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CECIL: Listeners…Kevin has not moved from the podium. It seems as though he is waiting for something…but what? Is it me? Now…I don’t want to brag but I’m fairly sure I’m his greatest enemy. Perhaps because I am here, recording from this secret bunker they are unable to complete their takeover. Well, good luck finding me. You’ll never guess that I’m hiding out in - no no, I’m not going to reveal everything again.
Earlier today Carlos told me that he is watching his portal and keeping it going because this would help to solve the problem. He said that Kevin has a plan and I should trust him. But all I see is a man, who looks too much like me, except in the eyes, with a terrible grin and an even more terrible opinion of Night Vale. It looks like he’s about to speak. I can only imagine the gloating horrors that will come from that smiling maw.
We go now to the multitude of hidden microphones that I have access to all over town for purely journalistic purposes.
KEVIN: I have known you for a long time. Longer now than it seems.
(CECIL: He is gesturing to Mother Lauren but she seems to not notice him. The body of The Boy is slowly sinking into her flesh. He is now more flesh than Boy. Kevin looks away from that sight, his gaze is upwards, at her distant face.)
KEVIN: I know you are listening, you have always listened to me, except once long long ago…I remember when StrexCorp came to town. I remember what you and the others did. For a long time, my connection to a Smiling God was the only thing that gave me control over my life - and later, everyone else. Now here you stand, taking even that away from me. You can do what you want to me, but I cannot let you do these things to Night Vale. They are not deserving of this, they are not yet ready, but I am.
(CECIL: She is looking at him now. She is smiling. She is not smiling.)
MOTHER LAUREN: You were always/never important to a Smiling God. You hungered for religious power yet you shrink away when you see it before you. That is why I was chosen and not you.
(CECIL: Kevin doesn’t seem bothered by what she just said. He has tilted his head to the side, like a curious puppy. I don’t understand why they are fighting. Aren’t they on the same side? Then again, I do remember a strange broadcast into the past where…well, it’s best to not dwell on the past whilst the present and future look so dire. What is… - listeners! - there is - something is happening - it’s - )
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CECIL: it’s a man emerging from the portal. Who is this man? He is standing beside Carlos. I have to say the two look shockingly alike. Obviously Carlos is more handsome. No words pass between them.This new visitor, a stranger, leaves Carlos’ lab and enters the town which is now more divine being than town. He approaches Kevin and they embrace in a hug and then a kiss. Ew. Ugh, I shouldn’t be so harsh. It’s nice that Kevin has found love. The man speaks; CHARLES: My name is Charles and I am a theologist. I have spent my life researching religion. Why does religion exist? What is a God? I guess some would call me unfaithful, since my mind can be changed to believe whatever currently feels right. I prefer to think of myself as spiritually open. But because of this, I know what the weakness of every God is. The faith of those it also gets power from.MOTHER LAUREN: If this is what you meant by not coming alone, I’m very disappointed.CHARLES: You have taken the life of the boy Kevin but you will take no more. Remember how we used to talk? I know that somewhere in there, I know you want the best for Desert Bluffs - this is not what is best for Desert Bluffs.KEVIN: You two used to talk?CHARLES: Not now honey. The point is, a God cannot function without faith. We, sentient beings, create the power of a God by believing in it, worshipping it and giving praise to it. What do you think is going to happen, Mother Lauren, if you destroy everyone who can give you praise?MOTHER LAUREN: I will keep enough alive to serve me.CHARLES: And is