A/N- Hiya, guys. Long story short, I'm getting rid of the device I was writing on, and it will be a long time, if ever, when I update again. I had a pretty good sized chunk already written out, so here it is. Thanks for everything, you guys are the best.

Carlos ran his hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. It fell right back where it had, dangling in front of his lab goggles. Setting the bloodstone he was studying down, he huffed in frustration and stood up straight, trying to part his hair correctly and push it behind his ears. It was tangled and kind of dirty. They had access to showers, but the heavy winds were constantly blowing sand around and it was nearly impossible to keep clean. Plus, it was hot and uncomfortable on the back of his neck.

"That's it," he said out loud in the empty lab. "I'm getting a haircut. Enough is enough."

A nearby counter squeaked, as if agreeing with him.

He pushed his stool back, but it tipped over and he crashed to the ground. Just at that moment, Neal jumped down from the ladder, raising his eyebrows when he saw Carlos sprawled across the tile floor, holding his scalpel straight up in the air to keep it from cutting him, while the stool was rolling away and gently bumping into the table. As his coworker sat up, Neal strolled across the room and started going through the small stack of boxes that had not yet been unpacked yet. They sat in the corner in the otherwise tidy lab, without any other place to go. "What are you doing?" he asked Carlos.

Carlos crouched over the stool, detangling a cord from one of the legs and standing it upright. "I'm going to get my hair cut."

Neal subconsciously ran a hand over his own bald head. "Cool. Here, in Night Vale?"

"Where else?"

Neal ignored the question, pulling out the map he had been looking for. "Delaney and I are going to check out the library since apparently is having some 'renovations,'" he said, making air quotes. "And we haven't gone yet. I was going to invite you to join us, but you're going to go do that instead."

Carlos nodded, taking the map from Neal and scanning it for a hairdresser of some sort. Neal looked over Carlos' shoulder, then pointed to a dot not far from the scrublands surrounding the city. "Telly's," he read.

A hour later, Telly stepped back, tilting his head to one side. "How iz zhat?"

Carlos felt his stomach twist. Yes, he had wanted his hair cut, but he hadn't mentally prepared for it yet.

It was, well, it was short.

He ran a hand over his head. It hadn't been that short in years, if ever. Not that it was terribly short or close-shaven, but it had always been mounds of waves and loose curls falling over his ear and the back of his neck. And it no longer did that.

His hair was a bit shorter than he had wanted, he decided as he stood up. He smiled at the barber. "It's perfect, thank you." At least it would be more comfortable in the heat. Telly nodded, brushing a few strands off the counter. "It should feel better in this weather." He had a foreign accent, which was strange, since it seemed like he was one of the regular Night Valians instead of an outsider. And his accent seemed pretty unusual. Was it Italian? German? A combination of both? Carlos was bad with placing accents.

Telly studied his customer's reflection in the mirror thoughtfully as Carlos pulled out the money to pay him. "I wonder vhat Cecil vill think."

Carlos felt a surge of irritation as he passed over the money. The radio show host was obsessed with his hair, and was sure to make a comment of some sort when he found out. Well, maybe if it was shorter, he would start leaving Carlos alone. "I don't care what he thinks. It's my hair, my decision."

Telly raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you vill care. 'e's very passionate about... some things."

Carlos shrugged. "Okay, then. Thank you."

As he walked back to the lab, he couldn't help but notice multiple people taking slight double takes as he walked pass, noticing his hair. It was a lot more comfortable (and it no longer fell in front of his face,) but he was not appreciating all the stares.

Getting back to the lab, he jumped down and saw Delaney and Neal leaning against the wall, not doing anything. Neal looked more shaken than he had looked so far that month, stretching something in a notepad. He didn't even look up as Carlos came in. Delaney raised her eyebrows. "You got your hair cut."

"I did."

"It looks... nice."

"Why thank you," he glanced at Neal. "What happened?"

"We went to see the library," said Delaney when Neal didn't look up, "which apparently was undergoing renovations. Well, when we got there, they were setting a large wooden building with iron bars for windows and no door on fire. The fire immediately filled the entire building, and everyone cheered."

"That's weird, but what's so... disturbing other than that? I mean, we've seen stranger."

"Well, as the building was completely consumed, we started to hear screeching coming from it, and everyone started running away. It was horrible sounds, you know, the fingernails on a chalkboard sort of thing. There was something in the library, and they were burning it alive."

"That's not the only thing," continued Neal, looking up. "I saw something reach through the bars. It looked like a green arm, ending in a foot with three long claws, almost like a Raxacoricofalapatorian from Doctor Who. But... nothing like I had ever seen before in real life. Nothing is like that in real life."

