WILL MUSGROVE
The Scream Artist
If you’ve seen a horror movie, then you’ve heard me scream. I’m not the star, not the person getting stabbed or shot or stalked. My scream is. I don’t even film my lines (if you want to call them that) on set. My contribution to the cinema-going experience is recorded in a home sound studio a thousand miles away from Hollywood. Why not have the actors do their own screams? Well, honestly, a lot of actors possess unrealistic screams. They can make us believe in the tragic, the comic, but when it comes to fear, they just open their mouths, and my voice comes hurtling out like bottled lightning.
What makes my screams so convincing, so organic? I don’t know. Like everybody, I’ve been terrified on and off-screen, have had my share of frightful situations, but I don’t even tap into these experiences when screaming. What I do is whenever I see someone scared in real life, I’m able to copy it, like I have a photographic memory but only for piercing, guttural sounds of terror.
I’ve been doing this gig for a decade now without incident, but a couple of weeks ago I stopped a gas station robbery. I walked up to the gunman, and he dug his pistol into my chest. Did I cower? Did I raise my hands and get on the ground? Nope. I grabbed the barrel of the gun and jerked it out of his hand. You might think I’m a hero, and maybe I am, but what concerns me is during this whole event I didn’t feel an ounce of fear.
The day after the thwarted robbery, I went bungee jumping. Again, not a single iota of alarm. Then I went skydiving, and swam with the sharks, and tightrope walked across a canyon. Still nothing. I’ve lost something, the something in the back of your head that says: “run, get out of here, you’re in trouble, danger.” Maybe I’ve emulated fear so much I’ve become numb to it, desensitized to it without even realizing.
Yesterday, I recorded a few screams for an upcoming thriller. The noise exited my mouth, scorched my diaphragm and vocal cords, but it was no longer me. Has it ever been me? Afterward, I got so upset I hopped into my sedan and sped down Highway 71 at triple digits. At an intersection, I turned a little too hard, and my car soared off the road and into the side of a fast-food joint. No one was hurt except for maybe a few ruined lunches. I crawled through the shattered windshield, ordered a milkshake, and hitchhiked home, whistling and not worrying about a damn thing.
Knock, knock, knock.
The cops are banging on my door. They want to talk about the accident. One of them is yelling at me to come out. Even worse, I’m halfway out the bathroom window, not because I’m afraid of going to jail but because I can tell they’re afraid of me.
Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in trampset, Oyez Review, Rejection Letters, Tiny Molecules, Ghost Parachute, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove.