Necromance in the Air - Chapter VI (Fiction)
Chop, chop...
We left Felix and Lucy dealing with Felix’s wandering fingers. - By which, I mean the writhing tentacle creature taking the place of his hand. Tony lurks outside the building in his van. Felix’s time is running out, but is Lucy going to be able to give him the chop?
If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about start at the beginning by clicking here-
Inside the van, Tony held a pot noodle in one hand while he was hunched over his laptop. The van was a mess of packages, leftovers from his day job delivering them. Naturally, Tony never bothered to clear it out. A sign on the van said it was empty overnight, which Tony took as a good enough reason to never bother emptying it at all.
He wore over-ear headphones with a glowing logo, they’d come from the middle aisle of a scandinavian supermarket. The sound had a tendency to fail on one side. Still, they were great for receiving insults from people around the world while he was gaming.
On the screen was a browser with too many tabs open. Several of them related to the job they were doing tonight, a few of them were more unsavoury sites, but Tony only intended to look at them when he was taking a break. The window he was looking at now was nothing but a chat room, a very discreet, well protected, and important chat room. Tony’s handle was WhiteCapOps, and he was in conversation with TheViceroy.
“Operative is in the building. Sounds like she walked into something chaotic.”
“Good.”
“Might need backup.”
“Unlikely, explain parameters.”
“Operative is locked in the building. It sounds like there is some kind of demonic possession taking place and operative has been asked to remove someone’s arm.”
“Interesting. What was said?”
“‘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.’ Then it was difficult to make out. The operative went to get an axe, but failed. Now she’s about to chop off the arm with some kind of guillotine. She said the man’s arm turned into some kind of squid tentacle monster and is trying to swallow the man’s head.”
“Lol.”
“Lol?”
“Yeah, lol. They sound like amateurs. We’ll wait for the possession to take hold, then rush in.”
“But the operative?”
“Was always going to die, that was the intent. Do you feel bad?”
“A little.”
“This is on the record WhiteCapOps.”
“I only meant it’s a shame we couldn’t have used her more.”
“She might have been useful, but eventually she would have realised the truth. This way, we have a legitimate reason to send our team into enemy territory.”
“So just let it play out?”
“Affirmative, tell her not to intervene.”
“She can’t get out of the building.”
“Perfect. Long live the Knights of Darkness.”
“LLKoD. I’m going offline for a bit.”
“It’s a shared laptop, Tony.”
“So?”
“So stop looking at porn. Especially that weird tentacle stuff.”
Felix clawed at his own hand—or what was left of it—now a slick, writhing mass of tentacles tightening around his throat. There are moments where a warm embrace, a cosy dark place, the gentle pull of sleep, is the perfect solution. Times when all a person needs is to feel wanted, or needed. In that moment, when that want, or need, is met, everything else feels irrelevant. Nothing else matters. Sadly for Felix, the warm embrace came from his own hand — no, not like that.
Where his hand had once been, there was pain. It felt as though someone was squeezing fluid beneath his skin with hundreds of syringes, like his skin was being stretched and pulled ever thinner against the pressure within. He gripped his wrist, desperate to hold it tight enough to stop the change that was taking place, and fighting against the creature as it grasped at him.
It had wrapped its tentacles around him. He could feel the suckers attaching to his skin, the pressure they exerted as they pulled at his face, and then lips inside lips, inside lips, and damp, smothering, darkness.
Somewhere beyond the darkness was a voice. The woman he had begged for help. A complete stranger, and untrustworthy liar, who had made up some story about being a temp. Necrocorp doesn’t hire temps. You’re not looking for casual workers when you’re raising the dead to avoid paying minimum wage. It’s not even about security, or safety, they just cost too much. Maybe she was just another cog in Necrocorp’s twisted machine, some kind of nefarious tricky, a trap, or worse, an unexpected audit.
Felix’s breath hitched as the slimy appendage tightened around his throat, the sickly-sweet stench of rot filling his nostrils. His vision blurred as he tried to pry the wriggling mass off with his free hand, but the creature had grown stronger, hungrier. He’d spent enough time fantasizing about getting fit. His wallet, in his back pocket, had three different expired gym membership cards in it, which was almost like actually going, wasn’t it? Carrying the extra weight of the cards was burning a few calories, though, right?
A toxin, some kind of poison, that must be making his mind wander. Or, it could be oxygen deprivation. How long had it been suffocating him, trying to engulf him?
