Welcome to Night Vale - Alice Isn't Dead Ep 1: Omelet

Episode Date: March 8, 2016

The first episode of our new serial fiction podcast. A conversation in a diner gets ugly. Thanks to Audible for supporting our podcast. Get a free 30 day trial at audible.com/dead. To continue listening to Alice Isn't Dead, subscribe now at aliceisntdead.com. Music & Production: Disparition, disparition.info. Written by Joseph Fink. Narrated by Jasika Nicole. Logo by Rob Wilson, robwilsonwork.com. Part of the Night Vale Presents network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Joseph Fink. This is the first episode of our new podcast, Alice Isn't Dead, which will run every other Tuesday from March 8th to July 12th. We are going to be putting the first three episodes on the Nightville feed, so if you like what you hear, please subscribe directly to Alice Isn't Dead on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcast in order to hear the entire story. Thank you. I want to start by saying,

Oh, shit. Sorry, someone cut me off. Anyway, I want to start by saying that this is not a story. It's a road trip. Which, same difference. In a good one, the start is exciting and the finish is satisfying, and we end up somewhere else. Somewhere, a long way from where we started. I don't know where this trip started.

What counts as the first moment. But for lack of a better answer, I'll start with this. I'll start with the omelette. Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink, performed by Jaseka Nicole, produced by disparation. Part 1, Chapter 1, Omelet. Thank you to audible.com for supporting Alice Isn't Dead and making this show possible. For a free 30-day trial, go to audible.com slash dead. That's audible.com slash dead.

And stick around after the show for the answer to. this question, why did the chicken cross the road? It's not what you think. I was sitting at a gas station, or not a gas station, a diner that was in a gas station, the diner part of the gas station. I was in that. It was somewhere near Spokane, I think. I saw a man eating an omelet, but it wasn't the omelet, but it was just the way he was eating the omelette. He was devouring it. Big chunks of yellow scooped up with long, grease-stained fingers, just shoving them into his mouth. And he was staring at me.

He was wearing a yellow hat, like a baseball hat. His fingernails were yellow too, not cigarette yellow or nail-polished yellow, translucent yellow, just below the surface. Polo shirt. Dirty. Filthy. Dirtier than you think a restaurant would allow someone to wear. would serve.

Just the word thistle on the right breast. No logo. And he was moving that omelet from plate to mouth like it had nothing to do with eating, like he was just a machine that's function was to do that. And he was staring at me. No, he was eyeing me, staring. People say that bad experiences are like nightmares. This wasn't a nightmare.

What I remember most about it was, how real it was. Even as it happened, I noticed that the most, how real it was, how I couldn't escape that reality, how I would never be able to convince myself I remembered any part of it incorrectly. Alice. Alice, it's the engine, Alice.

The sound of it. The noise of a truck this size. The height? It's the height. None of us are used to, being this height anymore. Once upon a time we rode horses. I mean, you know what I mean. I've never even seen a horse up close. It's the height. I'll get used to it. There's this tower in the distance coming out of the hillside. Looks like it's part of a factory, but just coming right out of the earth.

creepy gut creepy like something gone wrong like a terrible crime it looks like something out of a myth I guess that's where myths come from when the real world looks like something out of a myth

who am I at this point in my life to talk about unreality that's so weird it doesn't look real I can't stop thinking about what's behind me Not the stuff in the back Not what they've got me carrying I think this signment's travel-sized deodorant

Most deodorant can go on a plane You don't need travel-sized versions Not that many ounces even in full-sized ones But anything that can hold a price A single human being will lay down for cash Has to exist and so here we are me and my car go hauling what needn't have ever been

from the place it needn't have been made to the place it needn't be used I'm not getting distracted I know what you're thinking Alice this is intentional avoidance I don't have to explain myself to you but I will I just

I just passed an exit sign that said Anaconda Opportunity That's a fine invitation, but I think, uh, I mean, no thanks. I will pass that opportunity up. An explanation. Right. Big chunks of eggs. Chewing them.

Devouring them. He saw me staring back. Now we were staring at each other. Something electric and monstrous there in the diner between us. The face of death. than styrofoam sealing tiles and sagging pleather booths. He got up and approached my table. His clothes were filthy.

He walked like his legs weren't muscle and bone, but just sacks of meat attached to his torso. He sat across from me and he licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice sounded like the accidental hollowing of the wind. It's a fine evening, he said. doesn't look much like rain. Egg crusted his lips and his chin. His teeth were an impossibility of spacing and angle.

Nothing about his tone matched the words he was saying. At first I didn't say anything. I thought if I was quiet, he would go away, but that only works with people who aren't already in it to bother you, who haven't already made up their minds to be awful. Hope you don't mind if I join you. said, not a question or a request, but a joke. I actually was hoping to eat alone, I said. Good people deserve good things, he said. I didn't know what to say to that. He scratched his cheek,

scratched it really hard, and I swear that some of it peeled away under his fingers. It's dangerous out here, he said. Out where, I said, this state, this country? Life, life is dangerous. Did you come over here to explain death to me? He laughed. Yes, he said. I came over to explain death to you.

He leaned in close. His breath was rotten, not bad, but like fruit turning to soil. Want to see something funny? He asked. He got up. Thistle, his shirt said. His face was slack and not quite arranged right. Like human, but not.

