Becoming (YA Paranormal) (Lynnie Russell Trilogy)

by R. M. Gilmore

  I wished then that Garret had kept his damn mouth shut. I didn't wanna think Rusty was cute. I didn't want to wonder if he loved me, if Garret was telling the truth. And I damn sure didn't want to get drunk and sleep with him.

  The smell of expensive whiskey filled my nose as Rusty held the glass closer to my lips. I rolled my eyes at him and took the glass. The three of them clapped and cheered when I took the shot glass, parted my lips, and let the liquid fire fill my mouth.

  "A'ight, that's enough for now." I yelled over the bluesy bass guitar playing on the stage.

  I had to shake my head over and over ‘til the three of them stopped egging me on for more alcohol. I knew my limit, knew I needed to slow it down even if it was just for a minute.

  The band on the stage started a new song. I didn't recognize the singer, or the band, as anyone I’d seen play at Maldoon's before. But that doesn't say much. Leroy was always good about bringing in folks that were just starting out. The singer’s voice was a deep rumble that matched the heavy bass and slow beat of the song. I'm not much of a dancer, especially to slow songs, but when Hattie pulled me to the dance floor I couldn't resist. I looked back to the spot we had been standing to find Rusty and Garret had disappeared into the crowd. I’d never cared much where Rusty went, or what he did. Until Garret opened his big mouth.

  Hattie and me danced together as best as two girls can without turning too many heads. The man on stage sang his heart out. His grumbly voice was a perfect fit for the song. The lyrics I could understand were mostly about being lost, losing God I think. And being stuck in the night. Wasn’t exactly what you normally hear in a bar in the middle of the sticks, but I liked it. After being stuck in Havana for twenty years, anything new was welcome.

  Out of nowhere Rusty reappeared and was standing right next to me with a silly little grin on his face. Two full shot glasses were snug in just one of his big hands. He shoved the new shot in my face and clinked his glass against mine before flinging the whiskey down his throat. I tried to fight it, shook my head to tell him I was done drinking for a bit, but it didn’t work. The liquid didn't burn quite as much this time.

  "My twenty-first birthday ain't gonna be half as fun if I drink this much before I'm even legal," I said with a loud drunken laugh.

  Rusty only grinned and produced another shot he’d been hiding in his other hand. I grumbled and whined, but me and him repeated the same clanking and drinking routine we done already. My cheeks were getting numb and my eyes were feeling a little heavy. I was gettin’ drunk.

  The music picked up to a banjo-picking tune. Even though I actually like that kind of old honky-tonkin' I let Hattie pull me away from the dance floor and Rusty, back to the bar to see Leroy. Rusty followed behind like a little puppy dog. I looked around for Garret and didn't see him anywhere. He's probably off wooing some poor girl, I thought to myself. My big brother isn't looking for a wife, but he sure as hell is still a man and he damn sure ain't dead.

  I found a seat at the old bar and let Rusty get me drunk as a skunk. Before I knew it I was piss drunk. Shot after shot, Rusty kept them coming. After that many drinks I’d forgotten all about the lifelong feeling that Rusty Kemp was a no good scoundrel and started thinking he was actually pretty good looking.

  He was all dressed up. Well, as dressed up as Rusty gets. He had on his less faded Levi’s and his “goin’ out” boots. He was lookin’ pretty good in his off-white Stetson and cuffed sleeves. I ain’t nothin’ if I ain’t a sucker for a good lookin’ cowboy, my nana used to say. She was damn right. Rusty was an ornery little butt if I ever saw one, but damned if I wasn’t starting to not mind that so much anymore. What Garret said was on my mind that night. I couldn’t stop thinking Rusty Kemp was in love with me. I had always just thought he was a pig, but it turned out he was just a horrible flirt and likely just a boy in a man’s body. A damn sexy man’s body at that.

  He was sweating a little when I looked at him. Just on his brow, a workingman’s sweat. I gave him a smile, a drunken one. He smiled back. I knew then that I had been wrong about Rusty all these years. And that I was piss-ass drunk.

  Hattie and Garret had made themselves scarce. Only me and Rusty were left at the bar. Two drunks full of bad decisions.

  “You hot?” I slurred out at him. His sweat was shining on his head and running down from his dish-water blonde hair.

  “Yup. I had me too much whiskey. I got the sweats.” He smiled at me with a lazy mouth.

  “You wanna go out? Cool off?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “You bet!” He said and jumped off his stool.

  He grabbed me by the hand and half drug me out the front doors. Dirt kicked up off our heels while we ran to his old Chevy truck. The damn thing had about four different shades of primer on it but it ran like a champ after all his beatings from mudding and crashing into stuff all tanked-up.

  “Ah, that’s better,” Rusty said. He was standing real close to me; I could smell the whiskey on his breath. It smelled sweet. I loved that smell. Soon enough it’d come out it his sweat and that would smell even better.

  A country girl ‘til the bitter end I suppose. Can’t wait to get out of this Godforsaken town. Get out; see the world and all it has to offer. With all that, there’s still nothing that gets me more than the smell of an old truck, a fresh dip, and whiskey on a man. Like my mama that way, I guess.

