Boxvan
Project Overview
One narrator will perform the complete story, including all narration and dialogue.
"Boxvan" by Thomas Parent, one of the winners of the Cosmographia Campfire Stories 2026 contest, is a supernatural horror story told by an adult woman looking back on a terrifying encounter she survived as a nine-year-old girl in the summer of 1985. After several children in her neighborhood disappear under grotesque and inexplicable circumstances, a mysterious white box van begins circling her street. When it finally stops for her, it offers exactly what she most wants to see—including the image of her murdered best friend. Pasted markdown Pasted markdown.
We’re looking for a strong, natural storyteller who can balance retrospective narration of a grown woman who credible and calm at times and at others is at times slightly unhinged. The performance should begin almost matter-of-factly, as someone recounting an old trauma she has told herself many times, then build gradually into unease, fascination, trance, and outright terror.
The narrator will also voice Jean-Marie’s dead friend Lilian and Jean-Marie’s brother, so some subtle character differentiation is needed. This should not become a theatrical “monster story”: the most frightening moments will work best if the impossible details are delivered with emotional realism and increasing disbelief.
word count: 3465
Timeline
Audition deadline: October 10, 2026
Casting decisions: October 11, 2026
Table read: a couple days after casting
Recording deadline: October 21, 2026
🎧 File Requirements
Format: MP3 for auditions; WAV required for final recording
Sample rate: 44.1 kHz or higher
Final files (when ready for production) should be clean, broadcast-ready voice tracks: no background noise, no music/effects, minimal breaths, consistent levels.
Voice Actor
NARRATOR WILL PERFORM ALL VOICES
Adult female voice. This is the primary voice of the story.
Jean-Marie is recounting something that happened to her when she was nine, many years later. Her adult narration should feel direct, intelligent, conversational, and somewhat hardened by having lived with the memory for so long. She believes what happened to her, even while acknowledging that others may have interpreted it as trauma or psychosis. Pasted markdown
During the 1985 scenes, the performance should recover some of the immediacy of her nine-year-old perspective—jealousy over Lilian’s bike, excitement over lemonade money, childish temptations, and absolute dependence on her brother—without switching into an exaggerated “little girl” voice. The adult and child perspectives should coexist. Pasted markdown Pasted markdown
As the van draws her closer, her delivery should gradually become more entranced and sensory, as though her judgment is being overridden. Once her brother pulls her away, that fascination breaks into genuine terror. Pasted markdown
Lilian / The Imitation
Nine-year-old girl.
Importantly, what Jean-Marie encounters in the van is not actually Lilian. It is something using Lilian’s appearance and voice as bait.
At first, the voice should be recognizable as a friendly little girl—familiar enough that Jean-Marie desperately wants to believe her friend is alive. But something should feel subtly wrong. The story describes her speech as resembling a scratched record or an answering machine, with the sound seeming to originate deeper inside the van rather than naturally from her body.
The actor should resist a conventional demonic voice. Slightly unnatural rhythm, emotional flatness, or mechanical repetition will probably be much creepier; any heavier supernatural distortion can be handled in production.
Young male voice; his exact age is not specified.
He is Jean-Marie’s brother and ultimately the person who saves her. His defining moment is pure panic: he sees Jean-Marie being pulled toward the van, screams her full name, and physically yanks her away. Pasted markdown
Only light vocal differentiation is needed. What matters is the sudden force and urgency of his intervention—it should break through the strange, seductive atmosphere of the van like a shock.
- american
- female adult
(Confessional / ominous:) “I was nine years old when I met the Devil."
(for "can you come in:" Uncanny little girl's voice, like a fake of a voice, "like it came out over an answering machine or something." adult horrified narrator for the rest of the sentence:) “‘Can you come in?’ she asked, only this time her mouth hung open and there was no movement of her jaw.”
(Conspiratorial but weirdly sinister.) "By now I’m sure you’re wondering why we’re sitting in these lawn chairs out on the grass at midnight. You’re real brave for coming out here tonight."
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