Free New Title 1 by Dru Pagliassotti

hesitated. “All I’m wearing is socks, but you can have them if you want.”
    Alison bit her lip, then nodded gratefully.
    “Thanks.”
    He pulled off his gym socks and Alison slid them on, wincing as they rubbed against her cut.
    They turned the corner and saw a group of students holding flashlights and cell phones. Alison started to run forward; then the giant snake burst from the ground, right beneath the knot of people.
    “Holy shit!” Peter swore, freezing. Alison stumbled, transfixed by the sight.
    The monstrous creature’s pale, scaly flanks were streaked with dark stains. It arched like a sea serpent while the students who hadn’t been crushed immediately screamed and scattered. Then it plunged back into the earth, ripping through a concrete patio as if the stone weren’t there. The impact shook the earth and shattered brick planters. Carefully tended trees and bushes smashed to the ground as the snake’s long, massive body slid up from the first hole and vanished down the second.
    Alison found herself on all fours. The ground quivered beneath her hands and knees as she watched the slaughter like a movie—like some kind of late-night monster film on television, the kind she’d always watched with a combination of fear and pleasure. For a moment she could believe this was just another Tremors sequel.
    But this serpent was pale and sleek, not brown and rubbery, and it was covered in small, writhing, scalelike cilia that looked like nothing she’d ever seen on a movie monster. The creature moved gracefully through the ground, as though dirt and rock were no more substantial than sea foam.
    Worse, the screams that followed its destructive passage didn’t stop, the way they did in movies when the scene changed. They just went on and on.
    That was when Alison realized she might die. Tonight, in college, at nineteen.
    She crawled over to the lawn and vomited.
    Something touched her shoulder. She spat, looking up.  Peter’s face was a pale circle in the moonlight.
    “What was that?” he asked, his voice shaking.
    “I don’t know.” She spat again and wiped her mouth, then cleaned her hand on the grass. She blinked away tears. “A monster?”
    He nodded because they’d both seen it with their own eyes, and neither of them was stupid enough to say that monsters didn’t exist.
    The screams and groans and shattered bodies around them proved that they did.
    “I want to go to the chapel,” she said, before she realized she was going to say it. “Please. Let’s go to the chapel.”
    Yes—the chapel. The only safe place when monsters came. Her mind flew through the last fourteen weeks of Dr. Todd’s class. Of course. God had inspired her to take that class so she’d know when it was the end of the world; so she’d have time to prepare her soul before the apocalypse.
    Giant snakes in the earth. What else could it be but the apocalypse?
    “Okay,” Peter replied shakily, even though he’d always teased her about her beliefs before this. “Let’s go.”
    Clutching hands, they pulled themselves back to their feet and began to cut across campus as it shook and shuddered beneath them.

XIII

     
    “All right, here’s something,” Jack said at last, squinting at the black type. Another jolt had caused the police car outside to tip, and now the headlight beams hit the ceiling, making reading more difficult.
    Andy lowered the book he’d been flipping through, and Todd lifted his head.
    “‘When Thorvald and Gale Gudrun died, their only nephew—Karl—traveled from Brainerd, Minnesota to examine the ranch here. He decided to sell the 130-acre site to Dr. Garth Andersen, who represented the California District of the Unified Lutheran Church.’ A couple of quotes. Hmm. ‘Karl Gudrun himself stated that he made his gift “to sanctify the memory of my aunt and uncle and to provide youth the benefits of Christian education in a day when spiritual values can well decide the course of history.” ’ One