Oscawana

by Frank Martin

  The crowds and noise were a stark contrast to the night before, when he sat alone at his desk, unraveling the mystery of Henry Hawkins. Those hours seemed distant now, practically an eternity ago, when the world was a bit saner, before a giant monster swallowed the man he was investigating right in front of him.

  It was difficult to tell by looking at her now, but the girl at the center of all that drama now sat alone in the far corner of the office. April hadn’t said a word since they left the bridge and returned to Putnam Valley. She simply retreated into herself, quiet and detached with her head hung low.

  Sheriff Thompson had been so wrapped up in the aftermath he felt guilty for not giving the girl the attention she deserved. It was his concern for her well-being that started this, after all. The least he could do was show her a little compassion.

  Standing from his desk, the Sheriff started pushing his way through the crowd to reach her when a voice called out from beside him. “Sheriff Thompson?”

  The Sheriff looked around for the voice when two men dressed in thin black suits suddenly appeared out of the mob.

  “Can we have a moment of your time?” the other man asked.

  Sheriff Thompson held his hands up apologetically. “Sorry, gentlemen. Don’t know if you’ve seen the news but we’re pretty busy at the moment.”

  The men didn’t move. They remained standing in place, their expressions blank and their hands clasped in front of them.

  “We’re with a federal agency,” the first one stated.

  Sheriff Thompson nodded, acknowledging their authority while not being impressed by it. “Then you should be busy, too.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” the second man specified, his voice flat as a person’s could get.

  Rather than split the men down the middle, the Sheriff chose to try to maneuver around them, forcing him to squeeze through the people boxing them in. “Listen, I’ve spoken to a dozen different departments in the last hour alone.”

  The first man shook his head. “Not ours.”

  Having finally made his way to the other side, Sheriff Thompson flashed the men a polite smile while positioning himself to walk away. “And I will. I promise. But right now there’s a girl in need of my attention. So if you wouldn’t mind waiting a bit longer then we can—”

  “She’s the reason we came,” the second man interrupted.

  Sheriff Thompson was ready to leave when the man’s statement caught him by surprise.

  “We’d like to speak to April Hawkins,” the first man clarified.

  The Sheriff had no immediate response. No one, not the government or even the media, had uttered a word about April before. Oscar, which to them was simply an unnamed creature, and the destruction he caused had been the focus of everyone’s attention. The fact that two men suddenly showed up at his office and started asking about the girl gave Sheriff Thompson pause. They didn’t appear hostile or even demanding. In fact, they seemed eerily at ease given everything that happened.

  The Sheriff continued to stare the men down, trying to get some sort of read on their intentions, when a woman’s bombastic voice erupted over the room’s continuous chatter. “I want to speak to my daughter, dammit!”

  Sheriff Thompson looked over and saw a middle-aged woman in a tight blue dress confronting one of his officers in the lobby.

  Distracted by the woman’s arrival, the Sheriff scooted back around the men while holding up a finger. “Hold that thought. We’ll talk later. I promise.”

  Sheriff Thompson was half-surprised when the persistent men didn’t object. They allowed him to walk towards the lobby, where he greeted the woman with his hand extended. “Hi, Mrs. Hawkins. I’m Sheriff Brian Thompson.”

  She ignored the Sheriff’s hand, crossing her arms firmly against her chest. “How’s my girl?”

  “She’s…” Sheriff Thompson paused a moment to mentally scroll through the hundred words he could use to describe April before settling on the perfect one. “Strong.”

  “You better hope she is,” Mrs. Hawkins chided, holding a firm finger in the Sheriff’s face. “Because when my husband and I sue this pathetic redneck town for every penny it’s worth you better believe—”

  The woman’s forceful voice attacked Sheriff Thompson like a series of quick jabs, and he had to hold up his hand to stop her, giving his brain time to catch up. “Wait a second. Did you just say you’re going to sue us?”