  We stood out in the night for a whole five minutes before either one of said anything again.

  “Nice night, eh?” I said, just trying to make conversation.

  “Yup. Beautiful,” Rusty said, not really focusing on anything but the tips of his boots.

  “You alright, boy?” I asked just as I would have before Garret told me what he did.

  “Why you out here with me?” He asked, still staring at his feet.

  “It’s a nice night.” I knew that was a lie, but there was nothing else I wanted to say.

  “Com’ on now Lynnie, I know you better than ‘at. You don’t go anywhere with the likes of me. You ain’t looked at me twice unless you was trying to take aim.” He lifted his hat and ruffled his hand through his hair.

  “Maybe ‘at’s cause you’re a pig, Rusty Kemp. Treat me like the lady I am and maybe it’d be different.”

  “You ain’t a lady. I watched you drink whiskey like a man and more than just tonight. I seen you change an alternator in your prom dress, you are a lady ‘bout as much as you’re a cat, Lynnie Russell.” He laughed his stupid little boy laugh that I had hated for years.

  “Do you love me?” I asked him. If I hadn’t been drunk I’d’ve never said it.

  “You really askin’?” His eyes went back down to his boots.

  I was quiet for a long while. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to know the God’s honest truth. Or, even if Rusty would actually tell me the truth. Instead of making up my drunk mind right then, I changed the subject.

  “You wanna go out to the lake?” I asked with a smile.

  “You really askin’?” He said, taking his eyes off his feet to look at me with big eyes.

  “You bet.” I was really asking that’s for certain, was I sure that was a good idea? No. Not one little bit.

  He didn’t answer me. He just opened his truck door and shoved me in. His door was slammed shut and we were tearin’ hide out of the dirt parking lot before I could decide not to go to the lake with Rusty Kemp.

  At damn near midnight, drunk, and coming from Maldoon’s, there is only one thing folks do at the lake. Well, two I guess. I was only planning on doing one of those. As long as Rusty didn’t pump me full of more whiskey I’d be alright.

  “Here’s a beer.” He pulled a cold beer can out of an old red cooler on the floorboard. “You sure you wanna go out to the lake? It’s hot enough for swimmin’ tonight. That’s for damn sure.”

  I was thankful he didn’t mention the other thing folks do at the lake; I wasn’t looking to do that. Just a swim. Alright, we’d have to take off some clothes,
but it was just swimming. I was a tad bit worried that I wasn’t worried at all.

  I’d never been in love before; I didn’t know what it felt like. I knew I had never thought of Rusty as anything but a rotten no-good turd until the night I ended up sitting shotgun in his truck on our way to swim naked in Blue Mountain Lake.

  Kissin’ & Sacrifices

  We got to the lake in just a few minutes. Rusty pulled his truck close to the bank on the east side of the lake. It’s the most private side; a lot less public campsites on that side because of all the thick trees I guess. I’d think folks would be happy with more privacy, but I guess being able to see what’s around you is more important than hiding in a thick of trees. For me and Rusty it was just what we needed. Even though it wasn’t likely to run into anyone, he decided to leave his headlights off. Just in case. The two of us jumped out of the truck as soon as it stopped moving, laughing the whole way down the muddy bank.

  Rusty picked up a big stick and started beating the water to scare off any crawlers in the lake. Couldn’t have snakes ruining the fun, now could we? Without the moonlight I wouldn’t have been able to see the tip of my nose, but the moon was full and bright in the near black sky.

  Rusty pulled off his shirt and boots. I had on only the dress and boots, I thought twice about taking them off and letting him see my underthings. I watched Rusty slide his jeans off and stopped fussing about it. I pulled my dress off over my head and into the cold lake I went with Rusty at my heels.

  Me and Rusty splashed and laughed and drank beer under the big moon for what must’ve been an hour. The night was warm as it could be and the lake felt nice on my whiskey filled body. We made our way from the bank near the truck to a small cove just up the way a spell. The area was small and only about chest high. Perfect for two drunkards that had no business trying to swim in the dark.

  Rusty jumped out of the lake and ran over to a tall tree that stood just in front of a big set of bushes about head high.

  “Just piss in the lake like the fish do, Rusty.” I said laughing. I heard my voice echo through the tight inlet. Hearing my voice come back at me made me nervous, like someone was gonna come out and catch me naked in the lake.

  I could hear his pee hit the ground and tried not to laugh when he said, “I ain’t pissing in there while you’re in there.”

  I watched him from the corner of my eye. I wondered how I’d feel about him when morning came, when I wasn’t drunk. I figured I couldn’t start loving someone without knowing how I felt sober. I was trying hard not to judge my feelings by the fact that Rusty had, until that day, made me want to kick him in the knee. I also tried to pretend Rusty hadn’t known me since I was in kindergarten.

  His loud splashing and hollering snapped me out of my thoughts. He tossed me another beer.

  “I can’t drink no more, Rusty.” I said while I popped the top open and chugged it down.

