——
An hour later, the beach was packed and the sun had set. Music blared from a DJ setup next to the bonfire. People were dancing and grinding on each other. Hugh had dragged Oscar out to dance. The rest of us, for the most part, sat in the van, drinking, and somehow got stuck playing the hermit crab game again.
“Damn it, Han,” Veronica said. “You always want to get a good spot, and now we're trapped here until it's over.”
“What? How is that my fault?”
“You realize we could walk back to the hotel.” Ryanne took a large swig from her bottle. “It's basically next door.”
Sky shook her head, dropping an empty. “But something interesting might actually happen for once.”
“Plus,” I said,. “We need to be here to see the Crowning.”
“I wish I could be crowned Crab Queen,” Veronica huffed. “But they keep that shit with the damn Greeks.”
“I just want the crown.” Han moved his hermit crab.
“It’s just a bunch of plastic crabs glued together,” I said.
“It’s a symbol of honor,” he replied. “And it would look great in our house.”
Loud cheers erupted from the beach and we all turned to look. On second thought, they didn't sound exactly like cheers, but with drunk people, it was hard to tell.
Coming out of the ocean was what seemed to be a wave of red. It swept its way closer to shore. The nearest partiers looked like they were scrambling backward, trying to get away from it. Their cheers definitely didn’t sound like cheers now. I stood up to try and get a better view.
The red wave rushed up the beach, and once it brought a non-observant partier to the ground screaming, I realized what it was.
“Crabs?” The word squeaked out of my mouth.
And the crabs scuttled forward, with a clicking and clattering sound like shells caught in the surf.
They were small individually, only a couple inches tall, few inches around, but the whole force of them took up the majority of the beach. The partiers started panicking, some tripping over themselves and getting lost in the wave of crabs as it moved with shocking speed, coming more and more inland. The air was quickly full of screams and a steady, ceaseless clicking and rattling noise that came from the rush of crabs.
A girl from my English class last quarter, fell over close to the bonfire, her hair hitting a coal and lighting up. The stench of burning hair mixed with the overwhelming smell of the sea that the crabs had brought with them. She screamed, starting to roll in the sand, but the crabs were already on her. They were ruthless; pinching at any exposed skin until they could just rip it off.
——