  Mrs. Hawkins nodded, succinctly. “That’s right. For exposing April to that gigantic beast thing and getting my son…my poor baby killed in the process.”

  Taking a deep breath, Sheriff Thompson scrunched his brow while trying to figure out the source of her tangent. “Mrs. Hawkins, when my deputy called you, did she explain what happened?”

  Mrs. Hawkins nodded again, this time drawing out the gesture by bobbing her head up and down with her eyes wide in a condescending glare. “Oh, she did all right. But like I’m going to believe some hillbilly cop tarnishing my brother’s name.”

  The Sheriff’s eyes spread wide, as well, but he did so to appear honest and transparent. “I was there and I can assure you that it’s true. Henry all but admitted to abusing your daughter and then shot and killed your son.”

  “Yeah,” Mrs. Hawkins snickered, rolling her eyes. “And all this just so happened to take place right before that grotesque beast-looking thing rose up out of the lake and ate him, right?”

  Sheriff Thompson stiffened his back, continuing to scrutinize the woman’s odd behavior. Was she angry? Upset? Confused? He couldn’t quite pin her down, which meant he didn’t know how to feel himself. Was he offended? Disgusted? Or simply baffled by her callous reaction?

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” the Sheriff confessed, his voice raw and sincere.

  Mrs. Hawkins coldly waved off the comment without a second thought. “Save it for my lawyers, Sheriff. And you better get your own, too. Who knows what other monsters you have lurking up here. You probably created the damn thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if this entire valley is covered in radiation from that nuclear power plant on the river.”

  “You want to talk about monsters?” a voice shouted over the office commotion.

  Sheriff Thompson and Mrs. Hawkins both turned to find April emerge from the crowd to enter the lobby.

  “Why don’t you go look in a mirror?” the girl added, her voice sharp as a weapon.

  Mrs. Hawkins let out a joyous gasp and smiled, spreading her arms wide for her daughter to embrace her. “April. Is that any way to greet me? I rushed up here as soon as I could.”

  Rather than accept her mother’s hug, April stayed where she was, her eyes perked up in judgmental curiosity. “As soon as you could, huh? Funny considering you’re supposed to be in Europe.”

  Mrs. Hawkins slowly retracted her arms. Her panicked face grew long, completely shocked and stunned by her daughter’s unexpected reaction. “Your father and I were planning to but—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” April snapped with fists balled at her sides.

  All the chatter instantly stopped as everyone in the room turned to stare at the furious girl. It was an unnerving sight, seeing someone filled with such rage, but Sheriff Thompson had gotten used to it over the past several hours.

  Looking around, embarrassed at the leering eyes around them, Mrs. Hawkins leaned forward to whisper her excuse. “There was a change of plans. That’s all.”

  April exhaled a little bit of anger with every breath. The tension in her body slid right off of her, tragically replaced by utter disappointment. “You left us with a terrible man, mom. An evil, horrible person. And you knew! You knew what he was like and you did it anyway!”

  For Sheriff Thompson, this was the more painful sight to watch. Anger he could deal with. It was his job. But April’s despair, caused by someone that was supposed to protect her, meant he had failed to do that job successfully.

  “He told me he was reformed,” Mrs. Hawkins pleaded, her voice strained as if she were be
ing attacked. “He told me he was all better.”

  April’s scowling eyes focused so hard they nearly bore straight through the woman. “And you believed him?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Hawkins exclaimed in defense. “How was I supposed to know he was dangerous?”

  “Are you being serious right now?” April asked, throwing her hands in the air. “You sent me to live with a convicted pedophile!”

  Sheriff Thompson was shocked the woman actually scoffed at the comment.

  “He’s your uncle,” she said with half a grin. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  A light grumble flowed through the room. Most of the onlookers had heard enough, and the crowd began to move once more.

  Not April, though. She couldn’t take her eyes off her mother, staring sideways at the woman, examining her as if she were less than human. “Dramatic? Mark is dead, mom. Dead! My brother was killed and our father couldn’t even be bothered to make the trip up here.”

