Oscawana Read online

  OSCAWANA

  A Monster Novel

  Frank Martin

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Frank Martin

  PROLOGUE

  The lake needed a good two or three weeks of deep freeze before the ice was thick enough to walk on. Another week after that and the locals grew daring enough to drive their trucks on it. Wintertime partying out on Oscawana had been a Putnam Valley rite of passage for generations. One would assume that drinking and doing donuts out on the ice was a recipe for disaster, but no one in the town’s history had ever fallen through.

  Seth took comfort in that statistic when his friends invited him over. There would be nearly two dozen people there, he told himself. It couldn’t have been that crazy to stand out in the middle of a frozen lake if everybody was doing it.

  Still, when Seth stepped onto the ice and felt the soles of his shoes nearly slide out from under him, a paralyzing fear wrapped around his body. He could barely move, skidding his feet one small inch forward at a time. After a little encouragement from his friends, both verbally and with a bottle of beer, the twenty-year-old felt comfortable enough to expand his strides, eventually making it all the way out to the small gathering in the center of the lake.

  Several drinks later, Seth found himself relaxing, almost having a good time. He wasn’t about to get in a truck or ATV and go driving around like a madman. He would’ve probably clutched his seat in terror as the tires beneath him skidded all over the ice, spraying a puff of snow in the air like a cloud. None of the other partygoers seemed to mind huddling together, walking back and forth on the ice as a couple thousand pounds of trucks drove in between them. But Seth wasn’t about to take his chances. He was just fine where he was. Standing along the perimeter of the group, beer in hand, and sporadically joining in on conversations when it suited him. It allowed him the perception of being part of the group without joining in on the danger.

  It also meant he was the only one who heard the sudden pop in the distance.

  The noise came from behind him, but when Seth turned around there was nothing there. The shore on the other side of the lake was still half a football field away. Too far for such a shallow noise to have reached him. Whatever it was must’ve come from the ice, which sent an unnatural shiver down Seth’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

  Nobody else seemed to have noticed it. Or maybe they were too lost in their revelry of loud music and drunken conversation to have cared. Seth shouted across the ice to let everyone know what he heard, but no one was as concerned as he hoped they would be. Instead, all Seth received was encouragement to investigate the noise on his own, which he did rather reluctantly.

  Chugging his beer for a bit more liquid courage, Seth shuffled his feet across the ice like an uncoordinated penguin. He couldn’t recall after taking the first step what actually drove him to check out the noise by himself. Maybe he just didn’t want to look like a chicken in front of his friends, but glancing back over his shoulder, Seth noticed no one was even paying attention to him. Perhaps he was just curious. Either way, Seth told himself there was no reason to be afraid. If a large party bouncing up and down couldn’t break the ice then there was no way it could just randomly crack on its own.

  At least, that was what he believed until he spotted a small dark blotch in the pristine sheet of white covering the lake.

  Seth’s steps became smaller as he approached and discovered a hole in the ice about the size of a golf ball. He continued sliding along until he was standing directly over the hole and looking straight down at the water’s surface. A part of Seth was definitely afraid, but curiosity overrode his fear.

  Before coming out here he imagined different scenarios of how the party could go wrong. Of what it would look like if one of the trucks or the crowd suddenly cracked the ice and plunged into the lake. This was different, though. The frozen ground beneath his feet felt solid. Not the least bit flimsy or weak. And the ice had to be at least a foot thick. Yet whatever made the small irregular shaped hole had punched straight through it in one shot without leaving a single stress crack around it. It was like a clear, straight tunnel all the way down to the freezing cold water underneath.

  Seth kept peering through it, hoping to catch a glimpse of what might’ve caused the hole. But there was nothing. Just the dull, dark shimmer of the hidden lake at the bottom.

  His curiosity uneventfully satisfied, Seth was about ready to stand back up when a gray blur leapt from the water. The object, shooting like a bullet through the small hole in the ice, moved too fast for Seth’s brain to process what it was. Before he could react, a set of tiny, razor sharp teeth clamped onto his face with the vice-like grip of a million needles and yanked him downward, smashing his body through the thick ice and into the freezing cold waters below.

  A loud smash echoed across the frozen lake, drawing the attention of the young partygoers a short distance away. Everyone immediately stopped and turned, but it took a moment for them to process what had happened.

  Slowly, one by one, people started curiously meandering towards the hole. Upon realizing what it was, an alarmed few broke out into a sprint only to put on the brakes when the danger became evident. The would-be rescuers slid across the ice, several skidding so hard they fell onto their backs and hips.

  Behind them, the others conducted a quick census of everyone present. Seth’s name began popping up when he couldn’t be accounted for. A few daring individuals inched closer to the large hole on their hands and knees, each one curiously noting that the ice around the edges was still thick and sturdy. As they shouted Seth’s name into the ripples of the water, the crowd discussed how the ice, if it was as solid as they said, could’ve broken in the first place. Nobody had an answer. And the frantic conversation slowly peppered out when it became clear Seth wasn’t returning to the surface. He was lost, vanished within the lake’s depths.

