Reception

by Kenzie Jennings

  I backed towards the kitchen doors, bracing the bench against me, a barrier between myself and whoever got closer. Fucking ridiculous weapon. As soon as I felt the door handles digging into my back, I shoved the bench outwards, throwing it at the woman in the ruby dress who, with her crew at her back, was mere steps from me. Then I spun, wrenched open one of the kitchen doors and quickly slid inside the awkwardly narrow corridor in-between the kitchen and dining hall, slamming the door shut behind me, rattling it in its frame. The corridor must have been another cleaning storage area. There were a few shelves bearing cleaning supplies and a couple of mops placed to one side in a bucket against a wall there, so I took both of the mops and shoved each of them through the loops of the door handles to momentarily keep anyone from entering and coming after me.

  The crazy in the ruby dress hurled herself at the door and then pressed her forehead against the thick frosted windows. She smacked her palms against the glass, and several others joined her, the lot of them creating a thumping beat in time to a rhythm that was frightening in its thunder. Palms turned into fists, and the force of those fists had me turn on my heel and go.

  “We’re gonna get you, tasty treat!” screeched the one in the ruby dress.

  No turning back around though. I had to keep my wits about me from then on. The first thing I had to do before I could look for a way out was find Shay and Mom.

  With any luck, they were still alive somewhere. I then remembered though that they’d been cornered against the windows the last time I’d seen them.

  When everything went completely bonkers.

  Nathan probably had them pinned someplace else. And where was our cowboy host, Papa Rex?

  Fuck his family. Those freaks.

  TWELVE

  I rounded a corner of the corridor and found myself in the resort’s winding kitchen that had been ransacked. Pots and pans, utensils, smashed crockery, dry goods, all of it scattered about everywhere. The floor was covered in a snowfall trail of flour and grit that crunched underneath my shoes.

  There was no sign of anyone there. The place was eerily silent in contrast with the pounding at the door from the dining hall denizens.

  “None of us ’s eaten in the decade gone by…”

  Those words. The ones uttered by the creep under the table.

  “…we are well past due for a hearty meal. You an’ your kith n’ kin serve that purpose, and that one alone…”

  The reminder of his words froze me in my tracks as I felt my breath leave my body. My chest felt as if it were coiling and constricting, so I gripped the edge of the sink took in a deep gasp of air, and released it slowly. That little bit of information could be key later. What the hell were they though? If the whole purpose of having a wedding was to eat everyone else on the guest list, especially the bride and her family, why stage it as an all-out wedding? What would be the point of that? They could’ve just as easily ganged up on everyone during the engagement party, right? Wouldn’t have been nearly as pricey.

  Rational questions during an irrational time. Make that an absurd time, one soaked in blood and lunacy.

  Fucking crazies.

  I searched the kitchen for sharp knives, anything sharp at all, but came up short. Not a carving knife in sight, which, considering the situation those of us who didn’t eat people were in, wasn’t particularly ideal. Looking back on what happened in the dining hall, I didn’t recall anyone using utensils, including carving knives, to dig into their actual ‘dessert’ with all the extra protein.

  Dessert. Right. I laughed and then coughed over the bowl of a sink, spitting up threads of mucus that refused to part ways with me.

  By then, my headache had split into icy-hot clusters, poking away behind my eyes, at my temples, skewering points into the back of my skull. I turned on the tap and ducked my head down to take in a cold mouthful of water that tasted like chlorine and fresh dirt. I swished it around my mouth, gargled, and spit out the last dregs of bile. Everything, from the air around me to the aftertaste of the water, tasted heavy and metallic.

  Stay hydrated, Leon whispered. Dehydration can settle in without you even being aware of it until it’s too late. It’ll only exacerbate your symptoms.

  I took another long swig of water, despite the flat taste of it. The cold drilled into my teeth and gums right down to the nerves. Its pain only served to add to the cluster-fucking-hell of a headache I was suffering through.

  Don’t stay too long in one place, girlie.

  (What was that?)

  You heard me.

