocracy.

Speaker 5 For all of human existence, death has been a

Speaker 8 communistic sort of event, the council said in a prepared statement, and that we live in America where it is not the government's job to give death to every single citizen.

Speaker 10 The council noted that from now on, death would be earned through hard work and productivity, not just as a handout for every resource-sucking freeloader on the street.

Speaker 10 If you want to die, the council said, you will have to achieve death yourself.

Speaker 10 Not everyone gets to die, and that's just how it will be.

Speaker 10 The vote won by a small margin, with the opposition split between keeping death universal and others pushing for banning death altogether.

Speaker 8 Listen, Nightvale, I don't know about you, but I am for this new merit-based system of death. If everyone gets to die, then no one will really value death.

Speaker 12 I used to be young and idealistic and think that death was a human right, that everyone deserved to die. But now I realize that dying is very hard work.

Speaker 14 I'm working hard every day trying to die.

Speaker 8 But you don't hear me complaining, oh government, where's my free death?

Speaker 18 No,

Speaker 11 when I die, I want to have earned it.

Speaker 5 I don't mean to sound insensitive to those less fortunate who don't have the means to die without government help, which is why I support our local non-profit shelters that will help ease our more

Speaker 10 down-on-the-luck brothers and sisters toward the death they truly want but just can't afford.

Speaker 38 At her regular daily press conference today, Mayor Pamela Winchell extended a warm congratulations to Franklin and Barton for their eternal scout achievement.

Speaker 2 Fire is actually cold, she shrieked. It is the cold that burns you.

Speaker 11 She went on to produce several colorful balloons from her mouth, which she presented to strange, mute children in the audience, children whom none of the reporters remembered having been there seconds before,

Speaker 19 and whom none of them recognized.

Speaker 9 The children thanked the mayor by vibrating and dissolving.

Speaker 35 The scouts, meanwhile, have continued preparations for their ceremony.

Speaker 23 The vacant lot out back of the Ralphs is now covered by a thick burlap tent, and the scout leaders were seen rolling several oil drums into the tent, drums that rattled as they moved.

Speaker 19 They also have put up streamers and a hand-painted banner over the tent entrance that reads, Great job, Frankie and Barty.

Speaker 19 Great job indeed.

Speaker 11 Oh, this is so exciting.

Speaker 10 What a wonderful little town we have.

Speaker 25 After a long battle with parents over the controversial soda machines in the recently reopened Night Vale High School, the school board has finally capitulated to pressure from the PTA.

Speaker 40 While the school board, led by the ethereal and menacing Glow Cloud, refused to remove the machines because of the much-needed extra revenue, They concurred that so much corn syrup was simply not good for students' health.

Speaker 13 As a compromise, the school board agreed to booby trap the machines with swinging blades and an electrical maze to promote healthier drink choices and physical activity, which can help burn off all that sugar.

Speaker 28 To make up for the potentially lowered income from fewer purchases, The school board said they would raise soda prices, remove all water fountains and sinks in the building, and double up the salt in all cafeteria dishes.

Speaker 19 The school board concluded their announcement with the following

Speaker 30 All

Speaker 21 hail,

Speaker 9 all

Speaker 9 praise,

Speaker 6 all submit before the glow cloud.

Speaker 22 Then they sprayed themselves and reporters with shaken up two liters of warm Sierra Mist.

Speaker 12 Agents from the vague yet menacing government agency are having their annual recruitment drive at the abandoned missile silo outside of town next week.

Speaker 29 Those interested in joining whatever vague but important work it is that they do should submit resumes and headshots into one of several secret drop spots around town.

Speaker 39 At the event itself, the candidates will be ruthlessly interrogated to determine how they found out where the secret drop spots are, what exactly they know about the agency, and who told them.

Speaker 39 A representative for the agency, speaking through a representative, who in turn spoke through a heavily drugged proxy, said,

Speaker 25 Oh, you know, it'll be a lot of the standard job interview stuff.

Speaker 36 Asking you to name your greatest weakness so that we can use it to turn the screws on you even tighter, breaking you slowly through a series of hypnotic light pulses and disruptive sound patterns, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Those who make it through this rigorous process will vanish forever from our lives, presumably to join the vague yet menacing agency in some capacity.

Speaker 2 Those who fail the process will also vanish.

Speaker 32 Eventually, given enough time, we all will vanish, even the memories of us corroding and fading.

Speaker 9 The recruitment drive includes a potluck lunch.