  A dreaded silence filled the air, tainted only by the faint rhythm of the music echoing in the distance.

  CHAPTER ONE

  April Hawkins popped in her ear buds, set a playlist to random, and zoned out, staring through the window as she said goodbye to a summer amongst her friends.

  Her family left the noise polluted streets of New York City and jumped on the parkway, following along the Hudson River headed north. Eventually, the road veered inland and the urban environment of tenements and crowded sidewalks shifted into a suburban portrait of cookie cutter houses and newly constructed playgrounds. Then the scene morphed again. Sporadic pockets of dense communities gave way to a portrait of treetops for as far as the eye could see. Unlike the city, where the streets cut through everything in their path, the road upstate seemed to move with the landscape, riding the sprawling hills up and down like a natural roller coaster.

  So mesmerized by the lush forests surrounding them, April barely realized when their car veered off towards the exit. At just a little over an hour, the drive wasn’t nearly as long as she thought it would be. Still, however long the trip took to get here made little difference if it brought her to someplace she didn’t want to be.

  Their winding journey continued up and down the hills into the dense backwoods of Putnam County, passing by several horse stables along the way. The further they drove, the less houses they saw, all in search of a lake that seemed an eternity from civilization.

  As the GPS read less than a minute to their arrival, the car descended a street so steep April thought they were going to flip right over. A vast army of trees coated the bottom of the hill, but nestled between them was a small opening just wide enough for April to catch a glimpse of the water. She tried to focus and maybe gain some sense as to how big of a lake it was. Before she could though, the car abruptly turned left and approached a dead
end where the road seamlessly transitioned into a driveway of dark red pavers.

  Standing at the foot of it was a man waving with more enthusiasm than April was comfortable with. She didn’t recognize his face, but then again, she didn’t expect to. She was only six when she last saw her Uncle Henry ten years ago, and her parents didn’t keep any pictures of him around the house.

  To complement his dorky grin, her uncle wore an outfit that put way too much effort into looking like he just came from the beach. His lower half consisted of a set of neon flip flips and swirly board shorts that screamed for attention. A loose fitting tank top hung from his scrawny shoulders, exposing his skinny, pale arms that most would’ve been too embarrassed displaying for the world to see. To top off his ensemble, Henry wore a brown bucket hat covered in an assortment of colorful patches that looked like the walls of a tacky family restaurant threw up all over him. There were far too many for April to count, not that she cared to. All she needed to know was that the guy proudly wore the hat to greet them despite the massive shade from the canopy of trees towering overhead.

  April’s mother drove slowly as her uncle waved them into the short driveway, which turned further down the hill. The car parked in front of a garage door that was still wet with a new coat of white paint, and April exited the backseat to get a better look at the house attached to it. Although the home itself was in decent shape, it was about what April pictured when she thought of a seventies lake house. Wooden paneling covered every outside wall, and the freshly planted shrubs surrounded by red mulch failed to effortlessly blend the property’s artificial landscaping with the nature beyond it.

  April and her brother, Mark, examined the house side by side while their mother exited the car to greet Uncle Henry walking down the driveway.

  “You guys made excellent time,” he said with the same wide grin glued across his face.

  His flip-flops clapped against his feet with every step, echoing a smacking noise that irritated April more than his voice.

  “No traffic,” Mrs. Hawkins replied, opening her arms to welcome her brother. “We got lucky.”

  They hugged, but their arms barely clasped around each other in an awkward reunion that appeared more of a formality than a genuine embrace.

  “Hey, sis,” he whispered with his mouth up against her shoulder.

  Mrs. Hawkins pulled away to look her brother in the eye. “How you doing, Henry? I hope Asia treated you well.”

  “It did,” he answered, nodding joyfully. “But a decade is a long time to be gone. I’m just glad to be back in New York.”

  Mrs. Hawkins laughed dramatically as she looked to the treetops. “Is this still New York? I couldn’t tell without the skyscrapers.”

  Henry smirked and casually waved off her jab. “Shanghai. Hong Kong. Bangkok. I’ve had enough of city life. I want peace. I want nature. I want…”

  His monologue drifted off as he caught sight of April and Mark standing further down the driveway.

  “Oh, gosh,” he gasped, his eyes wide in awe. “Is this them?”

  April wasn’t sure if it was a rhetorical question. Henry turned to Mrs. Hawkins, actually looking for an answer, and it surprised April when she nodded. As if there were a chance her mother would somehow abduct two strange kids to stay with this man that weren’t her children.

  The obnoxiously gleeful grin returned to Henry’s face as he walked further down the driveway. “I haven't seen you two in forever. You’ve gotten so big!”

  He took seven steps, which meant his feet clapped against his flip-flops seven more times. April counted every one.

  She and Mark remained perfectly still, unsure as to how to appropriately react to the situation. Henry didn’t seem to mind, though. He got right down to Mark’s thirteen-year-old eye level and had no shame carefully examining the boy’s face. “I’m sure you barely remember me, Mark.”

  “Actually,” Mark replied, apathetically shrugging his shoulders. “I don't remember you at all.”

