Welcome back Necrominions, Necromites, Necrophiliacs… NOPE, NO!! Not you!!

In a new build business park, conveniently located just off a junction of a major motorway, huddled several stories beneath the newly defunct premises of their employers, our intrepid quartet have arrived at a reception desk. The desk is roughly 1/8th the size expected, and behind it sits a creature without eyes, ears, or a nose. It does have a wide toothy grin, and freakishly elongated limbs… Welcome back to Necromance in the Air, it’s only getting weirder here…

No idea what is going on? You’re not the first to say it! Catch up here!

Contents

Looking up…

Felix nodded to himself and took a stride forward. Hands on his hips, he looked across at the creature with its disproportionate but blank head, its elongated limbs, the pointed jagged grin splitting its head in two, and worst of all, its horrific taste in ties. He cleared his throat and said, “We’re here to see the moustache.”

“Which one?” the figure behind the counter asked as it began typing with a speed that blurred its elongated fingers on a tiny keyboard.

Felix’s mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ as his internal world collided. Hurtling headlong, like a rusting but souped-up Citroën 2CV without brakes, was his insistent belief that the entire organisation was run by a nefarious collective of living moustaches who possessed the bodies of innocent victims. Felix had been sure—so sure—that every decision in this hellish corporate landscape was made by sentient facial hair pulling the strings. He had even theorized about a ‘Moustache Boardroom,’ complete with tiny cups of coffee and even tinier PowerPoint presentations.

Coming in the opposite direction, blindfolded, butt naked, and riding an electric unicycle traveling at illegal speeds, was the knowledge that he did not know the names of any of the moustaches. These two conflicting thoughts, tethered to a whirlwind of emotions that bounced along behind them like tin cans tied to the back of a wedding car, careened wildly towards this moment in time. The precise moment where he was faced with a tiny, yet terrifying, creature gatekeeping the only hope of escape or refuge from forces intent on Felix and his new compatriots’ deaths.

He did the only thing he could think of to escape with some hope and dignity remaining. Utilizing a skill honed from years of corporate training, a kind of unique superpower bestowed upon those who could stare down the barrel of forced redundancy with a smile on their faces. A talent polished over generations and whispered about around coffee machines and water coolers when sports and soap operas no longer filled the void required for social interaction. He did what every good bottom-rung middle manager knew to do in this type of situation. He passed the problem to someone more competent. “Uh, good question, Debs?”

During Felix’s momentary paralysis, while his brain did the equivalent of sharting through beige trousers, the others hadn’t wasted time.

Lucy had repositioned herself to lean against the reception desk, invading just enough of the featureless toothy goblin creature’s personal space to make things uncomfortable but to avoid any suggestion of impropriety. Her aim was to position herself in the danger zone of flirtation and thus provoke that maggot at the back of the mind of any corporate stooge. It was not, ‘Is she flirting?’ nor, ‘Is this inappropriate?’ that Lucy was hoping to provoke, nor was it some deeper investigation into workplace inequalities or even sexism—which would’ve been reasonable. It was a far worse, far darker thought. ‘Am I going to get in trouble with HR here?’ An impressive task given that she needed to kneel to be at the right height for the tiny gatekeeper. She fluttered her lashes at a frequency that could register on seismic sensors. It pissed Debs off immensely, not just because it was so unsubtle, but because—against all logic—it might actually be working.

Debs herself had taken things in another direction, quickly elbowing Daniel in the chest, causing the security guard to launch into a coughing fit. The distraction allowed her to dart to one side and glance at anything else on the desk that could aid them. Which is when she found it, the key to their escape.

The conversational grenade Felix lobbed in Debs’ direction was met with a noise, a sound both familiar and acutely unexpected due to its timing and its source.

It was the sound of a thousand faux-fawning office acquaintances all crying out at once. The keening cry of a billion awkward semi-strangers projecting every earnest attempt at emotional connection that they could muster. A noise incapable of misunderstanding.

“Awwwwwww, are those your little ones?” Debs said, pointing to a framed picture only she, from her position to the right of the desk, could see.

The toothy creature froze, then turned its eyeless face to the picture frame. Reaching out with its long, skinny phalanges, it plucked the frame from the desk. The grin widened on its face, teeth protruding in directions teeth should not point in. For a moment it hesitated, cradling the picture frame in its spidery fingers, and then it did exactly what Debs had hoped it would do. As only new parents can do, it forgot.

It forgot that there are only two types of people in existence. The first type are those who have children and so have knowledge of what new parents experience, but who are also tired, broken, cynical, and resolute in their promise never to reveal just how naive new parents are. Then there are the others, those who are not parents, who despite their best efforts, cannot understand what joy or terror might have arrived, and so disguise their disinterest as best they can. The two: those who have children, so know, and do not care; and those who do not have children, so do not know, and do not care.

Both groups are bound by a certain social construct that blooms even in the arid desert of human connection produced by the corporate climate. The need to ensure that some semblance of humanity exists within the disinfected, homogeneous, forced politeness of the email-numbed world forges an unspoken rule. The truth known to all that, ‘We hope this email finds you well’ masks the quiet scream, ‘I am a person, remember, I AM A PERSON.’ The rule demands that any genuine chance of true, genuine contact should be grasped. If those straggling, fraying threads that dance tantalizingly on the edges of human interaction are being dangled before us, then the unspoken rule drags something from within even the most devout corporate being. Even those so varnished in the lacquer of false niceties will shatter that shellac veneer if there is some hope of being an actual person. So yes, all shall fawn, and in this last bastion of hope that individuality and connection might still exist in something close to genuine kinship, none shall admit the quantity of shits not truly given.

“Awwwww,” Lucy said. “How old are they?”

“Awwwww,” Daniel said, skipping towards the reception desk. “How lovely, what are their names?”

“Awwww?” Felix said, because he is awkward as fuck but even he understood the memo.

“Thank you. I only came back from maternity leave on Tuesday. It was so hard to leave them, especially while they were still gnawing on the bones of their father. This one is Hggahthrazm—we decided to go traditional with her name; it means Night Devourer. And this one is Knazzctghaa, she’s a real sweetie. Oh, and this is Dave. Honestly, there are seventy-three of them, so we just started to keep things simple after a while.”

“Seventy-three,” Lucy said. “Wow, you must be so proud.”

“Seventy-three is how many there always are, sweetie. If we lay more eggs, we eat them. It’s just tradition.”

“Oh, you eat your young? That’s very… efficient,” Daniel said, the smile sliding off his face.

Lucy leapt in, risking placing a hand on the top of the little reception desk. “It must be hard leaving them at—”

“In the ceiling,” the creature said, pointing upwards.

“In… in the ceiling? Of course, why wouldn't they be?" Lucy said, her eyes rolling towards the cavernous darkness over their heads.

“Yes. They are up there right now, gnawing on the bones of the dead. They crave the flesh of the living, as do I… but one must remain professional. Is it Errol you’re here to see?”

The four looked upwards at the same time. Despite the cool air a bead of sweat trickled down from Felix’s brow and he blinked as it ran into his eye. Debs fixed him with a glare, and rubbing his eye, he nodded. “Sure, we’re here to see Errol,” he said.

Errol? ERROL? What in the actual f—

Back soon!