Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the eye bandits strike. Welcome to Night Vale.

###

The investigation into the locked room murder of the angel Marcus Vanston continues, as well as the murder of Jalen Rutherford, an intern applicant who was stabbed to death right here in the lobby of my radio station while I was broadcasting. Of course, the emotional impact of Jalen’s death is diminished slightly by the fact that his doppelgänger showed up in a sandstorm last month, and he’s been an awesome intern for us. So it’s like it never happened, right? If I only saw a dead body, stabbed violently by a still at-large killer, but that dead body got replaced by a duplicate, then there are no lasting psychological effects or repercussions.

It’s just like how my former intern Dana Cardinal killed her double with a stapler back in 2013. And she went on to become mayor! So sometimes murder isn’t a total loss. But maybe we were just lucky in those cases. I don’t recommend decriminalizing murder like those people at the Town Hall meeting last Tuesday were. They’ve, in fact, forced a referendum onto the ballot this fall. The referendum reads: “Eliminate criminal charges against any citizen with a totally legit reason to kill some jerk. A yes vote authorizes law enforcement to not avoid declining prosecution of such a crime. A no vote doesn’t not do the opposite.”

So as of now both murders of Jalen Rutherford and Marcus Vanston are considered major felonies, and that’s probably good, but I will be doing my own research into this matter.

Oh, speaking of Dana, she came by the station looking for Jalen. Because of their similar situations involving dead doppelgängers, she thought he might like to join her at this weekly support group called Doubles Anonymous. It's for people who either killed their double or who ARE their double who killed them.

Dana also wanted to talk with Jalen about what he knew about Marcus Vanston, since he worked directly with Marcus before the murder.

More on this soon but first a public service announcement

###

Night Vale, as you know today is April first, which is, of course, April Fools Day. This is a day where we celebrate pranks and tricks and lies in order to laugh about other people feeling bad. Through gaslighting, and maybe even threats of harm, we put others through a rollercoaster of emotions. And in the end they don’t really feel joy, so much as anger soothed only by relief.

With that in mind, here are some fun pranks you can try today. Cut open your neighbor’s car tires. They’ll be so mad when they’re late to work on this, the day of the big meeting. But then you pop out of your home and go April Fools! And you’ll both have a good laugh. They’ll miss the big meeting, which is to decide on who gets a raise and who gets fired. This will lead to your neighbor getting dismissed for their lack of timeliness. But later that afternoon, their boss will call and say “April Fools! Come on back to work,” and your neighbor will be sweating and breathing heavily because of all the fun.

Another classic April Fools joke is to tell your partner you don’t love them, you never loved them, and that you’re leaving them to marry Daniel Radcliffe. And when they ask how you know Daniel Radcliffe, you say “I don’t, but I’m going to ask him anyway.” And then go marry Daniel Radcliffe. Start a production company and a few charities with him. Adopt children and pets and become the poster couple for Hollywood activism. And then in 10 years, return home to your partner and say April Fools, and you and your partner’s new boyfriend will get into a huge fight, but a pretend fight because… April Fools.

Today, I put on my biggest April Fools prank ever. For the past 6 months, I’ve been planning an Arborist Parade, which will celebrate the many people of our town who like to plant trees. After months of promotion, permits, and planning, the parade is on. It’s happening as we speak. Already thousands of people have gathered downtown. There are 3 dozen floats and several live bands. I can’t wait until the end, as we’re making the grand speech to thank the Arborists for their efforts, everyone will then shout “April Fools!” It’ll be great.

So, get out there and do your part, Night Vale. April 1 only happens once a year!

###

Dana asked where Jalen was today, since she wanted to talk to him. I told her since he’s new at the job, I sent him on a snipe hunt, like I do with every new intern. A bit of gentle hazing, a bit of an April Fool’s joke. Dana didn’t remember ever being hazed as a new intern. And I said, surely you do! I tell all new interns their first big research assignment is to find out the true name of God.

Dana said she doesn’t remember that at all, and I told her I clearly recall her calling every place of worship in town, and even going to the library and nearly dying because she forgot to wear librarian repellant, and they could smell her curiosity from a mile away.

Then Dana said, if I don’t remember that, then maybe I am my own double. Maybe the real Dana Cardinal was killed by that stapler. Maybe I came from the sandstorm. I remember most of my life, she said, but I’ve found over the past 13 years that I don’t have the exact same memories as what other people have.

Dana’s been working through these issues in Doubles Anonymous. It’s tough, though, because most DA members know that they’re either themselves or they’re the double who killed and replaced them. But Dana falls into a rare 3rd category: those who do not know which they are.

