emptymouthpiece

Sun Kissed Innsmouth

Part Thirty Five

The gun shot rang out through the village. A massive crack followed by an endless echo that reverberated against the ocean waves on the shore. One of the men holding the end of the rope, pulling it over the crotch of the tree branches to slowly strangle Phillip to death dropped lifelessly on the ground. A man standing next to him was coated in blood and brains and a third man standing nearby was calling out and holding up a mangled hand.

The small cadre of jeering spectators disappeared completely. The remainder of the men trying to hang Phillip either ran flat out for their huts or stood dumb trying to figure out what had just happened.

Felecia wasn’t trying to focus on all the distant sets of twins off by the two trees and the choking Phillips now laying in the snow and the muck. There were three men, no four, still nearby her. The ones who peeled away from the hanging to put the little murderess to bed once and for all. One of them had her knife, another had her by the wrist. Once the shot rang out, she yanked away from the one grabbing her and tried to move away from them before she was grabbed up again. Someone, one of the fishermen by the smell of him, grabbed Felecia from behind and held her out in front of him.

“Back away or I’ll twist this bitch’s head off!”

Felecia was lifted off the ground as a powerful forearm dug into her midsection. An equally powerful hand wrapped around her throat and breathing, as limited as it had been for her since waking up on the blood washed floor of the hut, was made nearly impossible. She tried to suck in a breath and the hand tightened. Instinctively Felecia tried to bring her own hands into play, to pull away at the awful, powerful hand. Her wounded right arm was still disobeying her and that only gave her the use of one hand.

A second shot sounded out over the rise beyond the tree and the crack was louder that time, its echo made Felecia wince even while she pulled at the hand around her throat and dug her nails into its skin. The man who took her knife fell to the ground and began screaming. His left leg was leaning at an awkward angle below the blown open ruin of his knee.

The men left by the tree who hadn’t already run, the ones who hunkered down or searched for a weapon, took flight. Many of them slid in the frozen snow and the mud and fell, some injuring themselves as they did so, no matter, all who could manage ran or limped away from the scene then. Everyone fled except for the man who had Felecia in his grasp, the man laying on the ground screaming and bleeding to death, and a few keen onlookers hiding behind the closest hut.

“I said back away! Last chance!”

Felecia’s world started going dark again, the hand tightened and turned and her throat closed and twisted with it. She stopped bothering to pull at the awful hand or drag her nails along its thick skin. There wasn’t much room to move or maneuver, not the way the man had her held and locked in place. Felecia pushed her hand down to her side and tried to work it between the man’s arm and her waist.

“Quit squirming, cow. You’ll get yours soon enough.” The man hissed into Felecia’s ear and her head jerked farther to the left. Something in her neck cracked and sent a jet of searing pain coursing through her back.