Free Husk by Corey Redekop Page B

pattern of the nails — my high school carpentry teacher would have freaked at the slipshod work on display — and congratulated myself on a job, well, done. The edges more or less met at the middle, and the skin appeared amenable to the metal pins perforating it. My nipples were stretched and lop-sided, but I could live with that. There were a few bubbles of air, but a quick banging with the stapler solved that problem. At least now I could wear a shirt and not have to worry about constant bandage readjustment and repair.
    So, physically returned to near normality.
    Next, the voice.
    The role likely had a fair amount of dialogue, unless the character was a deaf-mute — how great would that be? Either way, I’d have to make at least some noise during the process, if only to meet the casting agents. I would have to learn to speak.
    With the musculature so ravaged, getting any noise out at all would be a miracle. I focused inwardly on my lungs and diaphragm, picturing them working together, the bags opening and closing in a continual and unbroken rhythm. Inhale now. I forced the walls of the lungs to expand, and felt a thin stream of air pass my tongue and enter the throat. Now, exhale. I tightened the muscles, squeezing the sacs empty. Exhaling was definitely easier. I practiced this for a few minutes, just moving the air in and out, trying to make it appear natural. The breaths shuttled back and forth, up and down my throat, hissing forth into the air with a sound like a decaying pump organ — moldy, dank with disease, leprous.
    Emboldened, I tried to make a sound. I didn’t work on clear words, just tried to get some noise to exit my mouth.
    Anything.
    Any noise at all.
    Just a peep.
    You don’t know how difficult it is to talk unless you have to retrain your vocal cords to vibrate.
    Really.
    Fucking.
    Difficult.
    I moved my mouth into different positions, forcing the air out, trying to get even a whisper of sound beyond the sickly death-rattle I was so far very, very good at. I should have been sweating under the exertion, but my skin remained smooth and clammy. Finally, my lips puckered in an imperfect oval, I was rewarded with a quiet but audible “ ooh .” Not willing to stop and celebrate, I kept up the rhythm of air, devoting myself to my throat, feeling the muscles and tendons re-familiarize themselves with the patterns of speech. The oohs got progressively louder, to oohs to oohs , and eventually to a full-throated
OOOO-AAAAHHH
that filled the room and warbled off the walls.
    It wasn’t my voice exactly; there were tonal similarities, but the sounds were barely human and growled with feral terror. I kept it up, screaming at full volume now, not willing to relinquish my triumph. It was only one vowel sound, maybe an arguable two, but ees and ays could not be far behind, and then consonants. I stood up and marched around the table, keeping the beat with my footsteps as I modulated my mouth and throat to get new sounds.
    Step.
AAAAAYYYYY!
    Step.
EEEEEEEEEE!
    Step.
EYE-EYE-EYE-EYE-EYE!
    Break. I had limited time, and needed to modulate the voice to a more manageable, conversational tone. I curved my tongue against the roof of my mouth to get a hiss of air going, and contracted my lungs, forming my lips and tongue around my name:

    It was a gruesome utterance, a word of putrefaction, splatting heavily on the floor like clotted cream gone rancid.
    I tried again, smiling around the word this time, picturing kittens frolicking in a meadow with baby goats, dolphins performing back flips in a tranquil bay.

    The sound of orphans being strangled in their cribs soaked into the walls. The goats head-butted the kittens into red mush, and the dolphins lined up to be mercury-laden breakfast treats for Chinese children.
    One more time, quick and tight. Try to flatten it out, squeeze the horror out of it. Pop the lungs, don’t drag it out.

    Shelley.
    Sheldon.
    My voice was grated, raw,