Carlos nodded, shivering. Apparently, there were multiple species exclusive to Night Vale. Not that he really wanted to check out something that the people had set on fire and cheered about.

"I was going to go check out the burn sight, scan for any type of recognizable DNA. Neal doesn't want to come, but you can if you want to."

"Sure," he grabbed his bag of equipment and climbed up after her, calibrating his devices as he went.

"So tell me," she said as he followed her out, "What made you decide to do that to your hair?"

"We're in a desert," he answered, scanning the air for radioactivity. It was normal, which in Night Vale was about ten times higher than an average human would survive in.

"True. No ponytail?" She grinned, shaking her own. She had barely taken it down the entire month they had been there.

"Definitely not," he answered firmly, smiling. They kept walking, Delaney turning every now and then as they moved towards the edge of town. She had an amazing memory, especially when it came to landmarks. However, after a few minutes, she stopped and turned around several times. "Did I make a wrong turn?" she muttered. Carlos came to a stop too, carefully holding the bag of equipment so that it didn't jostle.

"What's wrong?"

"That thing was definitely not there when we came this way half an hour ago." She jerked her head to the left, and Carlos looked up at the massive structure. An oval stadium, made of the same black material as the dog park walls.

"NIGHT VALE COMMUNITY STADIUM," read the sign on the padlocked gate, "DO NOT APPROACH ANY DAY OTHER THAN NOVEMBER TENTH."

Delaney glanced at her phone. "Currently not November tenth. Let's keep moving."

They continued on, until Delaney turned once more and stood in front of an ashy plot of ground. She spread her arms out. "Ta-da. Wait a second."

"What?"

"Two things. I thought that the foundation had burnt too, and secondly, why is that thing full of- is that milk?"

She pointed at the newspaper stand in front of the Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, which stood a little ways down the road. Carlos squinted, stepping closer.

It was full of milk.

The white liquid oozed between the plastic siding and sloshed out onto the sidewalk in front of it. Teddy Williams, owner of said bowling alley and arcade fun complex, was drinking a red plastic cup of the substance and talking to a small crowd that stood on the road.

"Yep, there is definitely a underground city beneath the pin retrieval area of lane five. How far down it is and how big it is is beyond me, but they now know that we are here, and will certainly make war." He raised a bowling pin like a club. "Who's with me? Who will fight against the invaders?"

A few people cheered, and Teddy grinned, taking another sip from his cup. He nodded towards someone in the crowd. "The edition of the milk to the newspaper cycle was a very good idea, Leanne." A tall woman wearing glasses and holding a hatchet nodded back. "Thank you, Teddy. We want to retain an unbiased approach to news reporting."

Delaney returned her gaze to the burnt out space where the library used to stand, scanning it. "Not too different, level of methane is pretty high, scratch that, it's really high. Almost one percent of the air composition." She started walking in a slow circle. "I wonder if they poured gasoline on the building before lighting it... I mean, that goes against pretty much every standard safety law of the average town government, but..."

"They have a system of Secret Police that monitor everything and everyone but no one acts very fazed," Carlos finished, and she nodded, pulling out a radiation detector. After scanning the air, she examined the reading, jostling the device several times before sticking it back into the bag with an irritated huff.

"Well, screw that," she muttered, taking another step forward. "Anyway, like I said, I thought the foundations were burnt too. They're wood, which is unusual in and of itself. Foundations should be stone or concrete."
Carlos, who was a good head shorter than Delaney, stood on his toes. Yes, he could see through the mounds of fluffy grey paper ash that the wooden foundations were still fully intact. They were even slightly above ground in the corners, not even burnt. Half of him was for stepping into the charred plot and getting a closer look, but the other (more practical) side was urging him to run away and hide in the lab because something was definitely not right.

Of course, that part of him had been screaming at him since he drove across the Night Vale city borders on Route 800.

Determined, he took a step closer, so he was about three feet away from where the walkway up to the charred plot began. Delaney raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He stood in the spot for a second, hesitating, when someone called from further up the road. He immediately tensed, but relaxed when he realized that it was not Cecil but Fredrick. He, Travis, and Bethany were coming from the opposite direction of Teddy William's Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Bethany appeared to be holding what looked like a folding metal prod, at least ten feet long when stretched out. Fredrick waved nervously as he approach, glancing between the two others. "You cut your hair," he said, shaking his own violently red curls just slightly. Carlos nodded. "Good observation. What were you guys doing?"

Bethany handed Travis the metal pole. "We were still over at the House That Doesn't Really Exist. Travis still hasn't gotten up the nerve to go knock on the door."

