293 - The Boys (1946)

Welcome to Night Vale

Set in the summer of 1946, this archived episode from 'Welcome to Night Vale' explores the return of young soldiers from war, portraying the

Key takeaways

• The return of soldiers is framed not as a triumph but as a harbinger of unseen trauma and supernatural decay.

Main topics

• Post-war trauma
• Surreal military homecoming

Notable quotes

Our boys were brave and resilient, and now they are carefree job seekers.

Every hoot... is a slightly different note. Notes unknown to pentatonic or even heptatonic scales.

Conclusion

The episode ends with a chilling return to reality—narration breaks down into

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) Hi, y'all. It's Jeffrey Cranor here to say that my Night Vale co-writer Joseph Fink's new horror novella, The Nudge, comes out today, September 1st, 2026. Go get this thing. It's so scary. It's so clever. And the print version has original unnerving drawings by Night Vale resident artist Jessica Hayworth. But if you want the audio book, that's also pretty special because it's narrated by Kevin Arfrey and Cecil Baldwin. Get Joseph Fink's The Nudge wherever you get your books. And if you're near California, go see Joseph in person at a live reading and signing. He's at Romans in LA on September 1st, Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on the 15th, Bookshop Santa Cruz on the 28th, Booksmith in San Francisco on the 29th, and Chaucer's Books in Santa Barbara on October 6th. Go to walkintonightveld.com slash books for more information and to reserve your place at these book signings. Last two things. Murder Night in Blood Forest, our Nightville live show, has its final six performances in the Northeast December 3rd through the 8th. Portland, Maine, Stowe, Vermont, Portsmouth, Providence, Homer, New York in the Finger Lakes, and Kingston in the Hudson Valley. Go to welcometonightville.com slash live to get your tickets. And if you're looking for Nightville merch, we, as always, have lots of that. New in our store, we've got some fuzzy cactus socks, as well as the return of our spooky season sweater. Plus tons of other great stuff from t-shirts to tarot cards. Go to welcometonightville.com and click on store. And hey, thanks. Hello, Speaker 4 (1:32) folks. Well, Leonard, still here, but not here. Gone, but still talking. Speaking of gone, Cecil is still missing. Now, I said not to be alarmed, but at a certain point, well, I leave it up to you, at a certain point you have to ask yourself, just what is happening here? Just what is going on? But never fear that you will be without your evening's entertainment. We have today another show from the archive. This one is particularly interesting. It is from the long summer of 1946. The Second Great War had ended. Our nation's shattered youth stumbled home from foreign shores to a country that had learned to go on without them. Ahead, the prosperity of the American century. Behind, the despair and destitution of the Great Depression. Great War, the Great Depression, the Greatest Generation. They really didn't have a lot of variety in adjectives, I suppose. They were there for the beginning of modern history, and they thought it was all great. Even if by that they meant it was bad. I envy their simplicity. Oh, but I could jabber on forever. I think maybe I only exist when I'm talking. So if I pause for a beat like so, yes. Speaker 4 (3:03) I did not exist for that moment. Fascinating. Well, I suppose then I will return to Oblivion rather than bore you. Please enjoy this archived recording, and you might start looking for Cecil. Seems problematic that he has not yet been found. Not my problem, though. I don't even exist. Starting right. Speaker 2 (3:33) Today is a day that will live in mundanity. Welcome to Night Vale. Speaker 2 (4:04) The boys have come home. After years of war and then more months of post-war organization and peacekeeping, the young men of Night Vale are returning. There is the glint of life in their eyes, eager to get started with careers and families now that the dark cloud of war has lifted. Sure, have they seen things that will mean they need to do just a little bit of heroin now and again to keep from mentally collapsing? Who hasn't? And yes, Are their dreams dark tangles of limbs, none of which are attached to anyone, as they swim against the current in a river made of warm and sticky blood? Okay, yes, that is also true. But our boys were brave and resilient, and now they are carefree job seekers. And look out, ladies, they just might be interested in relationships with you. despite unresolved tragedies shaping their behavior in ways that caused them to harm themselves or others. Yes, dawn has returned to America, and this will be America's century, which will hopefully last a whole century, and someone won't foolishly tear down all of our prosperity and power for no reason in, say, 70 years or so. That would be needless and stupid, so I can't see that happening. More soon on the boys coming home, but first, let's take a look at the community calendar. Speaker 2 (5:40) This Wednesday, there will be a green tent in Grove Park. From within will come the scent of exotic and rich spices. You will hear the trilling of beautiful music. The air outside will be perfectly still, but there