Sir Jon,
Due to your good paragraph breaks, I am able to annotate each (if necessary), and therefore give you a decent review that runs through the entire piece, from start to finish. I prefer doing my reviews in this fashion whenever possible. At the end, I can then give you my impressions of the work in its entirety. Because I know you are looking towards having your stuff published, my overviews will necessarily reflect my critique(s) accordingly.
Since we're on the subject, has anyone discussed with you the hard facts as they pertain to new authors looking to get published? "Get published" in this context refers to acquiring a publisher -- either a major or minor one -- who "absorbs" the costs of printing, cover art, editing, and so forth. This is the least likely scenario that you're faced with. What most new authors turn to, instead, are the wide-ranging opportunities available via "self-publishing". The two types are: Vanity publishing, and what might be considered as "true" self-publication, where you do all the work, but enjoy more prestige accordingly.
Let me know if you have any further questions regarding this latter approach to being published. Especially as regards the production of eBooks.
Okay, let's see what trouble I can cause. 
The alpine lake glistens as the first rays of morning sun penetrate its dark depth. In the primal quiet, a mirror image of the tree-clogged mountainside splits the panorama. Soon, the radiant energy forms a white mist on the surface, its ghostly tendrils rising through the forested slope like damp smoke.
My first observation is noting how you've chosen to write these initial paragraphs in the present tense. From what I can see, there's no reason to do so. We don't want to complicate things such as mixing tenses, if we don't need to. Keep it klean, kind sir.
An old Kingfisher sits on a snag overlooking the glassy water, waiting patiently for a trout to surface. It listens, head cocked, as mournful wails begin to eddy through the woodland. The desolate cries crescendo, then fade as they always do, as they always have. They are cries that unerringly herald the morning light and summon the evening dark.
The Kingfisher ruffles the dampness from its feathers, uncomfortable yet unperturbed by the gathering mist. It watches undaunted, knowing that breakfast will presently appear.
I think there's too much anthropomorphization in your opening. If we treat animals and humans in like fashion sharing like emotions, it dilutes [trivializes] all emotions accordingly. What works much better is the use of vivid similes. For example:
The Kingfisher ruffles the dampness from its feathers, uncomfortable yet unperturbed by the gathering mist. It watches undaunted, knowing that breakfast will presently appear.
The Kingfisher ruffled the dampness from its feathers, as if uncomfortable yet unperturbed by the gathering mist. It watched, seemingly undaunted, knowing that breakfast would [should] appear at any moment.
Too many adverbs [presently] are bad form. Since I used "seemingly" above, I replaced "presently". Note how most adverbial phrases can be replaced with other choices. Keeping our use of adverbs to a minimum tends to enhance our writing. That said, we can use these adverbs both liberally and sparingly. Just not overly one way or another. 
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*****
Sara McClure sat breathless on the rim of a shaded overhang high above the misty lake wiping rivulets of sweat from her face with absorbent wristbands. She leaned back, dangling her aching legs over the edge as a welcome breeze cooled her heat-stressed body. Traversing the bolder strewn geology of the mountain had been arduous. Sara checked the readings on her new multi-function watch. The precision instrument was pricey, but necessary, given her spontaneous predilections for free-climbing. The readouts indicated an altitude of four-thousand two-hundred and twenty feet, an air temperature of seventy-one degrees, and humidity of eighty percent.
Looks okay, but be careful of too many hyphenated words; they can be distracting.
“Christ, it’s actually getting hotter as we get higher,” she yelled down to her companion a hundred feet below. Sara shaded her eyes and watched Ramona Weber, her lifelong friend, deftly stretch her arms, find a finger hold, and pull herself up a near vertical slab of dislodged granite, the last of hundreds littering the mountainside under Sara’s lofty perch. Rarely using climbing aids herself, she had hammered in a few pitons to help her friend with the added weight of an overnight stay on the summit. Satisfied with Mona’s progress, Sara turned her attention to the angry looking clouds forming in the south. She estimated the storm to be less than an hour away, its dark thunderheads promising to be a gully-washing light show when it hit.
"Christ," she yelled down to her companion who rested a hundred feet below, "it's actually getting hotter as we get higher."
Note how the way she speaks [yelled] is moved as close as possible to her first utterance. We need to do this whenever possible so the reader knows how to read the dialogue. Instead of finding out at the end of a long sentence, that the character was yelling [or whispering].
Sara shaded her eyes and watched Ramona Weber, her lifelong friend, deftly stretch her arms, find a finger hold, then pull herself up a near vertical slab of dislodged granite, the last of hundreds littering the mountainside under Sara’s lofty perch.
