by Frank Martin
The boats and planes met Oscar at the same time, unloading on him with bullets from above and below. The boats quickly dispersed through the water to encircle the massive beast while the planes crisscrossed overhead, alternately bombarding him with missiles and gunfire. A continuous salvo of firepower peppered Oscar’s entire body. His scales and thick hide took the brunt of the attacks, and Oscar continued to advance. Even the explosions that burned deep within did nothing to stop his forward march. He felt some pain, but mostly discomfort. The constant bombardment was more of a nuisance than anything else. His attackers reminded him of insects. Ants that scurried back and forth while flies buzzed around in circles.
Oscar kept on moving until the gnats became too annoying to bear. He lashed out, swiping at the speeding boats with his tentacles. Some he missed. Those he connected with burst into a cloud of metal and debris that scattered across the river. The long, skinny stalk-like arms protruding from his ribs flailed up and down, snatching the passing boats right out of the water before flinging them through the air. The lanky appendages did the same for the planes, plucking them right out the sky as they zoomed by, crushing them between its talons.
The intense battle continued the whole way down the river, neither side refusing to let up as they approached a long bridge in the distance. Oscar never faltered as his legs trudged through the water, but his tentacles and talons were wildly engaged with the boats and planes swarming around him. They never ceased fire, continuing to unload on the monster with everything they had while avoiding the tentacles bearing down on top of them and the talons trying to nab them in their clutches. The number of vehicles started to dwindle. One by one, Oscar took out the water and aircraft until the attacking force was a mere fraction of what it started with.
Having reached the bridge, Oscar turned his attention towards the massive metal barrier in his way. Still, he didn’t stop. Oscar lowered his shoulder and barreled headlong into the steel structure, practically ripping the entire thing in half. Whatever remained, Oscar wrapped his tentacles around and pulled. His talons tore bit by bit of the columns and beams until a path ahead was clear.
Now free on the other side, Oscar once again resumed his journey southward through the river. The sole plane left flying turned around to head north. The few remaining boats didn’t follow Oscar, either. They stayed on the other side of the bridge, watching him head towards the city through the massive gap in the mangled roadway, which had been cleaved straight down the middle.
CHAPTER TWENTYFIVE
April leaned forward from the back seat to peer through the cruiser’s windshield, watching anxiously as the armored convoy engaged Oscar in combat on the parkway. The high-speed battle was tense. A hail of bullets tore into Oscar’s body, but he never slowed down. Not even for a second.
Sheriff Thompson kept his distance for the most part. The cruiser stayed far enough away to avoid danger from the fighting yet close enough to hear the delayed booms and pops of explosions and gunfire.
The Sheriff had been pretty quiet since they found Oscar. Quiet to April, at least. He continued to mumble into the radio on the dashboard. It mainly sounded like gibberish to April, but she gathered enough to understand he was coordinating with local authorities.
Eventually, when April figured Oscar grew fed up enough to strike back, the monster smashed his tentacle down hard into the parkway, severing the road in two. The devastating attack decimated the fleet pursuing him, but it also prevented the Sheriff’s cruiser from following as well. Oscar continued on, leaving a wall of crushed blacktop that now blocked their path.
The Sheriff slammed on his brakes as soon as the dust cleared and the torn-up barricade came into view. Without saying a word, he pulled down on the shifter, throwing the cruiser into reverse and speeding backwards down the parkway. He turned around in his seat to look through the back window, never bothering to glance in April’s direction. Not that she wanted him to. In fact, she did the same thing to watch through the back windshield as the car zoomed in the wrong direction.
April was impressed with how steady Sheriff Thompson kept the car while speeding backwards. Luckily, the road was empty, probably having been closed off on the Sheriff’s orders. They kept moving down the open parkway until the car eventually flew past the closest exit. The Sheriff then threw the car into drive and floored it down the off ramp right into the center of a small town.
