Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 29

The shoe box marked KING CITY had a book and a small stack of newspaper articles. The book was called Fun Facts and Anecdotes Related to King City and Environs. It was written by noted actor and civic historian Harrison Ford. It was cheaply made, and even a skim of its contents indicated a lack of careful copyediting and layout in its production.

Jackie flipped open to somewhere in the middle.

King City Fact #1061

Did you know? King City is the only city in California to have had a mayor right from its very founding. It has never gone a second without a mayor. It has always had one!

Again.

King City Fact #702

The fad of playing “Dark Side of the Moon” over “Wizard of Oz” was popularized by King City’s own George Taylor Morris.

Again.

King City Fact #986

We have the most oranges.

“What the hell?” she said, flipping faster through the useless book. “I almost died for this?”

King City Fact #3

No animals were harmed.

She tossed the useless book on the car floor and picked up the stack of newspaper articles.

KING CITY REPORTS SERIOUS TROUBLE WITH

CONCEPTS OF EXISTENCE, LOSS

JANUARY 23, 2003

BY LEANN HART

Senior Life and Style Reporter

A city in central California with no apparent connections to our town of Night Vale or the vast, flat desert in which we reside is reporting trouble with ideas like existence and loss. They are reporting that reality isn’t what it used to be, and that life seems somehow empty, or that it always was, and they just never noticed.

In a press release sent only to Night Vale for reasons we do not understand, King City indicated that it feels out of sync with cities only a few miles away and that perhaps everyone they know are just variations on the same, single person. Everyone is one person, says King City. There are a lot of that person.

Also, they need to elect a mayor. They haven’t had a mayor in so long. It’s time to elect a mayor, they said.

The local paper, the King City Rustler, has been printing large glossy photos of some man in a tan jacket holding a deerskin suitcase. They have not been printing anything else. No one knows who he is, and no one can remember the photos after they look at them.

These glossy, color photos seem expensive to print. This is a waste of the newspaper’s funds, everyone thought, but no one said.

When reached for comment by an angry mob of King City citizens bearing torches, the editor of the Rustler hid.

Those outside of King City are saying that it is getting harder and harder to find the town, like it is slowly sliding off the map. Roads that used to go into town do not go into town anymore. And those attempting to reach town simply disappear.

“I’m pretty sure we didn’t used to disappear in King City,” said Wanda Nieves, a local resident who issued her own press release, consisting only of that quote.

We at the Night Vale Daily Journal are using the massive amount of funds gained in the ever-lucrative newspaper business to investigate why people from King City are sending us annoying press releases and also, if it comes up, why King City is slipping out of our reality under the watchful eyes of a mysterious man in a tan jacket.

As always, this article contains additional reporting by agents of various unnamed government agencies, who add and subtract words and sentences from newspaper articles in order to send coded messages to compatriots living deep undercover in distant parts of the world.

Directly after that was another article, with the same layout and the same photo illustration, a self-shot portrait of Leann Hart that she was apparently quite pleased with and so had, for much of 2003–2004, used as illustration for most of her feature stories.

KING CITY TOTALLY FINE AND BASICALLY

NOT THAT INTERESTING

JANUARY 23, 2003

BY LEANN HART

Senior Political Reporter

A city in central California with no apparent connections to our town of Night Vale or the vast, flat desert in which we reside is totally fine. It has a population of about [a brown smudge] and an unemployment rate of [scribbled out with pencil].

The sun shines there, much as it does here. Sometimes the sun does not shine, and people there refer to this as night. In this respect, and in all others, it is totally normal.

We at the Daily Journal are not clear why we are reporting on this story, as the fact that King City exists is not in and of itself an interesting fact. If truth be told, and it often shouldn’t be, the town itself is not interesting.

Good mayor.

Citizens of King City, when asked via phone, wanted first to know who was calling.

“Oh, I’m a reporter,” I said. “I was just checking to see if you had anything to say.”

“Huh,” said the citizens. “Okay. Like, are you asking about something specific?”

“No, no, no. I don’t even know what the story is here. Maybe if you started talking we’d be able to figure that out together.”

“Most people don’t ask me to talk about anything,” said the citizens. “Well, I guess my job isn’t fulfilling, but I’m not unhappy about it. I never expected my job to be fulfilling. We’re told so often that employment won’t be fulfilling that the surprise would be if it suddenly turned out to be. I’m not happy about it, but I’m okay with it.”

“That wasn’t interesting at all,” I said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

The citizens of King City may have commented further. I hung up, so I don’t know.

I’m not sure what this information does for you exactly, but just know that King City, a city in Monterey County, north of Mexico, south of Oregon, underneath the sky, over a lot of dirt, and then over a different part of the sky, is doing totally fine. Nothing more to report. It’s been a slow day here.

As always, this article contains additional reporting by agents of various unnamed government agencies who have murdered an innocent man they did not know just so that one of their fellow agents, out of contact but with access to a newspaper, will read the man’s name and realize that the name of the murdered man is itself the message.

Jackie held up the two stories. They were identical in every way except the reality they were reporting on.

“This is not encouraging at all,” said Diane.

“Dude.” Jackie meant a lot by that, but she had no other way to say it.

“And this doesn’t help,” Diane said, holding up the photo from Troy’s file.

“Nope. Makes everything worse. I don’t see another car. You need a ride?”

“Yes, please. I walked here. I needed to get my blood pumping for a library trip. But I think I’ve had enough for today.”

“Yeah,” said Jackie. She found there was nothing to add to that, no modifiers or scorn or jokes. So she just said it again. “Yeah.”

Diane studied the photo as Jackie started her car. Every time she looked at it, she could feel her head start to throb. Maybe she did have migraines.

“Can you develop migraines later in life?” she asked.

“Why the hell do people keep talking to me about migraines?”

“You too?”

They shared a confused glance.

“Fine. I don’t care. I don’t need another stupid mystery to solve,” said Jackie.

The photo in Diane’s hand was old, yellowing and cracked, and bending at the edges. In it, there was a man who was definitely Troy. He could not have been anyone else. He had his arm around a little girl. They were posed in the middle of downtown Night Vale, but a downtown that had not existed for probably more than a hundred years.

Diane studied the face, blandly handsome, smiling blandly. Definitely Troy.

“Maybe we should talk to Leann Hart,” Jackie said.

“Yeah.” There was a lot she could add to that, but she didn’t have the energy. So Diane just said it again. “Yeah.”

She thought she might throw up. If not right then, later. At some point in her life she would. It was a statistical thing.