This September 9th, in what has become a yearly tradition, Zombified Dreamcast fans arose from their underground hiding places to spend a single day shrieking at the top of their lungs, mating, and then returning to their subterranean lairs. The day, memorializing the Sega Dreamcast’s iconic 9/9/99 launch date, now serves as a terrifying glimpse to the outside world of fandom gone awry, and the terrifying consequences of the absurd adoration of a failed electronic toy.

One eyewitness in San Francisco told us, “It was like they all just came up from the ground all at once. I don’t know how they know what day it is – I’ve certainly never been able to understand it. But sure enough, there they were, and they were all screaming at the top of their lungs, ‘CRAZY TAXI! SHENMUE! NFL 2K2!’ I’ve got to say, it was completely terrifying.”

“Worst of all,” he added, “Was their hands. They were all misjointed and bent in the strangest of ways, from holding that bizarr0 controller that the Dreamcast came with. And there were children, too – or what looked like children, but their emotional growth may have just been stunted around the year 2000 – children clutching VMUs, begging us to look at their Chaus.”

For the first time this year, Twitter played a major part in this outgrade, as the Dreamcast spawn took over the Twitter feeds of otherwise responsible people, forcing them to post absurdly fond thoughts about the failed system. One notable games journalist, who spent most of yesterday eulogizing the buggy, slapdash wreck, told us, “I was scared for my life. I wasn’t going to tell that freak what he could say – if it costs me a little credibility, that’s fine. But no one would actually believe that I had so many positive things to say about the Sega Dreamcast.”

The Dreamcast fans’ words of enthusiasm quickly turned to near-violent spawning on the streets. Pedestrians in 12 major cities reported having to step over the twitching fans’ bodies as they spawned passionately on the sidewalk, ensuring a future generation of addled-brained nostalgia buffs.

One biologist we spoke to told us, “We originally believed that these peoples’ instincts were much like the common cicadas – spawn once a year, die within 24 hours, and ensure a future generation. But these fans refuse to go away – first it was a big celebration of the 9th anniversary, then it was 9/9/09, and next year we have every reason to believe that they’ll be back yet again.”

He summed up our feelings, saying, “If you believe you may be harboring one of these Dreamcast Zombies in your lawn or home, please call pest control immediately, and they will send over a special team of experts ready to eliminate these pests. For while we cannot accurately determine the environmental effects of their outbreaks, we can be sure that their presence must be stopped for the good of the sanity of all mankind.”