Tiny Horror

The rope went taut. Not with the heavy, dead weight of a fall, but with a violent, hungry yank.

Goman Singh, the vanguard, didn't even have time to scream. Albert watched in horrified clarity as the young Gurkha was plucked from the ice wall. There was a sound like a wet branch snapping; the distinct, sickening report of Goman’s spine folding backward upon itself. He was silenced by the sudden, massive pressure of being crushed. He flew into the mist, a ragdoll surrendered to a gravity that suddenly felt predatory.

"Anchor!" Ragobir roared, driving his axe into the soft, weeping ice.

The rope snapped tight, vibrating with a low, resonant thrum, a cello string played by a madman. It threatened to pull Ragobir off the face, to drag them all into the maw.

But then, the tension vanished. Slurp.

Ragobir hauled the line up, hand over hand, his breath coming in jagged, terrified sobs. The end of the rope whipped into view. It hadn't been cut. It had been dissolved. The hemp was matted with a potent, acidic enzyme that was still sizzling, eating away the fibers. The end of the rope was warm.

From the fog below, a sound rose up to meet them. It wasn't the roar of a predator. It was the wet velcro sound of skin being peeled from muscle. The smack of lips.

"It is not hunting, Sahib," Ragobir whispered, gripping his ice axe until his knuckles turned the color of old parchment. He looked at Albert with eyes that had seen the logic of the world dissolve. "It is feeding."

The tale continues...