Sentence is too long, but is helped by using "then" as a frequent substitute for "and".
Participles and gerunds ["ing" words] need to be used sparingly, like adverbs. Participles can be strong action [happening] words like [littering] as opposed to "that littered" as a possible replacement. Too many of one or the other appearing close together, can dilute the impact of similar words needed for actual action scenes. Relatively casual scenes don't need action verbs describing periods of rest or relaxation.
The two second-year graduate students had spotted the mountain's sheer rock face from the bush plane that took them to work in one of the area’s summer fishing camps. This mountain, unlike all the others, had its spire mysteriously lopped off at 4,300 feet. Like most inquisitive free-climbers, when Sara and Mona saw the geological oddity, they vowed to make the climb before summer’s end.
Note use of [mountain's] [area's] [summer's]. Again, too many possessives of things that can't really own anything. With some exceptions, it is always preferable that we limit possessive's to people only. Learn to spot repetitive usage of words (geological) that ought not be used more than once per chapter, give or take.
Sara, the ("an" is better) Astronomy major, was a year older, six-inches taller, and forty pounds heavier than petite Mona. These traits made her the mule when it came to packing gear in vertical mode. She dropped her backpack bulging with fire wood, the pup tent, most of the food supply, ("then")and dug out a prepacked lunch.
Note that terms like "mule" need to be italicized, reason being "mule" has a specific meaning that is outside the "normal" usage.
Soon enough, Mona, the wannabee (wannabe) geologist (lower case), pulled her sweat-drenched body over the rim and flopped spread-eagle on the hard basalt, giggling like a schoolgirl, grateful to be near another summit.
Mona, the wannabe . . . soon pulled her . . .
Period after "basalt". Giggling like a schoolgirl, she felt grateful to . . .
“We made it,” Sara said, handing Mona a Spam sandwich and a grape Nehi soda.
Mona took a bite and grimaced. “God, I’m sick of Spam.”
Sara sighed as she peeled back the soggy bread, flashing Mona the same look of disgust. "Me too.”
They (the two) ate in silence as their attention moved to the advancing shoal of darkening clouds, both thinking that making the climb with a storm coming was not the smartest decision they'd ever made.
Watch out for those long sentences. Ex: period after clouds. Both knew that . . .
"This could turn out (into) to a major misery, Sara. Our cell phones don't work out here, and we didn't tell anybody at the cannery where we were going. Nobody even knows we’re here, right?”
“Well, we're (we are) here, so stop with the negative vibes, will ya?”
It took two power-hiking days to get to (reach) the base of the mountain, and a six-hour climb to reach the four-thousand-foot level. Huge boulders forced them (the women) to zigzag (as they went). (Once) Near the summit, the shattered rocks (had grown) grew to the size of small buildings. Exhausted after the muscle-trashing (-wrenching) ascent, the girls rested on the first piece of flat ground since sea level. (After they recouped their strength, the pair watched the) There they regrouped, watching the rumbling shoal of charcoal (-colored) clouds approach (ever closer). Sara and Mona would soon experience they would experience firsthand the one life-giving element that sustained a rain forest: water.
Exercise care and caution when using the future tense. Who is it that knows, ahead of time, that the two would soon experience such and such? Only the author knows, right? Thus it's you, the author, who is "telling" readers what's to come -- instead of "showing" us, through the eyes of the characters -- what problems are encountered along their way.
Sara was first to hear the peculiar sound (period). (An eerie, [no dash])—an eerie, repetitive clicking. The strange (clacks) sounds, combined with a sudden chill (in the air) -- caused by the low-pressure cell moving onto the mountain -- prompted Sara to investigate. She moved under the overhang and listened. Several elongated slits in the basalt caught her eye. No larger than sparrow holes, they appeared to extend deep into the rock. The clicking, (more like chirps,) echoed again, (but) this time with a definite organic cadence (-- as if animated flesh and bone caused the sounds, instead of wood or metal.) Sara glanced at Mona who had also walked (retreated) to the back of the overhang. “You hear it too?”
Note the use of the dash, plus more interesting words like "retreated" instead of "walked".
Dashes are only used in very specific circumstances. Namely as an added afterthought at the end of a sentence (instead of a period) and in dialogue interruptions. They are also used (sparingly) in place of parentheses (parenthetical remarks). Parentheses are again the kind of thing that is called, "author intrusion", whereby dashes are much more effective.
Mona nodded. “Sounds (Reminds me of an) like an old-time telegraph key tapping out Morse code.”
