Reception

by Kenzie Jennings

  “There’s no history here. Some of us were born with the taste,” she said, giving me a curious once over, enough to have me stop what I was doing lest she caught me with my new tool in hand.

  It was right then when I realized what it was I had there, so I placed the tool down on the floor behind me on its base, my back acting as a shield. And using that hand, I fidgeted with the tool’s dial, turning it slowly counter-clockwise.

  “Some of us just grew into it. Believe it or not, there are quite a number of newcomers with us tonight. Got themselves invited to your family’s little wedding soiree only because they’d heard the Cards were dealing.”

  “That’s a terrible pun,” I said. Anything to keep her interest distracted from what I had hidden and gripped behind me.

  Alice leaned in and grinned at me. I nearly gagged from the rank stench of her body odor and breath, a potent combination of raw garlic, sweat, and rotten meat. She’d attempted to mask the smell with a musky perfume, but all it did was make it much worse.

  “I think I’ve chatted with the food long enough,” she said. “Daddy’d be so proud.”

  And with that, Alice pounced, her carving knife swinging at my face. I dodged the blade only just, quickly sliding to the side. I could feel the knife whisper through my hair as it nearly found a decent target. Instead, the blade struck the wood paneling of the island base, splintering it from the impact.

  She yanked the knife until it came free in a sprinkle of wood shavings, giving me just enough time to fumble to my feet. My newfound weapon was fast becoming sweaty in my grip at my side. I was worried I’d drop it before I could even use it. However, as pure dumb luck would have it, just as soon as Alice was standing up again, she was already slashing away at the air on front of me like a wild-eyed maniac, and she kept miscalculating my every damned step. After a bit of a bob and weave, I held out the kitchen blowtorch, aiming its burner nozzle right at her mug.

  “Dare you, crazy bitch,” I said.

  She stood there, her glance darting from me to the blowtorch then back to me like she was contemplating the risk. Then she grinned, the stretch of it cracking the dried clots of blood around her mouth and on her cheeks.

  “You’re using it incorrectly,” she said and coughed around a chortle. “Wouldn’t know how to set fire to a baked Alaska if you tried, sweetmeat.”

  “We can find out in a minute if you want.”

  Her chortle rounded into a laugh, full and hearty. “I don’t play with my food.”

  “Yet you’re standing around, wasting time, chatting with it. Thought you didn’t do that either. When you think about it, it’s kind of funny because you’ve been doing that for the past ten minutes, boring me to death.”

  Her grin twisted into a scowl.

  “Come to think of it, since you’re pretty useless with your knife there, just keep doing what you’re doing instead. You can just as easily kill me with small talk about you and your family’s tastes. Granted, it might take a bit longer than you intended. It might even delay your cooking time, but at least—”

  I got the feeling my running commentary must have ticked her off because she didn’t bother with another retort, interrupting my stalling. Instead, she stepped up right towards me, knife out at the ready, her face contorted with hot rage.

  And I clicked back the igniter on the blowtorch before she swung. My teeth clenched, grinding down, and I kept my eyes screwed shut during the whole ordeal. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I mean, she was right. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing with the thing. I felt the windy heat of it and heard a clatter of something dropping to the floor and then her scream, piercing and clear.

  I opened my eyes. My finger was still locked on the igniter as a long, lean jet of blue flame shot out from the burner, spurting out at its intended target. Alice’s whole head was roasting, a globe of fire enveloping her skull, crisping it. The fire spread over her shoulders, embracing her in a bright, scorching cloak. Her screams had thankfully stopped, but the groaning, choking sounds coming from her during her last few seconds before she fell to the floor in a tower of fire and smoke were enough to grant me the possibility of nightmares for years to come.

  There was a blur of movement, creamy fabric and pale arms through the smoke. A blast of white foam over the burning corpse on the floor. I clamped a hand over my nose and mouth to block out the smoke. My eyes burned and watered. The heat alone was enough to make me break out in a itchy sweat all over. My dress must have been utterly ruined by then, its material filthy and damp.

  Still, I was somewhat present, somewhat out there in the moment. I’d survived. Again.

  I didn’t deserve it. Out of all the people at the resort, I didn’t understand how it was that I’d managed to get on like I had. Me, of all people. Me, in all places.

  When the smoke finally cleared somewhat, the air was still heavy with the stench of smoke, scorched flesh, and burnt hair. Standing there, fire extinguisher sputtering out its last dregs in her hands, was Shay.

  (Of all people, in all places)

  THIRTEEN

  Shay’s normally pretty, porcelain face was smudged with streaks of soot, dried blood and sweat. Her dress was in grimy tatters, but amazingly, the bustle and train were still attached to the back. She dropped the extinguisher and then bent at the waist, taking in great gasps of smoky air, causing me to jolt back to the present state we were in. I waved my arms about, attempting to fan the smoke away. There weren’t any windows in the kitchen area of the building, but there were vents in the kitchen at least.