  (No. That’s not right. Leon would never have called me that.)

  You’d better cut and run. Take those tasty arms and legs with you.

  If that wasn’t enough of a warning that I was losing it, I don’t know what was.

  Sunshine and honey. Suck the sweet right outta ya. Better get, girlie girl.

  Even still, the old, mad subconscious had a point. I had to move. I needed something though, a weapon of any sort. While there weren’t any knives around from what I could tell, there were plenty of inventive choices around.

  I heard the sound of glass cracking and shattering coming from the doors leading into the corridor from the dining room. Fuck, if I wasn’t wasting time clearing my head and figuring out what to use to defend myself. It wouldn’t be long before the lot of them came bursting through the doors.

  The kitchen curved around a corner and poured into a wide, open space that seemed to be designated for setting up carts and platters. A huge marble-topped kitchen island graced the middle of the room. What was laying there on the center of the island, in a grand display, was enough to cause my legs to turn to jelly and my stomach to go right into somersault mode. I gagged at the sight of it, my body willing my innards to come up, but all I could manage was a wrenching silent heave into my palm.

  From what I could tell from the uniform whites that had been neatly folded and placed to the counter nearby—well, that and the name badge that was still pinned to the double-breasted jacket, one that not only included the name but a title—it was the bloated and carved headless body of the resort’s chef. The carcass was greasy and shiny with a crisp, golden coating of skin as if it had been buttered and then roasted, and it had even been sliced like a Thanksgiving turkey. Out of all the thoughts that were racing, chasing each other through my brain, what I really wanted to know was when the hell had someone managed to have the time doing that to the poor man without being caught by any of us…normals? Had this been happening during the entire course of the evening? Who had done it? And who had been busy cooking the wedding dinner?

  It was as if the gods of awful revelations had been intently listening to my buzzing thoughts. A tall woman in a flowy blue dress with a hem that danced around her ankles stood in the end of the aisle of the kitchen with her back faced to me at a cart where she was bent over and chattering to herself. Her words were manic, her gestures hidden from anyone coming from the dining room like I had. Her arms were busy in their movements, like she was diligently working on something. Still focused on her whatever it was she was doing, she reached over for a sea salt grinder nearby on a countertop and ground its contents over something there on the cart in front of her.

  I took off my shoes, one after the other, and brandished both, one in each hand, readying myself. Sure, possibly handy weapons surrounded me, but I figured I’d make too much noise if I attempted to search the cabinets and drawers. There were pots and pans on the floor, but the sound of picking up one from the tiled floor, or possibly dropping it as I often did post-medication, well, it was merely one more risk I didn’t want to deal with, not with what was happening. Besides, I had no idea what the crazies were capable of. I mean, their hearing could’ve easily been akin to bats and their sonar. I crept towards her, keeping my footsteps as silent as I could manage, one shoe in a hand out, ready to strike her with my own shoe’s blocky heel. Pumps weren’t particularly ideal given the circumstances, as I’d discovered the value of a skinny h
eel mere minutes before. However, my pumps were practical in that they felt like if I gave a solid swing to the face, they’d break a nose or some teeth. The thought of it had me tighten my grip around them, readying myself.

  The tall woman then slammed a fist down on the cart, causing it to rattle with its burden. The sudden sound caused me to jump back, my stockinged feet sliding on the floor. I barely caught myself from falling just by mere luck alone. Maybe it was the adrenalin that kept me focused, maybe it was the fact I was suffering the worst headache and nausea on record, both symptoms virtually demanding me to keep sharp. Even still, bright spots of light bobbed in front of my eyes. I rapidly blinked, willing the spots to vanish, but they remained there, dancing in my line of sight.

  “It’s not going to match the place settings, Alice,” growled the tall woman. “It’s not going to match the décor. Everything you do is wrong. Everything you’ve done here, wrong.”

  Just the tone of her voice made me halt, wavering there as still and silent as I could be. My breath hurt, caught in my throat like a hard pebble of air.

