Sunkissed Innsmouth
Part Twenty
As best as Felecia could tell from her time among the village, Phillip owed the people there nothing. His position didn’t come with any perks, perceived or realized. As much as Felecia disagreed with his decision, he gave Rotary house the lion’s share of their hunt because he believed it was the only way to save the village. Nearly everything he did was for their sake, this deed included and perhaps most of all. Phillip told her that he wanted her to one day take her place, and otherwise, to be a bridge between the people of the village and Rotary house. Felecia, freshly thirteen years and all, didn’t know exactly what that all entailed, but she was pretty sure it didn’t mean going back to sleep at a time like that.
“You told me that I would have to take my place someday and you also told me I could choose to be a bridge between the people here and the estate. I can’t do any of that sleeping or worrying while you do the heavy lifting alone.”
Phillip sighed deeply again and Felecia knew what would come next. “I’m not naïve, Phillip. I know what comes next. I have a stake in this, Mullens, he…”
Phillip talked over Felecia as he slowed so she could catch up to him. “I know. I do, and I agree with you. I just…you’re so young, you deserved more time to stay that way. Maybe not innocent, but surely unaffected by the day-to-day awfulness of life out here.”
Felecia was prepared for the sort of shouting had on the muddy trail during their first hunting trip, she expected demands and the groundskeeper putting his foot down. Instead, the man only spoke above a whisper as the snow fell around them, he held his head down, just like his boy did, as he spoke. Felecia only managed to respond as they reached the outskirts of the village. “I don’t know what to expect, much less what to do.”
“You expect death, plenty of it. The end of a person is hard to see, harder to examine and worst of all to look past, we’ll have to see and examine many bodies tonight. As for what you have to do, nothing. You keep your eyes and ears open and your hands empty. If you can manage to, when the time comes, you watch what I do. What I have to do. You learn from that, there’s nothing else for you to do.”
Felecia followed Phillip to Mullens’ house. The shack was a simple two-room affair that left the body on chief display. Mullens was laid out next to his bed, flat on his back and busy turning blue and red. Philip merely nodded at what Felecia got busy turning her own colors over as she tried to spy and observe the body.
There was nothing to love or admire about the man, nothing to reminisce over either. There would be no friends, dependents, or lovers left to mourn over Mullens’ remains. The middle aged, worm lipped relic laid there, his wide eyes glassy and bulging, his neck thick and purple, his tongue was a bloated, wet obstacle jutting out of his mouth and covered in white saliva. As Philip looked over the man’s corpse Felecia only delayed momentarily. She finished her initial confession to Phillip because she felt that she had to. “He came up to my shelter in the dead of night, weeks ago. He had this cache of preserved foods, he tried to bribe me with them and a bar of chocolate.”