that what you really want? The impure souls from the Mudstone Abyss are not what they seemed. They are people like you, people that misinterpreted the messages of a Smiling God and burned through its blessing until their bodies were devoured but their souls were not. Is that how you want to become?CECIL(whispering): Mother Lauren has fallen silent. She is…thinking. MOTHER LAUREN: I will not be like that. I had everything under Strex and your foolishness took everything from me. Now I am back to where my life fell apart and I have conquered it. KEVIN: No. This is not how choosing joy over sadness works. You cannot find joy by reminding yourself of your pain. If you want to hurt me, then hurt me, and I will hurt you back until there is nothing left of us but leave Night Vale alone. MOTHER LAUREN: You are insignificant now. I am more than you. CECIL: The stranger, Charles the theologist, is shaking his head. He nods softly at Kevin then takes something out of a bag on his back. It is a book, dark and bound in a strange leather. He opens it to a random page and starts to trace patterns in the air with his finger as he reads with the book. The patterns are appearing in the air, complex geometry that both is language and does not need language to express its messages. Kevin is chanting under his breath now, he is jumping, working himself up into great energy, mirroring the movements as written in this arcane text. Mother Lauren’s long eyes are rolling in her head. If it’s causing her pain well…it’s hard to tell. But there is something in this ritual. Suddenly her great form starts to retreat. She growls and groans. “Enough of this!” Mother Lauren snarls. “I have had enough with this world! I’ll be back when you’re more of a challenge!” and as she rises into the air the very sky seems to split open. There is a flash of cold light and she is gone. “Is that my book of devouring? It doesn’t have a ritual for dispelling Mother Lauren,” Kevin says.“No, it doesn’t. But she didn’t know that. All she had to do is believe that we were doing it, all we had to do was believe it too. Faith is power,” Charles said, “Faith is power.” Kevin is looking sadly at the space where the boy used to be. All around citizens once trapped in flesh cocoons are bursting from them gasping for air. “We couldn’t breathe, nor could we die!” They gasp, hugging one another and weeping.“I want to go home now,” Kevin says. Charles takes Kevin’s hand and kisses it before walking back towards the portal. Carlos is there, he moves to say something. He says; “I’m sorry that science caused a problem it couldn’t fix and dragged you into it. I’m sorry about the Boy.”“I am the boy and the boy is me. I have survived in this way and not in another. There will always be a new chance so long as we have faith in it,” Kevin replied, “I’ll see you later, old friend.” Carlos nods solemnly and the moment the two outsiders have left he turns off the portal and stares at it sadly. Listeners…Carlos is a scientist. His world is facts, not faith. It must be hard for him - hard for us all right now - to realise that sometimes a little faith is the right solution to the problem. Or at least to a problem also caused by faith…was Mother Lauren a Smiling God? Was she something else? I don’t ever want to find out and yet I feel we have not seen the last of her. Night Vale - we have survived yet again. We have survived and yet we have much to mourn. A person can be your friend and your enemy at the same time. A person can do bad and good things, and be worthy of love despite the bad. I don't know nor will I ever know why Kevin cared about Night Vale enough to go against some form of his own terrible God. But he did. He did that for us or he did it for himself. Either way he did something good. Sometimes intentions and actions don't match up. Sometimes we must simply accept the positive outcome that was delivered to us by someone we don't trust.Stay tuned next for the sound of grateful sighs growing slowly softer and further away, And goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight.
