Necromance in the Air - Chapter V - (Fiction)
Pretty Handy...
Lucy stands at the door to the office, ready to put her cover story to work as she infiltrates Felix’s workplace. Meanwhile, Felix makes his way back to his office…and the magic goop begins to take effect…
Catch up here-
The strange singing continued, and she found herself glued to the door, trying to understand what was happening. It was a tune she recognised, but it was punctuated by the abrupt shouting of ‘Marco’, then ‘Polo’. Until it ended with some murmured voices and the slamming of a door.
A voice, clearer than before, muttered to itself, “Oh god, oh god, oh god.” Which seemed a dramatic reaction to some kind of team building exercise. Lucy had worked in places that had enforced ‘fun’ before, so she understood the reaction, but still… Then she remembered working at a department store where they began every shift by standing in a circle and signing the company song. Bile rose in her throat, and she felt her shoulders tighten. It was the stuff of nightmares. Team-building exercises, they might be worse than whatever dark forces were at work here.
Light spilled beneath the door as power returned. She realised she had waited long enough. Any longer and whatever drama had unfolded wouldn’t help shroud her weak ‘confused temp’ story.
She pushed open the door. The office was cramped, with large windows flanking both sides, overlooking a sea of dimly lit call center cubicles. Only the faint glow of screens and the ghostly silhouettes of workers were visible beyond the glass.
“Are you from HR?” a man asked as she walked in.
He was wearing a shirt and tie, over which he had on a smock or robe. Around his neck dangled a gaudy piece of cheap-looking jewellery. He had a surgical glove on one hand, and the remains of one on the other. He gripped the wrist of his uncovered hand and was staring at it as he was speaking.
“Uh, no? I’m Felicity Snark—” the unfamiliar name caught in her throat, “—the new temp?”
“Temp?”
“Yeah, I was told to come for an evening shift for my induction.”
“Induction?”
“Yes. You should’ve been expecting me.”
“Expecting you?”
She paused and stared at him. “Are you okay? You’re just repeating what I’m saying.”
“Repeat — You’re saying you’re here to work on the phones?”
“Exactly.”
The man looked up at her, his face a mixture of panic, annoyance, and confusion. But he was preoccupied by his hand that was clenching into a fist, then releasing again. It was as if he was preparing for a blood pressure test. Then his arm shot out and his fingers wrapped around a pen off a desk. “Christ on a bicycle, where the hell are HR?”
“Should I just, um, head out there? Maybe there’s a supervisor? A head call centre operative or something?”
“A head…hah, no. You shouldn’t be here. Oh god, get out of here, now,” he shouted as he fell to his knees fighting his own wrist. His fingers were growing dark, purple veins protruding from them as they wriggled, until they seemed to lose all their bones, flapping around like skinny hotdogs. The pencil fell to the floor.
“What in the fu—”
“It’s the goop. I got the goop on my hands, and it’s even worse than glitter. I’ve got to cut it off.”
“What?”
He crawled towards her. “You’ve got to help me. I need to cut off my hand or I’ll turn into a tentacled demon creature from the space between worlds.”
She looked around the room, dipping her head to peer beneath the two desks. “Is this a prank? Because it’s a terrible one, you bunch of freaks.”
“Felicity, right? Felicity, I’m Felix, you’ve got to help me. This place isn’t safe for you. There’s been a terrible mistake. Run outside and there’s a fire thing, a fire thing with an axe in it. Go get the axe.”
His fingers were now purple, and much longer. His hand looked like a balled up squid as the tentacles grew in mass, reaching towards the man’s face.
She unzipped the satchel at her waist, grabbed the earpiece and pushed it in place, hand shaking as she took a stumbling step backwards. “Tony, what the fuck is going on?”
“I was about to ask you that. What are you doing?” Tony’s voice came through over the earpiece. He was chewing something.
“Get the axe or it’ll kill us both,” the man on his hands and knees said, tears streaming down his face. Around his neck, the medallion he wore was glowing with a translucent purple light.
Frozen, she stared at the man in front of her as he pushed his own arm away from his face.
“I-I think I’m going to chop someone’s bloody arm off.”
“Who are you talking to? Just get the axe before — ”
Lucy’s hands shook as she watched him writhing as he fought his own hand.
“ — No, nooo!” The man screamed as the tentacles grew and attached to either side of his head.
“Lucy, what is going on?” The earpiece crackled.
Tony’s voice snapped her out of her daze. “There’s a bloke here who looks like he’s about to be eaten by a squid thing that used to be his hand, or maybe… Oh god, Tony, it looks like he’s being reverse born, like he’s being sucked into a… lady garden in his own hand.” She said while running out of the door into the corridor. Across from the office door was a fire extinguisher. Above it, in a large red box with a glass front, was an axe. She recognised the concept, but this was a little unusual. The axe had a jewel-encrusted hilt and runes carved into its surface.
“Lady garden?”
“Yeah, you know, a squid-handgina? I can’t talk now.” Lucy shouted as she searched for something to smash through the glass. “Magic bloody axe is a fat lot of good behind bloody double glazing.”
“Lucy? Lucy, what the hell is going on?”
“I’m being reverse birth control.” She darted behind the reception desk, grabbed at the heavy chair, only to abandon it with a frustrated grunt. Her eyes landed on a stapler and a guillotine. Perfect. Well, kind of. She grabbed them both, clambered back across the counter, and stared at the glass. Then she swung the stapler at it. It thudded against the glass and slammed shut over her hand.
“FFffffhhhmmm,” she held in the scream and let the stapler fall to the floor, pausing for a second to stare at the small metal staple in the skin between her thumb and index finger, then deciding to ignore it. She swung the guillotine next, almost decapitated herself, then realised she was holding a guillotine that could chop off a person’s hand. “Lucy, you daft cow,” she said as she hefted it under her arm and ran back through the office door.
“Mhmmf—” The tentacles from the man’s fingers were wrapping around his head. His left arm, the one that hadn’t transformed, was in the air straining against the force of the creature. The next moment he was on the floor, and his free hand was scrabbling around on the carpet tiles. He grabbed a pen that had rolled beneath a desk. Lucy watched with horror as the man began stabbing his own wrist in an attempt to stop himself from turning into a tentacled human Ouroboros.
“Hang on, I’ve got a, uh, guillotine,” Lucy shouted, unsure if he could hear her. She struggled to pull the man’s arm towards her while avoiding the whipping tentacles which seemed more irritated by her presence than interested in stopping her.
There was no way she was going to get the guillotine’s base into the crook of the man’s arm, so she placed it on the ground and pushed down. She slipped the lever arm, with the cutting blade, through the gap between his arm and body, then panicked.
“I’m going to chop off your arm now, um, I’m really sorry.”
“Mhhfhm.”
“I’m going to assume you’re telling me to do it.”
“MFHHM.”
“Now, okay, now—”
“Lucy,” her earpiece said.
“Not a good time, Tony.”
“I’ve been on to the higher ups. Don’t chop off anyone’s arm.”
“There’s another way?”
“I think so, but more importantly, we’re not insured for that. You need to get him to sign a waiver.”
“What the actual fuck, Tony?”
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I completely agree with team-building being the stuff of nightmares. Also, I openly cackled at “lady garden” and “squid-handgina.” Excellent!
Phenomenal! The dreaded team-building!!!!