Sun Kissed Innsmouth
Part 135
The villager was an amateur, slow, rough, and worst of all, not in the least bit silent. Even after all the many trials of the previous day and now having one of her eyes swelling badly so it was hard to see well, Felecia could hear the oaf pulling his feet through the vine coated underbrush. The youth also heard him coming and had time to begin turning and aiming the rifle before Ganly rushed at him.
Felecia didn’t try and squint to make out the figures or try and discern one from the other, the youth turned and Ganly struck him but not before he fired the rifle. In the wake of the shot Felecia only heard small shouts and the unmistakable sounds of fists and feet thudding into flesh. Her gear was nowhere to be found and the fiend had done a good job of binding her hands, what he forgot though was the very ground itself. Many of the plants in the meadow had thorns that weren’t just sharp, but serrated like tiny, awful sharks teeth. All Felecia had to do to get herself free was find a thorny bush and try her best to saw through the rope.
Still, it wasn’t a quick affair, Felecia wormed around in the dirt on her knees and then on her stomach, crawling back to the large bush by the broken fence post. She tried to carefully feel around for a length of thorny bramble but only managed to find some by jamming one of the awful thorns directly into her thumb. Then she tried to work blind, holding the bramble in one hand while trying to grip between the thorns, dragging it back and forth across the rope without digging the thorns into her other hand or arm.
The blows landed and landed; the beating seemed to go on for whole minutes. The youth didn’t cry out or beg, only grunting and muttering but it was still whole minutes of it. They were going to beat him to death, Felecia didn’t have to wonder about that. More than just not wanting to sit by while another human being was murdered slowly and brutally, Felecia knew what would happen when the youth didn’t come home. Phillip would walk into the village, maybe that next evening or night, once he pieced it together or was told the days gossip by some well intentioned but moronic member of the village flock. He would walk into the village, under the hanging tree and start killing anyone and everyone he suspected of having been involved in his boys death. Phillip would commit suicide by villagers as they massed up and cut him to pieces with machetes and fillet knives. Worse yet, he would make a run at Ganly and be shot to death with his own rifle.
Thoughts of Phillip kept Felecia sawing at the rope as the thorns poked and dug into her skin. The sound of the blows growing slower and the piteous sounds the youth began to make from there got Felecia ignoring the pain as she yanked the length of bramble back and forth, back and forth.
“Jesus, I heard the rumor, I thought it was bullshit!”
Felecia didn’t hear anything after the ignorant villager shouted for a few terrified moments, she worked harder to get the bramble pulling back and forth, sawing through the rope and her wrist in equal measure.
“Fuckin’ he/she, I knew ole’ Phil was hiding something in that hut of his.”
Felecia heard Ganly speak and then spit, she dared to get back on her knees to see but could only barely make out the shadow of the fiend as he stood looming over the youth, spitting on him. The sawing began fresh as Felecia considered what would likely happen next.
“What do we do with her?”
Felecia began yanking the bramble across the rope and her right wrist with determined speed. A few minutes of silence followed as Felecia had to listen to the youth give out restrained grunts of anguish.
“You mean it? This fucking thing!” Ganly punctuated his questions with a kick that left the youth grunting louder and higher pitched than ever. “We kill it, just like we kill that little bitch over there.”
Felecia instinctively ducked down and ran the bramble right across her forearm in the process. The moon was gone, but there was still plenty of light, not the least of which the burning embers of the remains of the old packing crate house. Felecia couldn’t dare to be seen.
The villager suddenly sounded uncertain and not just because murder was becoming the answer to every problem. “I’ll take her. You keep the gun. We both win.”
Ganly reached down into the brush and came back with the rifle in hand as Felecia felt the rope begin to give around her left wrist. “No one wins with that thing left to live and deceive good god-fearin’ men.”
“I done everything you asked Ganly, all the way. Let me have her and we’re good, you won’t owe me shit.”
Felecia felt the rope go slack as she felt the blood begin to run down and make everything so very slippery. She pulled with her arm and felt the pain as her cut up wrist pulled against the remainder of the rope. It felt like she might pull something open, make some small wound so much worse, she bit her lip and tongue and tried to cut off the scream that was building but she kept working and pulling, this way and that, until the rope sloughed off her red, wet wrist.
“Sorry, this story’s told best by the one left standing.” Felecia didn’t need to stand up to know what came next, the villager would throw his arms up to defend himself, maybe he would have the presence to turn and run, either way the villager was going to die once Ganly managed to finish reloading the rifle and fire it. The length of rope came off and left Felecia with the perfect weapon to sneak up on Ganly with. She wrapped the remainder of the rope around her torn up wrist and tightened it in her grasp to create a garotte. Let the monster yank this way and that, let him dig his hands into her as she used up every last bit of strength to strangle the life out of him.
Ganly raised the rifle but he didn’t try and reload it, he knew better. Instead, he turned the thing around and gripped it by the barrel and drove the butt of the rifle down using it as a club. The villager shouted out and then screamed in horror as the butt of the weapon struck home. The poor man screamed out again as Ganly raised the weapon over head like a massive club and drove it down, caving the poor man’s head in and managing to crack the wood of the stock.
“Fucking, cheap English shit!” Ganly pulled the broken weapon back up and examined the damage. “Fucking thing is useless now!”
Ganly tossed the rifle into the meadow thicket and turned his attention on the broken and beaten figure still shivering and grunting at his feet. “Your precious Pa is going to be a fucking problem. I’ll have to get rid of him tonight. So much fuckin’ work!”
Felecia watched as Ganly dropped onto the prone figure of the youth and began driving the life out of him with his choking hands.
Felecia pulled her self to her feet, feeling agony in her ankles, her back, and her cut up wrist and arm the whole way. She slowly slumped and staggered until she was close to the fiend so that she could see and hear what was going on. Ganly was straddling the youth, pinning him down and choking the life out of him.
The fiend began to speak as the youth stopped making piteous sounds and began to choke in earnest. “Just let go, kid. You’re a twisted-up mess, an aberration, a dog born without hind legs or a pig born with two mouths and one eye. Best thing to do for you is put you out of your misery.”