Dead Spots (8 page)

“Look away, Mackenzie. You're making it worse.”

Forcing her gaze to her food, Mackenzie continued her meal, but the temptation to watch the gluttonous woman was too great. She stole another look.

The perfect blonde was definitely not perfect anymore. Her blouse was hanging open and her hair was a mess. Not even bothering with her utensils, she was eating huge handfuls of roast beef and potatoes. Her once slightly plump cheeks were now flabby and thick jowls were forming.

Mackenzie's appetite left her and she shoved the plate away with one hand.

“You should eat more,” Grant urged.

“I can't. I'm full.”

“You should still eat.”

“I'm full, Grant. Back off!” The words left her mouth a little more sharply than she would have liked even if he was a bit bossy. In the past she was the calm one in the face of her mother's histrionics, but now she was the one on edge. Grant appeared to be sincerely trying to help her, but her usual Texan geniality was frayed by the events unfolding around her.

The now imperfect blonde motioned for the waitress again. Her face, hair, and hands glistened with grease. Her body was bulging underneath her clothes.

Wiping his mouth, Grant said, “You should eat now before it gets any worse.”

“I haven't had much of an appetite in a while. Not since—”

A pang of sorrow pierced her. The visit to Joshua's grave came to mind and the enormity of what she'd lost bore down on her. Tanner, Joshua, her home … all was lost. Now she was lost, too. Disconnected from reality and trapped.

“Don't!”

“Don't what?”

“Give it a purpose,” he replied sharply.

A bell over the front door jangled as another customer entered. Grant narrowed his eyes, gazing past her toward the newcomer. “What were you just thinking about?”

Mackenzie twisted the napkin in her hands. “It doesn't matter.”

“This way please,” one of the waitresses said behind her.

Mackenzie knotted the napkin, struggling with the surge of sadness billowing through her. Was she in her car, slowly dying right now? Would she be joining her little one under the unforgiving darkness of the ground? What would Tanner say? Would he even care? Or would he just continue on with his new girlfriend as they waited for their baby?

“This is perfect! Thanks!”

Tanner's voice.

Unsteady, Mackenzie looked up to see her ex-husband slide into a booth. A pregnant woman took the seat across from him, her face shielded by her thick brown hair. Tanner yanked two menus out from behind the wire basket on their table and slid one to the woman. Tapping his fingers, he studied the menu.

“Who is that?” Grant asked worriedly.

“Now I know I'm dead,” Mackenzie muttered. “This is hell.”

“Who
is
that?” Grant's voice was insistent.

“Tanner,” Mackenzie answered miserably. “My ex-husband who left me after our baby died.”

“Damn.” Grant craned his neck, looking around the café anxiously. “We better get going. Nice time is over.”

Mackenzie watched Tanner take the pregnant woman's hand and rub her fingers lovingly. The sweet look he once gave Mackenzie graced his face while he spoke to his girlfriend. He couldn't have hurt Mackenzie more if he had stabbed her.

“Mackenzie, let's go,” Grant said, standing.

Mackenzie gasped in horror.

Beyond Grant, the endlessly eating woman was in an even worse condition. Rolls of fat burst out from under her clothing and her face was smeared with food. The plates of food she had ordered were licked clean and scattered across the table, yet the woman was still eating. She tore great chunks of flesh out of her own chubby arm, hungrily devouring each bite. Blood splattered the table and pooled on the floor. No one else seemed to notice the woman cannibalizing herself. The customers continued to eat their meals while the jukebox played the first hit from Britney Spears.

Grant followed her gaze. “Okay, we definitely need to go now.” Standing, he grabbed her arm. “C'mon, Mackenzie.”

If not for him forcing her to her feet, she probably wouldn't have been able to stand. Her knees felt weak, her stomach revolting against the food. In the booth behind the woman consuming her own arm, Tanner was laughing and chatting with his new girlfriend, oblivious of Mackenzie or the cannibal.

“Mackenzie, we need to go now!” Grant tugged on her arm.

Bone and muscle glistened in the light. The woman continued to devour herself, sucking the flesh off her fingers.

“I … I…” A scream was welling up from deep within Mackenzie.

