(This story contains gore. Reader discresion is advised.)

Forty-five thousand festive spectators chanted and cheered for their respective teams, from the stands of C&H Life Stadium in the city of Fairview. The mascots performed their antics, the coaches directed their players from the sidelines, and security watched the crowds while communicating via their radios. The announcers and camera crews, up in the TV booth and the blimp that floated above, chronicled, and broadcast the action below to the people who couldn’t be there in person. In the top VIP suite of the venue was C&H Life’s major shareholder and owner of the stadium, Bartholomew Baxter II, along with his trophy wife Yancy S. Baxter, the owners of both teams presently playing, and their gofers. He wasn’t necessarily there to watch the game – that was more for the mindless masses to consume in his eyes – it was more to bask in the wealth and power he flaunted. When he had the oceanfront stadium constructed, he wanted the suite to be located where he could easily look down on everyone in the stands, as far as the nosebleed seats on the seawall.

Fairview didn’t get hit as hard by the earthquake compared to the rest of its neighbors further down the coast, nor did it suffer the full brunt of the tsunami like Newport. Much of its populace still had electricity and running water, but important supplies ran low due to the evacuee influx and some important roads and buildings getting washed away. Like the rest of the coast, it has been over a month since the disaster, and a few weeks since the disappearances. People first started noticing when cats and dogs began vanishing, then it didn’t take long for humans to start following suit. There were growing demands to investigate what could’ve been the cause behind this increasingly disturbing pattern. 

Overall, the wealthy and well-off wanted the region’s economy to go through a resurgence, so the societal elite disavowed the severity of the crisis, and folks yearning for normalcy no matter what, were more than happy to spread the narrative. Many locals were forced by their employers to return to work, despite whatever disaster-related issues that upended their lives were still unresolved. Most of the spectators at the stadium, including Mr. Baxter and those close to him, didn’t suffer similar losses like the town they came to visit for the game. To them, whatever niceties they did in public were enough to make them good and caring people. If it didn’t affect them, it would be no different from any other “over-there” issue.

One attendee sitting in the nosebleeds on the seawall was Ralph Khan. He cashed in his cryptocurrency before another crypto-market crash occurred, so to celebrate his small windfall, he bought whatever tickets were still available for the game. While there, he bought two hotdogs and five cans of beer, which he pounded down during the plays. It hit him too late that he overdid it on the refreshments and felt overtaken by nausea. The restrooms were too far away for him to make it within enough time, so Ralph jumped up and ran from his seat to the barrier overlooking the ocean nearby. He lifted himself up and vomited with closed eyes down the side of the large wall. Once feeling it all to be over, he noticed noises that sounded like thousands of large nails scraping against concrete. Opening his eyes, he saw something so horrifying that he was about to scream, but it grabbed him and pulled him over the buffer’s edge.

Another member of the audience close by could’ve sworn he saw something from his periphery. Getting up from his seat, he approached where he thought something had happened. An arm rose into view over the barrier. The fellow yelled out to the other spectators nearby to get their attention, “Hey! Hey! There’s a man hanging over the wall! He needs help!”

He rushed over as a few others began standing up from their seats to join. He was about to grab the hand when the arm rose higher with the sound of concrete-scraping nails. The appendage’s bloody base was impaled on a large nail-like spine, which itself was one of many similar spines. Reaching slightly above eye level, five, fearsome, big teeth fit together, creating a perfect circle among the sharp, bristling grove covering the body. The teeth snapping sounded like a bear trap made from bone.

The man screamed, tendrils shot out from between the spikes, snagged him by the head and neck, then yanked him towards its open mouth. As his body was skewered onto the protruding stakes, his face went into the teeth where they cleaved the head in half. The sight elicited a scream of terror from a woman who saw it happen, which got others in her area to turn around and see what was going on. Those nearest the creature were the first to get up and run from the stands. There were mixed reactions from those moderately close by. A few fled, but others were either confused while trying to register what was happening, or using their smartphones to film what was going on. Further away from there, few were catching on, but the rest were still focused on the game. That soon changed when more people on the seawall started screaming and running when more spines began burgeoning over the barrier.

The seawall wasn’t the only point where these creatures were coming from, since some climbed over other parts of the stadium to land on spectators who thought they were at a safer distance. The ones that dropped from higher spots landed on top of people, and the combination of both gravity and their own weight, caused most to explode on impact like a juicy nail bomb. Anyone unlucky to be within the blast radius were harpooned by the projectiles. Some of the beasts that landed rolled down the stands, impaling seats, and slower attendees. A few of the horrors even made it over the edge of the upper levels and landed onto the field, where the ones still alive went after the players and sideline personnel. The creatures were surprisingly fast for their unwieldy sizes, being able to keep the same pace as their potential prey.

It didn’t matter if they could catch up with whoever they chased. Stampeding crowds ran throughout the complex trying to head for a way out. Inadvertently growing larger from others running ahead trying to not get trampled or to avoid unseen danger. Because the building was circular, different groups coming from different directions would mob into one another. Individuals on the fringes were slammed into obstacles or pushed over balconies and guardrails. The slow or clumsy were run down and pulped underfoot. The chaos somehow caused one of the concession stands to explode, which blasted people to pieces and set some folks on fire. Many who wanted to stick together were separated, while a few managed to slip out of the multitudes to hide somewhere out of the way until it all would die down. Even with all of that, sections would still run directly into the creatures and their monstrous spines.

The creatures mostly got their fill of prey from picking off stragglers, the injured, and the deceased. Some people tried escaping or fending off their globular assailants when cornered, but the admirable efforts went unnoticed. Each beast used their five teeth to devour young and old, flesh and bone, leaving pools of blood, torn fabrics, and bits of broken metal and plastic.

All while this happened, Mr. Baxter and his guests in the VIP room tried leaving under security detail for the private helicopter on the stadium’s rooftop helipad. The spined monsters invaded the hallway, attacking and eating guards and gofers. Running back into the room, one of the team owners got pinned between the closing double doors. The creatures ripped into and wrested out the living, screaming obstruction that was being denied reentry, allowing the doors to completely shut. As the entrance was being barricaded by its trapped occupants, Mrs. Baxter called 911.