The road was packed, filled with curious and concerned civilians, all chatting while wondering what the hell was going on. April thought they were blocked in with nowhere to go until the Sheriff flicked a switch on his center console. A siren rang out over their heads and everyone outside the car turned to them. Their frightened faces, now lit up with flashing reds and blues, stared paralyzed and bug eyed, completely jacked up on paranoia.
Once he had the pedestrians’ attention, Sheriff Thompson turned the wheel hard and drove right up onto the sidewalk. He pushed another button on the center console, this time holding it down and blaring a loud horn specifically meant for a pack of teenage girls who wouldn’t get out of the way. They eventually did for fear of getting run over. The next batch didn’t, though, and Sheriff Thompson stuck his head out the window, yelling at anyone too stupid to move.
They continued through the town for nearly a mile, the Sheriff veering in and out of traffic on both sides of the road, tearing through parking lots and parks. April didn’t recognize any of the scenery or have the faintest idea where they were going. All she could tell was that it was over when the cruiser pulled up another onramp to enter a completely different parkway.
Unlike the last, this parkway was still filled with cars, but the flashing lights and sirens allowed the cruiser to breeze through the flow of traffic as it moved out of their way. Staring out the window, April admired the rolling woody hills that seemed oddly familiar to her. After a mile, she realized this was the same route her mother took on their way up to the lake. It had only been a few weeks, but already that trip felt like a lifetime ago. April’s head was in a different space back then. She was bitter and pissed off that she had to spend her summer away from the city. Looking back on it now, April understood that she didn’t even know what real anger was.
Still staring out the window, she watched the trip play out in reverse. The forest transitioned into suburbs, which then slowly morphed into denser and denser urban areas. Eventually, the parkway drifted over to run parallel along the Hudson River, where the cruiser met up with Oscar now wading through the water. He was alone, slowly making his way south towards the Bronx and eventually Manhattan. April expected to see some sort of military resistance fighting him as she did on the parkway earlier, but it became apparent why there wasn’t any when she looked up the river behind Oscar and found a large section of the Tappan Zee Bridge ripped in half down the middle.
“Wow,” April said, still eyeing the bridge’s destruction. “Oscar is really determined.”
The Sheriff looked back over his shoulder several times but only briefly. He kept his eyes focused on the road, speeding to get ahead of Oscar’s path. “You have to stop him, April.”
“Stop him?” April repeated while turning to face front. “I’m the one who sent him, remember?”
Sheriff Thompson glanced at April in the rearview mirror. “You were angry.”
April’s eyes drifted up towards the ceiling as she scrutinized his assessment. “Angry? Yes. Erratic? No.”
Sheriff Thompson calmly shook his head. “I never said you were.”
“Do I look irrational to you?” April asked, casually leaning forward in her seat.
Again, she caught a quick glimpse of the Sheriff’s eyes, hardened and sharp, judging her in the mirror. “You don't have to look irrational to make an irrational decision. And sending a colossal monster to destroy hundreds, thousands, millions of people just to get back at two of them is irrational!”
“Now who looks angry?” April snickered, amused by his aggravation.
When
the Sheriff didn’t respond, April moved around the backseat, trying to catch sight of his eyes in the mirror. Sheriff Thompson took a deep breath, his face dropping into a heavy frown along with the rise and fall of his chest.
“I’m sorry, April,” he eventually muttered.
“What are you sorry about?” April asked, annoyed by the Sheriff’s guilt. “You’re not the one who turned my parents into assholes or made them have a baby in the first place.”
A picture of her parents, young and in love, popped into April’s mind. She imagined them taking her home from the hospital, feeding her a bottle, rocking her to sleep. The thoughts made her uncomfortable. They felt awkward and unnatural, like a past that never was.
“Wait,” she started to ponder. “Do you think they became assholes before or after Mark and I were born? Whatever. Not like it matters. We could’ve been the most awful kids in the world and it still doesn’t justify what they did to us. Plenty of moms and dads have it way worse and they don’t treat their children like shit. I mean…They were rich! What possible reason could they have for—”
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop your uncle,” Sheriff Thompson interrupted.
