Necromance in the Air - Chapter XVII

A Noisy Reception

No apologies, the Betwixtmas period has been chaos! ON WITH THE SHOW!

Last time on Necromance in the Air… Felix, Lucy, Debs, and Daniel are beset by threats both inside and outside the office building. The demonic printer has delivered a piece of paper that may be their salvation, but the floor beneath their feet is shifting as something truly heartfelt is coming their way… MUHAHAHAHAHA….

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A Noisy Reception

Felix grabbed Lucy’s hand, his grip iron-tight, and yanked her down the corridor as the office door exploded outward. The floor beneath them pitched and rippled, the wavelike movement threatening to knock them off balance. Dust swallowed the air behind them, choking their breaths.

Bouncing with a heavy wet, thump, thump, THUMP came a mass of darkness. A hulking shadow blocked out the green light from the office, filling the doorway. It dripped with viscous black fluid. It crashed against the walls, crashing through the internal walls of the office, its grotesque shape pulsating with an unnatural rhythm. Each thump reverberated through the walls, shaking loose shards of plaster that rained down like deadly confetti. The air reeked of brine and decay, the fluid oozing from the creature leaving a slick trail across the floor.

The damage wasn’t the worst of it, though. It was the voices. In chorus they sang, without tune or a semblance of effort, a dirge of a sea shanty that sang of whales and tea, and went on with endless monotony.

“Oh my god, that’s horrific,” Daniel said. His back pressing against the wall behind the reception desk. The four of them, panting, crouched in the darkness.

“I know. Does this mean we’re in for more endless monotonous sea shanties? Didn’t we suffer enough last time?” Lucy said, her hand still gripping Felix’s.

“It’s my fault,” Debs said.

“There’s no point trying to lay blame. We should point the finger at whoever didn’t sort out the dropped jaw during the day shift. We’re in this situation now, Debs, you can’t blame yourself.”

“Well, that’s very generous of you, Felix,” Debs hissed. “I was only talking about the song. It’s the first track on my ‘happy day’ playlist,” Debs admitted, cringing. “Apparently, the bloody heads think it’s catchy.”

“Happy day?” Felix hissed. “Are you serious?”

“The version I’ve got doesn’t sound like a chorus of undead heads.”

Now, crouched in the darkness with Lucy gripping his hand, Felix wished he’d asked a few more questions during that interview. ‘An eye for these things,’ that’s what Captain moustache had said. Of course, there’d been no mention of undead heads, murderous creatures, or losing hands to tentacle possession.

The dirge cut off abruptly, leaving a void in the air. Silence fell with the weight of an anvil. Debs shuffled forward and peered over the top of the reception desk. Seconds later, Felix joined her, then Daniel, and finally Lucy. They stared at the office door across the corridor. Green light reflected off the slick surface of the thing on the other side of the open entrance.

“It’s stopped moving,” Daniel said.

“Thank god you’re here, Security man,” Debs said. “We’d never have spotted that without you.”

She moved to stand, but Daniel pulled her back down to where they huddled together. “The heads are part of it now, aren’t they?”

“They always were, Security man, that’s how it works.”

“So it’s a multi headed creature with a whale’s heart and poor taste in music. Is it like some kind of hydra?”

“No. That’s…just wrong.”

“Is it after us?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a bloody giant heart omni-headed beast expert. I’m just…tech support.”

“Company stopped certifying people as magical beast experts after the Johnson incident,” Felix muttered.

Lucy squeezed Felix’s hand, the hand that wasn’t a tentacle creature. She leant in close to him. “Can it hear us?”

“It has no ears.”

“The heads have, though.”

“Right.”

“We can hear you,” Daniel said. “So it probably can.”

Felix stood up, releasing Lucy’s hands. “Moustache,” he said under his breath. “You bastard.” He turned to his three companions, who were on their knees, peering up at him. “It doesn’t need to have ears, or eyes, or anything else. It can sense us anyway. It has an eye for these things.”

“But…then it needs eyes?” Lucy hissed.

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Photo by Gursimrat Ganda on Unsplash

The past

He eats a boiled egg whole. The perfect unblemished white disappearing beneath a moustache that is coiffed into curls too extravagant to happen naturally.