Speaker 19 and the agency mentioned that they usually are overstocked on desserts and do not have enough main courses.

Speaker 7 So keep that in mind.

Speaker 22 If you want to witness the Eternal Scout ceremony, now is the time to run to the burlap tent over the vacant lot out back of the Ralphs.

Speaker 40 Scout leaders indicate that the ceremony will be starting any second now.

Speaker 19 Although much of the ceremony is out of mere human control, and so they could not give a specific time.

Speaker 5 Scout Master Earl Harlan said, I'm proud to be the first Scout troop to achieve this rank.

Speaker 19 I'm also terrified to be the first Scout troop to achieve this rank.

Speaker 38 The two emotions are mixing inside my body, and it's confusing.

Speaker 23 It's confusing.

Speaker 41 He shivered.

Speaker 5 We could have had something, Cecil.

Speaker 24 Always remember that, he concluded, clutching my arm before walking, head bowed out of the studio.

Speaker 10 Well, I think we're all both proud and terrified most of the time, and that's because we live in the best town in this county, in this state, and in this nation.

Speaker 14 That's where the pride comes from.

Speaker 41 The terrified part is because life is terrifying.

Speaker 34 It just is.

Speaker 6 And now a word from our sponsors.

Speaker 34 Losing hope, hard to see a way out.

Speaker 11 Hope, losing it, lost?

Speaker 34 Lost in a cave?

Speaker 11 Lost in a cave that spirals around a single obsidian column lit dimly by a source that does not seem to be either above or below.

Speaker 35 Hard to see.

Speaker 25 Scrabbling amongst the rocks for any landmark that might tell you from whence you came to where you should go.

Speaker 21 Depressed?

Speaker 13 Suffering from depression?

Speaker 36 Suffering?

Speaker 28 Tripped on a rock and tumbling for a painful eternity down the evenly lit, featureless spiral.

Speaker 39 Losing hope.

Speaker 35 Six flags, desert springs.

Speaker 17 Just off exit 64 in Night Vale.

Speaker 8 The Night Vale Medical Board announced today that they can't help you.

Speaker 17 Not if you're gonna keep screaming like that.

Speaker 41 They also asked that you clean up a bit before you come in.

Speaker 12 They don't want to get sick.

Speaker 5 One of the major problems we face as doctors is the sheer amount of blood, said Suzanne Thurgood, publicity director for the medical board.

Speaker 38 We get so much blood all over our floors and jeans and copper magnet bracelets, it becomes nearly untenable.

Speaker 16 Thurgood added that the best thing to do if you are unable to stop bleeding is to first take a few breaths.

Speaker 6 Calm yourself.

Speaker 22 This should help you concentrate on not bleeding.

Speaker 5 Then, once you have finished bleeding, come to a doctor's office.

Speaker 10 It's not a matter of medical training, Thurgood said.

Speaker 12 It's simply a matter of respecting other people.

Speaker 10 Thurgood then lit a cigarette and placed it expertly into the mouth of a low-flying hawk.

Speaker 13 As the bird flew away, a distant clock tower chimed the quarter hour and a gentle rain began to fall.

Speaker 6 This has been Community Health Tips.

Speaker 27 Reports are coming in that the Eternal Scout ceremony has started,

Speaker 24 and that herds of strange,

Speaker 7 mute children are streaming out of the burlap tent, filling all public and private spaces and standing silently, as though awaiting an order from some unknown higher source.

Speaker 2 The sheriff's secret police advise that the children are creepy and that they are creaked out by them.

Speaker 2 I myself count five in this recording booth with me.

Speaker 32 Exactly half of them boys and half of them girls.

Speaker 7 Who knows for what purpose these children have come to us and to what end their actions will take us?

Speaker 7 Who knows anything, actually,

Speaker 21 for sure?

Speaker 7 Let's go, surrounded and confused, vulnerable and trembling, to the weather.

Speaker 44 Woke up on the sand and

Speaker 44 I tied up my sleeping bag.

Speaker 30 A jetty won't last forever.

Speaker 44 Waves, they tumble and tumble.

Speaker 44 Stone by stone.

Speaker 44 I ended here all alone, and brick by brick.

Speaker 44 I walled myself from happiness and eucalyptus piled high,

Speaker 44 shivering by a flaming fire.

Speaker 44 Too much time.

Speaker 44 Too much time gone by, and I can't find you if I tried.

