The Lynnie Russell Trilogy (4 page)

Found Girl Lost

I was naked when I woke up in the dirt and leaves. The sky was a weird shade of white, the kind that comes a bit before dawn. It was damn cold on the forest floor with nothing on, not even my skivvies. My body hurt to the bones. The beds of my nails, my eyes, damn even my scalp hurt. For a moment I thought I’d drank too much the night before. I sat up and looked around me. I was wrong.

I was sitting only feet from a fire pit that had been left alone too long and was only smoldering coals. On the other side of the pit three hooded women lay bloody and broken in the dirt.  One was laying half inside the circle of river rock around the pit. Her black robe smoked still, like she’d been burning for a while.

I stood up and almost fell with a dizzy spell. I caught myself on a soft velvet cushion by my feet. I shook the dizzy off and looked at what I was leaning on. My throat caught and puke came out where a scream should have been. My velvet cushion was a red haired woman, or what was left of her anyhow. Blood covered her shredded face. Her red hair was sticky with it. I managed not to throw up right on her, but barely.

I scrambled backwards on my hands and feet and backed as far away from the bloody body as I could. My naked butt drug across the gritty dirt and scratched it up good. The tiny cuts on my backside were stinging like little bits of fire on my skin when I ran into something behind me with my open hands. I flipped my body over and ended up face to face with another, more familiar, tattered body. I stopped breathing for a minute. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating at the sight. For the first time in fifteen years I realized that I loved Rusty Kemp with my entire soul. A dry-heave came from the pit of my stomach before I could catch my breath. I panicked for the few seconds it took for my lungs to fill up again. In that few seconds tears started pouring down my cheeks, dripping on Rusty's bloody face. My tears ran across his cheeks making long lines of flesh peek through the mask of blood that covered his face. When my breath came back to me a terrible sound of sorrow came from my throat and echoed through the trees. I knew he was gone, he was dead as dead could be, but I begged him to talk to me. I grabbed him around his cheeks and moved his head to look at me while I screamed at him just be alive. When I squeezed him big long lines of open wounds pushed open. His bone peeked through from under all that blood and meat and I screeched and let go. I closed my eyes and pleaded with God to wake me up, begged for it all to be a dream. Hell, a nightmare.

I sat naked in the dirt, twigs, and leaves and sobbed uncontrollably, for a very long time. My eyes closed tight, I refused to look at the bloody pulp that lay just under my streaming tears. After a long while I let my eyes open. I looked down at my friend. My would-be, or at least could be, lover. His chest was clawed up, like an animal had gotten to him. He had slashes across his face and neck that were deep enough I could see bone and muscle through the slits. He didn't have a shirt on, only jeans and bare feet. All of a sudden everything from the night before came rushing back into my head.

I caught flashes of green flame and sparks. Then, like an old movie, the pictures clicked through, so fast it was like watching it in fast forward. The woman ran her knife across my throat, I was bleeding over a green fire pit, and then Rusty came barreling in. He took the red haired lady to the ground while I popped and cracked each bone and joint in my body until I wasn't anything human anymore. The rest of the vision was only in shades of purples and greens. The other women in the group rushed me, trying to catch me. I was too fast for them. I ran on four legs right at the lot of them. Like a big cat or something I leapt into the air and landed flat on my feet, standing over the top of a brunette girl. I swiped my huge clawed paw at her, cutting her chest and face in one swipe. Blood poured from her; at least it looked like blood, only tinted purple in my eyes. The other two women jumped on me. I bucked my body back and forth like a bull from a chute. One of them flew through the air and landed in the green fire. I could hear her wailing in pain when I slashed at the other woman, the blonde one. I used both front paws and clawed at her upper body so quick I couldn't believe I had done that. I heard Rusty screaming and gurgling like he was being strangled. I turned my big furry body and bounded on four strong muscled legs to him. The red haired woman was on top of him with her hands around his neck. I used my back legs to push my heap of a body up and onto the lady’s back. I was on them both at once. Rusty got caught up in the fight between woman and beast. The gut wrenching part was knowing that beast was me. I bit the woman in the crook of her neck tearing her skin wide open. When my heavy thick claws came down on her, Rusty was in the way. I slashed at his face without any feeling or remorse. The blood that poured from the red haired woman was a brighter purple, damn near neon. Rusty’s blood poured outta his face like lime green milk coming from a tipped jug. Then the movie stopped.