  Mrs. Hawkins crossed her arms again and firmly planted her high heels on the tile floor. “He’s a busy man. You know this.”

  April lowered her head while shaking it in frustrated disbelief. “Stop. Just stop it!”

  She then snapped her eyes up and took a step forward, bringing her vengeful sneer right up into her mother’s face. “I wanted you to hurt. I wanted you to hurt so bad that I was willing to destroy the world to make it happen. I had one good thing left in my life. One thing that made me smile. And I gave him up to get to you. I lost him to my anger. The anger you forced onto me. And now, just like Mark, I’ll never get to see him again either.”

  The mother and daughter stared each other down. Sheriff Thompson felt some responsibility to step in between them, but after everything April had been through, he figured she deserved to at least be able to tell her mother off.

  The Sheriff knew he would eventually break it up if the altercation became physical, but he never got the chance to. A voice from within the crowd grabbed their attention for him. “That doesn’t have to be true.”

  The three of them looked over as the two men in black suits entered the lobby. Sheriff Thompson let out a tired sigh upon spotting them. “Gentlemen, please. Can you just give us—”

  “What do you mean?” April asked the men, interrupting the Sheriff with her curiosity.

  The first man answered her question as they both stopped just inside the lobby. “We tracked your friend for a good long while out into the Atlantic, but he lost us in international waters.”

  “And who are you guys exactly?” April asked, skeptically.

  Sheriff Thompson was beginning to wonder that exact same question himself and listened intently to the second man’s reply. “People who would like to see the two of you reunited.”

  April leered at the man, suspicious yet hopeful of his motives. “Why?”

  “You saw what he did,” the first man answered.

  “He’s a threat,” the second man carried on. “A force of nature that has the potential to be very dangerous.”

  April shook her head, simultaneously hurt and angered by the man’s assessment. “Oscar’s not like that.”

  The first man nodded with a smile, giving off the impression he wasn’t here to offend. “We know. Which is why my colleague used the word ‘potential.’ Because he also has the potential not to be.”

  “We’d like to focus on the latter,” the second man chimed in on cue, “and we need you to help us do it.”

  The conversation stalled as April eyed the men down, still trying to discern if their intentions were pure.

  “Enough of this.” Mrs. Hawkins threw her hands up, frustrated by the situation. “Come on, April. We’re going home.”

  She reached out and grabbed April by the wrist. Sheriff Thompson took a step to intervene just as April prepared to rip her hand away. Both of them, however, stopped in their tracks, halted by the first man’s voice. “We don’t know the history you and this ‘Oscar’ have together, but what you did on that bridge was incredible.”

  The second man nodded, reiterating the point. “Our military couldn’t even put a dent in him, yet you stopped him in his tracks. He listens to you.”

  Like a planned pitch, the first man picked right up where his partner left off. “So if there’s anyone that has the ability to bring him in peacefully…”

  “…it’s you, April,” the second man finished.

  Sheriff Thompson and Mrs. Hawkins both turned to the girl, each of them holding their breath and waiting for a response. April still looked confused, as if she understood their offer but didn’t quite believe it.

  “You want me…to go with you?” she asked, uncertainly.

  The men nodded in synch with one another, and April’s confused face hardened as she scowled at her mother. “Do my parents have to come?”

  “Not if you don’t want them to,” the first man replied.

  “She’s sixteen!” Mrs. Hawkins blurted out in a tantrum, shocked and insulted by her powerlessness. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  April turned back to the men. “Is that a problem?”

  The second man shook his head, dispelling any legal issue with their offer. “We have the ability to emancipate you within the hour.”

  “If that’s what you really want,” the first man added.

  April’s eyes cautiously shifted in Sheriff Thompson’s direction, waiting for him to object.

  “Don’t look at me,” the Sheriff said, innocently raising his hands. “I don’t need you around. Assuming these men can confirm their claims, you can go with them whenever you wish.”

