Audiobook Narration
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Vocal Characteristics
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
One, the tall thing and he knows what his parents are fighting about, even if it's bills or dad's boozing, his mom calls it or what's for dinner. It doesn't matter. The fighting is always about Danny even when it's not. And he knows this because they didn't fight before Danny who was taken away. And he knows this because his parents don't look at each other for more than a few seconds anymore. And because at night mom spoons him for 20 minutes before going upstairs to bed. Ever since Danny was taken, his parents feel like walking glass statues to him. And he's always wondering which one is going to break first. He's sitting on the floor of his bedroom reading a book called The Divine Comedy. And he doesn't understand it. He thought because it had comedy in the title that the book would be funny and maybe it could distract him if only for a little bit. But it turns out the story isn't funny at all. The drawings that accompany the story do fascinate him, but he's having trouble looking at them, let alone reading the confusing story. The sound of his mom and dad trying not to shout is making his stomach feel like a tight drum being wound tighter. And every once in a while, mom or dad lose control and a word or two quivers sharply in the air for a moment. Only to sink back down into the muted angry whispers. Cops in his own name are some of the words that ping like radio signals. A week ago, mom went to Danny's room after she woke up and found his crib empty. They called the police and the police came and looked all over the house as Eddie sat at the top of the stairs watching the officers scratch their hair and shake their heads. Dad walked from room to room but didn't say anything. Mom kept crying and saying she wanted to talk to the chief of police. Everyone in the state looked for Danny. Mom and dad say they're still looking for him, but the phone doesn't ring as much as it did. At the beginning, Eddie wishes it weren't autumn break watching mom float around the house like a smiling ghost is too hard. And when his father comes home at night, his face looks like a skeleton and he drinks more than he used to. Eddie would rather have his teachers asking him if he was ok than deal with the walking shows his parents have left behind. And when he's alone, he misses Danny. He sits below his bedroom window and lets the sunlight heat his back. It feels good but it doesn't release the knot in his stomach. He turns the page to two men riding on the back of a dragon with a man's face in the background. Scary pointed rocks jut toward a gray sky. The image makes Eddie think of winter but he isn't sure why the thought of winter stirs a dormant memory. And Eddie lets his brain take him there. He remembers carrying Danny through their backyard the winter after he was born, kicking thick snow as his brother looked around at the blinding white in total awe. His parents watched them from the porch. His father laughing about something mom said as she took picture after picture with her phone, Eddie thinks those pictures are probably still somewhere on his mom's laptop. He remembers how small Danny felt beneath the layers and layers of insulation from the cold, how he could sense the fragility of his brother. He remembers feeling a fierce sense of pride at the brief moment. He was allowed to be the guardian of something as delicate as Danny and understanding love in a way he hadn't before. He turns the page to distract himself. A lull in his parents' conversation makes Eddie lift his head. There's something on about it, but he can't place it immediately. Why does this room sound strange? He listens his head cocked, frowning and then realizes what it is. The birds outside his window have stopped chirping. Eddie thinks about why that might be just as the comforting heat on his back is cut off. A shadow spills on the floor in front of him. He turns for a moment that he can't see what's blocking the light. It looks like a tall man with a small head standing just behind the glass. The man is large enough that he blocks almost the entire window and as his eyes adjust, he can see that it's not a man at all. It has hair on some parts of its body, but a lot of it is covered in loose drooping pink skin. Some of it is sky. It has a face that looks like a sick dog and eyes like Eddie's uncle Evan who mom and dad say went to jail for hurting kids. He stands up almost tripping over the open book and wants to start screaming but his mouth stays shut and he's not sure why. That is. The tall thing doesn't move. Its blue eyes are watery blood shot and the air around its body ripples like the skin is boiling hot and he can see the big tree behind the creature distorted, wobbling, beckoning to him for a moment. Eddie thinks he knows something about what he's seen, but it slips away to the back of his mind as fresh waves of terror slosh against his brain. He can hear his parents talking. Their voice is calmer now but still undercut with a note of anxiety Eddie wants to call out to them to alert them that their first born is in peril. But Eddie can't say a word. And the tall thing crinkles its mouth. A putrid smile even through the glass that he can smell its breath. A smell like hot spoiled meat, mixed with a lower scent that makes him think of the basement. Steam rises from either side of its mouth. The steam fogs the glass of the window. It raises its arm and it has hands like a man only with longer fingers and nails that look like the claws of a wolf yellowed and canine. It taps on the glass in a frantic little rhythm. