It was too late for the town. The snake had gotten everyone.
One by one, they had disappeared. It wasn't like the movies. There were no heroic last stands, no great battles, no dramatic moments where someone managed to kill the beast. Just a slow, suffocating terror, like a creeping disease that took everything. A few weeks ago, the hunting groups had been trying to fight back, but no one stood a chance. The lake was the snake's home. The beast knew it. Everyone else just didn't.
Mara Matthews was the last one left. She'd survived, somehow, by hiding. The others had tried to escape. They hadn't. They didn't make it to the town line or even the edge of the woods. The snake got to them all.
It wasn't like the stories she used to hear when she was a kid. This wasn't some giant myth, some boogeyman hiding in the shadows. This thing was real. And it was hungry. And it was angry. Mara had learned that the hard way. She still didn't know why it chose the town. Why it hadn't gone anywhere else. It didn't matter. It had done its job, and now it was time for her to go, too.
She sat in the old schoolhouse, the only place she hadn't left. The town was empty now. No sounds of children laughing or adults talking. No footsteps echoing on the sidewalks. No vehicles. Just silence. The walls were covered in dust, the chalkboard filled with ghostly scrawls no one cared about anymore.
Mara stared at the old clock, the only thing that still seemed to work in the whole town. It ticked steadily, but the sound felt hollow, empty. The air in the room felt wrong, heavy. She could hear the wind outside, howling through the trees, but nothing else. She had no idea how much time had passed since the last scream. It could've been hours, days, or longer. She didn't care. It didn't matter anymore.
She heard the hum of a helicopter far off in the distance. At first, she thought it was just her mind playing tricks. It wasn't. The sound got louder. She stood up slowly, walking toward the window. The helicopter appeared on the horizon, coming in from the west. She didn't know what to expect. Maybe the government was finally going to do something. Maybe they'd send in a team to stop whatever had terrorized this place for so long. Maybe they'd finally get rid of it all. She was so tired. Maybe it would be over soon.
The helicopter landed just outside the town, on the edge of the empty field. Three men stepped out, all dressed in military uniforms. They walked in straight lines, like they had rehearsed it a thousand times. It didn't make her feel better. It didn't reassure her that they were here to help.
"We're here to clean up the mess," one of them said as he approached Mara. His voice was too calm, too practiced. He looked at her like she was just another casualty. He didn't care. None of them cared.
"What do you mean?" Mara whispered. Her throat was dry, and her words felt like they were getting stuck halfway out. It was harder to breathe.
"We're going to blow up the town," the man said flatly. "We'll burn it to the ground, erase every trace of what happened. The snake won't come back if there's nothing left for it. This'll end it. For good."
Mara didn't say anything. What could she say? It was over. She was already dead.
They set up the explosives. The town was empty now. The buildings were just husks, hollow and forgotten. There was no one left to save. Not that anyone could've done anything. The snake had taken care of that. The ground vibrated as the men placed the bombs, getting everything in position.
Mara didn't care anymore. She wanted to see it burn. She wanted to feel the heat, to know that, even if the snake had won, it was going to take everything else with it. Even if she died in the flames, it would be better than waiting for the thing to come for her.
The explosions came suddenly. The ground shook. The buildings collapsed, dust and smoke filling the sky. It didn't stop. The blasts went on, one after another, until the entire town was gone. A cloud of dirt and fire hung in the air, suffocating everything. Mara's body trembled from the force, but she didn't move. She just watched.
She never saw the snake again.
But she should've known better. She should've known that it wasn't over.
The men in their uniforms walked back toward their helicopter. They didn't look back, didn't even flinch at the destruction behind them. They just climbed in, started the engines, and lifted off, leaving Mara standing there alone.
She thought it was done. She thought the nightmare was finished. But when she turned to leave, something caught her eye, something strange. She couldn't believe it at first, but she saw the water.
The lake was still there.
The explosion hadn't destroyed it. The lake hadn't gone anywhere.
She walked toward it, her legs heavy. She didn't know why she did it. She should've stayed away. She should've let the fire consume her, too. But instead, she walked closer.
And that's when she saw it.
Eggs. Hundreds of them. All along the edge of the lake, buried in the dirt, almost invisible if you didn't know what to look for. They were huge, covered in slime, pulsating in time with the faint ripples of water. They were alive.
The nightmare wasn't over. It was just starting.
Mara froze. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn't scream. There was no one left to hear her. The eggs were already hatching, cracking open, revealing tiny, slick bodies wriggling out, stretching their long, thin bodies toward the water.
She didn't know how many of them there were. She couldn't count them. It didn't matter. The snake had laid them here, in secret, hidden in the ruins of the town, waiting for the right moment.
Mara could hear the hissing as the tiny snakes began to move. Their tiny bodies slithered over each other, already searching for the next meal.
And then, just as she thought she was done, just as she had come to terms with everything, she felt a cold, wet touch at her ankle. Something large. Something heavy.
She turned.
The lake was alive.
The snake had never left. It was just waiting. Waiting for the eggs to hatch, for the next generation to rise up, to finish what it had started.
Mara screamed.
But it didn't matter. The snake was here again. The nightmare would never end.