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“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Sherlock blinked, eyebrows furrowing, as he looked around.
Where on earth was that voice coming from? And wasn’t it just tea time? Why was the moon up? And the sky was… purple? Where was he?
Confusion filled him; something he hadn’t felt since he was a kid. This must be how other people feel every day, he thought, feeling sick to his stomach.
“Remember our friendly Night Vale custom- if you see someone you don’t know, point and shout, interloper!”
Night Vale? Was that a town?
It had to be a name but he had never heard of a town named Night Vale.
He couldn’t even recognize the accent of the man speaking. Was he in America? Australia?
He didn’t know.
He didn’t like not knowing.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He just needed to compartmentalize and then he would understand. Okay, first what could he see?
He was surrounded by buildings. Tan in color, obviously modeled after 19th-century Western architecture. Approximately 100 years old, going by the amount of wear he could see on the building's bricks and the style of the bricks layer. In some places, he could see two distinct colors of bricks. A sure indicator that a new level had been built on top of the original building.
Based on that, he was obviously in a town; an old town at that. A town this old would surely have a sign about the town’s history. He’d just wander around until he found it and then he could call John and have him pick him up.
Satisfied, he walked along the sidewalk. Looking at the buildings.
A radio station.
A laboratory?
A pizza place that strangely only served bowls of tomato paste.
A library!
He stopped. He didn’t smile but the sentiment was there. This was the perfect place to collect information.
He walked up the steps; a teenager - dark-skinned, 14 years old, military background - with a slingshot was- standing guard outside the door.
“Interloper!” she yelled. “No one is allowed inside the library. The librarians are on a rampage.”
“Uhh… I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with librarians before.”
The girl looked up at him astonished. “You have?”
What was this place?
“Of course,” he scoffed.
She stepped out of the way.
He walked up the steps and opened the door.
It was dark and gloomy. The only source of light, a few low candles. Dust motes floated through the air and coated the shelves.
He saw a dark shape rise impossibly high behind him. Turning around quickly, he saw a mass of tentacles and an unholy shriek before-
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
There was that voice again.
Did he die? Was he in hell?
How had he ended up back here?
Walking forward, he grabbed a young woman by her arm. “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”
The girl smiled serenely at him, “Night Vale, of course.”
Sherlock growled and shook her, stomping his feet as he flew into a temper tantrum. “I know that,” he snapped, shaking her again. “But where am I? Where is this town? And why have I already experienced this day before?”
A man in a lab coat walking on the other side of the street glanced at him, before doing a double-take. He looked concerned.
“That’s just how things are here,” the young woman who was looking somewhat disheveled said slowly, “You’re just here in Night Vale. Desert Bluffs is the next town over and that’s really all there is for hundreds of miles. Though, you can catch a plane to Svitz or Franchia or Mitchigan at the Night Vale Regional Airport.”
“You mean Michigan.”
“Hmm. I’ve never heard of that. Is that by Luftnarp?”
“No!” Sherlock glared at her, cheeks reddening. “Those aren’t real places! There’s nowhere called Svitz or Franchia! They. Don’t. Exist. We’re clearly in America. Possibly the American Southwest judging by the buildings and the surrounding landscape.”
For the first time, the woman looked uneasy. “Oh?”
The man was having a difficult time making his way across the street, his frantic motions not doing anything to help him.
“Yes! Just look at the buildings. 19th-century Western architecture. Approximately 100 years old, you can tell by how they laid the bricks and-” he broke off as a rough sack was forced over his head. Panicking, he struggled against the hands holding him, breathing uneven as fabric filled his nose with each inhale.
“You might not know interloper,” a voice, sibilant and raspy, hissed in his ear, “But history is illegal in Night Vale.”
Sherlock gave a muffled reply through the sack. His kidnappers paid him no mind as they roughly dragged him away, tossing him in the back of their unmarked van. Sherlock grunted when he landed. They laughed, “Hope you like re-education. Because that’s all you’re gonna know for a long while.”
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
He was definitely in Hell.
“What does he want? Why is he here? Maybe he came for some of old woman Josie’s handmade brownies. They are delicious. In other news, I am trying to get some time off. Carlos and I are planning a romantic getaway to the Secret Lost Pet City on the Moon. Hopefully, I can convince station management and their..boyfriend? Girlfriend? Romantic entity...City Council to let me have some time off in the near future.”
Ah, Sherlock thought. City Council. He could complain to them. They couldn’t be insane like everyone else in this town.
