Cecil and Kevin perform more from The Nudge, by Night Vale co-creator Joseph Fink

What I have here today is an excerpt from my novel The Nudge, which comes out tomorrow

“September 1st. This is a horror novel along the lines of Stephen King or Shirley Jackson.”

So if you are a fan of Welcome to Nightfiel or Alice's And Dead, I can tell you this will be extremely up your alley. What you're about to hear is from the audiobook performed by Kevin Arfrey and Cecil Baldwin of Welcome to Nightfiel. There is also a heart cover version with illustrations by Nightfiel's resident artist Jessica Hayworth. I can't tell you which one to get that's an impossible decision. Of course there's nothing stopping you from getting both. I'm also doing a book tour

in California starting with a launch event in Pasadena at Vromens bookstore at 7 p.m. with I'll be in conversation with Mara Wilson. We're going to do a joint performance of a little bit of the book and then we'll talk and then I can sign things. It'll be a lot of fun. I'm also going to San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and San Diego, all the sands. Please come out and see me book events are so scary to do and I would really appreciate you guys being there.

But either way, the Nudge comes out tomorrow September 1st by it wherever you buy books. Thank you. [Music] Have you driven long? No. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to the time. And mostly I was trying to get miles on the day. There's many of them as I could pile on and when I got tired I stopped. It's good that you're thinking about safety. It's all I've thought about

for weeks now. Safety is a funny thing. When you have it, you're hardly even notice. And the moment it's gone, it's all you can think about. But we don't need to go into all that. This seems like a nice place. We take a certain pride. I can see. I can see. And these portraits. Who are they? Some are old family. So old that I do not know their names. Others are not family. This way. Please. Sure. I'll tell you. I hadn't traveled for years.

“We need to take a vacation one of these days. That's what Sharon kept saying before she.”

Before. She was always talking about a vacation. And now, here I suppose I'm on a vacation,

I've a kind, and I'm all by myself. Please watch her step. The rug curls up here. Oh, thanks. I would have chipped for sure. I'm very up. Well, see. You warned me. I was looking at it and somehow I tripped anyway. That's me in a nutshell. Sharon always said, "Some day you'll die falling down the stairs and they'll blame me." Just like that guy. What was his name? Do you know who I mean? I know who you mean. Exactly. Just like that guy. Only I don't suppose they believe it.

A woman murdering her husband. Quite as readily as they'd believe the other way around. Not how the story usually goes. I think it was counting on that. I'm sorry. I'm just rambling. Please don't listen to me. I was driving longer than I thought. My brain feels like soup. And all I can think about is Sharon when I'm not with her. We've been together for 20 years. Last

week, can you believe it? 20 good years. Or not always good, but solid. Stable. A well-built

bridge over a cold and deep river. That's any good relationship in this terrible world. We met. Do you mind if I tell you about Sharon? Sometimes it helps to say it out loud. When I talk about her, it's like she's here. Talk away. Your room is a bit of a hike from here. I'm afraid. So we have the time. This place is bigger than it looks. I've already lost track of the turns we've taken. I hope I'll be able to find my way out again.

Sharon and I met on our last day of college. I don't know how we had never seen each other before that day. We went to a small liberal arts college in Ohio, nothing but farms and board townies nearby. So students mostly socialize on campus, dorm room parties, that kind of thing. Everyone on campus

“knew everyone. We were all in each other's business. The worst kind of small town you understand?”

But here it is. Graduation and I see this beautiful girl who I do not recognize at all, and she sees me. And we both have the same reaction, which is, wait, who the hell are you?

an honest one. We were immediately curious about each other, and that's as good as start as any.

“We get to talking and sure enough, we've both gone to that school for four years,”

know all the same people that everyone knows, even took some of the same classes, although apparently not at the same time. And yet, we completely avoided seeing each other until then a magic trick by God. Our conversation at the ceremony turns into a conversation at the party, and then at the bar, after the party. The two of us had run out of things to say to everyone else on campus after four years of close proximity. By the end of the night, I was already feeling

that strange beat your heart does when it's preparing to fall in love. A sort of pre love, a warning that your brain is about to be chemically turned upside down. Years later, she would tell me that she wasn't feeling the same way I had been, not yet, but sure, she was feeling horny. Still, she didn't invite me back to her place, mostly because she shared it with at least one ex of mine. And anyway,

she wanted to test the luck that had first kept us so improbably apart, and then brought us together,

with such strange timing. She was asking fate for an encore. I'm not giving you my number,

“she said, but I think we'll find each other again. Then she leaned in and kissed me for a long time,”

and even though I'd had hundreds of kisses by then, that was my first real kiss, you know? The first one that felt like it mattered, and she said, "Where at least I sure hope we do," and then she was gone. Strange way to act if you don't mind me saying.

Yes, it was strange, but it was sexy, too. The risk involved in holding that first fragile spark of love,

and then letting it go, find out if it will kindle on its own. I could see the appeal. Sounds like you did find her again. Would you believe it took two years?

“I thought for sure I would run into her again within a day or two, and then when that didn't happen,”

I took to walking around town, trying to cover as much territory as possible, studying the faces of passers by. But it was never her. And at the end of the month, I moved back to Nevada, and then from there to San Francisco. I still felt a little pang when I thought about her, but I understood that too much time had passed, and she was just going to be one of those regrets, that every person seemed to accumulate over the years. I settled into a temporary kind of adult

life. The kind you have in your early 20s when everything is an improvisation, and you're waiting for the real thing to arrive? Before you realize that your whole life will be an improvisation,

that the real thing never arrives. It's just piece together in retrospect from split-second decisions,

often made without a great deal of forethought or care. Do you mind if we said, it feels like we've been walking for hours, and it's been a long day. There's this chair here. Not that chair, that one's a little funny at times. But please, the chair by the fire is very comfortable. I'm not keeping you from anything, have I? Nothing that I want to be doing. Mostly this time of night is the long hours of waiting. If I'm needed now, it's because someone is died, or something is burning down.

How often does that happen? How often has the hotel burned down? Or someone dies? You know, a big nighttime emergency? Occasionally, I suppose, get enough people together, and some of them will die once in a while. No avoiding it. And, twice. Twice? The hotel has burned down, twice. And that was the nudge, performed by Seeswellman and Kavanaugh Free. There is also a hardcovered version with very creepy illustrations by Jessica Hayworth. Please buy this book wherever you buy books.

Thank you so much.