You know when you walk into a room and can immediately feel its age, like you've stepped into another decade? Well, that's how that first room felt, with it's towers of manila folders and wrinkled leather sofa. The glass coffee table—littered with tattered back issues of LIFE and TIME and some magazine called COVIN—matched a pair of glass vases, waist high, in either corner, each stuffed with dusty plastic leaves. Beside the couch, an ornate brass dish balanced on an obsidian obelisk; it was an ashtray, I think, but I saw no cigarette butts, only tiny dunes of silver ash. Outside, the white hot desert tried to peek in through aluminum blinds; maybe that's why I felt like I was being watched.

Mind you, that was only the waiting room—of Night Value Community Radio, one if only a couple radio stations in this stretch of the desert. I spent only a few nervous minutes waiting there before I was retrieved for my job interview, but time seemed to stretch into hours.

I'd rather be back in the waiting room than here in this windowless conference room, though. I'm not even sure how to describe its appearance—or its physics, for that matter, since it seems far too large and oppressive to fit in this tiny brick building. I can't even tell you what color the sparse walls are, since they seem to change colors each time I look—bloody eggplant one moment, crimson the next, pitch black and then stony grey. No windows adorn the walls. I sit at the head of a long table—a cheap plastic folding table, but several feet longer than it logically should be.

Instead of sitting across from me, my smiling interviewer plants himself at a spot kitty-corner and drops an antique lantern onto the table. "Sorry for the smell," he says. "Whale oil is hard to come by these days, what with the embargo and all. I'm worried this batch is past its prime."

"No worries," I say, but it really does smell rotten. The lantern isn't that bright, but overpowers the room's ambient light and casts living shadows onto the walls. Also: it's sort of weird that he brought in a lantern.

"So, welcome to Night Vale Community Radio, Jasper," my interviewer begins. "My name is Cecil Palmer. I'm one of the station's hosts. And you're here to interview as one of our station's interns?"

"That's right," I say, trying to look as alert and attentive as I can.

Cecil flips through what I assume is my resume, which sits atop a disheveled pile of papers and a file folder on the table. "Wonderful," he says, his voice smooth and deep. "Why don't we start with you telling us about yourself."

"Okay," I say, sitting up straight and adjusting my tie. "Well, I'm a student at the University of New Mexico right now—a junior. I'm majoring in communication with an emphasis on broadcast journalism. I'm a news junkie, a bit of a policy wonk, and I love talking politics."

"Neat!" Cecil says, scribbling on the paper in front of him.

I want to tell him about how much I need this internship—about my parents' ultimatum, their refusal to pay for my final year of college unless I prove to them that I'm serious about school—but begging would probably jeopardize my chances, wouldn't it? I don't want to come across too desperate, no matter how desperate I am.

"What sparked your interest in journalism?" Cecil asks.

"My dad, actually. He's an editor at the Albuquerque Journal but, back when he was a reporter for the Washington Post, he won a Pulitzer."

"A Pulizter?" Cecil says, cocking his head to the sideways.

"You know, the Pulitzer Prize?" The way his baffled gaze cuts across the corner of the table concerns me. "It's, uh, an award for journalism. My dad earned it for a story he wrote about racist judges in Virginia."

"Virginia, huh?" Cecil says, though he pronounces the state's name totally wrong—Vee-ra-gin-ya—as if he didn't hear me say it a second before. He scribbles further onto his piece of paper. "Okie dokie, then. Tell me about your production experience."

"Well, I pretty much taught myself basic editing techniques on free software like Audacity and GarageBand growing up," I brag. "I used to make my own podcast in middle school. I can pretty much feel my way across all kinds of programs, but I've been working in Audition a lot lately. Now, the hardware, that's where—"

"So you know what a microphone is, then?" Cecil interrupts me, looking up from his paper. His question is insulting, but his tone seems sincere.

"Sure I do," I say.

"And you know about the red button that you press to start broadcasting?"

I smirk. "Probably?"

"Wonderful!" Cecil says, bursting with excitement. "Our last intern—well, let's just say he pressed the wrong button." And then he starts laughing, a chuckle that starts deep in his stomach, rises through his body, and grows higher in pitch as it climbs up his throat until rises out of his mouth sharp and intense. He wipes at tears beneath his glasses. "But don't worry! That probably won't happen to you!"

"Oh, uh, good," I say, looking down at his the notes he's writing. That's when I notice my resume is not in his pile of papers. Instead, it's a very stylized drawing of a man in a white lab coat with dark hair swooping over his brown. It's a great drawing, but where's my resume? And is that dried blood on the file folder?

"Okay, okay," he says, calming himself down, black shadows dripping down his face. "I mean, it's great to hear about all of this great experience you bring to the table, but this is an internship, so the most you'll have to worry about on a day-to-day basis is transcribing interviews and keeping the sacrificial hens fed in the coop outback, you know?"

"Yeah, sure," I smile. I don't totally understand what he means by that last part, but I really need this job.

"I mean, on occasion, I may send you on location to do a bit of research, maybe interview a subject for a story we're working on. Do you feel comfortable with that?"

"Of course!" Sure, I add in my head, whatever lands me this internship.

"What about snakes. Do you like snakes?"

"Uh, what kind of snakes?"

"Rattlesnakes, crypt snakes, spinebreakers—I mean, we are in the desert, you know? This one time, I walked into the bathroom to find a Yucatan feathermouth wrapped around a young orangutan, squeezing the breath out of it. As the light faded from the primate's eyes, it reached for me, its hand so human-like." Cecil takes a sip of his coffee, swallows too quickly. I watch a drop dribble down his chin and splatter antifreeze green onto the tabletop. "Long story short, I used the unisex bathroom the rest of the day."

