Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 40

Jackie guided the Mercedes onto Route 800. It drove so differently from her old car. Her old car had felt like making a plan, whereas this car felt like an improvisation. Or maybe it was that she was driving with one arm.

Diane grinned at her and she grinned back. It was hard to fight the feeling of triumph. Diane clutched hard at the slip of paper that said “KING CITY” in Josh’s handwriting. She couldn’t let go of it. Or, unlike Jackie, she could, but, unlike Jackie, she wouldn’t.

They passed Old Woman Josie’s house, next to the used car lot. She was standing in the front yard with all the Erikas, as if she knew they were coming by. The Erikas seemed out of breath. Josie had her hand up but she wasn’t waving. She was gesturing, but Jackie couldn’t understand what the gesture was. She gave her own meaningless gesture back. A used car salesman stood on the roof of an old Toyota hatchback and howled. Jackie howled back. She hadn’t been this happy since before the trouble had begun. The highway was a simple path laid out for her.

Diane turned around, watching Night Vale retreat into the distance.

“Seems small,” she said. “I mean, not just from here. It just seems so small now. Such a small place to live a whole life.”

“You haven’t lived your whole life yet.”

“I really hope you’re right.”

Larry Leroy’s, out on the edge of town, was the last house they passed. Larry was nowhere to be seen. His house sagged into itself, an unmaintained heap of wood barely holding the shape of a house. It thought about nothing at all.

Then they were out in the open desert. Jackie tried to think of a time she had been even this far outside of Night Vale. All she could remember were endless days at the pawnshop. For the first time, she felt sad thinking about those days rather than nostalgic. She didn’t know what that meant.

“Diane, what does it mean when you know you’re feeling something but you don’t know what that feeling is?”

Diane considered this seriously for a long time.

“It means you’re growing older.”

“I never grow older.”

“I guess we all thought that once.”

The desert went on so far out into the distance that it was easy to imagine that it constituted the entire world. But Jackie knew, even though she didn’t quite believe it, that the desert was barely a fraction of the world. It frightened her, the possibility of space. The tininess of home. Her chest felt like a bubble about to pop, and she tried to hold still.

“Is it hard getting old?”

“Only as hard as you let it be. Easier than the alternative.”

“Dying?”

“Oh no. No, that’s actually easier than anything. I meant getting younger.”

Jackie laughed, although she didn’t find it funny. There are other reasons for laughter.

They settled in for a long drive. Diane was closing her eyes for a nap before it was her turn to drive when Jackie pointed, swerving the car since her pointing hand was also her steering hand, straightened the car back out, and said to the now wide awake Diane, “Look!”

There was a sign that said KING CITY with an arrow pointing at an exit looping away from the highway out into the sand.

“I guess we take that.”

Jackie pulled the car onto the exit. As she did, she felt her stomach start to rise, like she was being carried.

“Do you feel that?”

“Yes. Something’s not right.”

The exit loop kept turning. She couldn’t see how the loop could possibly be that long. The curve just wouldn’t end. They went and went. For ten minutes they did a long, slow curve along the exit loop.

“This isn’t good,” said Jackie.

“Well it’s not great.”

Jackie started to wonder if she would be turning the car in to the gentle curve for the rest of her life, and just as she started to wonder that, the road straightened them out and spat them out on a highway. They drove past a house sagged into itself, an unmaintained heap of wood barely holding the shape of a house.

“Oh goddammit.”

Up ahead was Old Woman Josie’s house, and the used car lot. This time Josie was alone. Her arms were crossed. She nodded at them, as if this, and everything else, was exactly as she suspected.

“Turns out working together doesn’t make King City any easier to get to,” said Jackie.

“I was wrong,” said Diane, furiously staring at the paper in her hands. Tears were pouring from her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound.

She looked up at Jackie, not making any move to wipe the tears. Jackie held her gaze for a long moment, letting the car roll down the highway without watching where it was going.

“Okay, we’ll find another way,” Jackie said.

“There is no other way.”

Jackie nodded at the houses and strip mall parking lots they were passing.

“This is Night Vale. Our mayor once led an army of masked warriors from another dimension through magic doors to defeat an army of smiling blood-covered office workers. There is definitely, definitely another way.”

They continued into Night Vale, without aim, listening only to the sound of the wind in the windows and the voice of Cecil Palmer from the radio.