Necromance in the Air - Chapter XX (Fiction)

Another interview...

This is me saying, “I hope you’re all doing okay, and good things are happening to you and yours. If they’re not then I hope things get better. If you do nothing else, try not to be a dick.”

Right then, back to Necromance in the Air!

When we last left our incompetent team of blundering wage slaves they were about to run screaming down a staircase to what might be hell! The beating undead whale heart appeared to have finally spurted its last, and the enemy at the gates had broken in…Felix had spotted a moustache… Let’s go back in time a little and find out a bit more about Daniel, our confused security guard.

No idea what’s going on? Catch up here-

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Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Another Interview…

“When else do you use the word twiddling?” Daniel said. He was sitting in a waiting room reception area, just like any other. Purposeful furniture without a personality, a stack of magazines on a coffee table which were out of date. The air carried a faint scent of burnt coffee and printer ink, with an underlying note of something harder to place—old carpet, perhaps, the kind of weave that had absorbed a thousand buried screams of anguish raging against the agony of this cursed modern life and now slowly released the odour of all those stifled, suffocated, dreams…or it might’ve been old cheese, it was hard for Daniel to tell.

“What did you say?” A large man with a shaven head wearing a polo shirt that was far too small asked.

“Sorry, was thinking out loud. Twiddling my thumbs, when else do you use the word twiddling though? It’s a weird word,” Daniel said. They shared a look, a glassy-eyed stare that might have carried a message, but if it did, the message began with ‘what the f...’

“Sorry, I talk when I’m nervous.”

“No worries, fella. I’m here for an interview as well, been here before though, they’re alright really.”

“They are?”

“Well, it’s all contract work, ain’t it? Stand here, wear that, hold the keys. This isn’t the sort of place that asks for much from you. Maybe…don’t talk about your twiddling thing though, yeah?”

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, returning to the aforementioned twiddling.

The seat was uncomfortable. Thin foam beneath a hard-wearing material, chairs designed for longevity and efficiency without any real consideration for those who perched their behinds on them. It was exactly the sort of efficiency that Daniel termed ‘potential straws’, straws that finally broke the back of an amenable member of society and revealed the monster within. Mildly annoying things that on the surface should have no power, but Daniel believed in a greater power, a really bastardly power that piled up mild annoyances to form huge fiery balls of vengeful rage in others.

He gazed down at his shiny shoes. They squeaked when he walked on the wrong kind of flooring. Well, not ‘wrong’, just flooring that didn’t like the soles of his shows - can flooring be ‘wrong’? They were too shiny. Staring down at them, he could see his own reflection, right up his own nose.

That’s weird, shoes shouldn’t enable you to stare up your own nose.

There are people who enjoy interviews. People who prepare, who research, who have ‘one weird trick’ up their sleeve. And then there’s me, staring at my own reflection in my shoes, contemplating the ethics of ‘wrong’ flooring.

There were two more people in the waiting room, not including the man in the shirt that was far too tight. It was times like these that Daniel’s mind drifted to weird places.

What if I’m psychic? But a one-directional psychic? I can send thoughts, but I can’t receive them?

If you can hear me, yawn now.

Wait. That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe I just made you think about yawning. What if I only have subconscious telepathy? But if it’s subconscious, does that mean it’s not actually telepathy?

God, shut up, Daniel.

Maybe I can read minds. Yeah, let’s try to read the minds of what everyone’s thinking, okay, focus…but don’t look at anyone they’ll think you’re some kind of weirdo.

Nothing…

Focus harder…

Maybe it I—

“Mate, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just, uh… bit of a headache.”

“Right. ‘Cause you were staring like you were trying to explode my brain.”

“…Yeah, I do that sometimes.”

Shit. Maybe he has a sixth sense for sixth senses. A sixth sixth sense. Six squared. A 36th sense?

No, Daniel. Shut up.

“You look a bit peaky.”

“Thanks?”

I hope he can’t hear my thoughts. I was horrible about his shirt.

I should focus on something specific, like what is it they want? Alright, what do they really want? Like the devil’s power, right? Know what people truly desire, and you can control them. Not that I want to. But hey, that’s not up to me, is it?

Okay, what do you really want?

He stared, for a moment, at the man opposite. Thinning hairline, shirt with armpit stains, tie that didn’t quite sit right, the little end was longer than the fat end. There was something unnerving about the tie, like a magic eye picture that, no matter how much you stared at, never showed you the sodding secret dolphin.

What do you really want?

The toilet? A job? Someone to hold? A cheeseburger? To not have to share a seat on the bus home? A pay check? To rub Brian’s face in the fact that he’s the last unemployed one down the pub? To pay the electric bill? To undo the things I said to Marjorie?

Shit, I can hear what he wants, I can actually…or did I just make all of that up? Yeah. This is stupid. I want this interview to be over.

“Daniel Turbitt?” A man behind the desk said, looking around the room.

“Uh, yup, that’s me.”

“They’re ready for you, if you just go through those doors there.”

He did, because that’s what you do when you’re directed to go somewhere after waiting hours. Would’ve been weird if he just stood up and said, ‘Actually, I think I’ll stay here forever, thanks’.

His satchel held two copies of his CV, a packet of crisps, and a Snickers bar. He hadn’t wanted a Snickers, but it was part of the meal deal. His only other option was a Mars bar, and a Mars bar is just… meh.

“Daniel?” a man in a pin striped suit, white shirt, and burgundy tie said.

“Hi, nice to meet you, I’m Daniel,” he said, hand outstretched.

“Have a seat please,” the man said, moustache bristling.

Apparently, it isn’t nice to meet me, he thought.

The man in the pinstriped suit steepled his fingers. “You’re not psychic.”

Daniel blinked. “I—what?”

The man in the pinstriped suit steepled his fingers. “I said, you’re not psychic.”

“I—hah—I know.”

“Do you? Because you just spent ten minutes staring at the other candidates like you were trying to bore into their skulls with your mind.”

Oh no. At least he can’t hear my thoughts. That moustache is… weirdly impressive. Intimidating, even.

“Thank you.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean to intimidate you, though.”

“Ohh…this interview isn’t going well, is it?”