Night Walk

Night Walk
Season	3
Episode	1
Air date	October 31, 2024
Writer	Kris Straub
Director	Kris Straub
Episode guide
Previous	CLOSE

Night Walk is the first uploaded entry in Local 58's third season. The episode begins by re-airing a 1977 program called Night Walk, which explores a phenomenon dubbed "The Woman in Profile", before abruptly cutting to amateur camcorder footage of someone encountering the creature.

Synopsis

Occurring after the Local 58 station had begun digitally broadcasting, a late night schedule is shown, teasing a 1977 program called Night Walk set to air at 10:00 P.M. plus 25 minutes of paid programming afterwards beginning at 10:50 before the station goes off the air for the night at 11:15. After the station's ID card glitches out momentarily, Night Walk begins playing. The only credits provided for the program are that it was produced by OHL Studio Pictures, Inc. and narrated by Jack Lloyd Shaw.

Shaw's narration introduces Mason County, West Virginia as a region that's been directly associated with ghost stories for a century or longer as early as its founding by missionaries and is home to what are widely considered the most haunted cities in America. The Woman in Profile is differentiated from most of the county's folklore, however, by its immediate growth in prominence after a local newspaper broke the story of the phenomenon in 1961 following a police blotter detailing its sighting earlier that year. Authorities in Lasker City investigated the woman as a person of interest who was present at the murder of student Hannah Birch at Maple Grove University in nearby Ichor Falls on June 13th of that year. The woman was described by witnesses as fixedly staring at the sky, never changing her gaze even as she moved away from others nearby and into the shadows before disappearing entirely.

Since that initial sighting, the silhouetted image of a six-foot woman with short hair seen only from her left side staring up at the sky at twilight has been spotted in various locations around Mason County over two dozen times, including on October 11, 1962; December 21, 1962 in Lasker City; March 7, 1963; and August 12, 1967 in Ichor Falls. Just as Shaw begins, "Witnesses say the figure has even tried to-," the program suddenly cuts out. Soon after, amateur camcorder footage taken at 7:31 P.M. on November 24, 1996 begins to air. It shows the Woman in Profile being encountered in a clearing of trees. After the cameraman attempts to grab her attention and ask if she's alright, a light momentarily shines on her, revealing her true nature as a multi-limbed, conjoined creature with glowing eyes. The camera's gaze then shows the cameraman attempting to run away before freeze-framing on a door that is unnaturally jutting out of the bushes. The still image of the illuminated creature reappears as overlapping text reads, "A predator cannot differentiate between prey and accomplice. Safety in numbers." before cutting out.

Trivia

• The fonts and formatting used in the Night Walk title card bears a strong resemblance to those used for title cards on episodes of the crime drama series, Columbo.
• Maple Grove University has appeared before in Kris Straub's short story, "Lemon Blossom Girl," part of his 2009 short horror anthology, Ichor Falls: A Visitor's Guide. In it, the unnamed narrator enrolls there on a whim and finds in the college's Harold Ferris Cultural Center a centuries-old, pregnant, South American mummy which has followed him around and given him nightmares since childhood.
  • The photograph used for the university in the episode is actually of the Southwestern College for the Deaf in Big Springs, Texas.
• The December 7, 1907 front page of The Courier-Post shown in the episode reveals that miners were trapped and bodies were being recovered in local mines that were burning at the time as the result of an explosion. Digital Transition showed that Mason County would have further mining disasters around the 1950s.
  • The clipping also reveals that The Courier-Post was established in 1861 and was based in Broodhollow, which is not only a reference to Kris Straub's webcomic of the same name and the titular city it takes place in, but is also a city that Local 58 has not listed as a part of Mason County on its station ID cards since the station began broadcasting in color, as demonstrated by A Look Back and Digital Transition.
• The Woman in Profile is reminiscent of the eldritch cryptid seen near the end of You Are On The Fastest Available Route.
• The camcorder footage freezing on the image of a door in a place where there shouldn't be a door is comparable to how the probe footage ended in CLOSE.
• The sentence "A predator cannot differentiate between prey and accomplice." was previously hidden in the secret QR code of the "Era of Home Recording" image found on the local58.tv website while the phrase "Safety in numbers" was previously seen in Station ID.
• The episode's credits roll over a visual of Local 58's analog-era logo fighting for prominence over its digital-era logo, similarly to the interjected messaging seen in Digital Transition.
• The videos CLOSE and NSSA-3 (atypical) had their visibility on YouTube changed from unlisted to public the same day Night Walk was uploaded.

Gallery

Film roll markings, as collaged together by Reddit user, Irgendsoeintyp09.