18

A Nightmare On East 66th Street 2.

“Dredly! Dredly are you all right?”
Sage’s voice brought Dredly into consciousness. He groaned and blinked. They were in the cellar, but not in the heap into which they had tumbled. He tried to move.
“Don’t bother.” Said Sage. “He’s got us strung up tighter than an unwilling turkey on Christmas Eve.”
They had been tied back to back on two chairs, and the nylon cord was cutting into their wrists.
“How long was I out?”
“Seven hours.”
“My God, I must have taken one hell of a knock. I’m so thirsty! Oooh!” Dredly sighed heavily. His head was hammering and it was difficult to think straight. “Greta?”
“She’s out there somewhere. We can only pray that she’s formulating a plan.”
“If anyone can save us, it’s her.” Dredly tried to sound upbeat, but then the true horror of their predicament struck home. "Did you say I’ve been out for seven hours?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“There's a Scooby-Do Special on in an hour. We’re never going to make it now!”
“Damn! This is serious!” Sage cursed.
"And it's a compilation of all the old ones before Scrappy came along and ruined the show."
“We’ve got to get out!” Sage was galvanised.

“Can you reach my ropes?”
Sage strained but couldn’t.
“Maybe if we were on our side it would be easier?” He suggested. “There might be a loose end of rope which will dangle in the right direction.”
Dredly assented and on the count of three they tipped themselves over to the left.
“Ouch!” Sage said dryly after they had landed heavily on the concrete floor.
“That really hurt didn’t it... Still, it’ll be worth it when we find this loose end.”
Unfortunately, there was no loose end. They had thrown themselves from the relative comfort of the chairs onto the zero comfort of the floor.
“Sorry about that.” Sage felt bad.
“That’s okay, at least we tried.”
At that moment, the basement door opened and swift footsteps approached.
“Is it..?” Dredly sounded worried.
“Yes, it’s him.” Sage replied.
So that was it. Once everyone was out at restaurants or shows, or going to bed, the moustache would deal with them as it wished. Having seen how the ‘tache tortured plants, the two recumbent men could only guess at the fate that awaited them. The feet stopped. Dredly strained to look around.
“Oh no!” Sage breathed, and in a way Dredly was glad he couldn’t see the instrument that would bring their doom.
“Hey, guys, don’t worry, it’s just me.” Came a familiar voice.
“Greta!” They cried in united, bowel relaxing relief.
“Sssh! He might come back any minute. He’s just gone upstairs because he thinks the man in room twelve is harbouring an aspidistra.”
“Help us up!” Said Sage, and in a few moments they were upright and untied.
“Where’s your shaving equipment?” Greta asked.
“He took the lot.”
“Okay, here.” She handed them a disposable each.

“Let’s get out of here.” Said Sage, making a start for the door.
“No. I’ve had time to think up a plan.” Greta declared. “He doesn’t know that I can, y’know, shape change. So what I do is, I turn myself into a moustache and hide on Dredly’s upper lip. You two pretend you’re still tied up and when he comes to torture you, I’ll jump him!”
Sage and Dredly had to admit that it was a plan of subtle genius, so they resumed their positions, while Greta turned herself into a big, handlebar moustache and waited on Dredly's knee - it was the sensible option, as Dredly himself would spend as little time directly under his own nose as possible, too. They waited two hours and lamented the fact that they hadn't taken the chance to go to the toilet before they started the mission. However, this merely served to stiffen their resolve. Man’s inhumanity to man and polar bear can be tolerated so far, but when people are desperate for the loo, they can overcome any obstacle.

So when the desk clerk did finally come down to the basement, he confronted three people who would have steamrollered their own mothers for the chance to relieve themselves.
As soon as she heard the door open, Greta leapt up onto Dredly's top lip. Her bristles tickled his nose. He hoped he wouldn’t sneeze or anything - the last thing they needed was their means of attack being covered in snot. Dredly looked across the room at the clerk. He looked ghastly in the harsh light from the bare bulb.
“So, you really thought you could get away with shaving me, did you?”
There was no doubt that it was the moustache talking, for there was an inhuman twang to the voice. The clerk held up one of the disposable razors and broke it in front of them.
“But I’m too clever for you. I’m one step ahead of you. I am the master and you are the slaves!”
“Only the master of evil!” Sage replied.
“Silence, dolt!” He screamed, slapping Sage across the face. “So, you got wise to me, did you? You know nothing! That geranium you saw me cutting is only the tip of the iceberg.”
“So it’s true - you are a serial pruner.” Dredly had studied them during his Quantum Gardening degree and knew the danger they posed to Society.
“Yes, but it looks like I’m about to... Branch out.” He laughed manically.
“Typical.” Dredly noted. “The desperate madman always resorts to bad puns when the end is near.”
“No!” He cried, rounding on him. “I am not a man. I am a moustache! I am a thicket of stout bristles and proud of it! This weak fool whom I control is nothing! And one day I shall rally every moustache and we shall take over, bringing hirsute law to every face in the world! Even your moustache will soon be under my control...” At this point he stopped and leant closer to Dredly. He seemed confused.
“Your moustache? But I could have sworn you were clean-shaven this morni...” But before that bristling monstrosity could finish, Greta leapt upon it with a wild yell. The desk clerk fell to the ground from the force and cried out as the two ‘taches wrestled on his upper lip. Sage and Dredly were on their feet now, with their razors and shaving foam poised. The moustaches writhed together, twisting the poor clerk’s face into a hundred ghoulish expressions. Then suddenly his face contorted into a look of agony the like of which Sage hoped never to see again. He began to scream, and as they looked closer they could see why. Greta was pulling the evil hair from his face, and as she did, they could clearly see the long trailing hairs that only moments before had held a grip on the poor man’s brain stem. Finally Greta pulled the hairs free of the man and he immediately scrambled away, to cower in fear in the corner of the room.

But now there was a new problem. Those long strands were dangerous and first lashed out at Sage and then coiled themselves around the ends of Greta’s handlebars, hoping to pull her apart. All the while, the moustache was making the most unearthly high-pitched screams and it was all pretty darned frightening!
“What can we do?” Sage cried.
“We can’t just start shaving them, we might injure Greta.” Dredly replied, looking at the tangled mass on the floor. But then he had a brainwave. “Greta! Turn yourself into a pre-pubescent girl!”

“Dredly, this is hardly the time to indulge your sick fantasies!” Sage declared.
Fortunately, Greta realised his intent and immediately changed into a little girl. There was no way the moustache could grow on such a face. It is a fact that moustaches cannot flourish on the top lips of pre-pubescent girls.  (Unless the girls in question are the members of the Chinese swimming team, in which case they need to shave thrice daily to stave off the kind of hair growth that only ZZ Top have achieved in modern times.) Suddenly the tide of battle had turned against the 'tache. The little girl had the power of a polar bear, and she wrestled it this way and that, tiring it with the force of her attack. The moustache was gasping for breath as the little girl started to tie it into knots. Then it saw the men coming forward with their razors in attack position. The moustache was outnumbered, the day was lost and it knew it. With a last great effort, it wriggled free of the girl with the bear-like grip and leapt away, wrapping its two long tendrils around an overheard beam. The monstrous whiskers swung towards one of the high windows. But Sage's blade was cold and true, and bit into its downy underbelly. Squealing horribly, the foul face fur scrabbled onto the windowsill. That was a close shave! It paused, heaving for breath, a wounded cornered animal. Dredly cirlced around and cut off the route to the stairs, but the 'tache still had one means of escape. It's parting snarl was a mixture of hate and fear, and would haunt Dredly for years to come, then the creature burst out of the basement window and was gone in a shower of shattered glass.
"Come on!" Sage shouted, dashing for the stairs, "We can't let it get away!"
He took the stairs two at a time - quite a feat for a small chap - his heart was burning with hatred for the follicular fiend. Now he had the chance to hit back at the evil and he was going to take it. Sage barged through the cellar door and skidded across the highly polished floor of the foyer. Three more steps saw him out of the hotel and onto the street with Dredly barely a yard behind. But they were too late! In a single bound the 'tache had crossed the sidewalk and hurled itself onto the face of an unsuspecting cab driver. Dredly stood, transfixed with horror, as the moustache's tendrils slipped up the man's nose. He suddenly jerked, became rigid and his eyes filled with fear as the demon brush forced his limbs to work the cab's controls. The vehicle jolted, crashed through its gears, then pulled away and swept past Sage and Dredly. As it went by, the cabbie turned to them. His face was warped by the moustache into an evil leer and it was laughing, then the cab was around the corner and away.
"Bugger it!" Sage threw down his razor in disgust.

"Maybe we can find something back in the basement." Dredly suggested. He felt dazed and faintly sick. He looked into Sage's eyes and they both knew that their nerves, so taut for so long, would soon relax and then sudden fatigue would hit them. "Let it go." Dredly patted his old friend on the shoulder and they turned their steps back towards the building. Behind them, a black Cadillac slipped into the traffic like an eel.

Will the moustache get away, regroup and eventually return to foment a bloody facial hair revolution? Or is that too far fetched even for us? And with the moustache on the run, have our friends defeated their nemesis?

Find out in the next nose tickling chapter...