Harmon made nearly thirty feet before the rope beneath him snapped taut. He looked down. The bastards were climbing.
Another fifty feet. Above, he saw the first glimmer of light—a light as distant as hope. His arms screamed, nearly sapped of their strength. Only terror pushed him past the pain.
Fifty more. He could make out the walls of the shaft. He might just make it.
He cried out and nearly lost his grip as fire burned into his leg. One of the things had snuck up on him, climbing faster than he could have imagined. It had stuck him with a razor-sharp finger. And now it was pulling him down.
Harmon stomped at the thing’s hand, driving into it again and again. Finally, the bone snapped at the wrist, the hand clinging to his leg. The creature lost its grip on the rope and slipped into the darkness.
Others were closing fast. Harmon climbed. It was a good sixty feet to the surface.
Thirty.
Twenty.
Ten feet more.
He screamed as another hand snared him. The thing it was attached to looked up at him with hunger; glorious daylight bathed its ancient bones.
Harmon kicked at it, but it had him.
And then he was falling.