The tapping faded while the women listened in silence. (the sounds deserve their own paragraph when they're the subject of the sentence)
(Her voice cracking, Mona added,) “Or—clicking claws?”
Sara frowned at her friend's the last comment, (then) and dug into her waist pack. (period) A moment later, she hefted her father's army-issue Colt 45, and held it limply holding it limply by her side. "I never venture into . . ." ( insert dialogue) She never ventured into unknown territory without it. The big handgun gave her five-foot-seven stature the feeling of being ten-feet foot tall.
Mona (feigned a grin) grinned. “What do you think is in (inside) those little holes, Sara (-- rabid weasels?” she added, trying to conceal her fear with some levity.)
Sara ignored her friend’s (comment) sarcasm as they (use only "both") gave the (shadowy) alcove another cursory search.
“Look at this.” Mona held up a chip of black rock infused with (strange) white blotches.
“My (God,) is that obsidian?" Sara said.
”Not just obsidian, but snowflake obsidian," Mona said. "Look how the walls are covered with it.”
Mona chipped at another area, higher up, (and dislodged) dislodging a (thick, half-inch slab) thick slab that (dropped and) shattered at her feet. She picked up the shard and examined it carefully. The inside surface was smooth and (possessed) held a greenish-black sheen, pockmarked with (the same) white blotches. “Look Sara. The feldspar and quartz crystals embedded in the granite have been liquefied, and then cooled rapidly.” Mona continued to chip at the (thin, overhead) layer of vulcanized (stone;) granite, (it wasn't long before she discovered how the unusual surface encased) (the entirety of the overhang's interior.)
“I told you there was something unique about this mountain,” Sara said. She immediately began speculating on the event that might have caused the odd formation. “When the meteor hit, the area must have been super-heated to at least three-thousand degrees. There was a quick melt, an even quicker solidification, and voila, a thin icing of glass. Come on. Let’s check out the mesa. Only twenty feet to go.”
Careful with dialogue that sounds no different than the narrative voice. People speak, of course, with all kinds of mannerisms. I refer to the last sentence of Sara's dialogue above.
“I’m with you, but it’s going to start raining -- no, make that pouring," Mona said. Don't need "Mona said". "Let’s set up camp here for tonight. It’s dry and there’s plenty of room to vent campfire smoke.” Instead of "Mona said", you can try "Mona's eyes still fixed on the peculiar shard". Instead of "said" we can let the reader know exactly who's speaking, by inserting something descriptive shown above.
“Okay, let’s do it,” Sara said, already unpacking the two-man tent. “I’m tired of carrying this stuff around, anyway. Go ahead and make a fire ring for later.”
The feeling they had just discovered an unnaturally formed environment remained palpable. After ten minutes making the camp look suitably lived in, they donned their yellow rain ponchos and red waist packs and headed upward again.
Unspoken by either, both women felt that the overhang above their heads possessed some intangible secret. A palpable sense of foreboding also accompanied Sara and Mona's more academic assessments of their situation.
In my rewritten version of the paragraph above, I've tried to reveal how revisions themselves represent potentially unlimited word and structure choices. My own, as shown, is not necessarily a good one, nor is it offered as the only one possible. Simply note how it's sometimes necessary to write a longer paragraph in order to clarify [and simplify] what we're wanting to say.
"You look like a clown fish," Sara said, as they climbed the last few feet to the top. She knew her reference to Mona's colorful ropes and other gear was sure to evoke a response.
"Safety first,” Mona giggled. "At least you'll be able to find me if I take the short way down."
Quote mark missing from the beginning of second sentence. Otherwise this is good remark of Mona's -- both clever and humorous.
Sara grimaced and kept silent at her friend's morbid connotation. of her friend's comeback.
A patchwork mesa of exposed and weathered rocks -- all of them splashed with colorful lichens, greeted the two climbers. Corpses of stunted alpine willows also dotted the landscape, as if Sara and Mona had stumbled upon a hidden cemetery. Hardy shrubs, possessed of some kind of innate expertise, filled the multitude of cracks and crannies with their adaptive root systems.
(new paragraph) The lay of the land (don't use cliches) sloped downward from where the two girls stood. Only a few feet away, a sheer drop-off fell a hundred feet with at a twenty-degree incline.
(new paragraph) Sara held her breath as her eyes followed a two-hundred-foot-wide gouge of unmoored shattered earth. Resting at the bottom end of the slide was a large mass that appeared to confirm immediately elevated Sara’s meteorite theory.