But that’s not important right now. What is important, she said, is that we tell Jalen to come back to the station so that they can start doing real research into how the murder of the angel Marcus Vanston is connected to the murder of the original Jalen Rutherford.

Dana is convinced that these crimes are related, even though her evidence is flimsy at best. Still, I’ll have my producer, Elise, track down Jalen.

[Elise briefly in his ear]

Elise, I put the company directory on the Bumble app. But you should already have his number in your phone.

More on this soon, but first traffic.

###

You’re on Galloway, and you see that man again. You love him, and he won’t talk to you. He loves you, too. Or you thought. You did everything right. Or you thought. And you don’t want to stalk him. That would be wrong. And this isn’t stalking. You just happened to see him driving around town, and maybe you’ll see where he goes. Maybe he pops into Ralphs and you pop into Ralphs and then you accidently bump into him and say “oh hey, crazy meeting you here. We should catch up sometime.”

That’s not stalking, you tell yourself, though you’re listening to the radio and there’s a man telling you that doing such a thing is creepy at best. And you decide you won’t actually follow him inside anywhere. You’re not going to do anything that seems crazy, even though there’s something really wrong here, if you could just help him understand. But no. Not now. Now, you just want to see him driving, and you kind of just want to drive, too. So you do, and you think about how suddenly he became a stranger, even though you two once shared something special. And you hear yourself think this, and you decide it’s too much. It’s all too much, and you should go home. Take a nap. Just let it go. He looks like he’s in a hurry, and this isn’t right, what you’re doing. Right? Sure, you think, unconvinced by your own conscience.

###

Listeners, Jalen made it back. He looked a little haggard as he came in. He said he’s never worked so hard trying to finish an assignment, and he’s exhausted. Finished, I asked him? Like, you completed the task of finding the true name of God?

Yes, he said, and no. He pulled out a spreadsheet and said he didn’t find the true name of God. He found the true names of several gods, plural. Like 14,000 or so. Most of them were easy he said. Hindu gods; Roman, Greek, and Norse gods; and many indigenous gods, for example, just straight up tell you their names. But then, like the Muslims have many names they call their God, so he cross-referenced those on a separate sheet, and the Christians, well, the Christians are pretty wild calling themselves monotheistic what with that whole trinity thing…

And I cut him off. I explained that this name of god assignment was just hazing, for the new guy. He looked really upset. Then I said “April Fools!” and we laughed and laughed.

I told him that for real I had a big assignment for him. I wanted him to work with Dana to get to the bottom of Marcus’s murder, but also the murder of his own double. He looked a bit dubious about investigating his own death, but he knew that if we solved these crimes, we’d probably win a Pulitzer. And I’m super into winning a Pulitzer. Total bucket list item.

Dana and Jalen headed out to begin their deep dive into these unsolved mysteries. More on that, but now let’s go to another edition of Citizen Spotlight.

###

This week’s Community Spotlight is on Matt Bermingham. Matt was born and raised in Night Vale. He got an associates degree in advertising, and has always wanted to work for a secret military base. Well, he got his wish this year. In March, Matt was named the new marketing director of Area 50, which is not nearly as famous as Area 51. But that’s why they hired Matt… to really up the lore of Area 50, which has, by the by, been around longer than Area 51, which means it has way more eerie secrets.

Granted, Area 49 is even older than Area 50, Matt said, but that place is kind of run down. And don’t get him started on Area 26, which at this point is just a Chevron station in Northeastern Arizona. But Area 50 has so many conspiracies, he said. People really should look at satellite photos of Area 50, maybe snoop around their electric fences. Maybe even try to get an insider at Area 50 to leak photos of all the messed up things they have hidden there. Aliens? Matt Bermingham groaned. Pshaw! We’ve got things much more mysterious than aliens. Creatures you’ve never even heard of. Creatures that are neither terrestrial, nor extraterrestrial. Like Superterrestrial, he said, pounding his corndog on the podium for emphasis.

Plus, he added, we have these cool punch cards. Discover 10 conspiracies at Area 50, and we’ll send you a dollar on Venmo.

Congratulations, Matt Bermingham! We can’t wait to learn more about Area 50!

###

Geez, this day is really getting away from me. I was hoping to have these murders solved before the end of the show. Elise, any word from Dana or Jalen?

[Elise speaks]

Oh, you’re talking to them now? You look concerned Elise. Is everything okay?

