01/08/2016 22:53:50 ¶ ●

## Episode 91 - The 12:37

Do not bite the hand that feeds you. Grab it first. Take the keys. Set yourself free. Then bite the hand…and run.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Exciting news for rail enthusiasts (and fans of punctuality): the 12:37 train to Red Mesa has arrived on time at Night Vale Station.

Uhhhhh, sort of on time. Night vale has not had a train station or train service in a little over a century. So the train is about a hundred years late. This is, naturally, a cause of some confusion at the moment.

The station, which used to be where the Little League baseball fields are right now, was decommissioned and torn down after it was discovered the tracks just sort of ended in the middle of the desert, connecting to nothing.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police have encircled the train, which is stopped right in the second base line, and has not opened its doors. It is not yet clear where the train came from, if there are any passengers, and if there are, what condition they are in.

Sheriff Sam announced that they are an avid rail enthusiast – or, as they called themself, a train spotter. They whittled a small caboose out of a block of balsa to demonstrate their enthusiasm. They also repeatedly pronounced my name as “Sessil” too, so do with that information what you will.

We’ll keep bringing you the latest on this story.

In other news, there’s a crowd of several hundred people gathering over on Somerset. They have organized themselves into a tidy single-file line. None of them can say what they are lined up for, nor where the front of the line is.

Neighborhood resident Wayne Ferry said he got in line around 7:00 this morning, and it was already pretty large by that point. He’s not sure how far back he is in the line.

“I saw my friend Charelle and said, ‘Morning, Charelle!’ I and then kept walking toward the back of the line,” Wayne said, “but I kept passing Charelle. 'Morning, Charelle!’ I said each time. Eventually, she let me cut in line.”

Wayne said the line collapses back on itself. There is no beginning or end, even though it appears to be perfectly straight. More and more people are joining the line just to find out what everyone is in line for.

Wayne added, “Whatever we’re waiting for must be pretty cool!”

You have to admire such childlike optimism, even though optimism is doomed to almost certain disappointment and/or injury.

We have more on the 12:37 train to Red Mesa. Dozens of volunteers have arrived to take selfies in front of the old-timey steam engine. And also to weep in terror at the sudden anachronism.

Sheriff Sam applauded these civic-minded helpers by kettling them into a small chicken wire pen and shouting at them with an electric bullhorn.

Sheriff Sam, as part of the police investigation into this mysterious train, constructed a wrought iron abstract statue seemingly depicting a bird devouring a snake. We think it’s supposed to symbolize man’s inhumanity to man, and the frightful conditions in which immigrants were exploited in the building of our nation’s railways. Also, the iron construction surely represents the indomitability of American capitalism, but anyone who looks directly at any form of art gets a headache, and trying to understand art is usually fatal, so no one is certain.

[Ahem] Uh, how did the train get here with no tracks? Where did it come from? And now that there’s a giant metal sculpture in its way, how will it leave? How much would a ticket even be in today’s dollars? Who are the people gathering about the baseball fields wearing deer masks?

Oh. Breaking news. Some people wearing deer masks are gathering by the train, distributing roaches to bystanders. The roaches all have phrases printed on them, things like “Business in the front, knife in the back” and “#NotAllTrains.”

Weird.

Listeners, your guess is as good as mine. Well, almost. I’m pretty good at guessing things.

And now, traffic.

You are driving on a foggy night. There are faint taillights from a car in front of you. There are also faint headlights from a car behind you, all moving at a steady 30 miles per hour.

But then the lights of the other cars just switch off, at the same time. Are the other cars still there? It’s too foggy to see. Should you slow down? Speed up? If you slow down, the car behind might hit you. If you speed up, you might hit the car in front. Best to stay at 30.

But your speedometer is creeping up to 35. The pressure has put you on edge. Your boss, Catherine, has been really on your case lately, and you’re pressing your foot down without realizing.

Now you’re at 40. Should you go back to 30? What if the cars are still there, matching your speed? Is going back to 30 safe? Should you stay at 40?

Wait…it’s 50 now. You’ve been so worried about driving at 40 and lingering on what Catherine said to you about terrible quarter two sales, your speed has crept up again.

You imagine three cars speeding through the night, all of you mere inches away from a bone-crunching, life-changing, possibly life-ending collision, before you know it you’re doing 60, then 70, then 80. 80!

You can scarcely believe it. I mean, wasn’t that Tina’s account and not yours that failed? How is quarter two your fault?

You can’t possibly slow down now. The car behind won’t have time to reduce their speed. And where is the car in front of you?

