Audiobook Narration Sample - Horror - The Thing That Will Kill You
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
French (General) North American (General) North American (South West - Texas) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
I grew up in a tiny town in Vermont, tiny in terms of population, not size. There were huge sprawling farms and wooded areas, but almost no people, more cows than people, which is standard for a lot of small towns in Vermont, so clearly not the most fun in the world. For a kid who was sick of freezing winters and awful balmy summer's surrounded by boring Vermonters that didn't have many kids my age, my only close friend was Tina, who was a year older than me. We spend almost all our time with each other, constantly dreaming about life outside of Vermont. The people in our town were strange folk, different, different than in other places. One thing I didn't realize about small towns until I moved to the city is how incredibly superstitious people in towns like mine could be. They believed in the strange, the paranormal they believed in lluvia. Lluvia was an older French Canadian woman who had moved to Vermont when she met her husband, and everyone in town thought she was a clairvoyant psychic. Even my own parents did. One day my mother lost her wedding ring. She had looked around everywhere for it. They called Lluvia, and she immediately told them it was under old rotting wood. They looked in the back yard where my father had been tearing apart a decaying piano he'd found My mother had helped him One day. The ring was there under old rotting wood. After hearing a lot about Lluvia from older townsfolk who seemed to think she was 100% credible, Tina and I decided to go see her one evening to try to find out whatever she could tell us about the future. I was skeptical, but it seemed like a fun thing to do as a joke. So we dropped by her house in the early evening, and she opened the door as we walked up the pathway to her house. Before we even had a chance to knock, Tina elbowed me hard in the ribs and whispered that Lluvia was clearly a psychic. She sends us coming to the door. I whispered back that it probably had more to do with her house being full of windows and the fact that she probably saw us coming from a long way away. Either way, I started to feel strange the minute we got close to her. She was very, very old, very tiny and kind of sunken. Sunken eye sockets and sharp cheekbones and, ah, sort of con cave chest cavity. It was more than a little unnerve ing, but she smiled and was sweet to us, and I started to warm up to her. Nothing about her or her house screamed creepy psychic to me, just a well dressed older woman in a cabin style house. It looked like you'd imagine any typical grandmother's home. Doyle ease knitting family magazines, etcetera. We told her that we were interested in a clairvoyant reading and handed her about $20 that we had scrounged together between the two of us. She led us to her kitchen table and asked which of us wanted to go first? What can you tell me about my love life? Tina asked. Lluvia had no crystal ball, tarot cards or tea leaves. She just closed her eyes and sat silently for about two minutes. Then she took a deep breath and said, Michael ****, 10. Tina stared at her for a few seconds until Lluvia repeated. Michael talked. Then the man you're going to marry, Michael got Then Tina thanked her and repeated the name to herself a few times. Michael Carson, Michael Carton, Michael Carson Lluvia then turned to me. Whatever you can tell me, I'd like to hear I said, It doesn't have to be about my love life for anything. Lluvia closed her eyes for a few seconds, but information about me seemed to reach her much quicker than her visions of Tina's husband. She looked straight into my eyes, grabbed my hands and said, The things for kill you is shedding its skin. The thing that will kill you is happening. It's teeth. The thing that peculiar is watching the blood off its cross to think it will kill you. It's gathering skins. The thing that will to you, you won't see coming. The three of us sat there in silence for quite a while. I felt sick. Shake it up, who via looked as if she wished. She didn't have to tell me that is, is there anything I can do to stop it? I asked. Lluvia slid our money back across the table to us. No charge for the reading. Dana and I slunk out of Livia's house quietly. We didn't say a word on the way back to our houses. Tina just found out the name of the love of her life. I got to listen to ah, horrifying, cryptic message about my death. I was 12 years old. I was ******* terrified when Tina left me on my door step, she tried to make light of the readings. How does she know who I'm going to marry? She asked. And it's not like some monster is going to get you some skin shedding bloody sharp. It's not like some monster is going to get you. It's not like some monster isn't going to get you. For years I looked for it, the thing that will kill me. I could almost feel it, sensed it just behind each car, swaying behind the trees at night, underneath the fresh snow, waiting outside my window with every step, I hesitated. Every time I tried to sleep, I could almost see it. What had she said about its teeth? I looked out for sloth, skin, for blood, for skins, for heights. I never found it. When I was 18 I left for college in California to get far away from the snow and the cold and the thing that will kill me. I stopped sensing it everywhere. My heart stopped pounding whenever I walked alone at night. Maybe whatever it was, it stayed in