Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 41

“Let’s touch them.”

“What?” Diane was enjoying listening to Cecil. She loved the end of his show, where he said, “Good night, Night Vale, good night.” No matter how difficult her life was or how troublesome the news he was reporting, his voice and his sign-off put her at such ease.

“The flamingos.”

“Touch them?”

“They jump people into different times and spaces. Maybe that’s the thing we need to get out of Night Vale and into King City.”

“Maybe.” Diane, sounding off mic, distant.

“We’ve got to try something.”

“Sure. I thought working together was the key too, but it didn’t work at all.”

“If we didn’t work together, we wouldn’t have this car. We wouldn’t be listening to the radio.”

Diane sat up. “The tear. When I sold you my tear. On the shelf behind you. There was bundle of plastic flamingos. I remember this now. I remember thinking about the color of those beautiful birds with their double beaks and six stringy legs. About how Josh loves flamingos. Jackie, they’re in your shop.”

Jackie was quiet.

“They’re not? Who’d you sell them to?”

“No one.” Jackie had pulled the car to a stop in the parking lot of Patty’s Hardware and Discount Pastries, just a few blocks from the barista district of Night Vale. “When I came back to the shop after the hospital, they were just gone. A lot of things were gone actually. Maybe stuff was stolen, but that seems impossible, because I make sure to remove and hide my doors anytime I’m not there.”

“Then I don’t know where we can get a flamingo. Carlos said he’s got them all.”

“Can you hang on, Diane? I need to run into this store and get something.”

“Sure. Oh, if you’re going into Patty’s, can you get me a croissant?”

“Got it.” Jackie shut the door.

Diane considered the ways they could get a plastic flamingo. Driving around town looking would take all day, especially if Carlos and his team of scientists and Josie and her team of angels or whatever they were had already done a lot of searching.

The radio station was not too far from here. They could head over there and see if Carlos would let them have one of the flamingos. This would be a tough ask, but considering how much Cecil cared for Diane and for her search for Josh, she might have the ally she needed to convince the handsome scientist to hand over a bird or two.

No, she realized, that wouldn’t work. He’s a scientist. Above all things, scientists are protectors of our world. “Scientist is another word for hero,” Mayor Cardinal was fond of saying. They use science to not only learn things but also to change those things so that everything is better going forward. Just like the scientist who cured polio, or that couple who invented radiation, or the astrologers who write our futures for us.

A good scientist would never compromise societal good for one person’s needs.

Jackie opened the door to the car.

“Here’s your croissant.” She handed Diane a cup full of melted butter, yeast, salt, and cold water as well as a spoon and napkin. After wheat and wheat by-products became illegal in Night Vale, Patty continued to make her pastries using the same ingredients and techniques, minus the flour.

“Thanks,” Diane said, desperate for a snack. “Hey, Jackie, listen. I’ve been thinking about how to get a flamingo. It’s a long shot but… What’s that?”

Across Jackie’s lap was a metal crowbar, solid black save for a small yellow price sticker.

“We’re going to go to the lab to get some flamingos. If Carlos is on the radio, who’s going to stop us?”

Diane bit her lip. She stared at the crowbar.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a person who steals things.”

“Well, what’s your plan?”

“Never mind. It wouldn’t have worked. Let’s steal them.”

They drove to the science district and pulled up to Carlos’s lab. Diane was on lookout while Jackie tried to crack the combo lock with her crowbar, which was not as easy as it looks in Lee Marvin films.

Loud metal thwack after loud metal thwack made Diane nervous. Surely someone would come to see what the noise was. Or worse, someone would summon the Secret Police using the poorly hidden microphone in their house. They would surely be arrested, or maybe even vanished.

Jackie had not made any progress when a woman with long, wild hair and long, wild nails and long, wild eyes touched her shoulder. Jackie pivoted around and raised the iron bar in an automatic defensive response. The woman did not flinch.

“The world ended over thirty years ago,” the woman said.

“Did it?” Jackie said. She kept the crowbar up.

“I live inside the Community College. I should know.”

“Are you a scientist?” Diane asked, moving between the woman and Jackie, waving for her to lower the crowbar. Jackie did not.

“1983,” the woman said.

“Is 1983 when the world ended?” Diane said, in the way a mother might ask a child if a picture of a train is a train.

“No! Are you crazy?” the woman said. “Well, maybe. Hard to say exactly what date.”

“What’s 1983 then?” Jackie said, finally lowering the crowbar because her arm didn’t have any more strength to keep it up.

“Combo to that lock you’re trying to smash.”

“Who’s trying to smash a lock? I was just checking how strong it was,” Jackie said while smashing the lock once more.

“The good-looking guy keeps snacks in there sometimes. Mostly crap though. You want the tasty stuff, go to the biomed neighborhood. They almost always have beef jerky.”

“Thanks,” Diane said. “We will.”

Jackie shrugged and tried the code. The door opened with an electronic whir. The woman pushed past them and rummaged through the fridge while they grabbed a couple of the linen-wrapped plastic flamingos.

They locked the lab back up, hopped into the Mercedes, and drove.

Diane drove to give Jackie a rest after the exertion of failing to break the lock. Soon they were back on Route 800, heading the same direction as before.

They passed Old Woman Josie’s house, next to the used car lot. No one was in the front yard. The used car salesman still stood on the roof of the old Toyota, howling. Diane did not howl back, but she felt hopeful, once again. Every time she was hopeful.

“Jackie.”

“Mm.”

“Thank you for keeping me company in my nightmare.”

Jackie grinned at her.

“Nah, it’s our nightmare now.”

Diane smiled a little, meant it a lot. Jackie took the flamingos from their wrapping and laid them across the center armrest, and they both put a hand on them. For a moment they both separately thought about holding the other’s hand, and both separately decided not to.