  Her chatter kept coming in a stream. “You’ll be fired, you know. Who will want to hire you then? Who would be interested in hiring a middle-aged hag with no taste? Who, Alice? You have nothing worthwhile on your resume. You only work for family, and even your family hates you. You hear that, Alice? They hate you. And you know what? You’re a failure, Alice. You’ve always been a big, fat failure.”

  Stupid me with my lousy timing and reflexes, I sucked in my breath a little too sharply, enough that it played in stereo surround sound in my ears.

  She’d heard it too. She spun around, revealing herself and all of her madness to me.

  I stumbled and slid backwards, dropping the shoes, and my back hit the sharp edge of the kitchen island, causing me to pitch forward onto the floor, painfully to my knees, right at the feet of the tall woman, the wedding planner. As soon as I looked up at her, everything went cold inside. I tilted back into a crab crawl on the floor, moving backwards until my back hit the island.

  The wedding planner’s once meticulously pinned updo was undone, pieces matted against her sticky face, other pieces snaking out, darting their tongues. A couple of flies flitted about her hair, frantic to find a landing spot, one that would allow them to carry on the bizarre osmosis they’d found with her.

  Her leering mouth was rimmed with a thick ring of dried blood. Blood streaked the front of her neck as well and continued down in mottled splatter over the front of her dress that had gone from a bright, cheerful turquoise to a shade of blotchy, dark purple. A man’s head—its eyes like runny, poached eggs, mouth open wide in a silent scream— dangled from one hand, the thick grey hair bunched and gathered in her tight grip. She was swinging it like a macabre purse. Judging by the remnants of the neck, the head had been neatly cut away from the body with a surgeon’s preciseness.

  Or at least a wedding planner’s preciseness. A wedding planner who had a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  A wedding planner who had obviously done this sort of thing before.

  She casually tossed the head at me, like it was a ball and we were playing catch. The thing landed in between my splayed legs, face-forward into the crotch of my dress. I tried to scream, but my voice caught in my throat, and the scream came out in a tiny squeak of air.

  The wedding planner was the only one who found it awfully funny. “Bull’s-eye,” she said with a giggle. “He can smell you properly now. He can smell your heat. And you know something? You smell so so good from where I’m standing.”

  Gagging, I pulled the head from my lap by the hair and threw it aside. Its bloody imprint marked my gore-streaked dress, another reminder of the monstrous insanity of the evening.

  The wedding planner’s face darkened, and she stepped towards me so she towered over me with a grim smile stretching her lips. While I’d rid myself of the head, she had apparently reached for a utensil from the cart, the only carving knife I’d seen in the kitchen, unfortunately. And, of course, she’d be the one to have it.

  “Who’s a naughty girl? We don’t play with our food,” she purred as she crouched down in front of me. “Well, I suppose it’s up to Alice here to teach you how to behave at a formal function. Can’t have you running around like a wild thing on the grounds, can we? I suppose it is fun to hunt though.”

  Her dress pooled around her as she wiggled around into a cross-legged position, attempting to get comfortable with me. She let out a dramatic sigh, feigning a pout at my expense, her hands and carving knife neatly in her lap in a twisted version of a ladylike pose, prim and wrong. That close, I got a good view of the bits of stringy gristle stuck in between her teeth. Her murky grey eyes were bloodshot. One of them had a burst capillary, mapping the white of the eye in squiggles that intersected with a pool of red. Her nostrils flared as she fumed at me, her hard stare quickening my pulse. She looked like she was contemplating whether I’d be best served hot or cold on a dinner platter, like the poor chef on the island countertop.

  A fly had made a landing spot of the center of her greasy widow’s peak. It hadn’t been as visible until then since I was sitting there across from her. Every few seconds, it skittered and bounced from its resting place, buzzing in front of her eyes, agitated at the slightest movement from its fidgety host.