“Wow, you win, Sara, I guess, but my analytical brain is telling me something’s not adding up down there. The largest meteorite ever discovered was the Namibia iron core that weighed in at sixty tons. This berg,” she said, her widened eyes pointing in its direction, “is at least thirty feet high, maybe sixty wide, and likely two-hundred feet long. A solid object that size should have taken out the entire island -- and yet, there it is."
A loud clap of thunder (rumbled) rolled through the blackening sky; moments later the chill rain doused the two girls as they edged their way down the tricky slope.
Stopping to rest for brief moments only, Sara and Mona chipped fragments from bulbous, globular formations -- geological oddities which had been undeniably subjected to an intense, unearthly heat. Most proved to be aggregates of shiny black obsidian, the presence of which suggested that an immense, super-heated object had struck the mountainside. Had then melted a downward path to its final place of seclusion. rest
Thirty minutes later, the twin explorers arrived at their destination, ran towards the thing and stood beside it. With heads tilted back, they determined that the artifact was half the size of a football field. The comparison seemed all the more appropriate given that the shape of the object resembled a gigantic, though somewhat deflated, football. the size of a small airship. Both women marveled at how the meteorite had come to rest at the brink to another precipice -- one whose seemingly bottomless end lay no less than a couple thousand feet below.
While the downpour soon became a torrent, Sara, often accused of being fearless to a fault, peeked over the edge of the cliff. The runoff, now cascading like a small version of Niagara Falls, plunged the full, two thousand feet until it turned into clouds of fine mist and disappeared. She gulped and pulled back, and thought about the crackling fire of a warm campsite.
A moment later, Sara noticed a shelf of rock that jutted over the edge. (which edge?) Remember to be thrifty with those participles and gerunds. Don't use them when feeling lazy. Your readers will thank you.
Please note that these few paragraphs, above and below, are incomprehensible to me. We've got edges, shelves, and outcrops that will, in my opinion, leave readers as confused as I am. These kinds of things, where physical settings often require meticulous descriptions, cannot be so simplified as to lose all meaning. No free lunches with writing. We've got to do the work necessary, or else betray our readership. If readers have to stop and figure out what you're describing, with little or no success in doing so, our story is doomed. 
Twenty feet above the shelf, another slab of rock cantilevered even farther out over the rim, creating an unnatural awning. The lower shelf made a sharp turn and disappeared around an outcropping. Being fearless and somewhat foolhardy at times, this odd formation was too much for Sara’s inquisitive mind to ignore. She stretched out on the shelf and crawled on her belly until she could see around the corner.
Think in three dimensions, then describe the scene accordingly. Of course, we don't want to be so detailed that a reader yawns halfway through.
Looking up, Sara observed a cantilevered slab (that sloped) sloping downward at a (fifteen-degree angle) while the slab she clung to continued around the outcropping, appearing to end directly under the overhang. Several birds flew in and out of the vertical wall, making Sara think there might be a cave invisible except to those looking up from the base. The two-thousand-foot drop or the capability of the suspended shelf to hold her weight, did not hold Sara back. She continued to slide out over the abyss.
Readers do not understand "degrees-of-angles". We must find other ways to describe things without being overly technical. Note the many uses of adverbs, participles, and same-word repetitions. Too many. For this kind of story, we need to sleep in bed with one or more Thesauruses. We need to find a wealth of synonyms related to mountains and rocks and a hundred different textures.
Just as most artists need to fill their canvases with things that are shiny, dull, glossy, wet, and rugged, so do writers need to "paint" with words, most of which are adjectives, action verbs, and countless synonyms. Good writing is all about texture. When we learn to balance our work with wonderful variations, or a hundred different ways of saying the same thing -- but with new and interesting words -- we create literary canvases as rich as any rendered with pigments.
“Jesus, Sara!” Mona yelled over the pelting rain. “Be careful.”
Good sentence above.
Tense minutes passed before Sara’s muffled voice broke through the curtains of rain. “Mona . . . you’re not going to believe what I’m looking at. It’s a cave -- and it’s huge!”
Ahh, the elusive ellipses. Used sparingly (there's that word again) the ellipsis is another handy tool for your toolbox. Ellipses are, among other things, good at adding humanness to dialogue. Used appropriately, we can add hesitation, doubt, reservation, pauses, and interruptions to our characters' speech.
“Dammit, Sara," Mona mumbled, "you’re going to be the death of me.” Not nearly as confident as her curious friend, but always game, Mona reluctantly crawled out onto the slab and followed Sara's coaxing. Reaching the end, and seeing nothing but air, she called out, “Okay. I’m here. Where are you?”
