Chapter Text
A Night Vale tourist stands at the doors of the Fun Complex, listening to the mesmerizing sound of cotton candy whirring inside the bowling alley. The night, is as always, dark. It is as dark as the inside of a ram's skull as a shiny black beetle skitters its way inside through the eye cavity to burrow in for the cold desert evening.
Welcome
to
Night Vale.
The Sheriff's Secret Police has sent me yet another report saying whoever is drawing chalk pentagrams on Old Woman Josey's front yard should immediately continue and insist. They encourage whatever Satanic vandals seem to be getting up to these late-night hi-jinx, as the community continues to be unhealthily-yet lovingly-fascinated with the angels who take up residence in her old, musty shack, that occasionally smells like Kraft cardboard boxes and grows high heels in place of roof shingles. Old Woman Josey is very distressed by this sudden strike against her residents, but after a hushed whispering session with a hooded figure in the Arby's at the traffic light, has agreed not to steal anymore teenagers from the Night Vale High School. She has especially promised to leave Michael Sandero, the two-headed quarterback of our lovely team, alone. He is a prime suspect in the case, which obviously means that we must all turn a blind eye to his youthful indiscretions. After all, it was not so long ago that we were all a big bundle of flesh, blood and hormones, sewn together by spiders' webs and authorized to carry automatic rifles. Ah, adolescence.
Now, on to sports. There is a girl on a track. It is not a track anywhere near here, but nonetheless, it is indeed, a track. She prepares to tie her shoes and win first place in the 500 meter race. She reaches down to loop the aglet of her shoelace around the circle she's formed. As she reaches down to do this, she chews on a Wheat-and-Wheat-by-product and contemplates the fact that the gravel is melting underneath her. She is being claimed by one of the underground giants of the city below us and will later emerge as a champion of their race. A vile traitor. We will string her up by the Arby's.
City council would like to remind the lovely citizens of Night Vale that proximity to the dog park is strictly forbidden and considering it is extremely discouraged, if not outright dismembered. You may notice the howling from the place of which I just mentioned, which may not theoretically exist in any hypothetical scenario, has increased in volume and sibilants. You may notice that as you come closer, the sounds begin to be less incoherent and more recognizable. Disregard whatever they may be singing to you. Forget the shine of the brightest light you ever remember sipping tea under, tear down your blinds and clasp your throat as if you are being strangled. Failure to obey these orders will have you reported down to the Applebee's, or alternatively a front for the Sheriff's secret police, or children, who all curiously remind you of versions of yourself when you were young, will crawl through the grate of which within you have hidden your old toys. They will not do anything with them. Trust in my words, dear listener. Or do not.