  “What I want to know is, who was the idiot who let you get away?” she said, waving a hand at her persistent friend, trying to shoo it away. “Was it my brother? It was probably my brother. He’s always been careless like that. Mama warned us he was gonna be a lot like Daddy. He’d want to appear social at first. Have us get to know our meal before eating it. We can certainly be polite, sure, but all in all, it’s such a silly exercise in futility, don’t you think? Who socializes with their food? Who attempts to get to know their food before eating it? Yet it’s what Rex wanted of us. And you know how it goes…Whatever Rex wants…”

  I guess the expression I wore gave my question away without having to even ask it because Alice, the wedding planner, read my face and nodded. “It took him years to find a mate in Delia. Her family was just as hungry as we were. Hungrier, in fact. They all had the urge for so long. They’d not feasted proper since her granddaddy’s funeral. A few stragglers there her family knew in passing, some strangers who wouldn’t be missed. That was so long ago.” She wilted at the thought, her voice dipping into a wistful murmur. “Such a long, long time ago.”

  I had so many questions for her. Rational, reasonable questions. Questions that would never get rational, reasonable answers from any of these people, the crazies. Certainly nothing from the likes of Alice. Still, I figured it would be best to keep her talking and distracted while I examined the room behind her while we were sitting there on the kitchen floor, a couple of gals just shooting the shit.

  I just wanted a weapon within easy reach. Wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?

  “So you…you people eat like you do because it’s…what, it’s in the blood?” I asked, somehow managing to keep my voice steady and curious even while I was terrified. Amazing what one can manage with adrenalin pumping, even when one’s suffering severe withdrawals. Still, I kept my gaze flitting about from her face to the kitchen space and back again, hoping she’d think it was nerves on my end rather than what I was really doing.

  “We ‘people’? We ‘people’ sounds unsure,” she said. “You don’t need to be so forced around me, around any of us. You can call us whatever you want. It’s the least we can offer you, that facade of independence. A little piece of dignity during your final moments.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  I watched in morbid fascination as the fly landed on her cheek and darted between her lips. Alice cleared her throat and shifted on the floor, moving up onto her knees. She then raised her arms and stretched her back as she reached, letting out a little groan as she did. Then she relaxed with an easy smile on her face. “Excuse me. I’ve been on my feet all day for the pas
t couple weeks. It’s exhausting doing this for a living when families make such extravagant demands of their children’s weddings.”

  “At least this was for family though, right?”

  She gave me a funny look. “Doesn’t make it easier. It’s much harder, in fact, only because when it’s not family, we never have to see the clients again. We just hope they’re good enough to leave a positive Yelp review,” she said with a knowing wink, like I was supposed to empathize with her or something. “When it’s family, it’s always there, right there, as a reminder of what you did or didn’t do. It’s in albums, stories, framed photographs, all sorts of reminders. This one…This one was especially difficult.”

  I’d tuned her out a bit, keeping my eyes on her but my focus tight on something I felt behind me on the floor, something that had been making painful indentations against my rear end. My fingers crawled over it, feeling around at its length, its strange, cylindrical shape. Whatever it was, it was solid and a little heavy. If I struck her with it, it would definitely hurt her, perhaps enough to give me enough time to escape.

  “But to answer your question, no, we don’t ‘eat like we do’ because of our heritage. Although, that would be an interesting history, one for the local folklore. We love our lore, don’t you think? If you have a story, especially one involving mayhaws, steer, and oil, well, honey, you’re worth more than your weight in archive.”

  I smiled in response, unsure of what to say or ask. It was partially because I’d lost interest in anything she had to say. They were monsters. They ate people. End of discussion.

  The object I had there in my hand while she prattled on was starting to develop a bit of its own heritage. It was definitely modeled after a gun. It had a thick grip, a muzzle, and a shrunken, slick barrel. There was no hammer and no normal trigger, however. Instead, from what I could feel, the instrument had a dial with raised markings at the top of its grip. It also had a plastic button there in lieu of a trigger, and as if I were delicately treating a firearm, I was so careful not to push it. I mean, I didn’t know what the hell it was, but it felt like it could be something to use aside from the copper skillet laying near Alice in the midst of all the salt, dried beans and whisper-thin strands of vermicelli that had been scattered all over the floor and countertops.