I fell to my side and curled my legs up to my chest. I didn’t cry; I was frozen. My body shook fiercely from head to toe. I laid there next to Rusty, tremblin’, until I heard the sound of a heavy truck crunching along the bank of the lake. It sounded far off, but it was moving slowly closer to where I was. The sun was peeking over the mountains and the sky was turning blue, dawn had come completely. I stayed with Rusty there in the dirt. I nuzzled my face into his cold stiff body. I paid no mind to the sticky blood that was smearing across my face. He smelled like a jar of pennies, but right on his bare skin I could smell the light hint of his cologne. He’d been wearing the same damn cologne since high school; I’d always hated it. Laying there next to his dead body all I wanted was to breathe in the scent of that stupid cologne.

I could hear the sound of heavy boots running; coming closer to me and the bloody heap I was laying next to. I finally started to feel something other than pure shock. I was scared. It hadn’t hit me until I knew someone was coming up on me fast that
I
had done this. I had killed these people. My claws, my strength, had torn into those women, into Rusty. I tried to think quickly how I was going to explain that. How would I tell the law I had turned into some kind of beast and I ripped them to shreds? I laid there on the cold earth and waited for the heavy boots to find me.

He would call the State Police. He would call my mama. He’d call Garret. My stomach dropped when I thought about my brother. I had killed his best friend. Tears started coming from my eyes finally at the thought of my brother. My body was still shuddering when strong arms scooped me up from the chilled earth. I could hear him talking to me but I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. It sounded like he was talking under water. He moved quickly with me hanging over his forearms.

“Miss? Miss? Talk to me honey. You hurt?” He was breathing real heavy into my face while he trotted through the woods. “What the hell happened here?” He asked himself.

He laid me down on the cold steal of the bed of his truck. I was so cold. I heard him talking over a crackling radio.

“I got her. I got her,” he said loudly with short breaths.

My eyes were wide, I could see everything. I just couldn’t make myself do anything about it. The man that had carried me away from the mess was a deputy, handsome and middle-aged. The sweet thing pulled a blanket out of the cab of his truck and wrapped me in it. Until then, I’d not even cared that I was naked.

It seemed like only seconds passed before the sirens were coming. They were coming. The State Police, the Sheriff, my mama, and my brother. I cried hard and loud. It was the first noise I had made since the deputy came. He jumped and came running to me in the bed of his truck.

“Talk to me honey. You ok?” He said very sweetly.

“No,” I sobbed out. My body shook with every breath I pulled into my lungs.

“It’s gon’ be a’ight. You’re a lucky girl. Lucky your brother knows you good enough to know you’d be all the way out here.” He ran his hand over my head.  It hurt real bad when he did that.

The sirens stopped and the crunch of more police cars and trucks started up. I could hear doors opening and slamming shut. More heavy boots and a chorus of crackling radios. They were all talking to each other. It was so loud I wanted to scream. The police cars were all parked at least a hundred feet away and all the men in uniform and big brimmed hats stood around the edge of the lake. No one was crowding me or yapping their mouths right over my head. But I could hear them like they were standing on the tailgate. I sat up all the way and looked around. The sun was shining so bright I had to squint my eyes half shut just to see right. We were far enough away from the fire pit that I couldn’t see Rusty or the woman. Parked right were we had left it was Rusty’s old truck. The police cars were all parked around it, but not close. One of the officers was winding yellow tape around trees to block off Rusty’s truck. The clearing where the bodies were was already taped off. I couldn’t see the bodies but I could smell the death from where I was sitting in the bed of the deputy’s truck. The trees got real thick just after Rusty’s truck, with no way a vehicle could squeeze through, so all the officers had to walk deeper into the woods to see the carnage. I was surprised that the deputy actually found me when he did. Maybe he smelled the death too.