  The first man nodded, actually breaking a smile in the process. “Of course.”

  Mrs. Hawkins’s gaze shot back and forth between the men and her daughter as her dumbfounded expression gradually descended into dismay. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you, April?”

  Her daughter didn’t even acknowledge the question. She simply nodded at the men with a thin smirk etched into her face.

  “April?!” Mrs. Hawkins cried.

  Again, April failed to reply. The men didn’t respond to the hysterical woman either. They gestured towards the front door, signaling April to lead the way.

  “Don’t do this,” Mrs. Hawkins pleaded, reaching and grabbing onto her daughter’s wrist. “Please don’t do this. I already lost one child today. Don’t make me lose you, too.”

  Sheriff Thompson chose not to intervene this time, giving April the opportunity to break away on her own. He was shocked when she didn’t. Instead, April gently placed her other palm atop her mother’s hand. It was the most compassionate gesture the Sheriff had ever seen from the girl.

  “Be happy, mom,” she said with a genuine smile. “You’re finally getting rid of me. It’s what you always wanted.”

  Struck into a stupor, Mrs. Hawkins’s hand slid off on its own, freeing April to continue towards the door. The woman’s face was wide in a puzzled daze, still unable to comprehend the sight of her daughter walking away from her.

  However, Sheriff Thompson experienced the moment differently, and stepped up alongside the dejected mother to watch the girl leave. “I wish I could tell you she’s making the wrong decision, but the truth is…”

  With April out the door, the Sheriff finally turned to face the woman he’d been standing next to. “I don’t blame her.”

  He waited a second to see if Mrs. Hawkins had anything else to say. She didn’t and continued to silently stare ahead, completely speechless by her rejection.

  Sheriff Thompson shook his head. He pitied the woman and a part of him felt sorry for what she’d had to go through. But only a small part, and the Sheriff had already pushed it aside as he re-entered the office.

  EPILOGUE

  Oscar found the ocean cold. Much colder than the lake water he was used to. He thought it was a fairly paradoxical place, as well. Unlike Oscawana, the ocean’s surface was lonely and barren. Quiet except for the constant swoosh of water. The never-e
nding current of waves swayed back and forth like clockwork. Always in motion, never settling even for an instant

  Below the surface, however, was another matter entirely. The ocean was teeming with life. Filled with a hundred if not a thousand times more activity than the lake. Most of it came from fish too small for Oscar to sense individually, but clouds of them were constantly drifting all around him. They flowed as one like a synchronized dance of different shapes and colors.

  The fish weren’t the only marine life Oscar encountered. He found his new company, all of them, entertaining in their own way. He met giant gelatinous blobs and squishy slithering tentacles as long as his own. Families of floating mammoths that nearly rivaled him in size. The ocean’s ecosystem was a thrilling one. Nothing too big or too small to be eaten. A constant play of life and death that made the world on land seem calm by comparison.

  Yet still, Oscar yearned for that world above the surface. He missed feeling the ground on his feet. He missed leaping into the air and running through the woods. But really, he just missed April. He was lonely before she came along. This world was strange to him. Bizarre and, in many ways, scary.

  On that day in the forest, when the two of them met for the first time, April looked like she felt the same way. Sad. Worried. Alone. When they were together all those feelings seemed to go away.

  Oscar wished he could go back to those days. Life was simpler then. He swam. He ate. He played. Then he slept and did it all over again.

  Now his future was uncertain. Where would he go? What would he do? Oscar couldn’t think of a single answer to these questions.

  He just kept swimming, aimless and without purpose. Days turned to nights, which then turned back into days. Over and over again. A cyclical pattern that made the ocean’s excitement become mundane and routine.

  That was where Oscar found himself now. Tired. Bored. And all alone.

  Until he spotted something floating, practically hovering along the horizon. He couldn’t say what it was at first. The odd shape appeared small, just sitting there, not doing much of anything besides existing.