Sweat trickled down Felix’s spine, pooling uncomfortably at the waistband of his trousers. The chair creaked beneath him, far too small to support his lanky frame, while the oppressive scent of boiled eggs clung to the air. He watched as the egg vanished from view and winced as the man swallowed it without chewing.

“Excuse me, Felix, I had to skip breakfast. So, you’re interested in a position with us?”

Felix nodded, clutching the record bag which he now wished was a briefcase. His knees were too high, and he had to stretch his neck to feel he was in view. “Uh, yes. Yes, very interested.”

“That’s good, or this would be a very awkward meeting, wouldn’t it?” The man said, opening a drawer in the desk and plucking a boiled egg from within its hidden depths. He held up a long finger on his free hand while pushing the egg into the orifice beneath his moustache. His lips pursed as his index finger met with them, and he closed his eyes. Felix watched him swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat. Once done, he smiled, eyes snapping open. “Do you believe death is the end?”

“Um,” Felix said, mentally scrolling through the list of interview questions he’d practiced, not that they were any help. “I-I don’t know?”

“I’d imagine not. Unless you were dead…you’re not, are you?”

“Uh, no?”

“Good, good. It makes the paperwork quite tricky.” The man’s moustache didn’t move, not even a twitch to suggest a hint of a smile, of humour.

“Hah, I can imagine.”

“Can you? Can you imagine dying? The icy fingers of death reaching through your flesh as if it’s nothing at all and balling up your soul in its grip?”

His bag slipped from Felix’s grasp, and it fell to the floor. It flapped open, spilling its contents, like an unruly guest spewing its guts up on the highly polished wooden floors. An apple bounced beneath the desk and a half peeled banana landed with a squelching thud. The last thing to come to rest was a free newspaper he’d picked up on his journey to the interview. “Oh, um, sorry. The floor looks really expensive, uh,” he said, getting down on his hands and knees to pick up the mushed banana and trying to clean up the mess with the newspaper.

“Zebra wood, it is expensive. The tree it comes from is endangered. Could you stop smearing wet newspaper across its surface?”

He froze, a ball of newspaper in his hand, the scent of bananas in the air.

“Felix, what drew you to this role?”

Felix closed his eyes, took a breath, then stood up so he could take back his position in the chair, which was too small. “It sounded like a role that I could sink my teeth into—”

“No.”

“Uh, that would offer excellent career progression—”

“Unlikely.”

“That…sounded quite easy and was okay money without a big commute.”

“Far more likely, but still untrue.”

Felix’s eyes couldn’t help but linger on the moustache, its spiralling ends defying gravity in a way that seemed almost…sentient. It had a presence, a personality, a quiet authority that overshadowed the man beneath it. Felix only had eyes for the marvellous bristles, their swooping and curling shape, the way they flicked and—

“Ah, you have an eye for these things then Felix,” the moustache said. “You recognised when something is not as it should be.”

“Well, I…”

“Come on, you’re almost there.”

Felix blinked. His mind raced through a catalog of reasonable explanations, each more ridiculous than the last. Finally, his mouth betrayed him.

“Are you…a moustache?” he blurted, immediately regretting it. “I mean—no, that’s insane—”

“It’s not,” the moustache said. “And you were doing so well.”

Felix blinked, his brain struggling to reconcile the absurdity. “Wait…you’re saying you are the moustache? You don’t mean that metaphorically, you mean you’re actually…That’s—”

“Ridiculous?” The moustache’s curls twitched, almost imperceptibly. “Yes. And yet here we are.”

“This interview is the weirdest. Can I just tell you what type of fruit I’d be?”

“A watermelon, but it’s not relevant. The body I am attached to is merely a host. Now that we’ve cleared that up, shall we talk about what lies beneath that cheap polyester shirt? Not that the shirt isn’t doing an admirable job of collecting the shocking amount of sweat you’re producing.”

“My…what? I’m not…are you, I mean, do you want me to do something to get the job?”

“I’m a moustache. What exactly do you think you could do?”

“Well—”

“No. Don’t tell me. I’m talking about your bellybutton.”

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Necromance in the Air will be back soon! What’s the deal with Felix’s bellybutton?! Find out this, and more!