Young Writers Society

“Bananas are hardly that slippery but watch your step anyway. Welcome to Night Vale.”

His voice hummed over the radio. That baritone grumble always soothed my heart and washed away the stress of my life in this horrible, hot, wretched… wonderful, lively town of Night Vale. The amount of stress that I felt from working at Big Ricko’s was unimaginable. Seriously. It’s a stressful job.

I was positioned in a comfortable spot on my sofa --not left, nor right, nor central, but in between. The old radio was tuned to Welcome to Night Vale, as it always was and the introductory music was playing.

I felt as if there were an added weight hanging on me, like a dead ape clinging to my neck… That was only my necklace. I took it off.

“Ladies, gentlemen, you. Today is Street Cleaning Day. Please remain calm. Street Cleaners will be upon us quite soon. We have little time to prepare. Please remain calm.”

My heart sank and my not-tea fell from my fingers and the tea cup shattered on the floor. I stood quickly from my not left, nor right, nor central spot on the sofa and hurried to the window to see if the street cleaners were near enough to see. I could not see a street cleaner. It was dark.

“The City Council has issued a statement in twenty point, all caps, typed saying, “Run, run! Forget your children and leave behind the weak. Run.” ”

My knees felt weak and my sweating hands gripped onto the window’s edge. Those words, spoken so calmly, struck fear down deep into the pits of my vast, deep, warm, moist being, causing every fold and crevice and tendril to seize and weaken. It couldn’t be Street Cleaning Day… It couldn’t be.

“We have contacted those experts who have not already gone underground or changed their identity and have been told that street cleaners focus on heat and movement and so the best strategy is to be dead already. Then, the experts all swallowed pills and fell, mouths frothing at my feet.”

Was that really the best option? Had I only survived last Street Cleaning Day by chance? Where were the pills?

“If you have doors, lock them.”

I nodded my head and hurried forward, locking my door.

“If you have windows, board them up. If you still have ears, cover them and crouch, wherever you are. It is Street Cleaning Day. Please. Remain calm.”

“Remain calm,” he says. How am I supposed to stay calm? Any moment now, there would be men knocking, then banging, then beating, then barging through my door. Still, I found myself slowly covering my ear and slowly getting to the ground. I couldn’t help but to be soothed by Cecil’s gentle voice. Cecil… Cecil was safe in the radio station. Curse that Cecil. I want to be in the radio station, all safe and warm, not having to worry about Street Cleaning Day.

The radio cut out, taken by static as if I had lost signal. Was something interfering with the signal? Quite possibly. It could be the lights above the Arby’s descending. That would be horrible! They should have chosen another day. Poor lights.

The covering of my ears and the crouching low seemed to do very very little because within seconds of the radio cutting out, there came the horrifying sound of banging against the door. I began to tremble and my mind went blank for that one moment. I couldn’t think of Cecil’s calming voice. I couldn’t think of Carlos’s perfect hair. I couldn’t even think about angels. The street cleaners had come for me. They were going to clean the streets of me.

It took me a moment before I was finally able to process when was happening. At that moment of realization, I stood and bolted toward the back door, trying to escape from the oncoming threat. The pounding began to grow louder as the street cleaners began to put forth more of an effort to get in. I reached the back door, colliding with the wood with the momentum from my run. I began to jiggle the handle as simply turning it seemed to do no good. However, I stopped dead when a shadow crossed the curtained window of the door.

I only remained standing for a moment longer, which allowed me to catch a glimpse of the street cleaner, and it was something that I hoped to never see as anything more than a silhouette. It was shaped like a man, and it looked to have no hair. However, instead of a normal cheek bone to jaw area, there was a cascade of writhing tentacles. It had a hand with quills protruding from the fingers.

I ducked low and began to crawl away from the door, attempting to find a hiding spot so that they would pass me over and I would have a moment to escape through a window. Quickly, I reached the laundry room where I was able to hide in between the washer and dryer. Above me, there was a window that I surely could fit through. I reached out slowly and tugged on the door, trying to close it as quietly as possible. It shut with a harsh, metallic click.