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CECIL: …it’s Kevin, he’s on the move. He gently untangles the Boy from Mother Lauren’s body. She does not react. Her eyes are still looking towards the sky as if the movement of Kevin is so insignificant it’s not even worth a momentary glance.The Boy is now being held tenderly in Kevin’s arms. He sits, criss-cross apple sauce, and cradles his younger self as tenderly as a father. …listeners, I have reported on a great many things. A great many personal things. Things that ache in my belly long after I have reported them. I now report that Kevin is crying. I don’t know why this affects me so greatly but it does. I take you now to Kevin, crying, holding his younger self. KEVIN: It’s been a long time since I cried. Too long. They say crying is natural. Everybody does it. But I only ever wanted joy and so that’s all I ever got. Burning cold joy. I said I would not come alone, and yet here I am, alone. Alone as always.Alone in a way that a partner cannot fill. Detached from reality, from my town and from myself. I have spent a long time detached from myself. I still love a Smiling God, but I cannot accept that this is where a Smiling God wants me to be. We cannot live in the past. We cannot get back the past. I was not raised as I would have liked to be. I was not raised in the way I will be raising Donovan. Seeing myself like this has left me raw. Everything is up for consideration. MOTHER LAUREN: Come to me Kevin. Come to your God.KEVIN: No. You are not my God. You are not my boss. Once, we may have almost been friends. Not any more. I see now the circle closing in on me and I choose to break it. MOTHER LAUREN: Then suffer/so be it. CECIL: …Mother Lauren has swallowed Kevin, who was still holding the boy. He was the only one still able to stand up to her. Now, he too is gone. (whispering) Night Vale…I fear for us. Every plan we have so far come up with, be it the bravery of teenagers whose plan was mysteriously discovered and stopped, or the vague hope in a terrible smiling man, has come to naught. Mother Lauren is our everything now. Just like Kevin we cannot reclaim the past. There is either a desolate future, or death right now to end it all. Maybe I should go to Carlos, and the two of us should go to our son and- Wait. Wait. Something…something is wrong with Mother Lauren. Her flesh is shifting, bubbling, burning away. It sizzles as she claws at her own mighty stomach (formerly a slice of downtown) to try and remove the offending meal.Her fingers dig into the soft flesh and tear it open. Emerging from within is Kevin. Just Kevin, but somehow different. I mean, he is literally glowing and floating, but he’s also different in a way that is not those things. I feel like he and the Boy have finally made peace. Mother Lauren is shrinking, screeching as she goes. Now the buildings of Night Vale can be seen as they were before, not flesh, not bone, not nail or hair. Now the people can be seen, slowly removed from their flesh prisons.“We could not breathe, nor could we die,” they gasp into the bright hot air.The might of Mother Lauren has receded into a small curled husk of a woman, covered in flowing robes now too big for her. She has a frown tattooed crookedly onto her face. She is afraid.“Father…Kevin…?” Lauren Mallard bleats. Kevin shakes his head. He has absorbed her power. Devoured the essence and power of a Smiling God from within her. Yet, he shakes his head again.“This power was never either of ours to take. I don’t know where you got it, why you got it, or how that poor boy was wrapped up in this. He is within me now, we are whole again, and now you and I are going to return to Desert Bluffs to return the power to where it came from. That is where we all belong,” Kevin says. His feet are now touching the ground again. The two of them hold hands, and Lauren, clutching the robes to her, follows Kevin back through the portal. Before Kevin fully disappears through the portal, he…dares to touch Carlos’ hand and shake it. I guess it’s a nice friendly gesture. I still don’t like it. As soon as they are gone, Carlos switches off the portal and takes a wrench to it, smashing at the machine until it is useless and he is panting. Take it easy honey, we can dismantle it properly later. Now I would just like for us to be together…I'm going to go see Carlos. But I leave you with this;Night Vale - we have survived yet again. We have survived and yet we have much to mourn. A person can be your friend and your enemy at the same time. A person can do bad and good things, and be worthy of love despite the bad. I don't know nor will I ever know why Kevin cared about Night Vale enough to go against some form of his own terrible God. But he did. He did that for us or he did it for himself. Either way he did something good. Sometimes intentions and actions don't match up. Sometimes we must simply accept the positive outcome that was delivered to us by someone we don't trust.Stay tuned next for the sound of an inner child being nourished,Goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight.
