The first one came up the shaft wall without breaking the surface of the water at all.
That is the part I want written down properly, because it is the part that told me what we were dealing with. It did not swim. It did not push up out of the black and gasp and reach. One moment there was a wet rock face going down into the flood with the green wall-glow sliding on the runoff, and the next there was a hand on it.
Then an arm. Then too much arm, more joints in it than an arm has any business having, and then the whole pale bloated length of the thing hauled itself out of the water and up the vertical stone at a speed I associate with insects and not with anything that used to have a face.
It never once felt for a handhold. It already knew where they were.
It was up on our ledge before I had finished standing.
'Death Sense—'