There was an unsettling silence as the pounding ceased. I nearly felt my heart stop dead. They had heard me! I was finished! There wasn’t a hope left! I would simply be left here, waiting to be devoured by the street cleaners!

For what seemed to be the longest time, there was nothing. My heart pounded in my ears, tears formed in my eyes, and my breath began to heave against my will. I began to sweat and I began to tremble. Then, with one, single, solitary noise, my world came to an end.

Click

My breath left my lungs and a tear slid down my cheek. That had been the sound of the lock opening.

Thud… Thud…

Monstrously heavy sounding feet sounded, beginning into my home.

Thud… Shlop thud… Thud…

What was that?! It was certainly not a foot step!

My adrenaline began to kick in and my brain began to function. I wasn’t going to go without a fight. I took in a deep breath.

Thud… Thud…

I stood from my crouching position and turned to the window. The window was a sliding one, with a lock to keep it shut. I slowly turned over the lock into the unlocked position, which emitted a very faint click.

I flinched, hearing that ever so quiet sound, before I backed out of the crevice that I had hidden myself in.

There was silence.

I gulped before placing my hands upon the edge of the washing machine. In order to get to the window, I had to climb on top of the washing machine. My machine was very fragile, and it gave sound out so very easily. I prepared to slide myself up.

Thud… Shlop thud…

I nearly sighed a breath of relief. Yes, the sound was getting louder, and it was nearing, but there was some sort of relief in knowing that they weren’t stopping to listen. I slid up onto the washing machine. It didn’t make a noise. I smiled slightly in triumph before beginning to stand on top of it. I placed my foot upon the metal top before gently applying the weight. Slowly then, I added my other foot. The weight of my body caused the top to pop as it curved inward.

Silence. I didn’t even dare to breathe. I simply stood, unmoving, praying that I wouldn’t hear them running toward the door.

There was nothing. I couldn’t hear footsteps or even feel the presence of a street cleaner. The house seemed to be devoid. But… that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right.

I slowly turned to the window and began to slowly wedge it from its closed position.

Slam! The window opened with a quick, powerful motion as if whipped by wind. The blood drained from my face and fear ravaged my body as if it were a starving parasite.

The “thudding” returned, intensified and accelerated as they were running --running for the laundry room. I stepped onto the highest part of the washer and I threw myself out of the window.

My fingers threaded through the dry desert grass as I began to pull with all of my might to pull my dangling legs through.

Wood splintered in my ears as the laundry room door cracked and gave way to the street cleaners. In tumbled humanoid masses of tentacles and claws and beaks and pincers. They looked to be a mass of unwanted animal parts that had been thrown into an active nuclear reactor, then allowed to live. Beady, bloodshot, red eyes peered through masses of bone and tissue. A long, thick, spiny tongue burst forth from one of the many grotesque and deformed beaks that one of the malformed bodies bore. It streaked through the air before wrapping around my ankle with the strength greater than any constrictor that I had ever encountered.

I yelped out, beginning to pull at my leg with all of the strength that I could possibly muster. Nonetheless, no matter how much I tried and no matter how hard I pulled, the street cleaner still seemed stronger. It pulled and pulled with a power that couldn’t be paralleled. The only thing that was keeping me outside was my grip on the window frame. I screamed in agony as the tongue constricted my ankle even tighter, threatening to squeeze it off.

Suddenly, I was launched onto the grass. The breath was knocked out of me. But through my disorientation, and my nausea, tears began to leak from my eyes. I was safe. I had escaped the street cleaners. All was well. I had survived Street Cleaning day!

By will, I pushed myself up by my hands. I looked up toward the area surrounding me and my eyes went wide. From every possible direction filed in street cleaners, each with different grotesque deformities.

Shlop… Shlop…

My heart dropped like a stone and my tears turned into terrified sobs. I glanced back toward the window, surveying my side and the length of my leg. It was all that I could do in my last moments. Hip… Thigh… Calf… I let out a terrified shriek. That release… the reason why I was resting out on the lawn and the reason why I hadn’t been pulled back to the street cleaners inside is because the tongue had squeezed my foot clean off and all that remained was a bleeding stump.

I couldn’t run. I couldn’t hide. All that was left for me to do was to be eaten alive by the street cleaners.