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Hello, Eddie. The tall thing whispers. Its voice is gravel and snapping twigs. It's panting and he watches as a thin strand of saliva drips from the corner of its mouth and disappears below the window frame. I have your brother Eddie. I have. Danny Eddie feels something catch in his chest and his racing heart doubles its pace. The tall thing stares at Eddie unblinking and continues to tap. Don't you want to see your brother Eddie? Without meaning to? He nods. The tall thing breathes in sharply, then splays an open palm against the window and brings its face to the glass, fogging it with its breath, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, then let me in. Eddie. It sends as a gray tongue emerges from behind its lips and looks away. Spittle. Its face reminds Eddie of a raccoon he once found in the woods, the creature had been stuck in a bear trap and that he saw that it had almost chewed through its own leg. When it saw Eddie, it screeched at him and started scratching at the dirt making frenzy. Little grunting sounds. Its paws had begun to bleed as it tried to claw itself toward Eddie, open the window and I'll bring you to your brother. The visitor says he tries to stop looking at the brilliant blue eyes of the thing in his window, but he is locked in place. He thinks of the monster he learned about in school with the snakes for hair, medusa. Let me in. It says its smile is gone. Now its lips are pulled back and its face is so close to the window that Eddie can hear the soft click of its teeth against the glass as it breathes in and out. Let me in or I'll eat your brother and use his bones to smash this window open and then I'll eat you as it says this, a fresh stream of saliva issues from its mouth and drips down the fog glass making racing trails of spit in the steam. Eddie hears the clicking of his mother's heels as they come down the hall and the horrible blue eyes shift, glancing over the top of Eddie's head, he feels something in his forehead. Go loose like a wire suddenly snapping inside him. He whips his head to look around at his door just as his mother opens it. She's clearly just put on makeup but Eddie can see the red rims of her eyes under the mascara. Eddie looks back to the window but the tall thing is gone, the fog left by its breath fades until no sign of the creature remains. And he turns back to his mother who looks concerned, Jesus Eddie. Are you all right? You look like you're going to be sick. She walks to him and puts the back of her hand to his forehead when she touches him. Eddie begins shaking and his mother pulls back in surprise, then swoops down and unfolds him into her arms. Eddie can't stop shaking and his legs give out and the two of them crumple together to their knees. He feels the hitch in his mother's chest as she cries. Eddie wants to cry too. Instead he throws up down the back of his mother's dress. Dr Aliff is the last doctor in town who will make house calls and he thinks it's probably because he isn't very good at being a doctor and the only way to distinguish himself is to offer a service, no one else does, but he's his mother's only option. Eddie refuses to leave the house after what he saw in the window for fear of being carried away like his brother. When his mother asks him why he won't leave the house. He lies and says he feels too sick to get out of bed. He knows don't. And he knows that telling them he saw a monster in the window would be dismissed and that he would be told to stop making things up and be forced out of the house. And since he's on break and not missing any school, his mother doesn't force the issue but lets him stay in bed. Besides his mother has other things to focus on. His father is rarely around. He goes to work early in the morning and doesn't return until well after Eddie's bedtime and when he is around, he's quiet and smells like a hospital corridor. Dr Ali sits on the edge of Eddie's bed and listens to his heart through a stethoscope while Eddie's mother hovers in the doorway trying to smile and he twitches every time the doctor moves the cold metal to different parts of his chest. And every time Doctor Ali mumbles hold still after a time, he removes the stethoscope and pulls a thin box out of his bag, he opens it and takes out a thermometer. How old are you now? Eddie eight nine. Eddie says, looking to his mother who is staring at a corner of the carpet nibbling on her thumbnail. My goodness, you're getting older every day. The doctor smiles at his stupid joke and brings the thermometer to Eddie's mouth. I remember being nine, broke my arm after falling into a rock quarry. My mother said I was lucky to survive that. I only broke my arm. Never went back there. Even after a flood filled the place with water, kids would throw rocks and ride boats in it, never swim though. All the adults said the water was poison because of the mining, the thermometer beeps and Doctor Ali pulls it out to check it. He scribbles something down on a clipboard with Eddie's name at the top. Then puts the board back into his bag and rests his hands on his lap. Smiling at Eddie. Eddie tries to smile back but feels nervous. He glances at his window, the curtains are drawn and he wonders if anything is standing on the other side of the glass. How are you