Speaker 44 Too much time,

Speaker 44 uh-oh.

Speaker 44 Too much time gone by, and I can't find you if I tried.

Speaker 30 Rolled up my mind.

Speaker 30 I've got no obligations.

Speaker 30 Packed up my pots and pans

Speaker 30 and

Speaker 30 freedom is overrated.

Speaker 30 Stone

Speaker 30 by stone

Speaker 30 I left my only home and brick by brick

Speaker 44 Warbed myself from happiness and dead fir and almond wood

Speaker 44 Stone crosses over Mount Hood

Speaker 44 I've got too much time, uh-uh-oh.

Speaker 44 Too much time gone by, and I can't find you if I try.

Speaker 44 Too much time, uh-uh-oh.

Speaker 44 Too much time,

Speaker 44 uh-uh-oh.

Speaker 44 Too much time, uh-uh-oh.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's Jeffrey Kraner with a word from our sponsor. You're on a desert island, but not a deserted island.
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Speaker 33 The ceremony is over, dear listeners.

Speaker 41 The children are gone.

Speaker 5 It seems we have come through this crisis, as all crises before, safe and sound.

Speaker 21 The alarm, only a false alarm.

Speaker 12 The children that had surrounded us were not the threat we imagined.

Speaker 5 After their period of ominous silence, all they did was attack, savagely, dragging many citizens with them into the tent over the vacant lot out back of the Rouths.

Speaker 6 Secret police indicate only 10 or so people were taken and maybe a dozen more killed.

Speaker 21 How foolish we were to worry.

Speaker 4 How much of our lives we spend building complex prophecies of fear when the world itself is just the world we have always known and gotten along in.

Speaker 21 Scout Master Harlan was one of the ones taken.

Speaker 28 I hope that he continues to be both proud and terrified in whichever new reality he finds himself.

Speaker 28 I think often about the last moments with him

Speaker 6 and the things that were said.

Speaker 2 I think often about

Speaker 21 many things.

Speaker 28 Other things

Speaker 15 I think less about

Speaker 2 Franklin and Barton, now and forever holding the rank of Eternal Scout, have been preserved and placed in glass cases out front of the city hall, a reminder to all who pass of the risks and rewards of bravery, of loyalty, of being a scout.

Speaker 2 May all children who see them feel a swelling of pride.

Speaker 43 Except that horde of mute children from some other world, those children hopefully we will never see again.

Speaker 2 Listeners,

Speaker 17 listeners out there,

Speaker 28 listeners out in the vacant night clinging to my voice as a simulacrum of companionship,

Speaker 18 remember,

Speaker 20 Fear is consciousness plus life.

Speaker 28 Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened.

Speaker 20 Toast

Speaker 21 is bread held under direct heat until crisp.

Speaker 21 The present tense of regret is indecision.

Speaker 14 The future tense of fear is either comedy or tragedy.

Speaker 21 And the past tense of toast

Speaker 20 is toasted.

Speaker 36 Stay tuned now for more voices, more reassuring noise in this quiet world.

Speaker 8 Good night, Night Vale.

Speaker 37 Good night.

Speaker 45 Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Commonplace Books. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craner and produced by Joseph Fink.
The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Speaker 45 Original music by Disparition. All of it can be downloaded for free at disparition.info.
This episode's Weather Was Too Much Time by John Vandersleis. Find out more at johnvandersleice.com.

Speaker 45 Want to have your music featured in the weather section? Want to contribute your talents to the show? Just want to say hi?

Speaker 45 Email us at nightvale at commonplacebooks.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio.

Speaker 45 Check out commonplacebooks.com for more information on this show as well as our books on the unused story ideas of H.P. Lovecraft and what it means to be a grown-up.

Speaker 45 And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link. That would be cool of you.
Today's proverb: Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Speaker 45 Show them pictures of cows when they're young and administer brief electrical shocks.

Speaker 45 I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

Speaker 46 And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

Speaker 1 You might know me from the League Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

Speaker 45 We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives.

Speaker 46 Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I I don't.

Speaker 45 He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dune 2 is overrated.

Speaker 21 It is.

Speaker 45 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.

Speaker 46 We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, From Greece to the Dark Knight.

Speaker 45 We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look.

Speaker 47 And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

Speaker 45 So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Speaker 46 Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 45 And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Speaker 1 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 1 Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightvale, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator, Horror Podcast Number 9, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order.

Speaker 1 Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 30 Boo.