The water slowed Harmon’s escape as he made his way to the crosscut. He recalled the way being straight and wide, but in his blind panic he stumbled over tool and rock and his old failing legs. He was running in a nightmare.
He heard them coming. Some of them had lost their footwear, the bones of their feet grating on the ore beneath them. Others scraped the wall rock with their fingers as they worked their way along.
It struck him: They were sharpening them.
He tripped up and fell forward. The shovel slipped from his grasp and he crashed into the chairs. His head struck the hard edge of a seat. He struggled to his knees in a daze. The scraping sounds were almost upon him.
Harmon rose to run, but in his stupor he tripped over the shovel. He found it between his feet and swept it up. The dogs nearly took him, their jaws snapping at his legs and missing by inches. He swung the shovel wildly and landed a blow against one of their skulls. It struck the wall with a sharp crack.
The other dog-thing leapt. Harmon swung at it and missed. Then it was on him, its weight toppling him. Glowing jaws snapped at his throat. He forced the thing off and planted a boot to its skull.
Pain seared through his leg and he shrieked. He looked down, incredulous, at the pulsating jaws clamped onto his calf. He rolled to his side, freeing himself from the dog’s grip. It charged again, and this time the shovel struck the mark. The skull ruptured in a bath of blood.
Human skeletons emerged from the blackness. That shrill scraping sent chills through Harmon’s body. The sounds were growing, driving into his head like knives.
More were coming, too fast to outrun. He stood his ground. He swung low and struck the lead creature at the knee. He struck it again. It dropped like a brick, but then it raised its head and started to crawl toward him. Another snared his left arm. He drove at it, pounding its skull until it released him.
A dozen or more had come. Harmon threw down the shovel and stumbled through the crosscut, blind and terrified. He struck a wall and bounced back in a fog. He kept on and struck another. He whipped around. The skeletons were still coming.
Harmon reached the main shaft and looked up. Blackness. He looked back. Skeletons.
He fumbled through the debris about him and felt around for the rope. He finally found it in his blindness, and praying silently, started to climb.