Capítulo 127: Chapter 127
The nightmare didn't stop with Jonah. It only got worse.
The town, what was left of it, had tried to keep some semblance of order. But the fear kept sinking deeper. More people were gone now. People like Greg, the farmer who lived down by the mill, and his daughter, Anna. They were found halfway down the road that led to the lake, bodies torn apart. The town had been emptying out, with only the stubborn ones left behind—those who couldn't afford to leave or those who just didn't know what else to do.
By now, the stories had stopped. No one talked about it anymore. They just huddled in their homes, eyes darting to the windows when they heard something. It didn't matter how many hunting parties were sent, how many guns were fired into the water, or how many prayers were said. The snake was still out there, and the town was dying, one person at a time.
It was August when the next one went. Tom, a man in his mid-thirties who ran the general store, had always been quiet, but he was one of the few who had stayed. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because he couldn't leave. Maybe it was because he'd lived here his whole life and didn't want to leave it behind, even if it meant he had to watch everything burn.
The night Tom disappeared, there was a storm. The air was thick with the promise of rain, and the sky had turned an ugly greenish-black. Lightning flashed in the distance, and thunder rolled low and heavy, like it was warning them. But Tom went out, anyway. He never came back.
It was Jack, his brother, who found the body. Jack had been in the hunt earlier that week, and he'd heard stories about what the snake could do, but nothing had prepared him for what he saw. The body was mangled, twisted and barely recognizable, stretched out on the banks of the lake like a broken rag doll.
Jack fell to his knees when he saw it, hands shaking, stomach churning. The smell of blood and something else—rotting, sour—filled the air. His breath came in short gasps as he crawled to his brother's body. His hands touched the remains, the skin slick and cold. Tom's neck had been broken in a way that no human could have done. His eyes, wide open, were empty. His mouth was full of something, but it wasn't words.
The snake was still there. He could feel it, even though it was gone. But Jack didn't stay to think. He ran, stumbling over rocks and through mud, back to town, back to safety. But even that was a lie. The safety was just an illusion now.
The next few days were quieter than they should've been. No one went near the lake anymore. People stopped walking outside after dark, and the town looked more like a ghost town with every passing hour. But even the town's doors closed couldn't stop the fear from creeping in.
Tom's death was just another piece of the puzzle, but no one said it out loud. No one talked about it because they knew what it meant. The snake had them. It had them all.
Mara Matthews had been a teacher at the local school before all this started. She was one of the last ones who tried to keep some sort of routine going. She kept the doors of the school open, even when there were no children left to teach. She spent her days staring out the window, waiting for something to happen, or for it to end.
But it didn't end. And it was always there, in the distance, in the water. Mara started hearing things she couldn't explain. It was like the earth itself had started to tremble, and the very air felt wrong. But she never said a word about it. There was nothing left to say.
It was early in the morning when she went out to the garden behind the school. The fog had rolled in thick, covering everything in a ghostly mist. She didn't see the snake at first, but she felt it. That's how it always started. She felt the pressure of something large, something watching.
She heard a sound, like the rustling of leaves, or a low, wet hiss. Her heart slammed in her chest. She froze, not daring to move, not knowing what to do. She waited, and the sound came again, this time closer.
Mara turned, looking toward the lake. The water, smooth and dark, shimmered under the gray sky. The faint outline of the snake's body was visible under the surface, a dark, slithering shape that moved in a way that made her stomach flip. Her hands trembled as she backed away. But there was nowhere to go.
The snake had been waiting for her. She was just one more name on its list.
Her screams echoed through the empty streets of the town, but no one was there to hear them. Her body would be just another casualty, another pile of broken bones and torn flesh, left to rot beside the lake.
By the time the rest of the town figured out what had happened, it was already too late.
The snake had already claimed half the town.
There were no more hunting groups now. No one had the courage to fight. It was over, and everyone knew it.
Jonah's family had left months ago, and now there was nothing left to do but wait. The houses were empty. The streets were silent, save for the occasional creaking of a door or a distant scream. But even the screams didn't matter anymore.
Then it came for Sarah.
Sarah was a young woman, only twenty, and the last of her family. Her parents had been taken long ago, and she was the only one left. She had been trying to leave the town for weeks, but something always stopped her. Something always pulled her back. Maybe it was the fear. Maybe it was the stupid idea that somehow she could survive, that she could outrun the monster in the lake.
But she couldn't. It had found her, just like it found the others.
Sarah woke one night to the sound of something outside her window, something moving through the grass, something huge and wet. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't a storm. It was the snake.
She ran, but the town was too small to hide in. There was nowhere left. The snake's body was wrapping around her home, squeezing tight, closing in, as it always did. The house cracked and groaned as she ran for the door. But when she opened it, it was too late.
The snake's massive head burst through the door like it had been waiting. Its cold, hard skin hit her in the chest, and before she could scream, it wrapped around her, pulling her into the darkness.
No one else would be left now.
And then, after Sarah was gone, the lake was silent again. Only the ripples of water disturbed the calm, as the snake swam deeper into the dark, cold abyss. The town would be nothing now. Just another forgotten place, claimed by something no one could see until it was too late.
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