Determined, he set off to find City Hall. If this town had any sort of system to it, he still hadn’t found it. His mental map was a convoluted mess of roads and buildings.
Was that a dragon? A five-headed dragon. Or would that technically be a hydra?
And it was apparently speaking to him or really to each other.
“Why would we help this foolish mortal?”
“We could get something out of this.”
“Do not listen to them. We only wish to help.”
“Obviously. I need directions to City Hall.”
“We cannot take him there!”
“They will arrest us!”
“Fly away!”
He was left coughing in the dust storm their wings created.
A criminal five-headed dragon.
-
City Council was one person.
There were multiple voices coming out of the individual and, frankly, it was disconcerting.
“I’ve come to file a complaint-”
“We’ve heard all about you, interloper!”
“He knows too much!”
“Eliminate him!”
Sherlock jerked back as a man in a balaclava, mitre, and a cloak with a giant silver star on it rose up before him holding a katana. He swung it and-
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
He was in a desert and hadn’t eaten or drunken anything for hours. He didn’t usually eat that much anyway but even he couldn’t last more than a day without water or food in a desert.
He wasn’t used to being in a desert so he was parched and hungry.
“Interloper!” This guy had a generically southern accent. Sherlock was too hot to care. “Could I interest you in some orange juice?”
He nodded frantically. Water would have been better but orange juice was liquid. And he liked orange juice.
He took the glass and gulped it down.
“I’m pretty sure this time, it won’t cause interdimensional travel. Though, that wasn’t actually me last time either.”
His stomach dropped.
Of course. Nothing in this place was safe.
He was there and then he was somewhere else.
He was flickering out of existence.
He dropped the glass.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Maybe if he didn’t go inside the crazy town, he wouldn’t die.
And wasn’t that weird? He was pretty sure he’d died at least four times today so far.
Walking in the other direction, on the road heading out of town, he passed by a forest.
He had been walking for a while and the whole time he felt like someone was watching him. He was pretty sure he could hear people whispering too but whenever he looked behind him there was no one there.
At his wit’s end, he stopped and shouted, “Come out, already! I know you’re there!”
“Ooh, he has impeccable taste.”
There came giggling from the direction of the forest.
“You’re so handsome too.”
There was no one there.
“I love your hair. Soo gorgeous.”
Whoever they were, they only seemed to give compliments.
“And those shoes. Those look amazing on you.”
And in whispers. Like how the wind sounds when it’s rustling through trees.
Were the trees talking? After half the things he put up with today, he wouldn't be surprised.
“Are you trees?”
“Oooh, and he’s so smart.”
He was smart, thank you for noticing.
Oh and now he was a tree.
Dang, it.
Did this count as dying?
He waited a moment, five minutes, fifteen. Apparently not.
He was going to be a tree forever.
After a hundred years, he had counted them all, a woodsman came. Chopping down tree after tree. He was wearing a lab coat.
Yes. Yes. Cut me down. Please.
Oww. That hurt. He should have expected that. Maybe his time as a tree had dulled his mind. God, he hoped not.
His trunk splintered and he started to tip.
Finally.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Nooooo. A hundred years and he was still stuck here.
Clearly, physics or even the laws of the universe didn’t apply to this place.
His whole worldview was crashing down because of this insane town that was driving him to become a psychopath.
He kicked a rock in frustration. It bounced across the empty sidewalk and down into the road.
That was weird. Weirder than normal. There was usually at least someone walking around.
The streets were all bare though.
Not even the man in the lab coat was there.
He could hear a rhythmic whooshing sound.
He looked up.
There were helicopters in the sky. Were they there before? Yellow, blue, pink, black, and ones with what he could only describe as complex murals depicting birds of prey diving.
Well, the citizens seemed to always know how to survive this hellscape so if no one was outside he concluded that he shouldn’t be too.
But where? Was it socially acceptable to just walk into people’s houses here?
A last resort then.
He started running towards the center of town where most of the public buildings were.
He looked up and the helicopters with birds were following him.
They would have to land though. Right?
He pushed himself harder.
Only a few more feet and then he could run into Big Rico’s Pizza.
He heard a crack and a swishing noise.
Glancing over his shoulder, gave him a nice view of a mechanical hawk diving right at him.
He sighed in exhaustion.
Why?
Its talons gripped his shoulders and he was lifted into the air.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Sherlock pulled on his hair and screamed.
What was happening?
What did he have to do to end this time loop? It had to be a time loop. There was no other explanation for what was happening to him.
Someone was next to him.