  “Yeah, bet you can’t,” he laughed and rustled his hand over his wet hair. That nervous gesture of his used to drive me insane to the point I couldn’t even look at him. I guess somewhere inside it just drove me nuts in a way I didn’t understand. Or didn’t want to anyhow.

  I laid back in the water and let the water lift my body up to the surface. I stared at the moon, so damn big in the black sky, and felt weightless on top of Blue Mountain Lake. I was floating on my back, watching the stars, when Rusty came by and swooped me up like a bride over the threshold.

  “You put me down.” I said laughing quietly and trying not to pee myself when I wiggled in his arms.

  “You gotta kiss me first.” He said so quiet I damn near didn’t even hear him.

  Rusty had always played stupid childish games like this when we were coming up. I never paid no mind to him. I never actually thought for a minute he meant any of it. He’d pretend to be a gentleman, even charming sometimes, but he’d always follow it up by pulling my hair or puttin’ a frog in my lunch pail.

  Then, drunk in the middle of the lake in my skivvies, I looked at him like I never had before. Strange what happens to a girl’s sensibility when a good lookin’ southern boy tells her he loves her.

  “You’ll put me down?” I asked.

  “You really askin’?” He asked just before I kissed him.

  It wasn’t a long movie style kiss. Just a small innocent type, but it made butterflies flutter around in my stomach. His mouth was soft and beer flavored. The whiskey was still there underneath the beer and lake water. That first kiss will be with me until the day I day.

  He pulled his head back and smiled so big I thought his cheeks were gonna fall right off. “I can’t believe you did it,” he said, excited like a boy at Christmas. “I been waitin’ a long time for that Lynnie Russell. You asked, I’m tellin’, I love you. I do. Ain’t never been I day I didn’t.”

  I just stared at him. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard from his mouth. My heart was pounding, about out of my chest. How could those three little words change my world so much? I was twenty years old officially, I lived with my brother, I was drunk and half naked in a lake lying across the arms of someone I had thought was a jackass until a few hours before. Maybe mama was right, maybe I had really just loved him all along, I thought.

  “What the hell is that?” Rusty said looking out into the woods on the other side of the tall bushes just off the bank. We’d floated and played far enough that I couldn’t see the truck anymore, just dark thick woods.

  “What?” I asked, still draped over his arms.

  The wonderful world of drunk people; we’re easily distracted. I can say I was a bit disappointed when he put me down on my feet in the water. We stood still and quiet for long enough to hear more than just our breath and the sound of water hitting wet skin.

  “Are those ladies talkin’ over there?” His voice was low but I could hear him slur his speech. He always sounded more redneck the drunker he got.

  It wasn’t exactly abnormal for this time of year. Blue Mountain Lake is a pretty popular party spot. But to hear a bunch of ladies all talking at once in the middle of the night was pretty interesting to a couple of whiskey hounds trying to avoid having to confess their feelings for each other.

  After a few more minutes of looking and listening me and Rusty hauled our drunken asses out of the cold water and sloshed through the dirt and grass with wet feet. I could hear the ladies voices louder the closer I got, but they were still damn near a whisper from where I was. Half naked, I wasn't about to go traipsing into their campsite and ask them why they were reciting the same thing over and over in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Honestly, I didn't really want to know the answer. I crouched down and peeked through the bushes on the far side of the cove. There was four ladies all standing around a camp fire. They were wearing weird dresses with long sleeves and hoods. Not what someone would be wearing in Havana on a sticky summer night, I'll tell you what. I was watching them when one picked up a hefty chicken from a makeshift coop sitting by the fire pit. One of the women, the red haired one, pulled out something long and shiny. The chicken squawked for just a second before the red haired women ran the shiny blade around the chicken’s neck, nearly chopping the damn thing off. My eyes went wide and I tried to stop myself from squealing like a girl.

  Something cold and heavy slapped my back. I damn near jumped out of my undies. I grabbed my mouth to not scream when I turned to see Rusty had caught up to me and was crouching behind my bushes next to me.

  "What’ya think they up to?" He whispered so quiet I almost didn't hear him.

  Trying not to make any noise I shrugged my shoulders and looked back toward the group of hooded ladies. The chicken’s head was gone and the red haired woman was holding it upside down by its feet. She had a bowl or something in her other hand and was letting the blood from the stumped neck drip into it. The other women kept on with their chanting. At first I thought maybe they were speaking English, just really fast. Now that I was closer, I could tell it wasn't any language
I had ever heard before.

  The women chanted the same words over and over again, "Cu sidhe iompróir a bháis bheidh mé a bheith." I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. But, whatever they were doing they had conviction.

  My bare skin was starting to goose pimple with the breeze and a bit of fear. I looked over to Rusty who was staring through a small gap in the bushes at the cluster of women by the fire. His mouth was open, catching flies, and his eyes were just as wide as mine. I turned back to the glowing fire in time to see the red haired lady toss the headless chicken into the fire. A big blast of flame billowed out to the sides then shot up through the center of the circle of trees. All four women raised their hands to the sky and started saying the same thing over and over again.

  "Meta, Power, Instinct, Feral, Death." The whispered voices of so many mouths at once made the sound louder than it should’ve been.