Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 123
Felicia briefly considered what it would mean to just keep crawling past the packing crate house and onto the beach. She hadn’t asked Jacqueline to come stalking after her when she left. The old woman could have stayed put and been safe, better yet, what was likely to happen would happen and so what, the old witch would be back to life as usual. No longer made to share a bed with a murderer, a fiend. No longer tethered to try and teach a pupil who would rather root through a cellar for old trinkets than stay the course and pay attention.
Jacqueline was there though and Felecia knew that leaving her in that old house was worse than simple murder. Stooping to climb over the sagging window sill seemed easy until all the debris from the cellar started catching. After a bit of fuss and nearly losing the harpoon gun from its carefully wrapped papoose, Felecia got close enough to grab at the old witch.
At first it was a tug, a plea of sorts, a please get down before we’re both seen through the window, but that soon turned into a careless yank and an equally careless fumbling with the old woman while she still held the thick, sharp blade in her hands.
Finally, Felecia dared to speak above a whisper as she could hear footfalls crunching on the gravel outside. “Get down and come with me, we have to go.”
Jacqueline pushed and pulled against Felecia all the while fighting to stay upright with the blade firmly in her hand. “I already said it, I ain’t leaving. They took everything from me once, they ain’t taking my animals now.”
Time always seemed to rob Felecia of her choices and options. Time was the ultimate foe who came along to sweep everything away. It wasn’t accident or happenstance that murdered her father and her brothers, it was time in their dangerous occupation. It wasn’t poor planning or bad timing that had the village yokels deciding hers and Phillip’s fate, it was all the time they were left with their pathetic vices and lack of intelligence left to fester in endless days of willful stupidity. Time came around again then, to do its damage once more.
One of the men outside heard Jacqueline and shushed his blathering cohort. He raised his lantern and turned the bulk of its light toward the front door and window of the decrepit hovel.
Jacqueline twisted away from Felecia and pressed herself against the wall behind the front door. She managed to lower her voice but she still chose to speak up after the man had obviously heard a voice inside the old shack. “Use that bow, girl. Drop him like a sick deer.”
Felecia was still crouched and ready to drop down on her belly to avoid the lantern light. She wasn’t reaching for her bow, not trying to notch an arrow. She had no intention of killing some dumb village conscript over a sagging ruin of a house or a corral of malformed animals.
Still, Felecia knew the heart of the old witch she had called mentor and roommate for the last year plus change. If Jacqueline said she had no plans to retreat, no plans to surrender, if the old witch planned to fight her already time vanquished foe once more, all Felecia could do was either watch, or participate.
When Felecia didn’t budge, or stand up and take aim, Jacqueline grunted with disgust and raised her hands up so that the blade of the corn knife shown faint against the lantern light. The two cowards wouldn’t have the guts to open the door. Felecia could already see one of them, the man who had tripped, trying to get a length of rag to catch light and be tossed through the small window next to the front door. The other man though, the one who thought he heard something, he was busy slowly acknowledging what he heard and he was turning to say something. The fish faced denizen of the village with his wide flabby cheeks and deep-set wet eyes, the man reminded Felecia of Phillip, all be it worm mouthed and distantly. The born coward was going to croon, he was going to cry and shout that he heard a voice and that would only delay the man lighting the rag long enough for that lone rag to become a pile of dry tinder being thrown into the place by however many men Ganly had laying out in the tree line.
The man standing outside shining his lantern light through the small window let his eyes widen and he began to turn away. Time was becoming a foe again and forcing Felecia’s hand. Her actions in the village a few years before had been afterthought, she hadn’t been left with any choice, not after Ganly brained her with his bag of ill-gotten gains. She may have murdered men, but it all started in self-defense. Arguably, everything she did that night in the village was for the sake of self defense or survival.
Killing the man from the village for daring to realize he wasn’t alone and the dilapidated shack was in fact occupied, murdering him for being conscripted into this business, none of that seemed right. Still though, the other man was lighting a rag on fire, the old packing crate house was about to be exposed to the fire and everyone in it would either have to run quick or succumb to the flames.
Felecia raised the bow and had an arrow at the ready without hardly realizing it all. She could feel the added weight of the harpoon gun and her other useless claims from the cellar weighing on her but it didn’t take much to adjust for that. Her arm was already aching from the strain when Jacqueline clenched and spat the words. “Well, shoot already!”
The man turned again, he was sure that they weren’t alone, but he wasn’t sure of what he was hearing, not until Jacqueline shouted. His eyes narrowed and he stopped bothering to turn away or question the other man who was busy lighting the rag on fire. The man pushed his lantern out accusingly and started to say something. Felecia didn’t want to know what he was about to shout so she shut him up. The arrow darted through the window and burst through the man’s neck. His eyes didn’t widen with shock, his mouth didn’t open to shout an expletive or howl in agony. All the man’s eyes did was go blank and all his mouth did was sag as he went limp, dropping his lantern for one final time.
The man busy lighting the rag took notice and dropped his make shift incendiary in the dirt before turning to shout a warning or a plea to the men out at the tree line. Jacqueline made her move then as Felecia instinctively reached for a second arrow. The old witch pushed through the ancient door, letting it cry out on its rusty hinges as she lunged out with the corn knife. The second man shouted in pain and surprise but only for a moment before he fell to the ground, his blood gushing out in hot, steaming flushes against the night air as he lay still next to his reluctant comrade.