Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part Thirty Seven
The voice came later, much later or so it seemed. Felecia was already lost, blacking out and succumbing to her injuries when she finally registered the new sounds being made around her. She answered them with her knife. Felecia yanked the handle of the blade free from the head of her second victim for the night and brought it to bear as she tried to turn in the mud and the snow.
“You’re safe! They’re all gone. I need to check on Pa, you’re safe.”
Felecia didn’t recognize the person standing just outside her reach, she barely heard the strangely familiar voice as it spoke. She needed time, more time than what the moment gave her to register and appreciate what had happened and who had actually saved her life. She saw the thin figure with the long rifle, she saw a familiar set of constantly downcast eyes and then nothing. Felecia blacked out completely for awhile as she stood over the corpse of her most recently vanquished foe. She only woke when she realized she was being handled, no matter how gently. Someone was moving her along, pushing her ever so lightly but still pushing her.
“No!”
The word launched out of Felecia as she yanked away from the touch of whoever was guiding her along through the endless mud and snow. She reached around, swinging her closed fist at whoever was nearest. The knife would take care of them, no more noise, no more hurry or worry.
There were quiet voices instead of howls of anguish, familiar voices. Felecia thought she heard Phillip’s voice, it sounded raspy, dry, Phillip sounded like a man who had just been…
“Is Phillip alright? Where is he?”
“Pa’s right here, he’s ok. It hurts him to talk some. We’re going back home.”
Home.
Felecia was injured, badly, and feverish. Nothing was making sense. Where was Phillip? Who was this, Pa? Who was it who kept talking to her? Going home, who’s home? Surely not hers, Felecia wasn’t welcome there, she had no home. She didn’t even have a village. None of them did. Live or die, Phillip had spent his last day as the groundskeeper. There would be no bridge between the village and the big house, not anymore. She was confused and wanted to run away from the voice and the people around her but she could barely walk. She wanted to make the gentle hands stop pushing her along but her knife wasn’t in her hand. Someone took her knife again.
“I want my knife.” Felecia realized that although there was no pain when she moved her mouth or talked, her words came out sounding wet and awful, I fant by knivf.
Phillip came close then, so close she could feel hot breath on her ear. His voice was strained and desert dry. “We made it out of there, Fee. We’re going down the lane now, just a few dozen paces or so.”
The rest of that night, and in truth, the next several weeks were all a blur of sickness and mending. On more than one occasion Phillip has since regaled her with the tale of how worried he and Taryn were. How there were a few days when it was a toss up between the injuries sustained that night and the pneumonia, which would put Felecia in the ground.
There were a few days, maybe as much as a week where Felecia survived on broth and hot chicory. Poultices and rags left running with puss and blood were applied to her face, Phillip set her nose and her arm. Phillip’s boy wrapped an ancient torn up shirt around her broken ribs and gasped as the skin there turned every color imaginable. Finally, when every avenue was exhausted Phillip and his son resorted to closing the wounds on Felecia’s face using fishing gear.