Night Vale Unsolved

28

As soon as they got back to their hotel room, Shane flopped down onto his bed with a long sigh.
"What a day," He remarked. Ryan, from across the room, let out a short laugh in agreement.
Shane pulled himself up to a sitting position. "You realize that this is going to be one hell of an episode?" He looked out the window at the skyline of Night Vale. "How do we even show this to people?"
Ryan paused. He hadn't considered that before. Seeing everything, he could barely believe it. Filming it helped to make it real, but even now, going over that same film...
"Well, we'll figure that out. Editing, I guess." Shane shrugged and grabbed his toothbrush.
As the bathroom door closed, Ryan went over his conversation with Lucia. Her voice came through the spirit box, garbled and broken, but still it was there. He smiled, without really feeling anything.
How could they put this out in the world?
Not that he was worried about exposing some big secret or something. The problem was that there was no way anyone would believe these stories. Even then, Ryan wasn't sure if he could bring himself to present what they'd found in the light of what they'd "heard."
Ryan sighed and stopped the video. Taking out a thumb drive and his computer, he downloaded all their footage from that day, and pushed all of his worries to the back of his mind.

In the morning, Shane and Ryan met up with Carlos and Cecil at the Moonlight All Night Diner. There was no - rather, little - talk about strange goings on in Night Vale. Instead, there was casual and friendly conversation. Cecil offset the mood a few times by dropping references or sayings that caught Ryan and Shane off guard, but no one really wanted to dwell on that.
Inevitably, the conversation turned to life outside of Night Vale. Cecil, who had lived in Night Vale his whole life, was curious, and confused by many things. Mountains, for one, though neither Shane nor Ryan ever understood that.
Carlos wanted to know more about their job at BuzzFeed, and about the ghost hunts they went on.
"Ghosts are, of course," He said, "An important field of scientific study."
They only stopped when Cecil had to leave to go to the radio station, and Carlos to his lab. All of a sudden, Shane and Ryan were left alone in a city they didn't understand, and with nothing to do.
"Sightseeing?" Ryan asked.
"Sure," Shane replied.
The two of them left the diner, and headed down the street. They passed several shops, restaurants, and businesses, all seeming completely ordinary. No ghosts, no aliens, no government conspiracies.
At least, not that they could see.
Eventually, they came across a large stone building. In large lettering above it's doors, it read, "NIGHT VALE PUBLIC LIBRARY". The aforementioned doors were shut, and no one seemed to be going in or out.
"Is it closed?" Shane asked, starting towards the Library. Ryan followed, also interested. On the door, there was no note. There was no sign, nothing to suggest that the Library was closed.
Ryan shrugged. "Let's find out."
They pushed open the doors, a busy of cold, musty, slightly damp air washing over them. With a glance at each other, they ventured inside.
The shelves were stocked with books. The checkout computers' screens were lit up. Long rows of lights illuminated the area.
And from the back, there was a low rumbling noise.
"What do you think that is?" Ryan whispered. He wasn't sure why he was whispering, but it felt right. It felt safe.
Shane didn't answer, and was instead picking up a copy of Helen Hunt's biography. "What...?"
Suddenly, the rumbling noise got louder. It turned into a growl, and rapidly grew louder. It took Ryan and Shane a moment to realize that the volume increase was due to a distance decrease.
Shane threw the book down, and they both ran for the doors.