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CECIL: Good afternoon, Night Vale. It’s the fifth day since
a sinkhole swallowed part of our town, and things seem to have settled down.
Officially, as of last night, there are no more survivors in the sinkhole –
that’s from Fire Chief Scott Thomas, who’s had his crew out there ever since
the day of the earthquake, working to save as many of our citizens as they
could. A lot of you may not know this, but one of the volunteers helping out the
fire department was our very own man of science, Dr. Carlos Espinoza – that man
working the ropes down in the sinkhole with Lieutenant Fiarelli, that was my
Carlos. His team from the lab was helping out wherever they could too, which is
more than I can say for our local police department and members of a certain
mysterious government agency.
CECIL: <clears throat> Some of you may also be
wondering why I sound a lot more…lucid than I have for the past few days.
That’s because of Carlos too – today I’m sharing my medication with him, we
have something of a shortage in town at the moment thanks to all the injuries
caused by the earthquake and the sinkhole and the few but completely
understandable outbreaks of rioting and looting. Carlos needs the drugs more
than I do right now: Someone broke into our house this morning, a desperate armed
robber. Things got violent, and my sweet, brave Carlos got hurt trying to
protect me. <a deep breath> I think…I’m not sure what the robber may have
been trying to steal, but they did try to hurt our kitten. We’ll never know for
sure what they wanted, because when they frightened the kitten it called its
daddy. Which was basically a big demonic tiger made of blue fire that just
appeared in the center of our bedroom. And daddy sort of ate the intruder who’d
threatened its baby, so we didn’t get to question him – or her, don’t want to
be sexist about it, crime can be equal opportunity too, you know. But the mess
is all cleaned up now, and Carlos is drugged all the way up to his eyebrows so
he can sleep off the pain of having a three-inch stab wound cleaned out and
then getting six stitches on top of that…and I’m doing the news because we are not
going to let Desert Bluffs take our spot on the dial away from us, oh no we
aren’t.
CECIL: <rustling papers> In other news, the unofficial
election for mayor is over, and Hiram McDaniels, the five-headed dragon, is the
new Mayor of Night Vale. The Old Woman Without a Face could not be reached for
comment, but we’re sure she can find something else useful to do for our town
in the wake of this crushing political defeat. I’ll try to get a statement from
Mayor McDaniels – who was tipped over the edge into winning the unofficial
election due to the selfless if politically opportune assistance he provided to
the fire department after the earthquake struck – in time for our next
broadcast. And since the City Council still has not returned from their extended
vacation, it is expected that Mayor McDaniels will be calling a general
election to replace them in the next few days. More on that when we have more
on that.
CECIL: <papers shuffling> No, no…oh here we go. The
construction crews manning the edge of the sinkhole have issued a statement
that the northern edge is still not stable and warning everyone that, if you
want to go look down into the hole and they know you do, you need to do
it from the southern side where it’s safer. Dr. Espinoza’s lab has also issued
a statement saying the aftershocks appear to have stopped and they aren’t
seeing any signs of renewed seismic activity – basing this on the signs they
saw before the earthquake hit, of course, not the on conflicting readings their
equipment usually gives them – so we should be safe from the vagaries of Mother
Nature for the time being. The other lab in town issued a statement of their
own, but it was just a page and a half of REPENT! THE END IS NIGH and IT COMES
FROM BELOW written in crayon, so I don’t think I need to read the whole thing
for you to get the gist of it.
CECIL: <more papers shuffling> We don’t have a
complete list of the people who are missing and are presumed dead, or of the
people who have gone missing and are presumed to have been hauled off by the
Sheriff’s Secret Police while everyone else was busy out at the sinkhole, but
as soon as I have a list I’ll read it out on the airwaves so we can have a
moment of silence for all of them. Everything else in town has been pretty
quiet. There are a lot of shortages right now, not just medical supplies, but
I’m sure something is being done about that – in the meantime, go easy on whatever
resources you already have at hand, and be sure you look after your immediate
neighbors in case you need to eat them later. Oh, and Dr. Espinoza’s lab also
says that under no circumstances are you to eat any wheat or wheat by-products
you may come across unless you want to die horribly and take the rest of us
with you, so I guess the wheat ban is still in effect. There seems to be plenty
of imaginary corn to go around though, so I don’t think anyone’s going to go
hungry any time soon.
<Sleepy, inquisitive noise in the background from
CARLOS>
CECIL: Shhh, go back to sleep, everything’s okay.
CARLOS: <sighs> …Are you sure this time?
CECIL: I’m sure, I promise. I’m just doing the news.
CARLOS: <hums>…I’m supposed to be helping with that…
CECIL: No, not today. Today you’re just supposed to sleep.
<footsteps, light and quick, coming closer>
WOMAN’S VOICE: Cecil, is Carlos…
CECIL: <calling off to the side, albeit quietly> No,
it’s okay, Trudy – he just woke up because he thought he needed to help me.
CARLOS: <very sleepy snort> I can help you.
Crickets After Dark is very popular, and it’s my show.
CECIL: <amused> Yes, it is. But it’s not time for your
show yet, the crickets aren’t ready. We’ll wake you up when they get here,
okay?
CARLOS: <sighs> Okay. <snuffle> Love you.
CECIL: <quietly> Love you too, sweetheart.
<silence>
CECIL: <sniffs, then takes a deep breath> You know, I
think that’s about it. We’ll probably have plenty more news coming in over the
next few days, what with the change of city leadership and all, so eventually
we can hope to be back up to half an hour of news every day instead of ten or
fifteen minutes. For now though, Night Vale, have a good afternoon and we’ll
end with…the weather.
<the weather plays>