Note my subtle changes above. I moved "Mona mumbled" closer to the beginning of the sentence. We should do this because readers need to know how the words are being spoken. Especially important is the last line. Note how I italicized "I'm". We do this whenever a spoken word requires extra "stress" or intonation.
“I’m in here. Stand on the ledge and pull yourself up.”
Once again, we need more descriptive details that define the physical situation, locations, maybe the weather (windy?), and various positioning (in general) of this thing and that thing.
Mona stood -- and her jaw dropped (opened agape) -- as she peered into an eighty-foot-wide, thirty-foot-deep amphitheater. (maybe coliseum is a better choice?) Note that this isn't a real amphitheater, so we need to say it looked like or appeared to be a . . .
Amphitheaters are downward-sloping depressions, not as you use the term here. This is why we need more detailed descriptions of how things appear.
“Give me your hand," Sara said, coming out of the gloom. "We just hit pay dirt, Girlfriend.”
Within moments, the two girls were standing near the edge, shining their flashlights into the (pit's vast) interior. Despite the combined power (of both lights) the women were unable to penetrate its full depth. Like shafts of diffused sunlight, the beams illuminated a coral reef of wondrous colors -- a reef devoid of fish, however.
(New paragraph) The (bizarre) environment that Sara looked upon seemed utterly surreal, totally breathtaking. Calcified layers of bacterial growth (smothered) covered everything. Small colonies of stalactites hung in the areas where the roof had long ago collapsed, and rainwater had intruded. The rest of the interior was a mixed jumble of bent and twisted protuberances, some hanging from the ceiling at unnatural angles, while others leaned against the (walls) sides or were stacked in piles not unlike Normandy's wartime beachhead obstacles -- designed to thwart the Allies' incoming landing craft.
Above is a highly restructured, very complex paragraph that shows (somewhat) how to deal with many simultaneous descriptions. My version is only one of many possible, but I appreciated your nicely worded details and interesting comparisons.
Sara's eyes darted from beam to twisted beam, her brain calculating the dimensions, the sharp angles, the stunning possibilities, and the equally mind-numbing conclusion. This cave was not an actual cave. The obvious undeniable geometric shapes would have given most discoverers the notion that these angular constructs might be artificial in nature. But the profusion of metal-loving bacterial growths -- attached to the artifacts -- screamed recognition in Sara McClure’s well-educated mind.
Sara's eyes darted from beam to twisted beam,
Note how the word, beam, is inappropriate here. We know it's getting dark and the flashlights are on. Beam has already been used to describe the light from the flashlights. Therefore it's potentially very confusing to use the same word to describe the shape of a rock or other material.
her brain calculating the dimensions, the sharp angles, and the stunning possibilities. Plus the reaching of an equally mind-numbing conclusion.
Mona jumped at the reverberating sound of Sara again chipping on a relatively straight fragment protruding from a nearby wall.
The strange outgrowth was chalky and brittle. It grew in cauliflower-like eruptions from the long logs of rock that perched upright throughout the expanse. As Sara continued, a large piece fell to the floor with a subdued brick-on-brick "clunk".
Whenever we use "sounds" (in this case, clunk) we want to enclose them inside quote marks. Think of the sound as speech or dialogue emitted by inanimate objects, animals, or any other issuance of noise.
Dropping her rock hammer, the resultant metallic "clank" of Sara’s tool -- against the solid material underneath her feet -- was unmistakable. The massive hollow in which they stood they stood in was not a geological formation, but a methodically designed structure created by sentient minds. Sara shook her head, not quite able to get her own brain around the idea that no man-made object could have survived such an impact. “Intelligently shaped metallic alloys,” she whispered. Her words bespoke the discovery of an implausible realm that many had imagined, some had written about, but none had ever verified.
For several moments, the girls stared intently at the alien cathedral. Each listened to the "drip, drip, drip" echoes of seeping water that splashed into stagnant pools.
Note that introductory phrases (For several moments) work best when placed at the starting point of suitable sentences. Doing so allows more freedom to create shorter sentences instead of repetitious long ones.
“When do you think it crashed?” Mona said, (we know, from the question mark, that she's asking a question. Thus it's redundant to say "asked") still inspecting the walls with her flashlight.
“Must've been thousands of years ago. It takes a hundred years for a stalactite to grow even an inch.” Sara's light played over a large group of the stone icicles that hung close by. “That big one up there has to be at least six feet in length." long.”
“Oh, my God," Mona blurted. "Is that what I think it is?” She had illuminated an area beneath a small ledge, including a bleached-white object that jutted from a pile of fractured rubble. Cognition came like a splash of ice water.