The older scientist glanced at her with mild irritation. "Why don't you go do it then, if it's as easy as that?"

She held up her clipboard. "I can take notes faster than the rest of you combined. We determined that almost a year and a half ago. So, logically speaking, it would make more sense if I stayed outside and documented what happened while you at least went to see if anyone answered the door."

Travis didn't say anything to that, but looked at the remains of the library. "I hope that you two are not responsible for this damage to city grounds." Delaney nodded, her face completely serious. "Yep, it was horrible. Carlos pulled out his scientifically modified flamethrower out of his lab coat and shot the entire building down for no reason. Naturally, the Secret Police on every other street corner stood by and let him do it."

Carlos rolled his eyes at his smirking coworker as Travis groaned loudly. Bethany raised her eyebrows, her face otherwise blank, and Fredrick bit his lip as glanced between Travis and the two others nervously. "Is now really the time?" he sighed.

"It's always the time," she answered cheerily.

Travis closed his eyes for a second, composing himself, then opened them again. "You know what? You two continue whatever foolishness you were up to. I'm going back to the laboratory and am going to locate and disable all of the 'security' cameras and voice recorders the Secret Police have rigged inside." Bethany followed him, still holding her notebook, but Fredrick stayed. "So, what really happened here?" he asked as Delaney started syncing a small device from the bag that could detect DNA and determine what species it came from.

"They burned the building down. Neal and Delaney thought they saw something inside during the process, and she wanted to try and see if she could figure out what it was. Delaney nodded, then pointed the silver stick at Carlos. "Smile!" she said as the end lit up with a buzzing green light, then examined the reading. "Yep, it works. Congratulations, you are fully human." He chuckled, and she started walking around in front of the plot, pointing the stick at different mounds of ash.

"Where'd you get that?" asked Fredrick, pushing his glasses a little higher on his face.

"New technology. Came out only a few days before we left," she answered sharply. She was only completely focused and serious when she was in the middle of sciencing, and hated being disturbed by other people. "Managed to get one. It's picking something up. There are traces of DNA in the fire, the DNA of a... c'mon, hurry up and load!"

Instead of showing the results, the green bulb on the end popped off and the stick began emitting black smoke. The little screen near the base went dark. "Damn!" she muttered, "I almost had something." Screwing the end back where it was supposed to go, she jostled the device around a bit and breathed a sigh of relief when it turned back on. However, when she tried to scan the ground again, it just read "NO DATA". She flipped it back off and on several times. "Of course, now it says that there's no DNA there. That went well."

"Are you sure it's still working?" asked Fredrick.

She pointed it at him, then at Carlos. "Yup, yup. Two homo sapiens right in front of me. It's working all right. It just-"

She pointed it back at the ash, but this time, the reading was almost instantly replaced with "ERROR". She huffed, and started walking down the street, the device still glowing and buzzing as she scanned random things. Herself, the sidewalk, a woman with several dozen eyes up and down her arms strolling across the street. Carlos and Fredrick caught up with her after the last one, as she had stopped and tapped the screen several times. After a few seconds, homo sapiens popped up, but it quickly flickered away.

"You know, I'm not sure how well this scanner actually works," she said after a few minutes, when it insisted a stray dog was a lizard and what looked like it might be a type of a tree was human. "New, unperfected technology and all of that. Hmm."

She pointed it at what looked like crumpled Pepsi can lying on the pavement with a small red flag sticking out of it, pausing as her scanner (most likely) started figuring out how many kinds of bacteria were on it. But instead, the screen stated flashing and emitting a high pitched beeping noise and the small device split entirely in half, spewing black smoke. Delaney stared at it for a moment, then took a step back. "We should... probably get away from that thing."

Neither of her male coworkers argued and quickly followed her back to the lab, where she set the scanner down on an empty counter. Neal had just finished a detailed drawing of the claw he had seen through the library window, and was flipping through an encyclopedia to try to find something close to it. Bethany was carefully taking apart what might have been a chunk out of a tree branch, while Travis was watching over her shoulder, much to her irritation. The radio hummed as quietly as Neal could get it to hum in the background, and Carlos focused on it. Cecil was speaking, of course. "The counsel would like me to remind you that any litter marked with a red flag is not to be picked up or approached. Remember the slogan- No flag? Goes in the bag. Red flag? Run."

Well, that might possibly explain a few things, even if it opened up a dozen more unanswered questions.