How could it swallow him if it was part of him? This is it. This is the end. He was going to die when his bank balance was in the red, his house was a mess, and he was probably going to turn into some kind of demonic entity that devours people…Kind of serves the lying temp right though, doesn’t it? No. Probably not. He wondered if she was single. It probably didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he’d be brave enough to ask her out, anyway. That’s how he’d ended up in this mess in the first place. He hadn’t risen to the lofty heights of lower middle management in an organisation of dark necromancers because he was brave, or ambitious. Quite the opposite. It was easier just to go along with things. Then he wondered if there was any chance he would survive.
All in all, he realised, as he felt something trying to force its way into his mouth. Maybe he should have walked away when the first mention of arcane dark rituals started. It’s not like he went from customer service to managing a room full of resurrected heads. It was a bit of mission creep here, a paradigm shift there, blue sky thinking, meetings of minds, bringing everyone into the tent, furthering discourse, grabbing low hanging fruit, and the next thing you know it’s signing a contract in blood. Mistakes were made, but he wasn’t the first person to work in a vaguely morally dubious field, look at politicians, gambling, big tobacco, Pharma-bros. Nobody living was being hurt… except for the scam victims. Bloody necromancy.
“Insurance?”
Lucy pulled the earpiece out and threw it across the room. Then she pulled the tiny microphone attached to her jumper collar and tossed it in the same direction. “Sod this for a game of soldiers.”
She’d managed to get the lever arm guillotine into a usable position, and she lifted the arm, then lowered it once more. With a grimace, she took a firm grip and prepared to force it down. She was moments from slicing through a man’s arm, bone, muscle, sinew, all of it. Then she found herself hesitating and standing up. “This is ridiculous, Lucy. You can’t really be thinking about this. You haven’t got the upper-body strength to chop through an arm.” Then she nodded, and lifted a foot. “I’m going to have to stamp down on the bastard thing.”
“Try not to move, this is…it’s going to hurt,” she shouted, not that there was any indication that the man being swallowed by his own hand could answer. She took a breath, then brought her foot down on the guillotine handle as hard as she could.
It closed around the arm and made a nasty crunching sound.
“MFHHHM,” the man screamed.
When Lucy bent down to inspect the damage, she realised it hadn’t broken the skin. Though it did look like they’re be some nasty bruising, possibly even broken bones. She grabbed the guillotine and threw it to one side. “Bloody thing is older than I am, that was never going to work.”
“Ugh, watch out,” the man said, breaking free from the tentacles. His face was a damp mess as clear viscous fluid dripped from it. “Oh, god, it’s been in my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. It was—”
“What did it do in your mouth?” She asked. The writhing mass turned on her as she spoke. Then Felix’s arm shot out towards her.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, as she pushed herself backwards, like a crab on all fours, across the floor.
“I’m not trying to touch you,” he said, grappling with the creature that sprouted out of his own wrist. “My hand is turning into a monster. This isn’t some weird excuse to start groping strange women. Not all men—”
“Let me stop you right there, buddy. The ‘not all men’ conversation is not taking place here.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh sure, I’ve heard that one before. It’s not me, it’s the demonic creature possessing me. Oh, the demons made me steal your underwear, Lucy, I’m sorry. No, no, it’s not what it looks like. The fairies put me into this gimp suit and I don’t even know who the man in the nappy is… Sure Daryl, I believe you. He was a terrible boyfriend anyway, but still..”
“What? Stop rambling. I’m in real trouble here.”
“Sorry,” Lucy said, holding up her hands, “this is all new to me.”
“No shit, it’s not every day my hand turns into a tentacle monster. Wait, who’s Lucy?”
“What… Wait here, I’ll find something else to cut your arm off with. No problem. Then you’ll be right as rain.”
“Where’s the axe? I said get the axe.”
“I couldn’t break through the glass.”
“Why did you try to break the glass? It’s a cabinet, you stupid twat, you just open the door.”
Lucy opened her mouth and snapped it shut. “Two secs,” she said. “Try not to get swallowed by your new friend.”
“My what?” The man said, as he tried to battle against his own arm. “Watch the tentacles.”