feeling, Ed? He asks, Eddie hates being called Ed. His mother knows this and he sees her shift out of the corner of his eye ready to swoop in if Eddie gets petulant, but he has no desire to argue with the strange man in his bedroom sick. He says, unsure what else to say. Say cow. The doctor asks all smiles and patience in your tummy, in your head, in your chest, all of it. I guess he replies, this isn't entirely false. Ever since Danny was taken, he's felt some combination of all three and every time he thinks of Danny with the thing outside his window, fresh waves of sickness wash over him and he has to will himself not to vomit. My stomach hurts and my head hurts. If I, if I think too hard Dr Hamlet nods and, and he sees understanding in his eyes. If you think about Danny, he asks the kindness in his voice surprises Eddie and he suddenly finds himself on the verge of tears. He looks down at the book on his lap. It's open to an image of a naked man with the head of a bull writhing on rocks. As two men watch below the image blurs as his eyes water and a tear plops audibly onto the paper. He feels Dr Ale pat his knee in stand up. He hears the doctor's bag snapshot and the sound of his feet on the carpet as he approaches the door. This isn't uncommon. He hears the doctor say to his mother. He attempts to keep his voice quiet. But Eddie still hears often when a child loses a sibling, the grief can manifest itself physically. A sort of grief sickness. It can happen to anyone but kids as young as Eddie are more susceptible. I'd say keep him occupied. Don't let the uh the absence of Danny invade his life too severely. Otherwise he'll remain in the state. He's in, he pauses, he'll get better. Once once there's a more definitive answer right now, things are likely very amorphous and frightening for him. He closes the book and rolls onto his side, his back to the adults. He doesn't want them to see his tears. He hears the shifting of fabric as his mother straightens her cardigan and likely crosses her arms. Her classic, excuse me stance. I'm sorry. Doctor. How am I supposed to keep the fact that his brother is missing from him? Oh, I'm not saying to keep it from him. The doctor says calm. I'm saying, don't make it the center of his life. If it's all he thinks about, he's going to remain sick. And I imagine the last thing you need right now is for your child to be vomiting at all hours. His mother doesn't respond to this and Eddie feels the bubbling desire to tell her about the tall thing. He doesn't want his mother to pretend everything is fine. The thought of her walking around the house smiling and laughing is somehow so much worse than her quiet, ghostly presence floating from room to room. But he says nothing. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries to force himself to sleep. The doctor and his mother exchange pleasantries and he hears doctor MLA leave the room after a time the door clicks shut and his mother's heels clip flop on the hard wood. He tries not to think of Danny as the sky darkens. Eddie swirls in and out of consciousness. Half concocted images and stories ebb and flow across his mind. Some are pleasant or neutral in their banality. But most are frightening. He sees his brother in a dark damp hole screaming as the sound of heavy breathing swells an image of Dr Amla standing outside his window, his face pressed against the glass, fogging it with his breath. He sees the tall thing holding his brother in one hand crouching in the dugout hollow of a tree. As he watches the thing opens its mouth with a loud click and its bottom jaw drops to its patchy pink chest just as he brings the screeching baby to its open. Maw Eddie's eyes shoot open and he barely suppresses a scream for a few moments. All he can hear is the throbbing of his panicked heart. And all he can see is the darkness of his room. Something brought him from the depths of sleep. It ticks around the corners of his subconscious. And as the image of his brother about to be eaten dissipates, he hears it. The incessant tapping, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap the sound of nail against glass. He focuses his eyes on the window which is covered by cream colored curtains that look ghostly in the darkness. It's loud. It's not a quiet tap, not a gentle reminder at his window. It's the sound of something demanding to be seen. He doesn't move for a long time. Instead he sits up in bed, the blanket pulled up and tucked around his neck so that he resembles a blanketed Christmas tree. The tapping continues unabated and that he does his best to breathe deeply to not let the screams out. He can feel them in his stomach like mice in a burlap sack tumbling over each other, desperate to leap out. But he knows somehow that a scream will be the end of it. He knows without pulling back the curtain that he is receiving a warning then barely ought to boom beneath the horrible tapping Eddie. It says its voice thin and excited. Let me see you, Eddie all at once. Eddie feels that wire in his forehead go taunt a little whimper escapes his mouth as he drops the blanket and starts crawling toward his window. His next strain trying to pull himself backward back to the pillow and the blanket back to safety, but his body crawls nothing more than human shaped meat. Eddie with hopeless revulsion understands this horrible truth for the first time in his young life moving obediently beyond his control. His mind tumbling over itself in confusion and terror. He cannot comprehend why