Tanner started laughing at something that was said to him, shaking his head with amusement. Raising his head, he gave a short wave in her direction. Mackenzie's fingers twitched as she fought back the reflex to wave back.

Candy stalked past toward Tanner's table, ignoring the blood-soaked woman consuming her fingers. “Coming, darlin'.”

“We're leaving now!”

Grant dragged Mackenzie about, her feet tripping her. The anxiety attack bloomed again, distorting her senses and crippling her mind and body. It was difficult for Mackenzie to move her limbs properly as her vision tunneled and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Stumbling, she clutched Grant's arm with one hand, trying to keep herself upright.

“Hey, Mac!” Tanner's voice called out.

“Don't turn around,” Grant urged as he pulled her to the entrance.

“Mac!” Tanner called out again. “Hey, Mac! Over here!”

Unable to resist, Mackenzie stole a peek over her shoulder.

Tanner lounged in his seat staring straight at her, grinning slightly. He exuded boyish charm and swagger even while sitting. Pointing with one hand, he said, “Aren't you forgetting your baby?”

Dark fingers of horror slid up through her body to grip her mind as Mackenzie's eyes followed the line from the tip of Tanner's finger to the old-fashioned baby carriage next to the table Mackenzie and Grant had just abandoned. It was baby blue with a curtain of gauzy tulle edged in white lace that extended from the hood to the edges of the bassinet.

Mackenzie's body betrayed her, taking one step toward the carriage.

“Don't,” Grant said sharply.

The wheels were smeared with mud and clumps of dirt clung to the white lace. A small, dark shape beneath the misty material shifted.

“Mac, you probably really should take the baby. I already got my own on the way!” Tanner called out, grinning.

Breath stuttering, hands shaking, stomach twisting, Mackenzie lurched in the direction of the carriage. The tiny figure beneath the tulle moved again. Contradictory, chaotic thoughts fought in her mind for dominance. Her arms ached to hold her baby. If she was enraptured by a delusion, then she could hold Joshua one last time, couldn't she? But what if she drew back the fabric and found something twisted and grotesque?

Grant spun her about. “Don't let it get to you!”

“I just want to hold him one last time!”

“It's the dead spot!” Grant tugged her toward the entrance.

“Oh, ma'am?” It was the waitress behind the bar. She was holding the phone receiver. “It's your mother on the line.”

Mackenzie stared at the black receiver. How could her mother know she was here? Clarity began to break through the maelstrom of confusion clouding her mind.

Devona held out the phone insistently, shaking it slightly. “C'mon … answer.”

Curiosity gripping her, Mackenzie twisted around in Grant's grip and wrenched free.

“No, Mackenzie!”

Tilting her head, Devona grinned, waving the receiver.

Mackenzie took the now shiny and sleek receiver from the woman and cautiously pressed it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Are you leaving your baby again, Mackenzie? Didn't I raise you better than that? First you do something stupid and kill him before he's even born, then you just up and leave Shreveport leaving him buried in the ground, then you have the chance to have him again and you just walk away. What kind of mother are you?”

It was Estelle's voice. The inflection of every word was perfect. Though Mackenzie knew that her mother harbored in her soul the belief that Mackenzie had somehow brought about the death of her child, the cruelty in the words held a malevolence Estelle's voice did not.

“It's not her,” Mackenzie said, staring at the waitress, dumbfounded at the barrage of nasty comments pouring out of the phone.

“Mackenzie, don't feed it.” Grant grabbed the phone from her hand and flung it at the waitress, who ducked out of the way.

The nasty words uttered in her mother's voice filled her mind, making her reel. What sort of a mother was she, moving out of state to selfishly start a new life when Joshua was buried in the unyielding earth? A baby's pitiful cry sounded, plaintive and hungry.

What if Joshua was in the carriage, hungry and alone, crying out for her?

Grant dragged her to the entrance, pushed the door open, and attempted to pull her outside.

“I can't leave him!” Mackenzie exclaimed, her arms craving to feel her son in them one last time. “I can't leave him!”

Twisting her wrists free of Grant's hold, she pushed him outside, jerked the front door shut, and locked it. There was no way she was going to leave Joshua again.

Mackenzie whirled about and let out a frightened whimper.