His statement caught April by surprise. Her eyes widened and her jaw hung open, unsure as to what the proper response should be. She wanted to let loose, to give in to the casual anger that had consumed her, but it was difficult to resist the Sheriff’s sympathy. On some level, she just felt sorry for the man.
“I don’t know what he did to you or for how long,” he continued, humbly. “But he hurt you. I know that. And it was my job to protect you. Which I didn’t.”
April looked away, gazing at the empty river rapidly passing them by. “You couldn’t have known.”
Sheriff Thompson again shook his head. “That’s not the point. The point is I looked a dangerous man in the eye while his victim sat beside him and did nothing.”
April looked back to the rearview mirror, this time meeting the Sheriff’s steely eyes head on as he spoke. “You have every right to be upset. To be confused. Hurt. Angry. But this isn’t the way to express it. This isn’t the way to honor Mark’s memory.”
“Don’t say his name!” April snapped, breaking through the barrier keeping her wrath in check.
The Sheriff reflexively opened his hands, a gesture of innocence, while keeping his palms on the steering wheel. “Okay.”
Frozen images of Mark’s dead body flashed in April’s head, each one punching her in the gut with a fist of remorse and anger.
“Don’t you dare say his name!” she yelled again.
Sheriff Thompson tightened his grip on the wheel and continued to lock eyes through the mirror with the girl in the backseat.
“All right,” he said, his voice firm yet reasoned. “If you want to own what happened to your brother then I won’t deny your guilt. But this you…How you’re acting right now...Is this what he would want? Is this really what he thought his big sister was like?”
“I don’t care!” April screamed at the top of her lungs. “Why can’t you understand that?! Mom and dad have to be punished! They have to pay! They have to—”
As she ranted and raved, driven by emotion to spew words without thinking, Sheriff Thompson straightened the rearview mirror so that April’s eyes locked onto themselves. She saw her reflection but did not recognize it. Her pale, ghost-white face was a stark canvas to the beady redness of her bloodshot eyes. Her lips were pulled back as she huffed and puffed, revealing a set of sneering, animal-like teeth. When combined with the disheveled hair and scowling brow, April was struck by the sight she’d become.
Sheriff Thompson was right. Mark would’ve hated to see her like this. To see what the world had made her. But the Sheriff was also right when he said it wasn’t too late. She could still redeem herself and make things right.
Determined to fix her mistake, April lowered her head into her chest, trying to think of the best way to get Oscar’s attention.
“Can you get us across the George Washington Bridge?” she asked.
“I’ll try,” Sheriff Thompson replied while grabbing the radio off the dash.
He grumbled something into the receiver and started a five minute long conversation that lasted all the way into the city. With the bridge looming over the river, Sheriff Thompson pulled off the parkway into a spiraling ramp that rose up to the bridge, splitting two lanes of standstill traffic right down the middle. At the end of the ramp was a police barricade with a gap just wide enough for the cruiser to fit through, which the Sheriff had called ahead to arrange.
They pulled up onto the bridge’s top level, which appeared as if it had been closed for a while now. It was eerie how barren it looked, completely devoid of a single car but theirs. And as April soaked in the oddly calm and peaceful scene, she looked up the river to spot Oscar lumbering towards them, so engulfed by the water he looked like a dog taking a bath.
“Pull over here,” April ordered half way across the bridge.
Sheriff Thompson slowed the car down but didn’t stop completely. “Really?”
“Just do it,” April demanded.
He obliged without further explanation and April immediately stepped out of the car. She heard the Sheriff get out as well, but he didn’t say a word as April hopped over the guard barrier to stand on the small platform on the outskirts of the bridge. She briefly leaned against the thin cable outside the platform, the only thing separating her from a drop two hundred feet straight down.