Ignoring the radio as best as he could, Carlos picked up one half of the broken DNA scanner. He was not a skilled mechanic, quite the opposite, but he still was pretty interested in whether or not the thing would be able to get to work again. It looked like it would have to be scrapped. Data chips were snapped in half, burnt ends of wires stuck out of the broken part, the plastic coating singed off. The light bulb on the end was cracked, the little wires completely separated inside. Fredrick shrugged, glancing at Delaney. "That's a shame. You never know, you might be able to email the university, see if you could get another one."

"Yeah, because they collect and distribute mail here. There are always trucks filled with the stuff going in and put of town," she answered nippily before setting the other half back down. "Seriously though, has anyone actually seen a mail truck or plane leaving town? Has anyone seen anything at all leaving town?"

"That's the way this place is," muttered Travis, who had apparently been listening. "Gets all in your head, addles you up. I'd we had any sense at all we would have immediately turned around and left the day we got here."

No one said anything, all staring at their hands. Neal quietly turned a page in his book, but stopped. He paused, and flipped the page several more times, each time the grating whisper getting louder. A loud snapped cracked the air, and Carlos whirled around, just in time to duck the book Neal had hurled across the room. It hit a table, then skidded down and landed on the floor, knocking several test tubes and Bunsen burners down as it did so. Green smoke and sparks billowed from where it landed, and Carlos, covering his mouth and nose with his lab coat, ran over to where it fell. He heard someone yell, "What the hell was that for!?" (probably Travis,) and Neal stutter something about his hands burning and the words disappearing. The green smoke smelled like hot, cooking bacon, even through the protective layer of cloth, and he coughed. Grabbing a nearby stirring rod, he pushed it open, and saw just for a second that all the words had disappeared. Then, it snapped shut again.

And lunged at him.

Yelling, he stumbled backwards and climbed up on a chair as complete pandemonium broke out behind him. Travis was cursing up a storm, someone knocked over another stool, someone (Fredrick, he thought) screamed "That stuff is poisonous! Get gas masks!"

Carlos pressed the lab coat tighter to his nose, taking small breaths. His ears were ringing, and his head felt foggy. His skin burned and itched as the smoke continued to swirl around him, and he noticed more of it coming from the stack of encyclopedias and reference books. Fredrick tossed him a gas mask, and he caught it, letting his coat slip when he did so. He didn't even breathe the gas in as he fumbled for the straps and covered his, face, but a headache stabbed behind his eyes. Taking a see breath of the filtered air, he kneeled on the chair and leaned over as the book slid across the floor, snapping and biting on its own accord, reminding him of a scene from the beginning of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. For some reason, however, he didn't feel completely overwhelmed or frightened that a scene from a fantasy book was happening to him (complete with sparks and potentially lethal gas), but numbly acceptant. Almost like he had lost the ability to be surprised.

Once he got the mask on, he got on his knees on the chair, still holding the stirring rod like a weapon. The book snapped open and closed, apparently unable to move other than the initial leap. Flipping it around, he jabbed the stick down, pressing the book closed. It thrashed under the rod with surprising strength, nearly slipping out several times, but eventually it stilled. The gas (almost filling the entire lab by this point) still puffed from between the pages, though it wasn't quite as much as before.

It seemed.

Pushing the book across the floor, the stirring rod still firmly pressed to the top to keep it closed, got it to the airtight supply closet and slammed the door the moment it was in. The others caught on pretty quickly, and soon all the books had been moved to the closet and the trapdoor was flung open so the lab could air out. Travis started running around and cursing, (as he usually did when something weird and unusual happened,) but the rest of the scientists huddled on plastic chairs as far away from the supply closet as possible. Except Carlos. As soon as the initial danger had passed and the gas masks were safe to remove, he stepped out of the lab and flipped open his phone's contacts to Cecil. It almost seemed like an automatic response to anything weird that happened, even though the radio host offered literally no help and ultimately made things more complicated.

"Cecil?" he asked as soon as the ringing stopped.

"Carlos!" There was a pause. "What- oh no. What happened to your hair?"

Carlos turns around, half expecting the radio broadcaster to be hiding in the scruffy bushes by the sidewalk. Nothing.

"Um, Cecil, how-"

"It's short!" he cried, distraught. Carlos turned in a complete circle, looking every direction, but the only people out was a man wearing a tan- actually no, no one was out. "It- it's cut! Oh Carlos, I-"

"That's not what I called you about!" Carlos interrupted, and Cecil's near-sobs quieted. "Books- they just-" he fumbled for words. "They stopped working!"

Cecil paused. "Books? You have books? Oh Carlos, how rebellious!"

"They are encyclopedias that belong to my team," he said through clenched teeth. "Will you just pay attention now?"

"Okay, okay. What about them?"

