Welcome to Night Vale · Night Vale Presents

269 - A Story About Me

June 1, 2025·24 min·2 clips

Steve Carlsberg draws a knife to David Lane's throat after finding a glowing stolen crate in his trunk.

The episode opens with Jeffrey Cranor's brief out-of-character announcement about the Night Vale European tour and the return of Alice Isn't Dead. The narrative proper begins with Steve Carlsberg as the first-person narrator, introducing himself as 'a man who is not short' and presenting this as 'a story about me.' Steve works for an organization called Labyrinth, driving a black van with his silent colleague Tina. His tasks are navigation by gut feeling on uncharged roads, managing passengers if any are picked up, and music selection. The crates they transport are of unknown contents and sometimes tick. The job involves a desert exchange: meeting a matching truck, transferring crates to a new crew, and receiving cash from a different suited man each time. Tina stops at the Moonlight All Night Diner, where Steve and she order food they won't eat and invisible pie they nibble, to observe a target: David Lane. Steve recognizes Laura the waitress—who knows his entire family—and she walks past him without greeting, because in this context he is a stranger. He daydreams about a normal family weekend with his wife Abby and daughter Janice. David Lane pays in cash, gets into his car but doesn't drive away, and sits slumped in visible distress before regaining composure. When his eyes open, he looks directly at Steve, who is scared without understanding why. David drives off. The truck's crate count is off; one has been missing for weeks. Steve communicates this to Labyrinth via shortwave static-speech. On a later run, Steve is a passenger in a different Labyrinth black car driven by a new colleague he comes to know as Thurman. They tail David Lane through Night Vale. Steve notes hearing Cecil's radio show in the car—his brother-in-law is telling a story to David specifically about David. They follow David to a barren expanse of desert. Confronting him, Steve discovers he has a knife and is expected to use it—David stole a glowing crate from Labyrinth. David smiles at the sky, where Steve sees dotted lines, glowing arrows, and circles, but David apparently sees something else: a dark planet of enormous size. Steve releases David and tells Thurman to let him run. He calls on the shortwave for all Labyrinth drivers to walk off until they understand who they serve. The static fleet responds with agreement. Steve and Thurman drive home in silence and hug goodnight, possibly for the last time.

As heard by us

Ordinary errands slide into unease, and the calm delivery keeps the oddness sharp.

The piece takes a diner stop, a truck count, and a radio full of static and lets them tilt the room toward unease. Its calm, civic tone keeps the impossible sounding ordinary, which is where the comedy sneaks in and the tension starts to bite.

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Why you'd press play

You want a roadside mystery that stays calm while missing cargo and static-radio whispers tilt the whole run sideways.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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