A tingling fear ran down her arms and into her legs, filling her feet with cement. The sensation was paralyzing, but April had to push it aside and look up to focus on Oscar approaching her.
Unlike the Tappan Zee Bridge further north, the George Washington was high enough for Oscar to pass under without needing to blow through it. For a moment, April thought about waving, worried that the creature might not see her, but she was wrong.
As he reached the bridge, Oscar reared back on his hind legs to extend his body upwards. He then reached out with his tentacles, wrapping them up and over the large cables above her. Pulling himself up, Oscar brought his face right to April at the edge of the bridge, close enough for her to reach out and touch his burning red eye as he closed it.
“I’m sorry, Oscar,” she said, her voice soft and shaky.
When he opened his eye back up it was now a hazy blue, and the mouth on his forehead creased into a thin yet wide grin.
“It’s funny,” April started, matching his smile. “That Sheriff asked me what you are and I told him I didn’t know. But that’s not true, is it? I know exactly what you are. You’re my friend. Maybe the only real friend I ever had.”
April pulled her hand back and thought about all the times she sought to keep Oscar to himself. It made her happy to have a secret that didn’t involve pain and suffering. She told herself she hid him to protect him from the world. That people wouldn’t understand. They would fear him, control him, and use him for their own ends.
Which was exactly what she was doing now.
An hour ago, April convinced herself this was different. That their relationship was special and Oscar wanted to help her. This was his choice. His decision. But deep down she knew that simply wasn’t true.
“It’s wrong of me to treat you like this,” April bemoaned. “You’re more than just some big angry gun I can point at a problem and shoot. You shouldn’t be forced to do something for me or anyone for that matter.”
Oscar’s mouth flipped into a confused frown and he perked his head up to peek over April’s shoulder. She glanced back to see what he was looking at. It was the skyscrapers of Manhattan looming in the distance.
“Forget about that,” April said, turning back around. “You deserve more than to just be the big destructive monster everyone thinks you are. I’m not saying be good or bad. I think we’re both past that by now. But you should be free. Me too. We need to live our lives on our own terms. The world is bigger than just a summer at Lake Oscawana. It woul
d do us some good to remember that.”
Oscar tilted his head to the side, his eye growing faint and heavy. It wasn’t that he misunderstood her. April knew he heard every word. He just didn’t want to believe it, and if April was being honest, neither did she.
After a moment, the giant creature lowered his head and loosened his grip from the cables. The tentacles slithered off the bridge and Oscar dropped back down, splashing into the river. He didn’t move right away. The gargantuan beast just stood in the water, allowing the turbulent waves he made to slosh against his body. Finally he looked up, and the bright blue glow in his eye dimmed to a dull purple.
“Goodbye,” April whispered.
Her voice was barely loud enough for her to hear it, yet she never questioned if Oscar understood her. He did and bowed his head before propelling his massive body forward, skimming across the surface like a bullet. After he disappeared under the bridge, April hopped back over the guardrail and quickly climbed onto the Sheriff’s cruiser.
She got to the roof of the car just in time to peek over the other edge and catch a glimpse of Oscar diving below the surface. He became a shadow under the water, a giant dark blemish that reminded April of the first time she saw him by Henry’s dock. Only this time he didn’t linger beneath her toes. He swam far faster than she ever thought he was possible of moving, soaring out past New York City and into the open waters of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER TWENTYSIX
Sheriff Thompson had never seen his office so busy. The room was flooded with people. Services and departments from all over the county, state, and beyond descended on the communities affected by Oscar’s rampage. Considering that Lake Oscawana was ground zero for his emergence, Putnam Valley had become the center of the relief efforts.
Many of his officers were still out in the field, assisting fire, salvage, and EMS units with getting a handle on the chaos. Sheriff Thompson was focused quarterbacking the operation from his office, juggling a million different phone calls from a million different people while navigating the commotion all around him.