Harmon Wyatt choked off a scream.
It wasn’t his cherished Rosalee. It was the song of her sweet voice that tugged at his heart, but it wasn’t her. It was an abomination.
Skulls stirred in the death pit. The things shifted listlessly, as if detached from their spines. Yet this was but illusion, for they were glowing, somehow pulsing to the rhythm of hearts long lost—indeed, the frontal bones of the craniums appeared semi-transparent, brimming with the darkest blood. Were this not enough to send him screaming, the bone-racks proper began to rise, rattling bone on bone. Shrill scratching sounds turned his heart cold as their wretched fingers clawed at the ladder.
The dead were coming.
Human skulls rose, one by one. Canine skulls began to stir; their jaws began to open. Something snatched Harmon’s leg and yanked it out from under him. He toppled onto his back. The ceiling rock took the color of blood as skeletons emerged from the shaft. A long-dead hand clenched about his boot and dragged him toward the bone pit, yet all he saw was a pulsating skull hovering above his legs. It stared with barren black sockets, and it might have been grinning.
Harmon groaned as the creature crawled onto him. The skull was ice, its proximity burning the skin on his face. Before he knew it, he felt the wrench of thin hard fingers around his throat. A second skeleton clawed its way up and was on him, pinning his legs.
Harmon reached for a shovel and a dead hand thwarted him, slapping it aside. The shovel slid along the wall rock, and he caught the handle just in time. He brought his arm up and swung hard, hearing a satisfying clunk as the blade caught the skull directly above him. He struck again, crushing its temporal bone and half its frontal. Incredibly, blood seeped from the cracks in the bone.
The grip on Harmon’s throat eased, enough for him to steal a breath. He swung the shovel again and knocked the skeleton off of him. It stayed down.
He struck the one that was pinning him. He thrashed at it like a wild man, driving it back. It rocked against another that was climbing from the winze, sending that one back into the shaft. He drove a boot into it, and it fell into the winze.
Another had come—a child—and Harmon jabbed at it with his foot. Relentless, it moved up and tried to claw at his face. He pounded it with a flurry of fists and it slipped back.
Three more emerged from the shaft, two of them crawling over the child. One crept up beside Harmon, but he managed to fight if off with crushing blows to its skull. Blood splattered him.
Harmon managed to roll over. He crawled forward and let out a small cry as something snared his boot. He whacked that bony hand until it released him.
Harmon made it to the turn and shot a glance over his shoulder. Glowing skulls illuminated the rock, their muted light growing as the things closed on him. Some of them had risen and were stalking him in step, shoving the crawlers aside in their thirst.
Harmon got to his feet just as a canine skull carried past the crest of the shaft. One of the human skeletons had lifted the dog and had set it loose. A second dog-thing followed, and now it was after him.
Harmon fled, screaming into the dark.