  I was then there at Shay’s side, rubbing her back. I drew her up, pulled her to me, and hugged her tightly. Her arms encircled my neck as she rubbed her face against my hair, breathing in and out in quick hitches.

  “I can’t believe you’re here. You’re all right,” I said into her hair, patting it down. “I thought they’d—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Shay, I swear, I thought Nathan had—”

  “Please, please don’t say it. If you say the words, they’ll be true, and I don’t want to live anyplace where that’s true. Where something like that happens.” She went stiff in my arms. “Oh, my God. What…Who is that?”

  I drew back from her, following her line of sight towards the body of the chef, all shiny-roasted there, and headless. I’d almost forgotten about him. His head had been caught in the fire as soon as Alice fell.

  I pulled her in to me again, blocking her from the sight of the chef. “Don’t look at it. I think he’d been cooking the whole time we were in there during the reception,” I said as I held her.

  She sobbed and coughed against me.

  “Not to state the obvious, but we need to hurry out,” I whispered. My voice was already scratchy from the smoke that burned my throat and stung my eyes. “And we should keep it nice and quiet. We’ve probably drawn the attention of some of them out there. First thing we have to do is get some car keys. Maybe Mom’s or yours? You drove here, right?”

  Shay murmured something soft and unreachable, I didn’t quite catch it. We pulled away from each other, and I gently brushed the wet strands of hair away from her face and looked her in the eye, keeping her focus away from that awful countertop centerpiece, urging her to respond clearly.

  She must have read my expression searching hers because she nodded and said, “Mom’s out there behind her casita, waiting on me. She didn’t have the key, so we found a place where she could hide. I told her I’d look for you.”

  “Where the hell’s her key? We all got doubles, right?”

  “She didn’t bring hers. They were relying on Dad’s.”

  “What, are you kidding? Wasn’t she the one who always warned us to take both if we were sharing, just in case? This seems like a great ‘just in case’ situation.”

  “Yeah, well, she forgot, Ansley. She was kind of distracted. See, there was this thing going on, this little event she had planned called ‘Shay’s wedding’.”

  �
��Out of all the times to forget her key—”

  “Well, it’s not like we predicted we were all going to be slaughtered at some point during the evening. That’s not what normally goes on during a wedding.”

  “Okay, so what happened to Nathan? The last time I saw you guys at dinner, he looked as if he was—” I stopped before I could finish that thought. Too horrible to consider, too unbelievable to conceive.

  Shay visibly shuddered at the sound of his name, the thought of what the rest of my sentence entailed, even unspoken. “He got distracted in the dining room, so we got away. His dad needed him to help with something.”

  “What, setting up the grill?”

  Her face went all slack and grey at that. “So not funny.”

  “Sorry, bad joke in bad times.”

  “I told you I didn’t want that. I didn’t want you to say that. Any of it.”

  “I know you did. I’m sorry.”

  Shay was trembling, so I rubbed her arms to keep her focused and calm. She nodded at the blowtorch I’d set on the kitchen island beside the body once she’d put the fire out. “Is it empty?” she asked.

  I picked it up, put it to my ear, and shook the canister grip. A liquid in it swished around. “There’s still a little of whatever fuel’s left in there.”

  “Bring it, and see if you can find some lighter fluid to fill it up again. There has to be something else around here we could use,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “It’s a kitchen, right? So where are all the knives?”

  Using my foot, I pointed the knife laying there within mere inches of Alice’s scorched corpse. “Besides the one she had? I couldn’t find anything.”

  “Well, then bend down and get hers. She’s not using it.”

  I gave Shay a look, willing her to read my disgust. “Seriously? You get it.”

  She crinkled her nose at the body. “No way. I’m not getting near that.”

  “I’m not either. Besides the handle is useless. It’s all warped. And, need I add, it was your idea in the first place.”

  “You’re the one who did it.”

  “And you’re the one who put it out. Besides, I already have this.” I wiggled the blowtorch at her. “You wanted the knife.”

  “Are we really doing this while Mom’s alone out there in the dark, probably freaking out, wondering where we are?”

  “You could’ve taken her with you, Shay. Why’d you leave her back there?”

  Shay shot me a dark grimace in response.

  “What, she would’ve slowed you down? Is that what you were thinking? If it is, you’d best remain ignorant among the ignorant, judging your elders. Judging your betters like that.”

  She still wasn’t interested in answering me. Instead, she started looking around the kitchen, resuming my hunt for a potential weapon. She found a little tin of butane, which she handed to me. While she continued searching, I refilled the built-in canister on the blowtorch.

  “Mom can run laps around both of us,” I said as I worked. “She’s all lean muscle, like a finely oiled machine. I mean, seriously, the woman has worked out five times a week since she was—”

  “Fifteen years old,” snapped Shay as she pulled open a drawer and looked inside. “God. She’s said that over and over again since we were little. All the damn time.”

  “Yep, like we were a couple of lazy slugs who could never compete. That’s her all right.”

  “But you weren’t with her when...” Shay stopped, unsure how to finish, and briefly met my eyes. “Mom’s not as spry as she used to be.”