A Logan County deputy noticed I was sitting up and came rushing to me. He brought a heavy coat with him. Without saying a word he wrapped the coat around my shoulders and helped me off the end of the tailgate. We walked together to the ambulance that was waiting just a spell from where the action was. The young deputy smiled at me and held my hand while the paramedics looked me over. Everyone was treating me like the victim. They all thought I was a survivor. No one knew I was the monster.

One of the paramedics said I had a high fever. Said I was probably in shock. They laid me down on the bed in the back of the ambulance and strapped me in. I still hadn’t spoken to anyone. No one talked to me either. One of the paramedics, a woman, poked a needle into my arm and set up a bag of something to flow into my body. She said it was fluids. I let them do their work. My mind was running wild and standing still at the same time. Flashes of memories, fears, and sorrow, flowed into my head in waves. I was staring at the ceiling of the ambulance when I heard a voice that made my chest stiff.

“Where is she? Where she at?!” Garrets voice was a yell when he came flying into the back of the ambulance.

I was crying when he came, so hard I couldn’t breathe. I’d killed his best friend. Killing another human being is the most horrible feeling imaginable. Except, I wasn’t exactly human anymore. Snuffing out the life of someone you love, really love, makes you feel like God himself is pulling your heart out straight through your chest. I felt like my soul was dying, rotting from the inside out. I prayed to Jesus that wasn’t true. I begged that he save my soul.

A Damn Miracle

I was by myself in a cold hospital room. Garret was in the hall talking to the doctor. My fever was still up and they were worried. I felt fine. Other than the soul crushing feeling I had just taken the life of someone I love and four other people. And the fact that not twelve hours before my entire body popped and cracked into something hairy and ruthless. I had cried for hours, I had nothing left in me. No tears. No trembling limbs and catatonic staring. I still hadn’t really talked to anyone, but I wasn’t rotting from the inside out anymore. I was just numb.

The sun was out all the way and glaring into the windows. I wanted to get up and close the blinds but I was scared to move away from the machines and tubes plugged into my skin.

I could hear Garret’s voice from the hallway. The doctor talked too quiet to hear it right. Garret was saying things like, “How could this be?” and “How did she make it?” I knew the answer. And if someone thought hard enough they’d know the answer too. I wasn’t one of the victims, I was the beast.

I started asking myself how this could be. How I could’ve had my throat slit hours before and not have a scratch on me but the ones I gave myself crawling away from the bodies. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what and how I became what I had. Whatever that was. I thought maybe a werewolf or something, but then I guess those aren’t usually green. Some kinda beast anyhow. The only thing I could figure was it was magic. Honest to goodness, magic.

“Hey darlin’, how you feelin’?” Garret came into the room with a look on his face that I had only seen him have once before, when his old hound died.

“Can I go home?” I asked him. It was the first thing I’d said in hours. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was scratchy and deep.

“Not yet. Doc says you’re a miracle, a damn miracle. Logan County Sheriff can’t figure how you didn’t get yourself in that mess right along with Rusty and the rest. They don’t know who the ladies are still. Trying to get to the bottom of that.” His face drooped into a frown.

I knew he was thinking about Rusty. Hell, I hadn’t stopped thinking about Rusty. The picture of Rusty and his bloody face popped into my head then and I couldn’t stop myself.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.” I started crying again. I was feeling emotion again and it all came at once.

I fought hard not to tell Garret what really happened. I couldn’t fight that fight too long, but I had to get myself together before I off and spit it out at once. I could get myself thrown in prison. Or worse, a damn nut house. Shoot, I could be burnt at the damn stake knowing Havana folk. No, I had to keep my mouth shut to save my life.