(New paragraph) "Damn," Sara exclaimed. "That's one big femur." She ducked under the ledge to investigate, while Mona, obviously shaken, began to back away.
When Sara flipped over a thin slab of solidified calcium, a near perfect, humanlike skeleton came into view. The discovery, she knew, answered at least two questions -- both of them shocking. She and Mona were indeed standing inside a ship of some kind. And likely staring at the remains of its nonhuman pilot.
(New paragraph) The bones were indeed anthropoidal in structure, but that’s where the similarity with a hominid form ended. These osseous ivories were twice the size of terrestrial bipeds. Sara estimated the creature to be ten feet tall, with a frame able to support, she guessed, as much as eight or nine hundred pounds. Four-toed feet, tipped with long, raptor-like claws suggested, perhaps, a saurian origin. The skull itself was massive. Below its twin eye sockets, where most earthly nasal cavities were located, a pair of horns had emerged instead, each coiled like the shell of a sea nautilus. What appeared to be its air openings, as if shot through from side-by-side bullets, were located near the creature’s large frontal lobes. The skull's overall serpentine structure, with its shark-like rows of serrated teeth which protruded from powerful jawbones, conjured an especially horrific vision of a predator straight from Hell.
“I don’t much like this place anymore, Sara. Let's go -- let's get out of here.”
Sara ignored her friend's growing trepidation and continued to examine the otherworldly bones.
A strange, yet familiar sound then echoed through the vaulted room. The metallic "click-click-click," as if moving faster -- and closer -- grew louder by the second. Mona aimed her flashlight toward the uppermost ledge, where the noise was loudest. A series of small and round, tubelike vents, half-filled with debris, suggested they might have been conduits -- doorways, even -- that penetrated the wall only a foot above Mona’s head.
More clicking, like that of a dog’s claws scraping across a linoleum floor, echoed from inside the conduits.
“Sara!” Mona insisted, her voice a harsh whisper. “Let's get the hell out of here -- now!”
Sara didn’t reply, but she certainly heard the fear in her friend's request, now more of an unbridled demand.
“s***, Sara . . . something's coming!” Mona froze as a nightmarish visage slowly appeared from the blackness of the smallest tunnel. An organism, one conjured from Frankenstein’s own cauldron of DNA, leaned over the ledge, its huge, multiple-eyed spiderlike head bathed in a shaft spear of light that shone from an opening in the high ceiling. Note that "shaft" is again a poor choice of word when referring to anything but the surrounding structures of the cave. "Spear" or "arrow" of light is better because it doesn't conflict with other cave-like terms.
Eight lidless, mirror-black orbs, four large, four small, seemed to fix their gaze on Mona, who stood petrified with fear. The creature, a bug of some kind, postured itself slowly, purposefully, like a feral cat preparing to pounce on a bird. With unnatural, staccato movements, the alien's six appendages found footholds along the nearby wall, exterior to the smallish tunnel's own. Like a paratrooper leaning forward from an airplane's cargo door, ready to jump, the creature's bulbous body oozed out of the overhead opening.
Time stood still as the two women stared at one another. Mona’s breathing had become labored, inching ever closer to panic as the entity's hideous chelicerae -- its main fangs -- began clicking again, as if a chef were sharpening his longest knives. The twin blades, curved downward like a pair of hypodermic syringes, dripped viscous droplets from their tips.
Suddenly, just as Mona figured she had breathed her last, with Sara next in line, the creature slumped onto the edge of the tunnel opening. Seeming to relax, the monster paused from its turgid stance, then cocked its head, as if listening -- or calculating.
In that one, breathless moment of silence, Mona's transfixed state of shock and horror collapsed into a scream so piercing, it made Sara cringe.
The other's reaction was immediate and highly animated. Arching its spine, and like a startled crab defending itself, the creature began to tremble violently. Before it moved with terrifying speed.
The living nightmare lunged at Mona, who still screamed like the stream whistle of a runaway train. She instinctively recoiled with both hands held shakily in front of her face.
(New paragraph) Its forward momentum knocking her backwards, the house-cat-sized creature landed forcefully on the wall of Mona's chest. Falling hard on her back, the air forced from her lungs, she gripped the midsection of the beast, struggling to dislodge the thing.
(New paragraph) As though ignoring its victim's futile grasp, the alien assailant dug its sharp, six front claws deep within the bones and flesh of the human's frail body.
(New paragraph) Mona screamed again, this time from the excruciating pain as she fought to throw the creature from her bleeding chest.
