Swamp Monster Love

Chapter 22: Ain't No Stopping Me Now

"Cheap and flashy you mean."

"Maybe. But I'm not the bad guy."

"The monster never thinks he is. Still dies though."

He has a point. "So shoot me," I say. "Maybe you remember how much good that did? Either way, I'm coming through. You'll be happier and alive-ier if you move first."

"Alive-ier?"

"You know what I mean." And, because I realize I can and I've always wanted to, I turn myself into an enormous dragon. I unfurl my dripping wings.

"Cute," says Jacobs as everyone else drops back a few steps. "But we aren't moving."

"Sheesh," I say, flicking my forked tongue. "Would you take me a little more seriously, please? I'm a freaking indestructible water dragon."

"We're not letting you through."

"Because you're protecting. . .what exactly? The pond? The road? You do realize I'm headed away from town?"

"Matter of principle," Jacobs says.

That's when the flamethrowers hit me from behind. There must be a dozen of them. It hurts a little, I'll admit. But only a little. I channel the steam through myself and spew it all dragon-like from my snout. Forgive my drama, but I even roar.

Something hits me from above. A huge vat of powder–red flame repellent stuff I think, dropped from a helicopter that I completely failed to notice. How could I not notice a helicopter? I guess that's what I get for pausing to discuss my plans. And then everyone begins shooting me. Jerks.

The powder soaks into me, turns me red then pink, messes with my continuity. I begin to collapse, but only for a moment. Only for a moment, and then I take hold of all that powder, and of the bullets lodged inside me and force it all out in a red plume of powdery dragon fire and bullets that bounce fairly harmlessly off the officers and their cars. I do crack a few windows though, so there's that.

More helicopters come toward me. If I'm not mistaken, there are fighter jets on the horizon. These guys are taking me far too seriously.

I reach up and grab the nearest helicopter in a giant fist. The rotors cut through my fingers, but I reform them in a better position and crunch the shell inward, just a little. I set the smoking helicopter on the ground. The other copters stop advancing. Not the jets though.

This is all going disturbingly Godzilla on me. Sooner or later they're going to think of something I didn't, or discover some hidden weakness from my past, and kill me for real.

I pull water again, soaking up everything, turning the surrounding forest into dead wood, twirling myself into an absolute hurricane. I am, thank you ladies and gentlemen, generating my own storm system. Too bad I won't see the weather girl on channel fourteen talk about it later. That would be so much cooler than stupid football highlights.

Everyone runs for cover. Lightning flashes. Clouds form, dark and swirling toward me. I am the eye of the storm, the nexus of destruction. Not too shabby for a kid who's never had a girlfriend.

Not that I couldn't have. I'm selective is all.

I reach for Jacob's police car. I tear open the trunk and pull Chip along as I collapse into a tidal wave. I wash away the police cars, the soldiers, the ambulances and fire trucks. I become a river, rushing toward Hansen's Pond, destroying everything in my path.