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CECIL: it’s…the Boy, from the cavity of Mother Lauren’s body he is emitting a strange humming noise. The older Kevin is returning that single low note. It is the note I have heard members of the Joyous Congregation greet each other with. I don’t know its significance but it seems to be having an effect on both the Boy and the older Kevin. Mother Lauren slowly brings her gaze downwards. She is compelled to hum along. The humming is causing the flesh prisons around the citizens of Night Vale to start to vibrate and shed away. “We couldn’t breathe, nor could we die,” they gasp and scurry away to safety. The Boy’s swaying body no longer looks random. He is making complex patterns in the air with his body, his face still vacant, his eyes still hollow. The eyes of the boy are now as dark as the pits of his adult self. Still he sways, and the adult Kevin is moving his arms in the same complex patterns and Mother Lauren’s tendrils are also moving. In the air…listeners, I see it. A language made of shapes. Shapes and lines. Complex geometry that replaces the need for all other languages.I see it but I do not understand it. It is understood only by those from Desert Bluffs, from the otherworld where they have recreated that vile town.It is not important that I don’t understand it, because they do. They are communicating to each other in a deeper and more meaningful way than they were before. There are tears in Mother Lauren’s eyes. Tears that are filled with blood. Mother Lauren is wrapping the older Kevin in one of her many tendrils and pulling him into an almost loving embrace. Listeners…now this is bizarre. Kevin and the Boy are blurring and as Kevin is brought closer they are merging together, becoming one. Not one in the way that Mother Lauren makes everyone one with her. One as though cellular division has been reversed, forcing two things that were once one to become one once again.Mother Lauren tilts her face in soft confusion. This wasn’t part of her plan. Life has returned to the Boy’s face. He untangles himself from her body as if it were nothing. The air around him shifts as if moved by an invisible wind. Mother Lauren lashes out but she cannot reach him, almost like there is a barrier there.“I told you that I couldn’t do this alone,” Kevin says and his voice is both old and young at the same time, “and I can’t. I can’t do it with just me, but I can do it with both of me. Once upon a time I was just one and I could not stand in the face of your power. I promised myself that I would not do that again. I feel that in making that promise, I never really came to understand you as a person, Lauren. Now you are not a person. Now you are something else. Soon my older self/I will burn out and there will be nothing but this new chance at life. I cannot even say goodbye to those I will be leaving in Desert Bluffs Too. I hope they will forgive me.”“All this emotion is futile,” Mother Lauren insists. “Nothing is futile. You are a God without a flock. There is nothing to sustain you here,” Kevin says.Mother Lauren looks around the town. She sees no one. Kevin’s strange new aura seems to be shielding everyone’s presence. Her body is retreating back into the central mass, unable to maintain its grip.“I have bigger ambitions than this pathetic town anyway! I always did!” Mother Lauren insists, “you are a small man, Kevin, always too self important to see the true glory of a Smiling God and now too blind to see the glory of Mother Lauren.” But Kevin only laughs. He has an awful laugh. Mother Lauren groans in place, then starts to rise into the air. She is rising so high.“I don’t need this. I don’t need you. But this is not the last time you’ll see me. You need me, Kevin, you always have.”With that she is gone. It was not a slow flight. She was simply here one moment and in the next, Mother Lauren was gone. Now there is only…I guess it is the Boy. He is Kevin and he is himself, who is also Kevin, but in a different way. Carlos is the first to emerge from hiding.“I have turned the portal off,” he says, “This is your home now.”“Who are you?” The Boy replies, all remnants of before apparently now gone, “Who am I?”“You are Kevin,” Carlos replies, “and I am Carlos, I’m a scientist and I am your friend.”Just in time, as she often is, Tamika Flynn appears. She puts her arms around the boy, around Kevin and he goes stiff. Then he softens and he hugs her back perhaps out of instinct. “I am not your mother, but I am your carer, your guardian and I will look after you,” Tamika tells him. Kevin smiles. It is a very nice smile. Something had changed within him. It’s hard to say exactly what. He does not look like the same boy that was found playing in the desert. He is not the same boy who hungered for his doubles blood. He is something fresh and new, finally free of the shackles of what it is to be Kevin. I hope this is a good thing. I have my…hang ups, let’s say, with Kevin. I always will. But this Kevin deserves to be more than that Kevin. Tamika will be an excellent guardian, even if she’s still so young herself, only in her early 20’s.“Come on,” Tamika says, “I’ll make mac and cheese. You like mac and cheese.” and the two are walking away. Who knows what the future will hold?Listeners…the town is in ruins. But it has been in ruins before. The near endless and mysterious supply of cash that City Council has will be used once more to rebuild us. We will grieve the lost but we do not need to grieve for Kevin. He has been reborn as something anew. We might all be so lucky one day. Night Vale - we have survived yet again. We have survived and yet we have much to mourn. A person can be your friend and your enemy at the same time. A person can do bad and good things, and be worthy of love despite the bad. I don't know nor will I ever know why Kevin cared about Night Vale enough to go against some form of his own terrible God. But he did. He did that for us or he did it for himself. Either way he did something good. Sometimes intentions and actions don't match up. Sometimes we must simply accept the positive outcome that was delivered to us by someone we don't trust. Stay tuned next for the sound of a noisy sunrise greeting a new day, goodnight Night Vale, goodnight.