(New paragraph) In the next instant, the creature raised its hairy head, flexed its two six-inch fangs outward, and plunged them deep into its enemy's neck. Mona sucked in a huge rasping breath as her body stiffened and her eyes grew wide. Her body began to jerk like an epileptic having a grand mal seizure.
Note how each character gets its own paragraph, when it's the main subject of the paragraph. Sometimes a paragraph is no more than a sentence in length. Checking whose POV is involved, tells us who or what is the subject of a given paragraph. As if seen through the eyes of that character. As a general rule, everybody gets a new paragraph when we see things through their eyes alone. A nice touch is the idea that we are always free to choose the POV of every paragraph, and change it to suit our whims accordingly.
Less than ten or fifteen seconds had passed since the creature attached itself to Mona’s body. For five or more of those seconds, Sara had stood under the ledge, watching the horrifying opera play itself out. Frozen in her own envelope of disbelief, but startled into action by Mona’s bloodcurdling scream, Sara fumbled for her waist pack and yanked out her father's 45. Taking aim, she pulled the trigger without further hesitation.
The large handgun jerked in unison with a bright flash and ear-shattering bang. The heavy and powerful, hollow-point slug struck just below the creature’s spiny backbone. As if the bullet exploded from within, jets of yellow blood, plus slimy globs of pink cartilage and stringy viscera spewed from each side of the hideous attacker.
I noticed how the last third of your story improved dramatically, both in content and descriptive details. We need to detail and emphasize the first two-thirds of our stories with the same aplomb as we do the final third. You have a good command of important words, terms, and other vocabulary assets; when you learn to fully "tame" such things, not overusing some or under-using others, you'll make a fine author.
Instantly releasing its death-grip of Mona’s sternum, the dazed creature rolled to one side, snapping off its still-buried fangs as it slid, like so much jelly, onto the floor of the cave.
(new paragraph) Sara watched, stupefied, while the misshapen mass withered and shook in fitful throes. Still in shock, she saw how its spindly legs, like any other insect, curled under its shriveled body. A moment later, the thing wriggled for the last time.
As though she shook herself by the shoulders, Sara then noted how the bug's fangs, still burrowed into Mona's chest like the disembodied stingers of two, side-by-side honeybees, continued to pump their poison into her friend's neck. She knew there was no need to check Mona Weber’s pulse. The girl's open, vacant eyes, little different from a cadaver's, were sadly lifeless.
Sara fell to her knees, her body quivering from both the shock of excess adrenaline, and personal grief. When her tearful eyes again focused on Mona’s inert body, she vomited from the waves of nausea that racked her stomach -- and her heart. She wept uncontrollably as her brain fought to free itself of a debilitating fog of regret and fear. Her facial muscles were fixed rigid behind the mask of terror she bore, its outside painted with a grimace of stifled rage. As the minutes passed, she slowly relaxed, her tightened muscles releasing their painful contractions.
“I’m so sorry, Mona. I’m so truly sorry,” Sara wailed, amid the silence. There was, however, little time for remorse. As abruptly as the alien's clicking sounds had descended upon them, the "click-click-click" punctuations once again reverberated through the cave. But with one, paralyzing difference.
This time the sounds came from more than one attacker, their crowded numbers scurrying closer -- and louder by the second. Like a miniature stampede, the muffled noises of them rushing and pushing, with their overlapping clicking, issued from the tube just above Sara’s head.
Sara slowly moved out from under the ledge and looked up. Three heads, sprouting their multitude of gleaming black eyes, stared down at her; all of the eerie orbs seemed to be filled with hellbound malevolence, but, why? she wondered.
(New paragraph)Faced with certain death, her adrenaline-flooded brain shouted a single thought, demanded a single reaction: the irresistible urge to run!
Sara knew the cave opening was sixty feet away. Again, her panicky thoughts raced ahead of her body. Trying to focus on anything other than her impending doom, she quickly calculated the speed and timing needed to drop onto the shelf and sprint to the mesa beyond.
(New paragraph) Already halfway to the edge, Sara realized the gun was still in her hand, held in a death grip, as if the automatic served as an extension of her palm and fingers. Furious life or death decisions swam through her mind. Should she turn and face the enemy, hoping to take out several before the eight remaining rounds left her with an empty clip -- and a useless weapon? Maybe once she jumped to safety, she could hide somewhere. Or just keep running and praying she could outrun the monsters hot on her heels.
(New paragraph) Were they even pursuing her at all? she pondered. Sara heard only the sound of the outside rain, and the wind blowing across her ears. Her final decision came about when she hesitated just ten feet from the rim. Balanced on the wet and slippery ledge, she knew the likelihood of fighting off even one of the fiercely determined creatures was a longshot at best.
