Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 45

Jackie pulled on the front door of City Hall, but it was locked. She shook it a couple of times. She knocked. She tried bleeding on it. Nothing.

“Open,” she shouted at the door. “Open up.” But it was not a shouting door either. The buildings in King City looked mostly the same, mostly cold and colorless, but City Hall, the breath of life for any living city, sat small and shriveled like a smoker’s lung. “C’mon,” she whined, helpless.

Nothing in this town made sense. Nothing makes sense anywhere, she supposed, but the difference between the comforting nonsense of home and the alien nonsense of King City made her feel deeply the miles between there and here, and the time that had passed since she had felt comfortable anywhere. She kicked the door, and the only result was a searing wave from her toes up her leg and through her arm.

She walked around the building. On the far side was another door. Unlike the front door, it had no signage and was plain and heavy and dark. Also unlike the front door, it was open.

Instead of a trash room or storage closet, the back door led into a classy, if dated, reception area. The left and right walls were lined with paintings of people in chronological eras of dress. Under the paintings on each wall was a plaque that read, FORMER MAYORS.

The receptionist sat at a metal desk, and on the wall behind the receptionist was a painting of a man wearing a tan jacket. On the desk was a guest sign-in sheet.

“Hi, did a Diane Crayton come in this way?” Jackie said, leaning over the sign-in, scanning for Diane’s name. Every line was blank. The receptionist grabbed the sign-in sheet away from her.

“Do you have an appointment?” she said, her voice hoarse and her eyes swollen.

“My friend was here to meet with the mayor. E-Ev-Evan?” Jackie said, curling his name into a question. “Everett. Elliott. Your mayor. She came to meet with the mayor.”

“We don’t have a mayor.” The receptionist smiled, as if this had been a convoluted icebreaker and now they could have a real conversation.

“You do, though.”

“I’m sorry. We do not currently have a mayor. We’re an unusual town in that way, I guess. If your friend said she was coming to see the mayor of King City, she was either lying or disappointed.”

The receptionist’s smile turned from friendly to smug.

“No. You do. Look.” Jackie pointed to the painting behind the receptionist.

“I have never seen that painting before.”

“Read the plaque.”

The receptionist read the plaque aloud. “Current mayor.”

“That’s who I’m here to see.”

“How did I not know that we have a mayor?” The receptionist frowned, looking neither friendly nor smug. She stood and said, “Wait here,” before running out the entrance of the building, leaving a ring of keys on the desk and an unsecured computer, which on closer inspection was unplugged, and on even closer inspection was a painted model carved of wood.

Jackie shrugged, grabbed the keys, and headed down the hallway next to the reception desk. There were few doors along the long hall. What doors there were had no knobs or hinges, which made them not doors but door-like walls. They had frosted-glass windows and etched room numbers that followed no simple logic: 43-EE was next door to AX-6, which was across the hall from L. Jackie tried pushing on them and sliding them and knocking on them, but nothing happened.

The hall was long and winding. There were no tributary hallways. Given the small size of the outer building, and the incredible length of the hallway, Jackie was certain the hall was spiraling underground, but every few feet there was a window facing outside. Jackie could peer out and see trees and buildings and taupe, slow-moving traffic. The last light of dusk mixed with the anemic low-watt fluorescent lighting.

She knocked on each door hoping to find someone, hoping to find Diane or the mayor or whatever he was. Sometimes she thought she heard voices in soft conversation behind these non-doors, and as she would knock and push and shake the wall, the voices would go silent.

She pressed her face to the frosted glass when she heard voices, hoping to see inside, hoping just to catch movement of some sort. Even if it meant a terrified or irate employee bursting into the hallway to confront her, that would have been fine by Jackie. She would at least have someone to talk to.

But each door, nothing. Nothing at door 55. Nothing at door T9. Nothing at FLX-8i.7. Nothing at 2. Nothing at SUPPLIES. Nothing at 3315. Something at CTY. REC. Something small.

It was one of few doors that had meaningful lettering. She listened at first, then pushed lightly, then heavily. She tried lifting and sliding the door. She knocked. She pressed her face to the glass. She didn’t know why, but she did something she had not done at any of the other non-doors. She put her hand to the glass.

She set her palm against the glass and spread her fingers. When she lifted it away, it left its ghost upon the glass, a hand raised to say, “Stop.” Or “Come here.” Or “Hello.” Or “Help.” Or maybe only “I am here. This hand, at least, is real.”

Behind the handprint she saw a shadow approaching the glass.

“Diane?” Jackie stepped back and prepared whatever energy was left in her to flee whatever might be behind the door.

As it neared the glass, she could see that the shadow had what looked like antlers—sleek, tapered antlers from a bulbous skull.

“Diane?” Jackie asked, less hopefully.

“No,” said a voice, and the door began to crack. A yellow sliver of light split the black floor near Jackie’s feet and began to widen. Jackie could not move. The door opened and she saw.