  Henry lifted his fist and gave Mark a light, playful tap in the shoulder. “Then I guess we’ll have to change that.”

  He then shifted his gaze over to April while approaching her slowly. “And my little niece, April. Just wow. You’ve really grown into a beautiful woman, haven’t you?”

  Uneasy and uncomfortable, April wasn’t quite sure how to react to the compliment. Her uncle’s wide grin had grown from eccentric to creepy, but her mother never looked concerned by Henry’s comment.

  “Thanks,” April hissed through a smile she forced to appear grateful.

  Placing his hands firmly on his hips, Henry tilted his head sideways and stared April down with a peculiar grimace. “Don’t tell me you don't remember me, either?”

  April shrugged ever so slightly, hesitant to answer truthfully. “A little.”

  “Good,” Henry replied, opening his body to the rest of group while wrapping his arm around April’s shoulder. “Then at least we’ll have something to build on.”

  Feeling her personal space invaded, April’s instinct told her to push him away, but the last thing she wanted was to get off on the wrong foot with her host, even if he was an unnecessary toucher. So she recoiled into herself instead, tolerant of his affection.

  Just when April thought his grip couldn’t get any tighter, Henry brought her in close to spin her body around, ushering her and Mark towards the front door. “Why don’t you guys head on inside while I finish talking to your mom. You can get a great view of the lake from the porch.”

  He finally let go with a little push to get April moving forward. Mark glanced over to his sister, looking for direction, but she didn’t have any answers. She grimaced and shrugged, obliging Henry’s request by heading down the stone pathway to the house.

  While pushing the front door open, April expected to find a tacky interior to match the outside of the house. She assumed to step onto a shag rug, surrounded by yellow wallpaper and space age furniture.

  Her breath was taken away instead.

  Every wall in the house had been blown out into a studio, creating a single large space that was all weaved together by a basalt tile floor. A pristine granite island sat off to the side, encompassed by a long countertop that housed several stainless steel appliances. On the opposite side of the room was a couch, which was positioned in front of an unnecessarily large television screen mounted to the wall. Tucked into the far corner of the room was a king size floor bed. Most impressive, though, was the back wall the mattress was nestled against, which consisted entirely of floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the lake.

  Mesmerized by the sight, the two children drifted to a sliding glass door in the center of the wall and stepped through it onto the porch outside. It was here that April saw the house was literally built on the side of a hill. Over the railing was a thirty-foot straight drop down to a stone walkway, and another thirty feet below that was a small grass lawn and dock that extended out over the water.

  The lake itself was much larger than April expected. It was only about four hundred yards to the other side. Close enough that April felt like she could swim there if her life depended on it. But while it wasn’t wide, the saucer shaped lake was long. Real long. April could see one end by the house, a marsh covered in reeds and seaweed to her right. But to her left, the lake continued on way further than she could see.

  The water was choppy, too, crowded with dozens of boats, kayaks and jet skis. Some were just floating in place, content to relax in the summer sun as the waves rocked them from side to side. Others zoomed back and forth across the lake in what seemed like orchestrated chaos. April spotted a pack of teenagers wakeboarding and a dad pulling two laughing girls in an inflatable tube. It was a miracle, she thought, that nobody collided into one another. Especially with the odd swimmer daring or stupid enough to venture out into the center of it all. Though she suspected the boat slowly drifting through the traffic with the word “SHERIFF” printed along the side had something to do with it.


  April also noticed she could hear all the noise from the lake. A constant stream of chatter mixed with the hum of outboard motors travelled across the water before echoing all around her. The other side of the lake was also a hill with another series of homes imbedded into the side of it. Turning back around and looking up, April saw that the hill her uncle’s house was built on extended upward far more than she thought. As if she needed another excuse to feel more trapped than she already did, April was disappointed in herself for only just now realizing they were inside a large valley with the lake sitting at the bottom of it.

  The only silver lining was that Mark couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. From the moment they stepped outside, April’s brother was ecstatic, eager to strip down and jump in for a swim right then and there.

  His enthusiasm quickly diminished, though, when Henry stepped out onto the porch carrying both their suitcases.

  “Where’s mom?” Mark asked, his body slouched in disappointment.

  Henry put the bags down, confused by the question. “She left.”

  The answer pulled on the frown already etched onto Mark’s face. “Without saying goodbye?”

  Henry frowned as well and swayed side to side as if he didn’t know how to handle his disheartened energy. “Oh, I’m sorry, guys. I thought she said that before you came out here.”

  “That would require them actually giving a shit,” April said, rolling her eyes.

  She didn’t know the rules at Uncle Henry’s place. Her mother didn’t exactly go over them with her before they jumped in the car. But he didn’t seem to mind that she cursed, focusing more on the fact she and her brother were upset. “She must’ve just forgotten. That’s all. Your parents are going on a big trip. There’s still probably a lot for them to do.”

  April almost felt bad for the guy, but she knew better.

  “Their flight isn’t for another three days,” she explained. “I’m betting she just had dinner reservations she didn’t want to miss.”