They must have come when he’d screamed. He sighed in aggravation and waited for them to speak.
Silence.
Neither of them spoke.
Finally, Sherlock looked at them and snapped, “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
The stranger said nothing.
Instead, they just stood there, breathing.
Sherlock rolled his eyes.
He caught sight of a man in a lab coat running down the street. He watched him for a bit and then looked back at the stranger next to him. They seemed a bit closer than before. He looked back at the running man. He seemed to be shouting something and waving his arms. Sherlock wanted to go to him but he felt compelled to look behind him at the stranger who just stood there and breathed. He looked over his shoulder.
The stranger was right behind him.
His eyes widened as they locked gazes before the ground opened beneath him and he sank into the mud.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Gasping for breath, Sherlock gazed around him, eyes rolling in terror as he choked on the phantom taste of mud. He collapsed onto an antique bench. Chest moving a mile a minute as he tried to calm himself down. He tried to do his usual ‘I-do-not-feel-fear-I-am-in-control-nothing-frightens-me-because-fear-is-only-caused-by-the-unknown-and-I-know-everything’ exercise but it wasn’t working. Just like how it had failed him in Baskerville.
How he wished for a strong drink, right now.
A sharp pain in his hand drew him from his thoughts. He lifted his hand, looking at it in confusion. It looked like he’d been bitten but when…
His body convulsed. He collapsed onto the bench - catching sight of a man in white coat hovering over him - as his body shifted and changed until he was little more than an antique quill, resting on the seat of the bench.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
Did he really count as a strange man anymore? He had been here for nine days, plus a hundred years, now. That wasn’t very long but in visiting strange towns it was too long.
“This is your friendly reminder that no one is allowed in the dog park. Dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park.”
A dog park, huh. He hadn’t noticed a dog park before. Which was strange, actually. He noticed things. He observed. Unlike those fools who walked through life oblivious to everything but to what was right in front of them.
“And this is your unfriendly reminder that no one is allowed in the dog park. Dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park.”
He was nothing if not curious. Even if that curiosity got him into trouble sometimes.
What could be so wrong with a dog park?
At first glance, he thought that there were people in the dog park. Disregarding the disembodied voice that just echoed around the whole town. But they didn’t look quite right.
They all wore the same thing for one, a robe with a hood that covered their faces, and they didn’t behave like people.
Mostly they just stood there but he noticed that the longer he stood there looking at them the more agitated they became.
In a haze, he opened the gate and walked in.
Heedless, of the man in the white lab coat, who tried to catch his arm before he blinked out of existence.
It was the orange juice all over again.
“A strange man came into town today, listeners.”
A young man and woman were out walking a beagle puppy. A man in a lab coat is walking behind them, looking concerned. The man stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and turned his back on them.
Sherlock ignored him. All his attention was on the beagle puppy.
It was such a cute puppy.
He had always loved dogs.
He missed Redbeard.
His chest suddenly ached as he remembered his great loss. Maybe, he thought. Starting to walk towards the couple and their adorable dog, maybe petting this good boy will help me feel better.
He stopped in front of them. Intending to call out and ask for permission to pet their dog but no sound escaped his lips. Instead, he stood there. Frozen. As the beagle puppy padded towards him.
He was so adorable!
But sometimes Sherlock could have sworn that there was something off about him. Like an impossibly human sneer twisting his lips, a strange bend to his legs as though all the joints were disconnected and backward, growing bigger, taller, and then shrinking again. But then he blinked and the image was gone.
The couple stopped walking.
The beagle puppy stopped.
It wagged its tail and barked.
The inside of its mouth was gray and squishy within.
And it was such…
Such a…
Such a good boy.
He fell to his knees, extending a shaking hand towards it. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he stammered out, “Wh– who’s……a……good……boy?”
“Carlos tells me that time has restarted at least ten times today. Well, I hope you made the most of it. Why did this happen? No one knows. Carlos is sure it is just another random phenomenon but says he has to run some tests first. In other news, the interloper is gone. He came here, did whatever he had come here to do, and left in the same mysterious way he came. I am sure that wherever he is he is safe at home. Probably he is drinking tea. Maybe he is eating cookies. Maybe he is not. It is hard to tell these things. Carlos also tells me that he attempted to talk to the interloper multiple times, but was never successful. How rude of him. I imagine not many people are fond of him with manners like that. Maybe where he is from they are all very rude. There is no use speculating though.”
“Better news, station management was in a good mood when I begged for time off. Carlos and I have a date! This radio host and his devilishly handsome scientist are off to the moon! Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.”