At least the road is straight…or is it? And, are you even still on the road? Is there any way to know? All around you is fog. If you crash, even if you survive, will anyone find the wreckage to save you?

Without noticing, you have lifted your foot and the car has slowed down to 60. You keep your foot off the gas, and your car keeps slowing. 50…40…30…20…10…and then zero. You have stopped. No crashes, no screeching tires.

You put on the parking brake and get out of your car, and walk off into the mist, your face tight and tear-stained. You think about how Tina takes such long smoke breaks, and Catherine doesn’t say a thing about that.

The mist coats your cold skin, and you hear birds just above you.

This has been traffic.

We have an exciting update from the baseball fields! The train has opened its doors. Nobody has disembarked yet. It looks completely empty. The Secret Police are keeping a safe distance while politely shouting at the kettled witnesses to board the train and see what’s up. A few are reluctantly going in.

The figures in deer masks, looking like the same transit lovers who built the Night Vale subway system three years ago, are in an inverted V formation out in left center field, their shoulders and heads bobbing as if in silent laughter.

So far, none of the…umm…“volunteers”….have come back out, despite the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s repeated friendly warnings and helpful bullhorn threats.

The City Council could not be reached for comment on the train, as this whole situation has unfortunately clashed with their annual (and inaugural) charity golf tournament, somewhere far away from any possible danger. Also, I didn’t even bother to call them for a comment.

Teddy Williams, owner of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, announced that after 20 years, the Laser Tag Adventure Pit is reopening this weekend. In a contrite statement released this week, Teddy says he finally figured out how to lower the power settings on the lasers.

According to Williams’ written statement, “Super sorry, like wow, it never occurred to me that…anyway, things are fine now. Also, I know a doctor who specializes in limb reattachment,” the statement reads.

The statement continued, “Like, spiders with eight legs can afford to lose a few, right? But us humans, with just the two? Crap! Really, what was I thinking? Sorry. I mean, nobody died or anything,” Teddy said, “and I apologized, didn’t I? But Cecil just gets on the radio, reading out stories in that condescending way he does, putting on silly voices, making a mockery of my punctuation and vernacular prose, turning everything into an incredibly long sentence with a lot of sub-clauses and tangents that wander out, like branching paths in a forest, so that when you take one forking path and then it turns into another path you don’t know if it’s a new path or just the same path you were already on, or maybe you’ve just gone in a circle, and anyway the whole quote takes so long to say that you forget it’s somebody else’s words until he says 'Teddy said’,” Teddy said.

Well. Listeners, I…don’t think I need to read the rest of his statement. But I will mention that for reopening weekend at the Laser Tag Adventure Pit, there’s a 20% discount on admission, and everyone gets a release form absolutely free!

An update from the baseball fields: the Sheriff’s Secret Police boarded the train, and did not come back out. Shortly before they boarded, they warned the remaining witnesses not to board the train. Then, shortly after the Secret Police boarded, the witnesses themselves boarded the train…and also didn’t come back out.

Many people have been seen leaving their homes, schools, and places of business to walk toward the station, all excited to take selfies and sob in existential horror at this rift in not only time and space, but also our trust in basic physics.

The figures in the deer masks are all crouched, pounding the ground with their open palms.

There are now more people on the train than its capacity for passengers, but people are still boarding, effortlessly disappearing inside. Night Vale is emptying. Everyone wants to board the train.

I…I feel the same urge that all of you do to board the train, listeners, and if it were not for my strict professionalism and commitment to this show, I would be on that train myself. But I must resist. I will stay here in my studio…and…

You know what? Never mind. Yeah. Uh-huh. I gotta go see this. Okay. Uh, let’s just go to the weather.

[Studio door opens and closes]

[“Windows” by Angel Olsen]

Listeners, I am back. I am back in the radio booth.

The 12:37 train to…wherever (certainly not to Red Mesa) is gone.

As the doors closed on us inside the passenger cars, we heard the thrumming of the massive engine, the churning of gears and wheels, a great steam whistle. Looking out the windows I saw the baseball diamond, I saw houses and trees, I felt us moving, gaining speed, accelerating. I felt it in my ears. But the cars, trees, houses, the baseball fields, did not seem to move at all…at first.