[Elise speaks very briefly]

They’re being followed by a black sedan with tinted windows, and they’re getting really scared that someone doesn’t want them to dig any deeper, that by unmasking the killer, a much more vast network would be revealed, threatening to bring down a giant ring of underground criminals?

[Elise says yes]

That’s awful!

[Elise speaks passionately for a very very long time.]

I’m sorry. I missed what you just said, Elise.

[Elise shouts at him]

April fools! I heard it all!

[Elise laughs]

[Cecil laughs with her] Okay, while she makes sure Dana and Jalen are safe, Elise says we should have a look at the Weather.

###

WEATHER

###

Jalen tried everything he could to lose the person tailing him and Dana. He zigged and zagged. He took detours through winding neighborhood streets. Dana said Jalen looked a bit fearful, like he might even know who it was following them. Eventually though, Jalen hit downtown traffic and managed to cross McDowell Street a split second before the Arborists Parade came through, and they finally got away from that other car.

Great news, but sadly, the Pulitzer Prize Committee will have to hold off a bit longer in giving us any award for investigative journalism. We still don’t have this murder solved, but we made some headway.

Dana interviewed Jalen about his work with the angel Marcus Vanston. Jalen said that he and Marcus didn’t talk much beyond anything work related. But Jalen got the sense from others that Marcus was deeply disliked. He wasn’t friendly as either a human or as an angel. Even the other angels didn’t really like talking to Marcus. He wasn’t mean, necessarily. He was just sort of a recluse and didn’t have much interesting to say. Plus, he was a billionaire, and he would never loan any of the other angels 10 bucks when he saw them.

Jalen said Marcus was also way more religious than he originally thought, which I guess if you’re an angel, that jives? Jalen said Marcus made everything about God. God god god. Anytime Jalen did something well, Marcus didn’t say “good work” or “thank you.” He’d tell Jalen “God will be pleased.” And if Jalen made an error, Marcus would snap at him that “God’s gonna get you for that!”

I’m looking at Jalen’s spreadsheet, right now, to see if this god has a name. And in the Name field it just says “God.”

Oooh… the god of Harrison Kip’s weirdo religion is named Dale. He’s a 47-year-old who lives behind the sky and owns a vape shop in Red Mesa . That’s very interesting.

Look more into that later! Focus, Cecil!

Jalen added that Marcus regularly took back donations to charities for the pettiest reasons. And he sometimes just stood naked in the window for all to see, which was alarming because angel anatomy is incomprehensible to human eyes. It seems like everyone who knew Marcus had at least a small desire to see him dead. But it still doesn’t answer the question: why was the original Jalen Rutherford murdered only weeks later? The only connective tissue is that Jalen worked for Marcus. But it wasn’t the same Jalen Rutherford.

As Dana pointed out, our doubles have many of our memories, but it’s possible that not all of them are the same. So can we even trust what this version of Jalen has to say?

At the end of their interview, Dana confronted Jalen about whether or not he knew the driver following them. Jalen balked but then finally admitted: “That was Ilana, my girlfriend. Or maybe ex? Or maybe neither?”

Jalen said he dated her before he showed up in our world, so it was a slightly different Ilana. And this Ilana dated a slightly different Jalen. He loved her. Or loves her. He’s not sure. He’s scared to talk to her, because he’s scared to find out she’s not the same woman, but all the while she thinks he’s the same man.

Dana said she understood, but that he’s going to have to talk to her eventually. What she was doing was not okay, and it might only get worse. Having said this, Dana also understood that this must be terribly confusing for poor Ilana, knowing the love of her life was killed and then suddenly reappeared, only to keep avoiding her.

Jalen said he’d think about it. It’s really been hard with the new job and getting adjusted to being around this nearly identical version of his friends and family. He’s super overwhelmed right now. But yes, Dana was right. He agreed. And he agreed he should go with Dana to Doubles Anonymous.

Well, listeners, I sure hope these two investigators can–

[Elise sounds really alarmed]

What do you mean “there’s a tarantula on my shirt,” Elise? Where?

[Elise tells him]

On the back? I can’t see it! How big??

[Elise says it’s SOOOOO BIG]

Get it off! Ahh! Help, Elise! Get in here!

[Elise says “April Fools!”]

[Cecil laughs] Oh you got me. That’s a good prank, Elise.

[Elise explains a little further]

Oh, wait. There IS a tarantula on my shirt? But it’s not that big? Cool Cool

Stay tuned next for massive audio clipping as a radio host screams like a baby.

Good night, Night Vale. Good Night. Aaaaaaaaaaa!

###

PROVERB: Dress for the job you want (cashin’ checks), not the job you have (snappin’ necks).