Crabs Keep Coming to This School, and Nobody Wants to Talk About Them

Crabs have been crawling through this school for years, and nobody wants to talk about them. The story comes from an all-girls high school where the creatures arrive from a nearby river, cross a bridge, and end up crushed on the road or wandering the corridors. Students walk around them rather than step over them, and one janitor handles the bodies with a strange indifference.

The Crabs Arrive

The first crab showed up during a rainy day in early summer. The narrator stopped in her tracks, nearly colliding with a classmate, and the crab slipped away. The crabs come from a river with tall reeds along the embankments, and the water rises and falls daily, exposing or burying the reeds depending on the tide.

Every morning after crossing the bridge, the narrator sees countless crabs crushed on the road. The sun roasts their shells, which give off a terrible stench. Crows peck at both the living and the dead, and cars smash the shells into tiny fragments. Any crabs that survive reach the school, where they wander:

• The corridors
• The schoolyard
• The flower beds
• Even the classrooms

The Old Girl Handles the Bodies

The janitor, nicknamed “the old girl,” sweeps up the crab shells along with dust, fallen leaves, and other litter. She carries the trash behind the buildings and burns it in the incinerator. One day, two students overheard her handling live crabs with her tongs and tossing them straight into the fire. They described the smell as strong and briny.

The students speculated about her age and her past, wondering why she treated the crabs that way. Some said she had a hard life, but they could not explain the behavior. The narrator heard the conversation and moved on to gossip about the PE teacher, Hara-sensei, who was rumored to have competed nationally in track-and-field before an injury ended his career.

Hara-Sensei and the Grave Marker

Hara-sensei once stepped on a crab in the corridor. The narrator could not tell if it was an accident or deliberate, but the way he kicked the shattered shell off the back of his heel seemed oddly practiced. His sweatpants clung to his muscular calves, and he always smelled of green-apple shampoo.

After PE class, Hara-sensei chose the narrator to put away the equipment. She was not good at sports, so it seemed random. Her classmates reacted strangely, and he grinned slyly, his narrow, angular chin glinting in the sunlight. Walking back, she noticed a small rectangular stone sticking out of the ground near a cluster of bushes. It looked like a gravestone, but much smaller, with faded, scraped-off markings.

The janitor emerged from the trees, smiling cheerfully. She asked what she was doing, and the narrator pointed to the marker. The janitor asked if she had tripped over it. The narrator did not answer directly, and the conversation ended without resolution.

What It Means

The story never explains why the crabs keep coming or why the old girl burns them alive. It simply documents the routine: the crabs arrive, the students avoid them, and the janitor disposes of the bodies. The narrator watches it all happen, but she does not offer an answer.

The grave marker adds a layer of unease. It is a small stone, worn down at the corners, with markings that look scraped off. It sits in the bushes, unnoticed until now, and nobody knows what it marks. The narrator finds it while looking for something else, and she points to it without explanation.

The story ends with a question hanging in the air. Why does the old girl throw live crabs into the fire? Why does Hara-sensei step on them? Why do the students pretend the crabs are not there?

There is no answer in the text, and there may be no answer at all. The crabs are simply part of the landscape, and everyone deals with them in their own way.

Source material: ““Crabs”,” Literary Hub.

crabs · fiction · mystery · school horror · short story