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CECIL: …it’s an almighty cacophony going on in Carlos’ lab behind them. Someone…so many someone’s are emerging from the portal…listeners I can’t…I can’t believe it…Kevin’s…so…so many Kevin’s. Kevin’s of all ages. Kevin’s of all kinds. Some are covered in blood, some are not. Some actually have eyes that aren’t just black pits. All of them have sharp teeth. Not all of them are smiling. Those that are do not seem to be happy. There is murder in their eyes. There is justice in their eyes. (Imitating Mother Lauren) “It doesn’t matter how many of you there are. I am destined to destroy you. I have destroyed the boy and I will destroy the man and the many. It is the will of a Smiling God.” says Mother Lauren.The Kevin’s have formed a crowd behind the first Kevin. They are quickly changing from a crowd into an army. The Kevin on the podium is only smiling wider as he is taunted. There is a ripple of…what is that? Annoyance? Fear perhaps? Through the mass which is Mother Lauren’s body, but also Night Vale.He says; “Faith. It is all a matter of faith. I do not have faith in what you say. I know I am solid in the eyes of a Smiling God.” Mother Lauren laughs, but Kevin continues, “I do not believe you are doing a Smiling God’s work. I believe that you have been corrupted and that it is my job to bring you down. If I believe it then it must be so. That is how faith works. I told you I could not do this alone and now I am not alone. I am many.” Listeners…the Kevin’s are on the move. They are climbing all over Mother Lauren’s body. They are clawing, biting, stabbing at her. Mother Lauren laughs but it is a laugh of pain. She swats at the Kevin’s like flies. She takes them into herself and then expels them as their anger towards her causes them to claw and bite from within. No matter how many she fells, their bodies broken and bleeding upon the floor, more are coming. More and more and more. They are swarming her like rats. A plague of Kevin’s. Her thick blood is oozing into the streets in rivers. Chunks of flesh are falling away. Some of the Kevin’s are freeing the citizens of Night Vale that had been imprisoned. These people gasp in relief; “We could not breathe, but we could not die. Now we fight.” they gasp. The citizens of Night Vale, my dear listeners, now you are fighting as well. You are putting your lives in danger to help the Kevin’s - wait, what is this? Some of the Kevin’s are forming protective walls and not letting the citizens of Night Vale get too close to any of Mother Lauren’s thrashing tentacles. Some are herding citizens away like protective sheep dogs. I don’t understand it. It’s almost like Kevin actually cares about Night Vale.The number of dead is impossible to fathom, let alone count. Mother Lauren is screaming. Her screams shake the earth and cause the teeth of anyone too close to fall from their mouths, only to grow again and then fall again, endlessly. The Kevin’s claw and bite and beat. They tear and rip. Amongst them there is the Kevin I once tried to strangle. The one who my dear sweet Carlos, huddled safely in his lab, watching the procession of Kevin’s go by - well. They spent some time together. No big deal.The Kevin I know the most is reaching into a wound in Mother Lauren’s body. He is removing a floppy small body. The body of the Boy. He is taking this limp body through the crowd. All the Kevin’s move around him, parting like the Red Sea. He lays the Boy gently down on a table in Carlos’ lab. “I’ll look after him,” Carlos says. “I know you will,” Kevin replies and leaves the lab. The sea of Kevin’s once more parts for him. Now he is climbing Mother Lauren’s body. Somehow no matter how she tries to shake him off he continues to climb. It’s hard to see where he is in the throng of lookalikes. There! Kevin has emerged near her face. They are starting each other down. Black voids to black voids. He whispers something in her ear and Mother Lauren flinches, cringing into herself, sinking almost. Or maybe she’s sinking because so much of her body is being ripped away. The streets are just rivers of blood now. We have not seen anything like this since the Blood Matter from Space rained down upon us all those years ago. There