Vermont. Maybe it wasn't a thing at all. People in California laughed when I told them the story and it stopped seeming real. Just the ramblings of a tiny action French Canadian woman. It wasn't really When I was 27 a wedding invitation came in the mail. Tina was getting married. This was the first I had heard of it. I was still in California and barely kept in contact with anyone from back East. It seemed like a past life. You are cordially invited to the wedding of Michael Carton and Tina. Wait. No, she has Clearly she had the name in her mind Michael Carton, and she sought him out. It had nothing to do with Lluvia. Her predictions weren't really they couldn't be. Clairvoyance don't exist. It's ridiculous to think that kind of thing happens in the real world. I went to the wedding, Tina. Michael and I laughed about the whole thing. The psychic knew she predicted it. Of course she didn't. Tina and Michael decided it was nothing more than a funny story to tell their future Children. Just tell us if you run into some beast with razor sharp teeth that's gathering skins, okay? And we'll think it's more than just a funny coincidence. I left the wedding as sure as I ever was that the thing that will kill me wasn't Riel didn't exist. I looked behind the trees behind the cars. Nothing was waiting for me. Nothing was ready to skin me. I didn't know why I had been scared so long. The best thing about Tina's wedding was that we got back in touch for the first time in a very long time. We were very different people than we had been his Children, but we still shared more of a bond than we realized. She was happy living in Vermont with Michael. She told me everything that was going on in our town, the population slowly increasing the new schools they were building, the babies that were born lluvia dying. As the years went on, her calls and emails got less and less frequent. She always seemed to be busy. Soon they tapered off completely. I missed her of course, but I had my own life and I could check in on my childhood home whenever I want it. One winter, I came into town to visit my parents for the holidays and decided I'd swing by Tina's house. I normally never just drop by, but she was pretty bad about answering her phone. And I really wanted to see her. I pulled up to her in Michael's house. Two cars were in the driveway, so I figured they were both home. I walked up and rang the doorbell. Michael opened it, dressed in several layers and a large coat, as if he had just come in from the snow. He invited me inside. He looked very surprised to see me and asked if I had talked to Tina recently. I haven't actually not in several months. Sorry for the invasion. I I don't usually just Trump. I like this, but I was wondering if I could see her. Uh, I figured you'd know that you have hurt. She left me a few months ago. Just open left. Hasn't spoke to me since. Oh, God, I said I'm so sorry. I had no idea he took off his coat and hung it on a coat rack by the door. Gonna take your coat, he asked. I told them it was all right That I wouldn't be staying long. I was just so shocked she do something like that. He was a really good guy. Um, sorry. I was about to get ready for bed. I've got an early work day tomorrow. Do you mind? He kicked off his shoes, pulled his sweater off and headed toward his bathroom. I settled in, looked around their home. Of course, I don't want, uh Do you know where she went? I don't. He yelled from the bathroom, mouth full of toothpaste. She called till after she was gone. That's hopeful. I'm sorry. He started flossing, and when he saw me looking toward him, closed the door for privacy. When I heard the shower water start running, I pulled out my phone, figured I'd take this time to look through Tina's last messages to me to see if she gave any hint toe where she went. Any clue? My phone fell out of my hand as I grabbed it out of my bag and I saw a drop beneath the couch as I felt around under the couch for my phone. My hand hit something else. A massive clump of long hair. I pulled it out from beneath the couch. It seemed so strange. Such a large mass of hair, brown hair, Tina's shade hair with a piece of scalp still attached, the thing that will kill us. Gathering skins, I turned toward the bathroom door. Michael was still showering. The thing that will kill you is washing the blood off its claws. Flossing, brushing. The thing that will kill you is sharpening its teeth, sloughing off his outer clothes, his shoes. The thing that will kill you is shedding its skin. Oh God, the thing that will kill May I heard the water in the shower Stop movements from inside the bathroom. I ran out the door, slammed the door, sprinted to my car, shaking, watching the door. My hands fumbled with the keys, shaking, shaking the door to the house opened. My car started. I drove. I didn't look back. I drove Ah hole through the night through most of the next day, Onley stopping when I absolutely had to. I had no idea if he was following me. I had no idea what I had just seen. My heart didn't start beating normally again until I was two states away. I went home. This was months ago. I called the police. They investigated. Nothing turned up there. Sure, she just left him. Moved away. Maybe she did. Maybe she's far away safe. Maybe nothing's coming for me. Maybe Michael's just a poor guy whose wife left him. Hey, it's nothing behind the trees and the snow drifts underneath the cars outside my door at night and the windows? Maybe it's nothing properly. It's nothing. Movie has been wrong before, hasn't she? The thing that will kill you, you won't see coming.