The café was full of shadows and empty of life. Dry leaves and rotting boards crunched beneath her boot heels. There was no sign of any customers, a bustling waitstaff, Tanner, or the cannibal blonde. The baby carriage and the tiny form hidden within were nowhere to be seen. It looked exactly as it had when she had first entered. Abandoned, empty, filthy.

Shocked, Mackenzie stared at where she'd just had a meal. The table was broken and listing against the wall. The jukebox was gone and the music with it. The café once more smelled of decay, not food.

She'd finally snapped out of her fugue state. With a soft sob of relief, she pressed one hand to her chest. “It's gone. Oh, thank God.”

The pink pepper spray sat on one of the nearby tables, and, heels thumping against the rotting floor, she hurried over and snatched it up.

“Hungry,” a voice rasped.

Twisting about, Mackenzie let out a terrified cry.

The once perfect blonde sat in her booth in the corner, holding out her skeleton arms. Flayed flesh and muscle dripped from her bones. Her face, neck, and chest were covered in bleeding scratches torn by her own fingers. Huge gaping wounds trickled blood over her flabby naked body.

“I'm so hungry!”

Appalled, Mackenzie stared, her body frozen.

Gripping the edge of the table with a skeletal hand, the blonde pulled her large body upright. Leaves skittered over the table as it wobbled, almost tipping over. Mackenzie watched in horror as a leaf fell into the blood spilling onto the floor and gradually disappeared beneath the surface. The squishy sound of the woman's bare feet approaching pulled Mackenzie's attention from the pool of blood. One hand flailing before her, the woman's tongue lolled about in her torn mouth.

“Hungry, so hungry,” she whispered again.

Mackenzie gulped in a deep breath, the coppery smell of blood making her gag. The pepper spray in her hand was terribly insignificant in the face of such a gruesome creature.

Another table rattled as the woman struck it with her bare thigh, sending it toppling over with a loud crash. The noise jolted Mackenzie out of her paralysis and she held the pepper spray before her.

“Stay back!”

“Mackenzie!” Grant pounded on the front door. “What's going on? Unlock the door! Let me in!”

“So hungry! I need to eat! I need to eat!” Tears slid over her meaty, torn cheeks and dripped bloody drops off her chin.

“Go away!”

“Feed me!” the woman cried out. “Feed me!”

The torn and mangled woman was almost upon her, but Mackenzie's feet refused to budge. Her hand shook as she aimed at the face of the cannibal.

“I'll hurt you,” Mackenzie threatened. “I'll do it.”

A swipe of one skinless hand sent her scrambling backward. Mackenzie pushed aside broken chairs and fell against the dirty lunch counter.

The sobbing, bloody woman lashed out at Mackenzie again, trying to grab her. Mackenzie clutched the dirty, broken phone covered in spiderwebs and hurled it at the woman. It struck her bloody cheek, eliciting a gasp of pain.

“Stay away!”

“Feed me!”

Mackenzie waved the pepper spray, threatening the woman. She skirted around a broken table and backed toward the door.

“Feed me!”

The woman lunged forward again and Mackenzie pulled the pepper spray trigger. The stream struck the woman's neck, not her face. As the hot spicy smell filled the café, Mackenzie flung an arm over her face and flew to the door. On the other side, Grant pounded on the door and rattled the handle. Rotating the lock, Mackenzie yanked the door open. Instantly, Grant dragged her out. Tripping over the stoop, she fell forward, collapsing onto the walkway. Rolling onto her back, Mackenzie raised her pepper spray, aiming at the bloody woman lurching out of the doorway. With one mangled arm, she sent Grant sprawling.

“Stay back!” Mackenzie yelled.

“Feed me!” the woman howled, falling to her knees, her skin-stripped hands grasping at Mackenzie's legs.

Kicking violently, Mackenzie screamed wordlessly. Grant clambered to his feet and surged past the cannibal. Leaning down, he snagged Mackenzie's arm and hauled her to her feet and away from the bloody woman.

“Stay back!” Grant ordered.

The woman's eyes widened, then she let out an anguished howl, her skeleton hands covering her face. Wailing, she rocked back and forth on the ground, her blood-covered, flabby body shifting grotesquely on her frame.

“We need to get out of here,” Grant said firmly, pulling Mackenzie along beside him.