is something in Kevin’s hand. It is a long curled knife. He leaps from Mother Lauren’s shoulder and brings it down into her chest as he goes. Her body rips open and everything is blood. Organs spill out, too many of each, and splatter against the ground - some crush more Kevin’s as they land. It’s getting difficult to see…I need to move and see what’s going on. (sounds of Cecil moving, the squeal of a microphone, frantic footsteps, the clang of climbing a metal ladder, the thunk of a door opening, large items being forced through it, Cecil is panting)Ok I…I moved my portable…god I am out of shape…I moved my portable recording equipment to the roof. There is so much blood even here…ew, so gross. Mother Lauren is…still. The Kevin’s are retreating, carrying their own dead away into the portal. A great light is rising from Mother Lauren’s still body. It writhes, it wriggles, and it too enters the portal. There are only two Kevin’s now. The Boy, still with Carlos, and the Kevin of Desert Bluffs that I have known. He seems sad. He is looking at the body of his fallen…friend? with sadness. Carlos is emerging from his lab, wading through chest-high blood and staining his lovely white lab coat. He is now on the viscera covered podium next to Kevin. The only Kevin left, except for maybe a few of the dead that the living could not remove. “This is not how it’s supposed to go. This is not the kind of devouring a Smiling God is supposed to do,” Kevin says.“The devouring of a town by assimilation into a single flesh?” Carlos responds.“No,” Kevin is still looking at the fallen remains of Mother Lauren, “not that kind of devouring either.” Listeners…I think I know what he means. Sometimes our bodies are whole, but our souls, our minds and everything we are on a deeper level gets devoured or burnt up. I still think a Smiling God is a terrible beast that no being should worship. Maybe one day Kevin will understand that too and it won’t bring him so much pain…ugh, can’t believe I just cared about Kevin. “I calibrated the portal to the frequency it was at the first time, when the Boy came through,” Carlos said, “do you want me to take him back to where he belongs?”“No,” Kevin replies again, again that sad but firm ‘no’, “I will do it. I will care for him like a father would. I will do what is right by this child who is also me. I will make sure he is safe.” Kevin pats - (a mood stabilising inhale and exhale) - pats Carlos affectionately on the back. The way old friends do. I am not gritting my teeth. This is fine. (he is gritting his teeth). Ok I’m good, I’m good. Kevin picks up the boy once more. The two of them walk into the portal. Carlos waits for a while and when Kevin emerges again, he presses some buttons on his machine and the colour of the portal changes and shows a different desert otherworld. Kevin - oh my God get off of him - Kevin is hugging Carlos and that’s fine and it doesn’t mean anything Carlos is allowed friends even friends that have tried to ruin our town and are somewhat still responsible for this mess I don’t care it’s nice it’s sweet! It’s. Fine. Okay phew he’s gone. Kevin has walked back through the portal. Carlos is switching off the portal. He seems…sad.Listeners, I want to be with Carlos right now. I want to be with you. It’s time to start healing our town once again. I know we can do it. And Kevin…I hope there is at least one of them that has a good life. I hope the Boy will grow up in his own world and be the best Kevin he can be. Night Vale - we have survived yet again. We have survived and yet we have much to mourn. A person can be your friend and your enemy at the same time. A person can do bad and good things, and be worthy of love despite the bad. I don't know nor will I ever know why Kevin cared about Night Vale enough to go against some form of his own terrible God. But he did. He did that for us or he did it for himself. Either way he did something good. Sometimes intentions and actions don't match up. Sometimes we must simply accept the positive outcome that was delivered to us by someone we don't trust. Stay tuned next for a city wide clean up of goddess flesh and blood. Definitely don’t consume any. And as always, goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight.