Reception

by Kenzie Jennings

  Plate-licker kept squirming around, clawing at my hand, attempting to pry it away from her mouth. She was sprightly and strong. Must have been the extra protein, I don’t know. The good news was that I’d weakened her by knocking her skull against the floor. She could’ve just as easily wiggled away. The bad news was that the wound on that particular arm of mine, its hand over her mouth, was fresh and open, and, of course, she remembered that. Her eyes narrowed; the skin around them crinkled. The bitch was smiling through my fingers. Then she dug her fingernails right into the raw wound, and the wall around me went red.

  I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out in pain, and instincts sharply kicked in willing me, begging me to tear my arm away. However, I knew if I did, she’d scream loudly enough to bring those rabid dogs, those crazies, over. Not only that, she had her claws digging in so hard I’d only cause more damage to my arm if I attempted to pull it from her grip. So I did what anyone would have done had they not been thinking straight as I hadn’t: I grasped a ball of her hair with my free hand and yanked her head up just before I slammed it back down against the floor. She let out a muffled cough, choking on her spittle beneath my palm, dampening it further. She kicked and squirmed, and kept digging into my arm. Her eyes were red and watery, their capillaries charting mad, fine routes. Nevertheless, I kept my grip firm over her mouth.

  And I lifted and then thunked her head back down hard against the wooden floor. This time, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed with a puff of air in my palm, releasing my arm from her excruciating grip.

  My arm felt as if a lit lighter had been teasing its underside over the wound. I wanted to smother it with an ice pack, anything to make the pain stop. There was a large corked bottle of white wine, an Australian Chardonnay, laying on its side nearby, just within reach, one that had merely cracked rather than shattered. It was half-full, one of the bottles we’d started on but never got around to finishing. Didn’t matter anyway. For one, it was sour, on the cusp of becoming salad dressing. Secondly, it would have to do, serving an entirely different purpose. I didn’t know if it would do what I’d hoped it would, but I figured it certainly couldn’t hurt (figuratively, of course) to try it out.

  I uncorked the bottle and then poured the wine directly over my wound, drenching it, hopefully cleansing it somewhat. I may as well have been pouring battery acid on it. It took everything I had in me to keep from passing out from the pain.

  “Girlie,” said a voice, a lazy, masculine drawl. The word itself, enunciated with a slurring, rounded end, said directly behind me at my back, the dining table the only barrier between me and whoever it was.

  I quickly wrapped and tied my wounded arm with the strips of tablecloth I’d torn away, creating a sloppy bandage of sorts. I kept my back braced against the tabletop. Sweat beaded my temples. I could feel it dampening my armpits. My pulse went mad. My chest felt like lead. The light danced before my eyes.

  Perfect goddamned timing for a panic attack. I would not let it take hold. I would not.

  “Come on out from your hidin’ place there. Man alive, I tell you what, I smell your meat, puddin’ pie,” he growled. “Prime cut, girlie girl. Some good eatin’. You bleed fresh and fine. Smellin’ so firm n’ juicy. I bet you taste wonnnerful.”

  I didn’t recognize his voice whatsoever, but I didn’t care either. I wasn’t about to indulge him in small talk, no way, no how. Instead, I had my sights honed in on the gauntlet ahead. My choices, as evident, weren’t ideal, all things considered:

  A) I could have opted for the suicidal route and come out swinging a high-heeled shoe and a bottle, hoping I’d take out a few of them before they pounced.

  B) I could have risked running towards the fire exit door, possibly getting caught by a couple of them.

  C) The rest of the wedding party’s tables were still upright still bearing their dishes, utensils, wine glasses, leftover food and whatnot. A long tablecloth that trailed the floor covered each one. The line of them cut all the way across until it almost reached the area near the kitchen doors, leaving just amount of area around to get by for the servers and their carts and trays.

  And each of those tables provided a hiding place, but even still, I’d have to be a sight more than two-steps ahead to keep any of the crazies from reaching me, especially the one directly behind me.

  My back groaned at the thought of it. What was probably only forty feet or so away seemed like miles from where I hid, sitting there, braced against the tabletop, with only a slab of wood between me and a sniffing, whuffling crazy.

  I could hear the guy sliding around on the floor behind my barrier. So I did what I had to do so as not to be seen. I commando-crawled my way under the long panel of tables, wiggling underneath each tablecloth, one by one, moving as quickly as I could go. I still had the shoe, its spike of a heel would be suitable as a weapon for the moment. Not as noisy as breaking the bottle of wine and using that instead.

  It was going to be that kind of bad night for me, silent with bouts of quick movement as best as I could readily manage.

  If only I really knew just how bad the night could possibly get.

  ELEVEN

  I’d no clue as to whether or not Mom and Shay had escaped somehow or were there, like Dad had been just after Delia took that bite, spread out au tartare all over one of the wedding party tables. I’d nearly reached the exit having wiggled my way underneath the line, hidden by the tablecloths, one after the other, sliding my body along the waxed floor, when I felt steel fingers close around one of my ankles. Before I could react, I was pulled back underneath the last table of the line, one hand gripping my high- heeled weapon tightly, the other scrabbling for a table leg to hold onto. No such luck. He crawled over me, the weight of his body pinning me beneath him. I couldn’t turn my body, couldn’t even move it. I was barely able to turn my head to the side. My neck felt as if it had been wrung. Twice in the course of a single evening. How many people could say that?

  The guy chuckled softly the whole time and gave me a low, appreciative whistle.

  He pressed his cheek against my ear. “You’re one feisty lil’ filly, ain’t you?” he said. His breath reeked sharply of garlic and dead things. He licked and then sucked along the shell of my ear, making disgusting slurping sounds as he did. “You taste like sunshine an’ honey. I bet you’re as tasty on the inside as you are on the outside.”

  Then he bit down hard on my earlobe, and I swear to Christ I heard the skin pop between his teeth. The awful sting of it, worse than the first bite I’d felt on my arm. I couldn’t scream, I could just barely manage to let out a squeak due to the iron weight that had squashed my body, melding it into the floorboards. The hand of my good arm had twisted and was trapped under me, its fingers still closed around the precious shoe.

  “Oh, my goodness gracious. I was right. Sticky sweetness on the inside, too,” he cooed and made a smacking sound that crackled and snapped in my ear. “It’s good to be right n’all. I should crack you wide open like a fruit. Suck that sweet right outta ya.”

  I think the adrenaline was getting to me, making me loopy, because out of a fucked up nowhere, I’d an image of the guy smashing me over a rock and breaking me apart, like a coconut, and then digging the meat out with his fingers, smacking those bloated lips of his. Somehow, as twisted as it was, I found the thought of it hilarious, even though it would mean my eminent demise, a slow, agonizing one at that.

  I did what anyone in a not-quite-right frame of mind would do: I laughed. I mean, just think of the absurdity of it. I laughed so hard, it hurt my sides and back and vibrated against the body of the asshole that had me pinned on the floor and was sucking the juice right out of my mangled earlobe.

  I guess it didn’t impress him one iota because his lips released my ear with a slurp, and his body went stiff.

  “What’s the joke, honeypot?”

  For some reason, his question was even funnier than the thought of breaking me open like a piece of fruit. Of all the t
imes to stop laughing at the absurd, that was one of them because it only served to anger him. He grabbed a hank of my hair and yanked my head up against his, enveloping me in a noxious cloud of dank breath.

  “I’m glad you find this highly amusin’, but we ain’t here for a comedy show, girl,” he growled against my cheek. “None of us ’s eaten in the decade gone by, and we are past due for a hearty meal. You an’ your kith n’ kin serve that purpose, and that one alone, so you’d best keep that in mind before your laughin’ and chortlin’ gets to me, and I crack apart that pretty skull of yours right here.”

  I don’t know if it was his breath or his response that jerked me alert. I’ll chalk it up to both, looking back on it. The revelation itself was enough of a jolt to send that ice water slip-sliding through my veins, as if the horror in front of me, in front of everyone evidently on the menu, wasn’t dreadful enough to contemplate. I’d have to keep steady and calm, steady and calm, so steady, so calm, while my ears rang, my eyes watered, and my body burned.

  First things first, I’d have to get the son of a bitch off me.

  “Can you do me a favor then, before you commence to eating?”

  He gently let go of my hair, patting it down and smoothing it while breathing in my ear. “What’s that, girlie?”

  “Do you mind getting off me before you crush my innards? Can’t enjoy the sweetbreads if they’re pancaked. Am I right or am I right?”

  There was a moment of silence, fleeting but there, as he contemplated that. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a dummy, but I’d like to think his hunger was strong enough, mean enough, to keep him from making smart decisions. In other words, this sort of hunger was both his best friend and worst enemy as it would keep him less focused and more inclined to make stupid mistakes.

  As I predicted, he did what was requested of him, and with his heavy body finally off me, I could suddenly breathe well. He kept a firm, hot hand on my ankle, keeping me trapped, but he didn’t see what I’d hidden from him. I snapped around, sliding right into him, and I drove the spiky heel of the dress shoe right into his eye. His pockmarked, ruddy face contorted with rage as he squealed and clawed at the shoe embedded there. Pulling at the makeshift weapon, attempting to remove it, only served to cause him more agony, but I didn’t have time to savor the moment.

  Before the guy could grab me and pull me back to him, I was already turned around and shoving at the floor, sliding out from underneath the last of the line of tables. I stumbled to my feet. Then I spun around, backing my way towards the kitchen, my eye on the groups that were still engrossed in their feeding, their focus solely on satiating their evident hunger. That inexplicable hunger.

  My stomach burbled and churned at the thought of it, that repulsive, inexplicable hunger.

  Dad’s body was still laying there, splayed out on the middle table, his face partially torn away, his torso a gummy pile of gristle and bone. Delia and one of Nathan’s bearded friends, their hair matted with gore, were on all fours on the table, hunched over each side of his body and feasting on his innards. Dad wasn’t moving. Wouldn’t be anytime soon, if ever. Granted, he and I’d had our obvious difficulties, and I would’ve never forgiven him for his lack of empathy and compassion. However, no matter our problems, he was still my father, and the sight of him there, lifeless, disgraceful on the table, spread out as a meal—a fucking meal—filled me with sorrow. I suppose it was what grief felt like. Actual, heart aching, wrenching grief. What I’d felt after Simon’s break-up with me apparently hadn’t been grief at all like I’d initially thought. It had just been an empty gut-punch, carving me hollow. Real grief, honest grief, consumed the soul, squeezing and then gnawing at the heart.

  It ate my being. And I cried.

  My tears momentarily blinded me. I blinked my eyes a couple of times to clear them. I couldn’t do what I needed to do if I just stood around nearby, bawling. Grief could come later. As it was, I was right there, prime meat au jus, live and out in the open among the crazies. They were so busy eating though, tearing right into flesh and guts, I don’t think they cared if a meal got away one way or another.

  Nevertheless, one of them was still on my tail, honing right in on my scent. The guy I’d stabbed in the eye with the shoe heel was worming, wiggling his way out from underneath the table, the shoe still embedded there. He wasn’t a big man, nor was he particularly tall, but he was stocky and solid. His suit was creased and splattered with blood. His blood. My blood. Fuck, a mixture of our blood. Instinct had me feel around the earlobe he’d bitten. It was sore and sticky, but it didn’t feel nearly as awful as I’d pictured. Little indentations on the front and back, like a canine had punctured it. So I’d get a gauge there, big deal. Or it would heal like a piercing. Big fucking deal. It was my arm I was worried about. That possibility of infection.

  Didn’t human saliva carry the worst sorts of bacteria? I’d cleaned the arm somewhat, as much as wine was able to “clean,” but it certainly wasn’t going to be enough to prevent infection.

  The guy was already up and staggering towards me, reaching out for me with his twitchy fingers. Blood ran from his heel-imbedded, damaged eye down his cheek, dotting a crimson trail down his collar and onto the front of his dirty dress shirt. “I’m gonna eat that tasty arm of yours, girl,” he said, panting and leering at me. “First, I’m gonna beat you senseless ’til you’re out cold. Then I’m gonna rip that juicy arm right off and have me some good grub.”

  What was it with the crazies and my arms? I mean, what the hell. Had to give it to him though, he was persistent at least. He’d pinned me down once though; he wouldn’t do that again, not if I could help it. I felt behind my back for the kitchen doors, grasping for a handle. I nearly sighed with relief that there were handles there after all. That meant they weren’t the kind to swing shut, which would help if I could manage to open them and then close myself in. Then again, I didn’t know what the kitchen held in store for me. Knowing the appetites around the place, I wouldn’t have doubted a whole cluster of them camped out in the kitchen, making Boone soup on the stovetop.

  I tried to step away to the side to dodge his reach, but I banged a shin hard against something. As my (painful) luck would have it, there were two, dainty, upholstered benches on either side of the kitchen doors, and my leg had clanged against one of them. Some cutesy additions from a Pottery Barn or whatever the local home store was in that area. They were undoubtedly placed there as part of the décor because they wouldn’t have served anyone practically unless they had been used as last minute seating at a kids’ table. Right then, right there, one of them would have to suit me well for something else entirely.

  The man must have been tired of having a shoe poking from his eyeball because he stopped within fingers’ reach in front of me, gritted his teeth in a grimace, and yanked the shoe, heel and all, right out. The force behind his pull released not only the spiky heel but a gooey strand of gelatinous gunk, the remnants of his damaged eyeball, with it.

  Naturally, I threw up everything I’d eaten earlier. Naturally, because that’s just how it went. The remnants of a German luncheon and a dinner’s worth of roasted hen, doused the man’s face, his blood-splattered suit shirt and jacket, his dusty trousers, his scuffed cowboy boots. Now under normal circumstances, the sorts of circumstances that don’t involve escaping cannibalistic crazies, I’d have run to the nearest restroom, locked myself in an empty stall, and attempted to heave out the rest of whatever was lingering there in my gut, intent on moving up in the world. Then I probably would’ve hidden there until everyone had left the building. I’m not the type to show my face after something awful like that. That said, however, there, right there in that particular moment, while the guy immediately forgot he’d gone partially blind and had jumped back away from me in disgust, I ever so politely apologized and wiped the curdled slime from my mouth with the back of my hand. So ladylike. So very wrong.

  Yet I couldn’t have asked for a timelier, more appropriate diversion. The guy
was so distracted by the mess I’d caused all over his Sunday best that he didn’t once notice I’d quickly bent and grabbed hold of a leg of one of the little benches, tugging it up, checking its weight. It wasn’t as heavy as it could’ve been with thick slabs of wood, so it would do. Grasping my hands around two of its end legs, I lifted the bench, swung it up and around and struck the guy with it, hitting the side of his jawbone.

  He flailed and toppled to the floor, and that’s around the time when I fucked it up. Standard rookie mistake, literally looking back at what was happening. It’s that sort of thing you yell out at a character in a movie, the heroine who had stupidly stopped and made the mistake of looking back to see the damage. You should never look back because that always gives whomever it is you’re running from a bit of extra time to catch up. In other words, it stalls your escape; it makes you, more than likely, easy pickings.

  In my case, the commotion I’d caused near the kitchen doors was enough to draw the attention of the little packs of bloodthirsty crazies, sloppily digging into their food. Those crazies included a deranged version of the normally prim and proper Delia Card, not to mention her lumberjack dining partner. My big mistake, and an obvious one that would’ve had anyone with any common sense screaming at me onscreen, was that I just looked right at her rather than turning tail and running out of there.

  She looked right at me, her eyes dark and deep, her bloodstained mouth curling into a half-sneer. She’d been in mid-bite, holding my dad’s heart in her hands, cupping it to her lips like a rare treat.

  One of the crazies from the group clustered closest to me, a woman in a sparkling, ruby ’50’s swing dress who’d been tearing into another of the catering staff, let out a mad cackle, spit out the piece of gristle she’d been chewing, pointed right at me and shouted, “Whoooo, y’all, lookie look! Dessert’s got legs! Catch it quick before it’s gone!”