Lucy tiptoed around the man and slipped out. At the cabinet, she tugged the edges, and the door clicked open. “Lucy, you absolute muppet.” She reached in and wrapped both hands around the axe handle, preparing herself for its weight. Planting her feet she took a breath, then pulled on the axe. It was far lighter than she’d imagined, and she was thrown backwards by her own momentum. Her grip slipped, and the haft of the handle escaped her fingertips. The axe tumbled through the air then buried itself, blade first, in the office carpet and inch from her head.
“Hurry the hell up, it’s getting angry,” Felix shouted from the office.
She rolled to the side, grabbed the handle of the axe, and glared at it. “Play nice or I’ll… do something an axe wouldn’t like.”
A moment later, she was back in the room.
Felix sat on his own hand, trying to pin down the writhing tentacles flailing beneath him. “Hurry up and get over here.”
“Are you…is it?”
“It is not up my arse, but if you take any longer about this, there’s a bloody good chance I’m going to be, um… by my own hand.”
She lifted the axe over her head.
Felix raised his hand in panic. “Not like that you lunatic. You’ll kill me. Help me get may arm into position.”
She put the axe down, and took a step closer, hands poised, claw-like, in front of her. “Um, what do I do?”
“Why don’t you just stand there like you’re trying to impersonate a frozen cat? That’ll be a great sodding help.”
“Don’t take your frustration out on me. I only just got here. It’s workplace environments like this that made me turn to temping. I can walk out of here right now,” Lucy said.
The role of Felicity Snark was, she now realised, the role of a lifetime. Walking headfirst into some kind of demonic disaster zone, Lucy had found herself not just over her head, but being held down by a giant hand under fathoms of liquid shit. Lucy was in utter panic mode. Felicity, however, was cool and calm headed. She was a woman of purpose and conviction. No situation phased her and she wouldn’t let any jumped up little office twerp speak to her like she was some kind of minion, even if she was about to chop off a hand. She was versatile, she was dynamic, she was a kick-ass temp of the highest order. Lucy gritted her teeth, pushed down her own worries and fears, and stepped wholeheartedly into the role of Felicity Snark. ‘Yes,’ she thought to herself, ‘I am Felicity Snark, the entirely imaginary but near unstoppable force.’ Which was handy, because Lucy really wanted to curl up into a ball, sob for a while, and ignore the fact that her carefully chosen spy trousers were a lot soggier than when this whole thing had started.
“Look, we’re going to do this slowly and carefully. This way, when you finally chop off my hand, I won’t bleed out in agonising pain. The axe that you're holding is uh… Think of it like this. I have been infected by some kind of parasitic organism. That’s what this place secretly does. The axe blade is covered in a really powerful antiviral, antibacterial material. It also immediately cauterises any wound. Got it?”
Lucy, ‘no,’ she reminded herself, ‘Felicity’, nodded. “So it’s not magic?”
“No, hah, magic. That would be ridiculous.” The smile Felix offered was weaker than Lucy’s grandmother’s attempts at making orange squash. “I’m going to roll over and try to pin my arm to the ground. You grab that bin and slam it down on top of the thing as fast as you can. Then we’ll try to chop it off, got it?”
“Got it,” she said, carefully placing the axe on top of a desk before picking up the wastepaper bin that was beneath a desk. “Couldn’t we get you into surgery, save your hand?”
The man shook his head. “Too late. If we wait any longer, it’s going to spread.”
“And you’ll die?”
“I don’t know, but my whole body will end up like my hand and I’ll probably kill you and anyone else I can get to. If that happens, I hope I’m not alive inside watching.”
“Okay, okay. I’m ready. Three, two, one.” Lucy rushed forward with the bin
The man didn’t move. “Sorry. I thought you were going to say, ‘go’.”
“Okay, well, go on then.”
“Okay, three, two—”
“JUST GO,” she shouted.
The man rolled to one side. Grabbing what remained of his wrist with his good hand, he slammed the tentacled creature to the floor. Lucy stepped forward and brought the bin down hard. The tentacles writhed, reaching around the sides of the bin and into it.
“Why in hell would you do it like that?” Felix shouted.
“Like what?”
“Upside down. You pin it down with the bin upside down. So the tentacles are inside it. What is wrong with you?”
“It kind of—”
“Oh shiii—”
Lucy leapt backwards as she watched Felix being dragged across the floor by his own tentacles.
