He stepped across the beach of fist-sized pebbles, his eyes watering from the wind gales. A few feet away, something made a crack! noise and made him look up. It took a moment to make it out, but he saw one of the million rocks had split in two. Between the two halves of the nearly spherical pebble sat a red spider, or crab, with large, stark white pincers. One of the ever-present, voracious seagulls swooped down and snapped at the creature, which made a stupendous leap at the last moment and clung to the bird’s throat. The gull thrashed among the shingle, squawking loudly. After a moment, it lay still. He approached the quivering carcass and noticed more red on the bird. Some of it was blood, but tiny red specks were crawling around a nasty gash. He picked up a stick and poked at the wound, and dropped it with a small scream when the red crab thing and a dozen smaller ones crawled out of the carcass. Around him, a chorus of cracks sounded, and thousands more crab-things crawled out of their stone eggs, eager for their first meal.