"Just like -" he motioned vaguely, wincing as he thought about how "like" is not a very scientific word. "You know, sparks- white sparks, in the shape of letters, green smoke, potentially lethal gas, unexplained biting, and the smell of..." Bacon did not sound very scientific either.
"-meat."

"Do you have any explanation? Are we in any danger?"

"No explanation yet, my team is working on it." at least they should be, he added silently. "If it hadn't happened anywhere else people should put their books somewhere like a basement or a closet that's airtight. I don't know why in the world that would happen, but-"

He frowned. "It might have had something to do with the library burning down? I mean, you live here, is that possible?"

"Oh, the bimonthly library burning was today? I missed it. Again. No, that couldn't have had anything to do with it. A genius idea, though, if I do say so myself."

Carlos rolled his eyes. "Bimonthly library bur- no, that doesn't matter right now. Can you tell people about the books?"

"Of course! But about your hair-"

"I've got to go, sorry. You can continue your broadcast."

"Okay, goodbye!"

Carlos stuck his hands in his lab coat and looked back up at the radio station, remembering the window which could focus in on anything. He shuddered, creeped out by the idea that Cecil could be watching him right then. Turning, he climbed back into the lab, nearly falling on top of Travis, who stood at the bottom. The older scientist ignored him and clapped his hands. "Okay, we need to go back to the house that doesn't really exist and run some more tests, but one of us has to stay here and document all changes on the books. Carlos- you do that."

"Okay. I'm so glad I volunteered." Delaney shot him an approving smirk, but Travis ignored the comment. "We need to get everything together, first, though, so everyone do your respective duties while I get things together."

Having no real respective duties, the others milled around to find something to do, avoiding the supply closet. Carlos found himself cleaning microscope slides next to Delaney, who was trying to fix the database on one of their laptops so it would connect to Wi-Fi, which seemed to be a completely different type of airwave in Night Vale. She tapped the nearby radio, making the volume increase by a few notches. "So, what were you doing outside? Did you tell your boyfriend about the books?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Have you heard the way he talks about you? I'm not sure if he knows that." She punched his arm playfully, and he shook his head, smiling slightly. "I think you're right about that. Do you know if we made a slide with the silt from Hidden Gorge?"

After about five minutes, Cecil's voice came back on the radio.

"Listeners, we are currently fielding several reports that books have stopped working."

Cecil gave a short explanation, ending with a statement the City Council had released, saying the books are dangerous, inadvisable, and should not be kept in private homes. Delaney shook her head in wonder. "I will never get over how he is able to say things like that so calmly."

"Okay, time to go," announced Travis, and Delaney turned to Carlos, fluttering her eyelashes. "If we get eaten by the house or blown up with antimatter," she said sappily, "remember that I loved you."

"Will do, hermana," he replied, rolling his eyes. She smirked, but looked a little apprehensive
as she buttoned up her lab coat. "Seriously though, what will happen if one of us dies? What will we tell the university? Their families?"

Carlos suddenly felt worry churn in him too, though it seemed strange and not really related to what she was talking about. "I don't know. We'll figure out something, I guess."

She nodded, biting her lip and glancing at Travis. Now that was unusual. If she was ever scared or worried, she always hid it. She shook her head. "I don't know, man. It's probably nothing."

As they all climbed out and left him alone, he felt the gnawing worry too, as if he had done something wrong or forgotten something. Shaking his head a little, he turned back to organizing the slides they had made. The worry didn't fade, if anything it grew stronger. Something horrible was happening. Something was going terribly, terribly wrong, people were dying, things were exploding, they had to be, what was he doing? Why was he just down here doing nothing? What was that, did the floorboards squeak? Was something else in the lab? His breathing sped up and he spun around, the emptiness not easing his quickly rising panic in the slightest.

To the end of his days, he never figured out how he ended up beneath the white folding table, pressed against the wall and holding his scalpel in his shaking fist, though he felt as though something were chasing him. Something that would sense if he made any movement, something that a scalpel or any weapon would be useless against, something unspeakably evil whose shadow would blast his soul to bits. Everything was silent, even the radio, and he stayed, afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid to even think.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the feeling faded and he began to breathe normally again, lowering the scalpel and wondering what had come over him. Several minutes later, Cecil began speaking again, cutting into his previous announcement with a shaky report about "a creeping fear that came into town today". Carlos shivered, glancing up at the banging footsteps up above him. Delaney dropped down the hatch into the lab, her face pale. "What the hell- did you-"

"Yeah," he answered grimly. "I don't understand."

A/N- Yes, I made references to four completely different other fandoms in this (five billion bonus points if you caught them all). Sue me. Actually, don't. I don't know anything and I never will. Thanks!