Alice Isnโt Dead is a new serial fiction podcast from the team behind Welcome to Night Vale.
A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
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part one, chapter four: ย the factory by the sea
โIโll try to forget what I saw there, butโฆI wonโt be able to, will I, ____? Iโll never forget what happened.โ
โThe sea is crystalline. Itโs seductive. But the land feels angry and lost. There is no harmony here. The tranquility of the lapping waves sputters out and the land slumps into place. Itโs buggy as hell, too.โ
[heavy sigh] โWhatever.โ
โIs this the world you left me, leaderless and spinning?โ
โThe farther south you go on this coast, the worse the drivers get. Theyโre old, and theyโre mad down here. Why are they so mad? Why are they in my lane? WHY ARE YOU IN MYโโ
โShit. Sorry, ___. I know you hated it when I yelled. Hate it. You hate it when I yell.โ
โI couldnโt tell much from the shape of them.โ
โCool, cool. This is perfect. Hey, help me with this, would you?โ
โCome on in, I have to sign off on the delivery inside.โย
โHmmโฆtempting, but I am not going to stop.โ
โOoh, the popcorn store! Even more tempting! An entire store of popcorn! Mm-mm. Not gonna stop for that either.โ
โI shouldnโt judge. No one should. We all do lots of things we shouldnโt, though.โ
โYou know that green that isnโt right, that is off from what it should be? It was that green.โย
โOh, sure, sorry. Just have to get the paperwork settled.โ
โI didnโt know what to do, I pinched and pinched, but every time it hurt.โ
โIโve been thinking lately of our pizza nights. Dough from scratch, sauce from scratch, cheese fromโฆwell, from the store. Not goinโ that far.โ
โI loved the making of bread, the dough for the crust. Flour and water in your hands, first separate and then merging into a silky whole. The yeast and gluten making it a living thing. It moves when you poke it. It breathes into your hands.โ
โOur hands covered in flour, we open a bottle of wine, and we eat the pizza we made, andโฆwe just watch whateverโs on TV and fall asleep in a wine and bread coma.โ
โI think love is cooking together. I think itโs making something with each other, thatโs what I think, ____.โ
โI donโt know what you think. Turns out that I didnโt know what you were thinking at all.โ
โMetal hands building metal things, and no human beings in sight.โ
โMachine after machine, Alice. Imagine the scale of them! Picture it for me.โ
โI didnโt say anything more.โ
โOnly one more stop now. Come on, then.โ
โCrossing inland now. Grassland and canals. There are supposed to be alligators here, right? Thatโs the whole thing with this area, gators, or whatever?โย
โI havenโt seen any alligators, but I saw a cow drinking from a stream, looking like the first part of a scene from National Geographic. The second part didnโt happen. No gator leaping from the water with its jaws open. Cow just drank.โ
โWhat is a cow doing in a swamp? Are there wild cows? There are, right?โ
โI stood there watching as it went out further, and further, and then was gone.โ
โThere was no one in sight. It smelled like the sea, and it smelled like smoke and steel and it smelled like algae and murk.โ
โAnd thatโs where I am now. Driving, as I always am when we talk.โ
โWe?โ [Chuckles]ย โOf course โweโ donโt talk. I do. You vanish. You arenโt. You are a โ a gap, a nothing. And I talk into that nothing. I let my words float away. I let my words vanish, and I just keep driving.โ
โFlour on our hands, sauce on our hands, our hands on our hands, something forgettable on the television, leg upon leg. That was a life! ____, thatโs what itโs made of! Hand upon hand upon leg upon heart upon couch upon a day where we made bread together.โ
โFuck it, right? Thereโs a Dennyโs in two miles anyway. Thereโs that. ____, honey, thereโs always that.โ