He walked over to a table where there was this man, a truck driver probably. He looked like a truck driver. What does a truck driver look like? Hey, Earl, the thistleman said. Huh? said Earl, looking up. He seemed just as unhappy as me to look like. to be disturbed, but then the thistleman grabbed him by the back of his neck and Earl's face went vacant. The thistle man picked Earl up by the neck and Earl walked with him. He looked asleep

almost or like some part of him wasn't there anymore. Neither Earl nor the thistleman paid their checks. No one did anything. No one looked. But it was... There are times I hate you more than any of them Alice. Out to the parking lot. He was waiting for me. It was what he did next. First the mountains, then these canyons winding around themselves.

Haven't seen a house in an hour. It's getting dark now. The clock says the same things as it did when I started this morning, but it's the other hemisphere of the day. We talk a lot as a species about the night sky.

It's one of those subjects that come more often than, say, the social structure of bees. That's just an example. Which is interesting, because the social structure of bees is something. It is an active object that can be looked at. And so much of the night sky is nothing at all. It is an empty box. And, like all emptiness, it is a mirror.

Or don't listen to me. I'm just a lady driving deodorant from one place that doesn't need it to another. I only say because, well, if you could see what I'm seeing, you'd understand. The night sky is something striking right now against the dark silhouettes of the trees. It's beautiful. So much that I've seen is beautiful, more than you would think. Even the worst things. And isn't it funny that the trees blot out the sky? physical objects as shadows against the void. We are nothing, if not absurd.

We are nothing. He was waiting for me in the parking lot. He was holding Earl now. Earl seemed to be awake again, but the thistle man was holding him too tightly for him to move. The outside lights in the gas station weren't working anymore. The two men were shadows against the harsh light of the diner windows. People eating waffles and sausages and shit.

The embrace was almost tender, but there was nothing tender about the man with the yellow fingernails. His grip was strong, and the truck driver couldn't move, couldn't shout. They both stared at me. Earl's eyes were wide, struggling with the vision of the future without him in it. The man with the yellow nails, his eyes were flat, like a bad painting of a face. They both stared at me, and then the man with the yellow nails, He took a bite out of Earl, tore out a chunk of flesh right at the artery in his left armpit, and Earl began to bleed. He didn't move, but only whimpered a little.

Tears started falling from his daring eyes, but he didn't move. The other thing, whatever it was, it was not a man, dug his fingers into the wound and pulled out bits of Earl the way he had picked up the egg with the same flat movement, the nothing demeanor. This was not a meal This was not something that he had to do in order to survive It was a demonstration The thistleman, he wanted me to know And Jesus, right then I knew I ran back to the truck, of course

I locked the doors, of course Of course, I pulled out of the parking lot as fast as a truck that size will go Which is not fast enough in a situation like that, of course Of course I cried Alice Of course I did Behind me in the mirror I could still see the two figures Could see the distant shadow of Earl dying

Without a friendly face and sight The only person who could help him Driving herself away to safety And just the company of a monster To accompany him and his dissipation I couldn't see details anymore Those were in my memory Flat and grassy

I think. It's dark now and the darkness is vast here. It really has a depth to it. It keeps going. I didn't think that dark could have a bottom until I saw a dark that didn't. I've seen the thistle man again. I've seen him again and again behind the bathrooms at rest stops in the snack aisle at gas stations, sitting alone at the biggest booths of the smallest roadside bars, places with one kind of beer on the menu and video. poker in the bathroom by the toilet. Something brutal and clumsy in his movements, like he doesn't understand how any of him works. And sharp teeth.

Not sharp enough to be fangs, but not human either. And yellow fingernails. Not cigarette yellow, but translucent yellow, just below the surface. He hasn't talked to me again, but I've been seeing him, and he knows it. He wants me to know he's following me. I don't know who this...

I won't say man. He isn't a man. I don't know what he is. Do you know, Alice? Is this why you left? Or was it something else? Was it me? And now here.

The road between two places I've never heard of. Travel-sized deodorant, an unusual height, Closer to the night sky than I am to any other human? A night sky that seems gorgeous and heartbreaking, even though it's not. It's not anything. It just isn't. Where are you, Alice? Why can't I find you?

I'll keep driving this truck. I'll keep wandering this country. I'm going to find you. I will. Hopefully I'll do it before the thistleman finds me. Every time I look behind, I worry that the headlights I see are him, and his strange, dirty hands are on the wheel, pointing them in me, going faster and faster.

This better be worth it, Alice. Nothing ever could be. Thanks to audible.com for supporting our podcast. They are making our weird little story that would be difficult to pitch in the world of mainstream media possible for us to produce, and we're really excited to have them on board. Audible.com is a leading provider of audiobooks with more than 180,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature, including fiction, nonfiction, and periodicals. Audiobooks are great to listen to when you are driving endless miles through the night, hiding from a murderous semi-humanoid creature. For our listeners, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial.

Just go to audible.com slash dead and browse the over 180,000 audio programs. Pick a title you like, download it for free, and start listening. It's that easy. One audiobook you may consider is Night Film by Marisha Pessel, a strange and beautiful mystery that takes place in a dream version of New York. You know, I went through that book twice in as many months, and talking about it now just makes me want to go experience it again. And you could be experiencing it for the first time right now.

All you need to do is go to audible.com slash dead to get your free 30-day trial. that's audible.com slash dead. And now the answer to our riddle. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because the dead return, because light reverses, because the sky is a gap, because it's a shout,

because light reverses, because the dead return, because footsteps on the ceiling, because footsteps in the basement, because the sky is a shout, because it's a gap, because the grass doesn't grow or grows too much or grows wrong,

because the dead return, because the dead return, that, That is why the chicken crosses the road. That's audible.com slash dead. This has been a production of Nightvale Presents. Find out more about us and our shows at nightvailpresents.com.