Then the trees withdrew into the ground. The houses disassembled themselves. Distant power poles and tall buildings vanished. There were more plants, more water, the grass grew up higher and higher until the baseball fields were merely imprints on my eyelids. The clouds moved more and more rapidly. I saw the sun curl across the sky like a pop fly ti right, I saw it over and over. The firmament pulsed blue. And orange. And black. And yellow. Blue, and orange, and black, and yellow, blue and orange and black and yellow, faster and faster, flickering dark and light, flicker dark and light, a disorienting strobing inside our passenger car.

In the millisecond darknesses I saw empty seats all around. In the millisecond lightnesses, seated about me were all of my fellow Night Vale citizens. These two realities simultaneous and overlaid.

At the front of the car, visible only in the rapid flashes of dark, stood a woman wearing a deer mask.

She stared straight into me, walking slowly, stumbling every couple of steps – not clumsily, but deliberately, a painful and grotesque dance. She seemed to lose control of her whole body, only to recover gracefully…and repeat.

She stopped, inches from me. I could see her body was covered with roaches.

She said, “They take our miniature buildings. They put them in crates, and deliver them to warehouses across the desert. Their interests are furthered. It could not be more terrible.”

“Miniature? Like, like the tiny nation of people under Lane 5 of the Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex? Oh, did you know that they’re reopening the laser tag–”

She took off her deer mask. Her actual face was the face of a deer. Her face and the mask were exactly the same.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She leaned in, insects scuttling across her long brown snout. “I am the destroyer. They take our buildings. They put them in crates. Their interests are furthered. I am the destroyer.”

Strobing light from the spinning sun stopped, and it was only dark now. No Night Vale. Even the deer-headed woman was gone. Around me, barely visible in the dark train car was a sparse scattering of men dressed from a bygone era, holding wooden crates. They were sitting upright, twisted around, and silently watching me.

My face and chest itched. My scalp itched. I could feel a tickle along my thighs. I reached to scratch…and I felt them. Felt them all. I screamed and swatted them away, hundreds of roaches in my jeans, my shirt, my hair, I wa– I wanted to wretch but instead just writhed.

And I felt the grass under me. I saw sunlight above me. I…I saw trees, I– I heard a woman’s voice. I– I tasted nothing.

“Cecil? Why are you in our field? You should be at work!” Lucia Tereschenko, one of the Little League coaches (and also a ghost), was standing over me, a group of kids in ball caps and jerseys behind her.

“I’m…I’m sorry…Lucia, I…” I said, getting up, patting my chest, feeling for insects. “Did you see a train here just now, or…some men with crates?”

There was a long pause. Lucia looked like she wanted to either answer me or hit me.

“Cecil, you’ve got something on you,” she said.

I reached my hand to my neck, and pulled back a roach.

Lucia looked closely at it.

“Oh! What is this it says on the cockroach?”

We both looked at the lettering across the roach’s back.

“Huntokhar,” we read together.

“Cute name for a bug!” she said. “No go back to work, Cecil. We do infield drills now.”

I called Carlos, but…he had no knowledge of the train or what happened today. I called Sheriff Sam, who laughed at the notion, and then complained about the media for fifteen minutes. I tried contacting representatives from the Night Vale Transit Authority, but their line is busy (as it has been since they opened their offices three years ago). I called Teddy Williams with some questions about the tiny nation of people under Lane 5, but…he screamed and hung up on me.

I reached out to Wayne Ferry and confirmed the line of people on Somerset is totally real, and they’re all still waiting on whatever the line is for. Didn’t hear anything about a train.

I…I must have dreamt it. The train, the woman in the deer mask, the men with crates or…or…hallucinated?

Maybe the military was test marketing some new chemtrails. Or the Transit Authority was test marketing a new imaginary train system. Who knows?

Oh. Uh, Kareem just brought me some lemon and honey tea. It smells real, and it feels warm in my hand. Ugh. Oh! And hot on my lips! Uh, thank you for the tea, Kareem, and– and thank you for the realest thing I’ve felt all day! [Chuckles]

[Ahem] The 12:37 train to parts unknown from parts unknown is gone, and like most everything else in our memories, it likely was never there to begin with, but…

Huntokhar. Huntokhar is real. Right?

Kareem! Huntokhar is real! I– I– I– I– I saw it on a…a roach. Lucia, the ghost who– who– who coaches Little League, she showed me!

Kareem is shaking his head and backing out the studio. [Laughs nervously] Don’t forget to blink, Kareem!

And he’s gone.

Stay tuned next for the sound of a beating heart, a muffled sob, a nearby whisper while you are supposedly alone in the dark, and all of your other favorite jams of the 1980s and '90s.

And, as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open it up, and see all the people screaming about the giant that just tore the roof open.