HERLONG - Lassen County is a quiet, peaceful place, home to one of the lowest county populations in California. However, its sandy plains are now terrorized by the screams of longtime Lassen locals, as the county has found itself under siege by a ravenous population of 30-foot long carnivorous earthworms seeking human flesh.

Carnilumbricius magnus, AKA the Graboid, is a cryptid species of much regional fame and fear, though other populations have been discovered in various regions worldwide. These carnivorous worms can grow up to ten yards in length and weigh over one and a half tons, and are capable of burrowing through alluvial sand and silt soils at speeds of over 20 miles per hour. Graboids are blind animals relying on sound to sense their prey and obstacles in their path; upon cornering or trapping their prey, they will consume them by ensnaring them with their three snakelike tongues, each of which has a paralytic bite.

Graboids were first discovered in 1990 by two handymen and a UNR Ph.D student near the town of Perfection, Nevada, on the east side of the Toiyabe Range; a population of half a dozen graboids menaced the town until the residents successfully put them down. Various subspecies have evolved since the discovery of these critters, including bipedal ones with infrared vision and no hearing (known as "Shriekers") and ones capable of jet-propelled flight due to chemical reactions in their stomachs ("Ass-Blasters"). Currently, Lassen County is only menaced by regular Graboids; our readers in Sierra Valley and beyond can be assured our endemic subspecies of Graboid can grow no longer than four inches due to the heavy clay soil and mountainous terrain bounding their range.

There have been few civilian casualties, since early in the infestation the entire population was drawn to Sierra Army Depot in Herlong by ordinance disposal detonations. Currently, all of the post's personnel are holed on the rooftops to avoid the worms, taking potshots at them with high-caliber weaponry to pick them off one at a time after they emerge. They are joined by one local teenager the Mistaker hired to report on this story after our Honey Lake area staff reporter slipped off a ladder by accident and was eaten by a Graboid.

As the Mistaker goes to press, nobody is quite sure how to deal with the worms. A nuclear strike was proposed, but this idea was quickly dismissed due to the unlikelihood it would actually solve the problem (the worms live underground, after all). All traffic on US-395 has been temporarily stopped for fear of resumed attacks on automotive transports. Reportedly a man who "collects cryptids" by the name of Dickenson has been dispatched from Nellis Air Force Base's Groom Lake installation (Area 51) to capture the Graboids and transport them to a secure preserve on the base's grounds. Whether he is successful or not will be reported on a future edition.