She took a breath, and then another. Each one was a moment in which she was still breathing and not inside the library.

The building itself was squat with tall windows that looked onto an empty checkout area and a tiled area with drinking fountains and a bathroom. Everything was quiet and still. There was no sign that anything had ever lived there. It had the feeling of a tomb or a shopping mall that had run out of money before the first store opened.

She pushed through the doors. Inside the air was cool and dry. She listened carefully. Nothing. The doors led to a long entrance hallway ending in another pair of double glass doors. Off the hallway were various reading rooms, for reading, and community rooms, for communing, and bloodletting rooms, for a different kind of communing. Those were also empty and quiet.

Jackie traversed the entrance hall in silence. The only sign of her movement was her shadow through the bands of sunlight on the floor.

She passed a bulletin board advertising community events:

PUMPKIN PICKING COMPETITION. THREE OBJECTS.

DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE IS A PUMPKIN??

GARAGE SALE. EVERYTHING’S FREE. MOSTLY NOT DANGEROUS. SOME DANGEROUS. YOU’LL FIND OUT WHICH.

I’M HIDING SOMEWHERE. CAN YOU FIND ME? NO, NOT THERE. OH WELL. YOU’LL FIND ME SOON. I PROMISE.

Stuff like that, with tabs where the phone numbers could be taken and reported to local government agencies or the Sheriff’s Secret Police. The flyers all looked to be at least ten years old. They were brittle and warped and barely hanging off rusted thumbtacks.

No movement ahead of her. No movement behind her.

She put her hand on the push bar of one of the inner doors, but paused when she heard footsteps behind her. What person would brave this sterile tomb? Besides her, of course?

Jackie turned and found herself inches away from Diane, who was looking down at her phone.

“Aah!” Jackie shouted.

Diane looked up, her eyes wide.

“Aah!” Diane shouted as well.

Her fingers were scarred, and her phone had traces of blood on it. She must have tried to contact a forbidden number.

“Hello, Jackie.”

“Did you follow me here?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you everywhere I am at the same time as me?”

Diane thought about that. It was a fair question, although the problem with fair questions is that they are asked about an unfair world.

“I suspect,” Jackie said, “that we are looking for the same sorts of things about the same sorts of people. Which is why we would keep crossing each other’s paths. Also, Night Vale isn’t a very big town, is it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

They both thought about it. Then, as is safest in Night Vale, they stopped thinking about it.

“All right. Well, cool seeing you,” said Jackie, hand on the door, her body blocking Diane’s entry.