The creature that had been his hand climbed the walls, and kept going, gravity and the weight of its host nothing compared to the demonic force of its suckers. When it reached the ceiling, it moved into the middle of the room. Ceiling tiles rained down while he dangled, gripping his own wrist, being tossed around like a rag doll.
“I think it’s trying to shake you off.”
He was swinging from the ceiling, his shoes pedalling the air above the floor. “Looks like we’re on the tentacle’s team now—” he let out a yelp of pain ”—get the axe.”
She stood and grabbed the haft of the axe, trying to heft it in her arms.
“Now, do it now, while it’s stopped moving.”
Lucy took a breath, gritted her teeth, and ran forward with the axe over her head. “I can’t reach it. I’ll end up chopping through you.”
“Grab a chair.”
“I can’t balance on one of those. They’re wheelie chairs. That’s a definite health and safety hazard.”
“A health and…”
“I’ll grab someone from the other office. Seriously, with all this racket, how is no one checking in?”
“No, you have to do it. They can’t find out about this. They, uh, they can’t know about this,” he said, while dangling from his own arm. The squid creature seemed content to continue to try to shake him off, and was wriggling around, causing him to jerk from side to side. “This is really starting to hurt.”
“More than chopping your arm off with an axe will?”
“Look at my arm. It’s changing. The thing is growing, taking over more of my body. I don’t want to turn into a giant…whatever this is.”
“Tentacle fanny.”
“What?”
“I started with Handgina, but that seemed a bit much, so tentacle fanny?” Lucy said, as she pulled the wheeled deckchair towards the man’s feet, the axe in her free hand. “Listen. I don’t want to chop off your hand, and this axe is surprisingly light. So think you can do it,” she said, pushing the chair beneath him. “Or I can just get someone from in there.”
He struggled to get his feet onto the chair, and when he had, he looked like he was trying to change a bulb in the world’s ugliest light-fitting. “What?”
“There we go,” Lucy said, a smile on her face as she patted his leg. “Now you can chop off your own arm. If it doesn’t work, we’ll get someone, or I’ll help.”
“I need your help.”
“Aha, but I already helped. I got the axe. I’ve brought this chair, so you can stand.”
“Fine.”
“Just remember this when I ask for a reference, and when you choose where I’m sitting,” she said, holding out the axe to him.
He took a grip on the handle but didn’t pull it away from her. “I’m not sure I can do this.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“It’s not the same. How is it the same? It’s my own arm. I didn’t ask you to cut off your own arm.”
“Are you going to take this, or am I just standing here until your tentacle thing decides to take an interest and eats me?” She asked.
“Fine,” he said, making sure he wasn’t about the fall to the floor as he let his feet take his body weight. He hefted the axe in one hand. “It’s a lot lighter than I thought it would be.”
“That’s what I said.” Lucy nodded as she walked backwards towards the door, back into the corridor.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, I don’t want to watch. I’m not really into that sort of thing,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“What? Into that sort of thing? It’s not a fetish. Now you’ve made it really weird, like I’m some kind of attention seeking exhibitionist turning my hand into tentacles and standing up on a chair to chop it off like I’m doing some kind of sodding tentacle sex show.”
She stopped and turned with one hand on the open door. “I think you might be projecting now. I just said I didn’t want to watch.”
“Yeah, like I was doing this for you to watch. See. You see how that sounds?”
“You’re just trying to pick an argument with me to avoid chopping your arm off. It’s a bit pathetic.”
“Pathetic?” Felix said, teetering on a wheelie chair, one arm stuck to the ceiling by a tentacle that used to be his hand, the other clutching an axe. “Have you even seen what is happening?”
“You can’t do it, can you?”
“It’s the angle.”
“Of course it is,” Lucy said with a sigh. She walked back into the middle of the office space, looked around, and pulled another wheelie chair into the middle of the room. It took a moment to get steady on it, but once she was comfortable, she took the axe from him. “This is probably going to hurt. When I say go, jump off the chair.”
“Why?”
“Less chance of chopping off something else and it’ll pull your arm tight.”
“Right…”
“You can’t cut string if it’s slack.”
“I get it. There’s no need to compare me to string.”
She hefted the axe. “You’re doing it again.”
“I know, I know. My watch has disappeared into it. It was a present from my mum.”
“Three, two, one, go.”
So many good lines in here. Bravo!
The gaming insults, the browser tabs 🤣
“the demons made me steal your underwear” — using this next time 🤣
HANDGINA 🤣🤣🤣