  I wiggled my floury sooty feet back into my pumps, closed up the canister valve with the little lid, and then stared directly at her. There was something off about what she’d brought up, not in the way she said it, but in what she said. It something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “With her when what? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. It’s not important right now.” Shay went back to shuffling around through the drawers. Then she slammed them shut and scouted the countertops. “How do they not have a knife block? When your kitchen is this big, and there’s no knife block…or one of those magnetic holders people have where they just stick them on for easy access. Where is it? Where the hell do they keep their knives?”

  She opened a drawer under the kitchen island near me, and I slammed it shut, just missing her fingers, and I stood in front of it, keeping her from searching inside of it.

  “What’s going on with Mom?” I said. I wasn’t about to let her change the subject, even if we were on borrowed time. Besides, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly. Things just never seemed what they were.

  “She’s had some health issues. Too much strain,” answered Shay absently. “Now do you mind? There should be something I could use…” Shay gently nudged me aside and opened the drawer. Doing her best to ignore the body there on the countertop, she pulled out a number of odd utensils and tools from the drawer, things best suited for certain, specific occasions, and reached in a bit deeper back and came up with an old-fashioned meat tenderizing mallet, heavy enough that it could certainly do a considerable amount of damage, break a few bones, smash in a skull.

  “That should do it,” I said right before I felt the burning tickle in the back of my throat and wheezed out a hacking cough. This time, I could presume at the very least, it wasn’t a withdrawal symptom making me feel as if I was about to cough out a handful of needles.

  Shay swung it a couple of times, testing its heft.

  “So, tell me, what kind of health issues?” I said as I grabbed her wrist, stopping her swinging, if only to get her attention. I’d foolishly used my right hand of the injured forearm, and I don’t know if it was the force behind my actions, but a white streak of pain traveled from my wrist up to my elbow, enough to have me release her wrist, gasping.

  She sighed at me. “She had a minor heart attack. She had a decent recovery, but the cardiologist said her heart won’t be as strong as it had been,” she said, refusing to meet my stare as she did. “It was awhile ago, right around the time Simon split up with you.”

  I suddenly felt chilled, creepy-crawly, all over.

  “Dad said he’d tried to get in touch, but he couldn’t reach you, so I tried,” she said. “I even emailed you, Ans. You used to respond to emails, even the ones Mom used to send out. You remember? The ones with the links to the cats behaving badly videos?”

  “And the jumping baby goats,” I said softly.

  “I’ve never seen Dad hurt like that,” said Shay. “I caught him—”

  Somehow, I knew the rest. Somehow, some way. “You once caught him crying on the patio,” I whispered.

  She froze then, returning my stare with a quizzical frown. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

  “We had this conversation earlier, before we went to get our hair done.”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Yeah, we did, Shay. We were outside the ladies room. There was that woman in the orange dress with the little girls…”

  “What woman? Little girls? What are you talking about?”

  “Come to think of it, where did they go? I haven’t seen any of them since all this—”

  “We didn’t have this conversation before. I’m not lying.”

  “I’m not either, Shay. We did!”

  “I think I’d remember if we did. Kind of an important topic of discussion, don’t you think?”

  “Okay, then how did I know what you were going to say?”

  “Just a weird coincidence. Like when you think someone’s gonna call, and they do.”

  “You seriously can’t remember?”

  “I swear, I don’t.”

  “Well, hell, I guess none of it really matters anyhow.”

  Shay was quiet at that, and then she said, “What happened to your arm?”

  “Well, one of your guests wanted more than a slice of your…your weird chocolate wedding cake. Decided my arm would have to do.”

  “It wasn�
�t weird. It was unique.”

  “It was weird, Shay.”

  “Fuck off. It’s an evening wedding, and anyone with any taste at all likes chocolate.”

  “There might’ve been people who were allergic.”

  “That’s a made up thing, chocolate allergies. That’s like being allergic to water or air. It’s not real.”

  “It’s real. The Internet says so.”

  “Now comes the part where you say, ‘I know a guy who knows this lady whose brother-in-law is from Canada, and over there, lots of people die every year from chocolate ingestion.’”

  “Chocolate-induced hives. Look it up.”

  “Whatever. It was fabulous, and you know it.”

  I clumsily round-kicked her, just a tap, from the side, exposing everything underneath my mess of a dress. Shay grinned and grabbed at my foot so I was hopping around, trying not to lose my balance. Bracing myself back against the edge of the island countertop, I pulled my foot away from her grasp swung it at her rear end. She laughed and jumped to the side out of its path, bringing her own foot up to counter it.

  No matter how playful we were, no matter how we could easily change the subject in the middle of everything happening while it all went to hell, I still hate myself for being so goddamned self-centered. I should have been there, should have answered. I’d blocked out everyone after my heartbreak, right up until the incident at work. If it hadn’t been for Leon, and a few others at the center who’d kept me grounded and aware, I might have done something drastic, like get myself off the grid, estrange myself further from my family. Nothing could’ve been worse.

  Well, that’s not entirely true now, is it?