I nod. In the back of my head, I see my dad screaming at me during winter break. He wags a piece of paper in the air, a half-crumped email from my advisor stating his disappointment with my most recent grades.

Cecil shuffles through the papers in front of him. In addition to his drawing, there are several other sketches, and a few typewritten documents that seem too old by decades. And that's definitely blood on the file folder—it shines in the lantern's light. Something round and fleshy bulges within it.

"Jasper, tell me: have you ever made funeral arrangements?"

I don't like Cecil's question at all, but I do my best to answer honestly. "No, I haven't, but I'm ready to learn whatever it takes to help out the station."

"Great," he says, shading the chiseled curves on the face his drawing. "I mean, if you agreed to intern for us, that'd probably be your first task—or, actually, you'd probably need to contact Toshi's family."

"Toshi?"

"Our last intern."

"Ah."

Over Cecil's shoulder, in the shadows, I spot movement. It's subtle, a ripple in the darkness—the undulation of something lurking, playing with its prey. I swear I hear the splat of a tough, wet tentacle slapping the linoleum tile .

Honestly, I don't see myself spending an entire week working at this station, let alone an entire semester, but I need this internship so bad. My interview at Desert Bluffs, the only other station in the area, was even worse, if you could believe it, what with their Smiling God and creepy dress code—and can you believe their cafeteria doesn't have any vegan options.

"I suppose my last question is how well you know our community," Cecil says. "Have you ever lived in Night Vale? How well do you know its citizens?"

This is, perhaps, the scariest question of all, since I've never stepped foot in Night Vale before today. In fact, I can't quite remember how I ended up in this town at all. I remember my walk into the station, squinting at the words "Welcome to Night Vale" on the sign above the awning, the sun sizzling the back off my neck, but I don't remember my drive into town or even parking my car. Did I even drive?

Stay focused, I remind myself. Answer the question to the best of your ability. "Well, I suppose this is my one short-coming. I don't know anything about Night Vale, really."

Cecil frowns—the first time I saw his smile soften, in fact—and I know I blew it. "You don't know Dana Cardinal? Pamela Winchell? Old Woman Josie? Diane Crayton? Carlos?"

I shake my head at each name.

"So you haven't even ordered a slice at Big Rico's? Dueled with Michelle Nguyen Dark Owl Records? You're telling me you haven't bought live bait at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex?"

Again, I shake my head. "But I'm willing to do anything to get to know Night Vale. I'm ready to shake hands with everyone and become a trusted member of our community—as trusted as you are, if I can." Of course, I have no idea how trustworthy Cecil is. I've never heard his broadcast before. All I know is I trust him, even if I didn't know why.

I swear I heard the shadow in the corner snicker in response.

But Cecil looks at me as if he's on the verge of tears. "Well, you know exactly what to say, now don't you? Know your audience, right? That's journalism 101." He stands and sticks out his hand, which looks pale and stony in the lantern light. "Welcome aboard," he laughs as I grip his hand.

We sit again, all smiles. "So, what questions do you have for me?" Cecil says, arranging his papers into a tidy stack. Something round rolls out of the stained file folder and thuds to the floor under the table.

I was prepared for this—all job interviews tend to ask the same questions. It's good ettiequte to have questions prepared for the interviewees. "Okay," I say. "What's a day in the life look like for an intern at Night Vale Community Radio?"

"Well," Cecil says, his hands fluttering like dead leaves in the air as he speaks, "I'm sure you saw the bloodstone circle out front. We sacrifice one of our hens each morning and throw the carcass at station management to keep them off our butts for a while. They can be pretty cranky in the mornings—especially on Mondays, if you know what I mean!"

I don't, but I keep nodding and smiling.

"After that, you'll put on a pot of coffee, start the air popper, and clean the litter box in the men's room. I usually come in by 6 PM to start preparing for my broadcast, so I might ask you to write a quick traffic report or edit a sound bite. On occasion, a runic wire might come in, and I might need you to decode that for me. When the broadcast starts, you'll man the phones and the reception area. If there's seepage—and there's usually seepage—it's your job to mop it up.

"Sometimes, strange things happen here in Night Vale—that's why it's so critical that you get to know what makes our town special—so you might get sent out on a special assignment to interview subjects, gather information, check with sources, and so on. You might collect some hair samples, skin samples—whatever helps us tell a complete, balanced story.

"Before we leave each night, you'll cue up whatever broadcast is up next and turn off the air popper. It's really important that we burn any notes and recordings each night—all photographs, all cellular phones, all iPads and iBats and any clothes we were wearing while reporting." Cecil leans across the table. "They can smell it—all of it."

I laugh because it sounds like he's goofing around, but interrupt it with a cough when I notice Cecil's bulging eyes and anxious expression. He shakes his head and gestures toward the far corner of the room, where no shadow undulates, no snicker emanates. "Any other questions?" he whispers.

I shrug. "When do I start?"

Moments later, we're exchanging small talk as he walks me back through the cluttered waiting room. I draw in a slow breath of stale air and puff it back through my mouth. I feel proud—relieved that I've landed an internship, sure, but also strangely excited for this new assignment. Cecil seems to genuinely love his job, and his passion is contagious. We shake hands one more time, though his palm leaves behind a sticky ruby-colored residue that concerns me. I just wipe it on the back of my pants, though; I'm guessing it's just a taste of the high strangeness I'm going to have to get used to around here.

As I walk back into the desert heat, I pull out my cell phone to text my dad about my new internship. I know what he's going to say—"Don't get too excited, Jasper. It's just an internship." But I know it's only my first step what I hope will be a long and fulfilling career as a journalist.

After all, I still have my whole life ahead of me.