Mouthpiece

Description

He brings a dummy to every killing — carved to look like you, painted to match you, speaking in your own voice as it happens. Afterward, the dummy stays, mouth sewn shut.

In the gutted theater district of Verhoven, where one shabby vaudeville house still flickers on weekends, the dead are found seated beside wooden twins of themselves. Witnesses near the scenes report hearing the victim talking — calm, conversational — at a time the victim could not possibly have spoken.

Stagehand-turned-night-watchman Cyrus Bell knew the old performer everyone blames, the one who could throw a voice across a full house. That man is supposed to be long retired. So Cyrus can’t explain why a half-finished dummy with his own jaw line just turned up in the prop loft, lips not yet stitched.

A genuinely skin-crawling slasher about authorship of your own voice, this leans on creaking wood, mismatched sound, and the wrongness of hearing yourself say things you never said. Walton makes the silence after each line land hardest. The dummy’s mouth is closed. Yours isn’t, yet.

Take a seat. The next voice you hear will be your own.