his hand is reaching for the curtain and pulling it away. But it is. And he does in the blue moonlight, the tall thing stands, it breathes in a ragged rhythm. Its pink chest, shining raw skin gooey and exposed to the night inflating and deflating like something mechanical. Its face is pressed against the window clouding it and its eyes are locked on Eddie as if it had been tracking his position. All along even through the curtains, Eddie recoils and nearly falls off the bed, but catches himself and instinctively pulls his blanket around his shoulders as he shimmies back to his pillow. The whole thing watches him. Both of its hands pressed hungrily against the window. It's breathing somehow intensifying. Open up, ready its sense all breath and saliva. It licks its lower lips and presses itself harder against the window. He can hear the glass creaking in the frame. Your brother misses you. He talks about you, Eddie. He says, where's Eddie? Where's my brother? The thing grins as if making an irrefutable point. Its gray tongue like a piece of spoiled meat emerges to lick the window frame as if trying to taste Eddie through the glass. Eddie inhales gathering as much of himself as possible while his mind stutters like a cog tangled in rope. Danny's only one. He says his voice barely audible even to himself. He can't talk yet. Then after a moment's consideration, Eddie forces the muscles in his face to shift so that he's staring into the electric blue eyes of the monster. He can already see the range liar. He whispers seconds pass and the thing doesn't move. It merely breathes its horrible front teeth, clicking against the glass as it inhales and exhales. Eddie thinks of the raccoon he left for dead in the woods. He wonders if the skeleton is still where he left it to die, then the thing's lower jaw drops. Eddie knows what's going to happen a moment before it does and he snatches up his pillow and pulls it over his head, pressing his hands over his ears, but that's not enough to shut out the horrible screech that emits from the tall thing. A sound like metal dragged against slate. The things scream said Eddie. Its eyes bulging in lunatic fury. The sound feels like it's ripping Eddie's room in two. Like Eddie himself is being torn down the middle. The air around the thing's mouth vibrates then turns black as if the sound is darkness leaching from deep inside its stinking gullet. It fills everything, turning every shadow into a bottomless pit. His normal familiar things, his bureau, his bookcase, the picture of his family still intact, winking out like fireflies yanked into a toad's mouth. The room shrinks closing the gap between Eddie and the thing at his window. He feels himself slipping, slipping away as the tall thing presses its whole body against the glass and even over the sound of the thing's rage, he can hear the glass about to give and then the darkness swallows him. Eddie thinks he might be dead. He remembers the tall thing at the window. It's terrible screeching. He's relieved that he doesn't remember being eaten though. He wonders if he'll get to see Danny now that he's dead. He's pretty sure the tall thing lied to him about his brother still being alive. The thought makes his chest hurt, which strikes him as odd because of course, dead people don't have pains in their chest. Then he hears bird singing as he swims from the bottom of his consciousness. Red, orange sunlight bleeds through his islands. He can feel its warmth. He cracks one eyelid, then the other, his room is flooded with morning light. It looks the same. His windows are shut tight intact and the curtain closest to him is pulled back so that he can see the massive maple growing out back, ripples of wind pulling at its branches. He's tangled in his sheets and quilts, the blankets wrapped around him like a toga. His pillow is damp with sweat and he twists his head around so that he can see the alarm clock by his bed. It's 8 38 it's a Saturday so his parents will be home. His father is probably sleeping and his mom is likely out running errands. He tugs the blankets off him rolling over to unspool the slightly damp sheets from his body had his confrontation with the tall thing been a dream. After all that screeching was loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood yet at no point. Does he recall his parents coming to check on him? Let alone the police coming to investigate. The strange sound emanating from the home of a missing child. But the tall thing must have done strange things to him. He remembers the feeling of losing control of being compelled to pull back the curtain despite his rational mind trying to desperately yank him away. Maybe only Eddie can hear the tall thing. Maybe the tall thing can decide who hears it. He glances at the window, it doesn't look any different. There are no cracks in the glass, no smudges that he can see, but just looking at the window gives him a sense of queasy anticipation. As if at any moment, the thing's head will slowly rise into view. Blue eyes locked on Eddie. This thought propels Eddie out of bed and he does a skittish little half jog out his bedroom door and into the hallway, forcing himself not to take one last peek back at his window. As he walks into the kitchen, he tilts his ear listening for any sound of his parents. But the house is silent. Sunlight glistens off the soapy dishes left in the sink from last night's meal. A fly buzzes from a pot crusted with tomato sauce to a plate with a petrified noodle stuck to its surface suddenly hungry. And he goes to the cabinet in search of cereal. He finds it mostly bare, saved for a few spices and an old box of rice pilaf. The fridge yields similar results. His empty kitchen drops a hot rock of pain into his stomach that has nothing to do with hunger, not knowing what else to do. Eddie climbs onto the stool in front of the marble counter and lowers his head. The tears come quickly hot and merciful. They release the knot in his stomach and he cries softly in the empty kitchen with only the buzzing of the fly to keep him company. It's in this moment that Eddie understands for the first time, how lonely it is to be alive. After a time, he stops crying, his eyes hurt and he shifts his head so that he's resting his cheek against his arm. He watches the fly buzz from pot to plate to the window above the sink and back to the pot. The buzzing is welcome. Cutting the silence in the kitchen into manageable chunks that he can take one at a time. He hears a thump upstairs and he lifts his hand and listens. There's the familiar sound of his father's heavy footsteps as the floorboards creek beneath his weight. He expects the sound to travel across the floor to the bathroom. But instead the sound comes toward him and stops right above his head for a moment. Eddie is puzzled. He knows the layout of his parents' bedroom and knows there's nothing in that corner. Then he hears the muffled sound of his father's voice and realizes he's made a call from the upstairs telephone. His voice is urgent but controlled and the sound of it surprises him over the past week. He's barely talked at all except to fight with mom or exchange brief greetings with Eddie. This was the voice of his father. He recognized from a little over a year prior when Danny was on the way and his parents kept getting calls from a land developer trying to buy their house. His father had explained to Eddie that a real estate company wanted to buy up all their land and their neighbor's land so they could build condominiums, which would have meant cutting down all the trees and leveling all the houses. His father had led the fight against the deal, organizing all the neighbors and convincing them not to sell to the company. He had spent most of his evenings on the phone with lawyers, neighbors and people from the real estate company. His voice was always confident and firm. Eddie and his mother would sit at the counter precisely where Eddie is sitting now and pretend not to listen to his father's quiet, commanding voice flowing down the stairs whenever his father would raise his voice to talk over whoever was on the other line. Eddie would watch his mother's face as she smiled, a fierce tight little smile, her eyes would glow like moonlight. And in those moments, Eddie loved his family so much that it made him shake. This is what his father sounds like. Now, Eddie slips off the chair and goes to the bottom of the stairs. His father's voice has stopped, say for an occasional uh-huh or no, not yet. Eddy studies the stairs which are carpeted in ugly orange Shag. He knows these stairs very well knows which ones squeak and wear. He lifts his foot and soundlessly begins climbing. His father has resumed speaking and Eddie listens as he ascends. I don't know, it's entirely possible, but I haven't seen much of him. He spends most of his time in his room. Yes. Yes. But the doctor seems to think it's just a byproduct of, of the circumstances we're in. No, I haven't look, if that's the case then it's a lot more serious than ok. Yes. Ok. But this isn't like last time. Yes. But I haven't seen anything. Yes, you do too. Right. Like every night, at least since Danny, well, maybe you need to talk to him. Mom. After what happened, Eddie has reached the third step from the top and comes to a halt. His father is talking to his grandma Sandy. Eddie hasn't seen her since the first day. Danny went missing when she had come to help Luke and make food for the search party. They had seen a lot of grandma Sandy after Danny was born, she was always coming by with odd concoctions she'd made for Danny, homemade baby food that he seemed to love, but she hasn't returned since those first couple of days and Eddie hasn't even thought of her since then. He climbs the last two steps, puts his back to the wall next to the doorway and listens. Ok. Can you come this afternoon? I think he's sleeping now, should I? Ok. Ok. But mom, what if? Yeah, now I think she's on a run. No, I know you're right. As usual, Eddie chances a glance around the corner and sees his father sitting on the bed, the phone pressed hard against his ear. His face is covered in stubble but his eyes are clear and he's dressed in a button down shirt and khakis, a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels sits between his feet. As Eddie peers around the corner, his father lifts his head and makes direct eye contact with Eddie whose stomach does an instinctual lurch at being caught eavesdropping. But instead of a swift reprimand, his father smiles as if he's the one who's been caught, he gestures for Eddie to come into the room which Eddie does. Confused and desperately curious. Mom. I have to go. Someone just walked in the room. Yes. Yes, it is. I will see you in a few hours. Love you too. Bye. Now. His father pushes the disconnect button on the receiver and lets the phone dangle in his hand. He looks up at Eddie, his face no longer smiling. He pats the spot next to him on the bed. Come sit down, Eddie. We have a lot to talk about.