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The meal always contained three courses. The first one was served promptly at 6 p.m., and every uninfected man, woman, and child in the Loth family was expected to be seated around the table by the time an old grandfather clock struck six.
There were eleven of them in total, so it was a very, very long table. The seating arrangement changed daily, although I had no idea how it was decided. Only two chairs remained a constant – one head went to Elmyra, and the other was left empty for Zeke.
A plate was actually put out for the zombie patriarch, even though he never attended a meal. We were meant to serve him as if he was still there. After the family finished eating, Bly would take the food out to feed Zeke personally, but from the kitchen windows, I had spied him eating it himself. He never fed his father.
Usually, two of Elmyra’s sons sat closest to her. The youngest one, Bly, seemed to be the most constant, so maybe he was her favorite. Waylon (the eldest with the salt-and-pepper horseshoe moustache) and Wyatt (the middle son who never spoke to the servants) traded places on and off.
The others were more scattered around. Mercy usually sat the closest to her father’s empty seat. She was Elmyra’s only daughter, and the youngest child in the family. I rarely interacted with her, because she was so quiet and stayed in her room all day reading, but I had immediately noticed that she appeared to be several months pregnant.
Elmyra’s widowed daughter-in-law Alma sat with her children, Gatlin and Honora. Waylon and Wyatt each had kids of their own, although I wasn’t completely sure which ones had fathered which boys. Silas was a sullen teenager who cursed until his grandmother yelled at him, and the preschool aged Abel and Toby played with their food as often as they ate it.
The family all sat down together, and as soon as the grandfather clock finished chiming, they all bowed their heads and prayed, thanking the lord for their bounty. As soon as they were finished, the first course was served.
Tallulah and Buddy stayed back in the kitchen, where they did most of the cooking and plating, while Avril and I served the family in the dining room.
The first course was always a soup or a stew with some kind of bread or pastry. The bowls were set on the table, so I carried around the big pot of stew while Avril ladled it out. It was a very special kind of torture, carrying around this hot, heavy, fragrant pot of food and being unable to eat any of it. At the end of the night, if I were lucky, I could lick some of their bowls clean.
We had only just begun – Elmyra was always served first, and then we moved to her right, tonight that was Waylon – when Avril fumbled and spilled a ladle full of hot soup right onto Waylon’s lap.
“You clumsy bitch!” he shouted and immediately jumped to his feet.
“Waylon, language!” Elmyra snapped at him, but his rage was fixed on Avril.
She was already crying, apologizing for her mistake, and Waylon backhanded her across the face anyway. He struck her hard enough that she fell to the floor.
I was left standing there, holding the heavy pot of stew, burning my hands, and I didn’t know what to do so I wouldn’t incur Waylon’s wrath or make things worse for Avril.
“Tallulah!” I yelled, because I knew I couldn’t do this on my own.
The family settled back into their seats some, and Waylon had refocused his attention on drying his pants with a cloth napkin. Tallulah appeared in the doorway like the specter she was.
“Come here. You need to serve the soup,” I told Tallulah, and I glanced back over at Avril and more quietly said, “Avril, go back into the kitchen to help Buddy.”
And then, because I wasn’t sure what Elmyra would think of me giving orders, I looked to her with a deferential smile. “If that works for you, Elmyra,” I said. “I don’t want the family to be subjected to cold food.”
“Nor do I,” Elmyra agreed with a laugh. “Serve away, Tallulah!”
Avril scurried out of the room, and Tallulah and I were able to serve the rest of the family without incident. When we were done, I grabbed a rag from the kitchen and returned to wipe up the dining room floor and clean up any lingering mess.
“I think I’m liking this new one,” Waylon commented, referring to me. He slurped down his soup and watched me as I wiped the floor near his feet.
“Harlow has been quite resourceful and helpful,” Elmyra approved.
Still watching me while I was down on my hands and knees, Waylon suggested, “We ought to keep her around and make sure that nobody else runs off with her.”
“I thought you were done with all that,” Alma said, sounding disgusted. “It’s not necessary, and you know it.”
“Oh, come on, Alma,” Waylon barked back. “We mark the cattle, we mark the zombies. We’ve got signs all over this place with the Loth name on it. We mark the things we mean to keep.”
“He’s right,” Bly chimed in. “You don’t know because you’re not really a Loth.”
I went back to the kitchen and finished helping the others get ready for the next course. We still had a few minutes while the family finished eating, and the roasted quail was resting in the oven.
“How are you doing?” I asked Avril.
She kept her head down as she cut the strawberries for the final course, but I could already see the bruise forming on her cheek.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
