She felt a soft touch. Something was tapping lightly at her hand. It was wrapping around her little finger. She could not look. She wanted to follow Jackie, but she could not move. She was trying to scream, but could not find space for it in the continuing, sobbing scream from the shadow around her. The thing grabbed her hand tightly and pulled.
“Diane! Diane, please!”
Jackie, reaching through the hole in the shelf, was pulling on her hand. The moment broken, Diane crouched and crawled through the hole. The other side was bright, fluorescent lights and well-organized, clean shelves. She grabbed a stack of the tapes and used them to fill the hole they had come through. Jackie helped, and soon the hole was completely gone. The scream was muffled, but it continued.
They sat up, leaning against the opposite shelf. The scream stopped. There was no scream. No hiss. Jackie thought she still heard the quiet click of claws on the wood floor, but she couldn’t say for sure.
They exhaled, and then again, over and over until they were exhaling together, Jackie’s arm around Diane’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Diane said after however long, seconds or minutes, they had sat there breathing. “I’m sorry I froze. I’m sorry I brought you here when this is my problem.”
“No, man. I’m sorry I’m broken. I’m sorry I’m weighing you down.”
“Jackie, I know what that was.”
“Seriously?”
“When I was a child, I would, like all children, cry because childhood is traumatic and confusing. And when crying wasn’t enough? When I felt that despair children feel because they don’t understand and won’t be able to for years? Well, then I would scream. I would scream as loud and long as I could. That scream from the shadows was my voice. That was me screaming.”
“Diane, shh.” Jackie’s head rolled onto Diane’s shoulder. “Shh. Let’s just rest for a while.”
Jackie didn’t sleep, but she closed her eyes and wheezed through the pain. Diane looked at the way Jackie’s legs curled outward from the knee across the dusty floor, the way her right arm lolled loosely over her torso.
Diane felt herself standing in her kitchen at home, heating soup on the stove, listening to the radio. She could smell the vegetable broth. She could hear Cecil’s voice. She could feel the steam on her face. She could see herself. This was not a memory but a moment happening now. Lying with Jackie on the floor of a King City video store, she felt herself splitting, becoming multiple, and, in doing so, becoming less with each iteration.
She stood up. Jackie had rested enough. Diane helped her, groaning, to her feet.
“Hello,” Diane tried calling to someone, anyone, in the store who could help.
“Hello,” came a voice past the shelves.
“Hi, how do I find you?”
“What are you looking for?”
“You.”
“What do you need me for?”
“We’re looking for someone. We’re new to town and we just wanted to see if you can help us. We just have a couple of questions.”
“So ask them.”
Diane decided not to walk any farther, not wanting to get lost in the aisles again.
“Do you have a Secret Police? We’re looking for a missing child.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. The Secret Police sounds secret. I wouldn’t know about that. We have nonsecret police.”
“We’re looking for a police station. Also the City Hall. Maybe the mayor’s office. I mean, if you just had some phone numbers that would be helpful.” Diane was half shouting. She had no sense how far away the voice was, or from which direction it was coming.
“Well, City Hall is where the mayor’s office is. It’s four and a half blocks down Pleasant Street here. That’s the street you’re on now. Of course, we haven’t had a mayor in years. Gonna be an election soon, I hear. Don’t know why, but we haven’t had a mayor, for, oh, I don’t know how long.”
“Where are you?”
“If you got a missing child, I’d try the police first. I think there’s gotta be one nearby. I mean, I don’t know for sure. I’ve never been arrested, you know?” The voice laughed the insipid laugh of casual conversation.
“Okay. We’ll try that. My son’s name is Josh. He’s the one who’s gone missing. We’re not from here. We’re from a town called Night Vale, but I think Josh may have come to King City. And if he’s here, he certainly loves VHS stores. Also comic book stores. Have you seen any fifteen-year-old boys here? He probably would have been shopping by himself?”
No reply.
“Or maybe a comic store nearby. He definitely would have gone there.”
The shop was silent.
“Hello?”
She looked at Jackie.
“It was real, don’t worry,” Jackie said. “I heard it too.”
Some of the shelves just had empty cardboard VHS sleeves, no sign of their corresponding tapes. There were puddles on the floor and cobwebs along the top shelves. The more Jackie looked around, the more she thought they should leave, as soon as possible. Diane did not believe Jackie to be frightened, just impatient to go. They hobbled together to the front door with no hissing, no screams.
As they stepped outside into the sandy dusk, the bell on the door jingled faintly in Jackie’s mind like a favorite song to which she could no longer quite remember the tune.
There was no police station in sight. Diane and Jackie leaned into each other. They walked as one, their arms intertwined so it wasn’t clear who was holding up whom. They entered one of the few other stores that appeared open: FISH AND BAIT. The shelves were full of empty jars. A man stood behind the counter. He was towering, the tallest man either of them had ever seen.
“Hello,” managed Diane. Her head seemed to be several feet behind her, and her hands floated in front of her like balloons. “We’re looking for a boy, a teenager. He looks like… well, a lot of things. He’s—”
The man nodded absently, saying nothing. Jackie’s entire body felt liquid and heavy, sloughing off her fragile skeleton. She had never been in more pain. Each step was a decision that she had to make, every time.
“Feel free to look around,” the tall man said. He gestured with an open palm. Behind him one of the empty jars exploded with a pop. A few shards of it went into the back of his hand. It began immediately to drip blood. His face did not change at all.
“We’re looking for a boy. My son.” Diane couldn’t stop looking at his fresh wounds.
The man frowned. He looked closely at them, as though they were not who he had thought they would be.
“Who did you say you were?” he said. Another jar exploded. This time some of the glass went into his face. Blood went down his cheek like tears, dripping with loud taps onto the counter. He frowned at the sound.
“We’re just looking,” said Jackie, pulling with all of her strength, which was not so much at all, on Diane, who was frozen staring into the man’s eyes. The man was staring at Jackie. “Nice shop you have here. Have to go.”
The two women hobbled out. Two more jars exploded. The man had quite a lot of blood coming from all different parts of him. He looked down at their leaving from the height of his body.
“We try to remember but we always forget,” he said.
Diane turned, hand on the glass door.
“What was that?”
“Have a nice day and thanks for shopping with us,” he said.
His words were coming out slurred. There was a long shard of glass through his tongue.