(New paragraph) Sara turned, knelt to one knee, then raised the gun to eye level. Whatever demons might be coming at her from the gloom, their eager pursuit would instead catch only a hail of bullets. Her heart froze as she spied them. And realized they would be upon her in a matter of seconds.
When the leading and largest of the creatures, no less than six feet away, leapt at her, Sara fired.
(New paragraph) The bullet amputated most of one side of the attacker's legs, plus part of its gelatinous abdomen. Impacting the watery surface of the granite, the defeated creature writhed in agony, its body immersed in an expanding puddle of liquefied viscera.
(New paragraph) The loss of the larger creature did little to slow the approach of the two smaller ones. Leaping in unison, Sara’s second shot struck the leftmost creature squarely between its eight eyes, causing its head to explode in midair. Her face splattered with yellow blood and bits of the alien's eyes and internal organs, she never got off a third shot.
Sara swung about and jumped for the shelf, but not before the headlong impact of the third creature slammed her to the stony ground -- and sent the gun clattering out of her hand. She watched helpless as her only weapon disappeared over the rim.
Her outstretched arms and hands had, however, found the edge of the cliff, and she continued to pull herself -- and her deadly rear passenger -- up and over the precipice. Stabbing bolts of pain, produced by the creature’s serrated legs as they clawed into her back, did nothing to deter Sara’s forward motion. Survival was an innate human instinct, and the perceived refuge of the next shelf was now mere inches away.
(New paragraph) With one last, supreme effort, Sara rolled onto her back, hoping to crush the tagalong attached to her. She heard a muffled squeal, more of a pitiful cry, she imagined, while she righted and then dragged herself to the very rim of the cave.
(New paragraph) Sara barely felt the pressure of the twin fangs as they pushed deep into the nape of her neck. A moment later, she heard an ugly "splat" as the alien plopped dead upon the stone surface behind her.
(New paragraph) Her head thrown back, and screaming her resignation to the inevitable, Sara cried out, not from the pain, but from the numbing paralysis rushing through every part of her body. Mere seconds later, Sara McClure’s heart stuttered to a stop, her last breath no more than a piteous whimper.
*****
Last but not least is my desire to see the [epilogue] changed to past tense. 
The cave was quiet. Only the echo of splashing rain disturbed the silence. In the dank gloom, an eerie keening sound added a kind of music to the rush of falling water. As Sara and Mona might then have realized, a strange, haunting dirge echoed within the cave, the mournful lament, perhaps, sung from the last of the alien creatures -- who was still alive. Crawling from one dead comrade to the next, its own cries filled the cave, resounding with the creature's wails of sadness and despair.
In its agony, the distraught entity struggled to find a reason for the vicious attack upon its friends and family. Unprovoked, the painful yelps emitted by them had taken its grip on sanity to the very limits of saneness. It simply had to fight -- was forced to fight -- forced to kill. Grief-stricken over the loss of its mate and siblings, it stood beside the body of the one called Mona Weber. And with desolate whimpers that morphed into catlike hisses, disdain and anger -- instead of yellow plasma -- pumped through the creature's blood vessels.
(New paragraph) At the conclusion of what could have passed for a Wagnerian fugue, the sole survivor rested its multi-eyed head against the human's torso. Digging its narrow legs into the ground, and with strength far beyond its size, the galactic foreigner rolled the woman's lifeless corpse toward the rim.
It's here, I think, where we've learned the truth as to why the aliens attacked -- namely Mona's deafening screams, that more explanation is needed. There's no need to be overly coy or vague when concluding your punch line, so to speak. I'd recommend leaving no doubt about what provoked the creatures.
*****
In the valley below, the day drew to an end. The old kingfisher returned to its snag that overlooked the alpine lake. There it waited patiently for a silvery fingerling to ripple the surface. A sudden movement from above caused the graceful creature to glance upward. Its blue crowned head then cocked to the side, like a puzzled dog, as a dark object plummeted from the heights.
Displaying indistinct colors of yellow and red, the irregular shape landed soundlessly among the fractured piles of rock strewn about the mountain's base.
Some minutes later, another object fell from high above, the same as did the first. The strange activity ended when a much smaller shape dropped from some unseen cliff hidden among the numberless dark shadows of the nearby mountain. With silent finality, the oddity splashed, like a single raindrop, as it struck the impenetrable surface of a granite block. Moments later, the inclement weather gradually departed, displaying as it did, a clear, moonlit sky.
Curious but unconcerned, the kingfisher ruffled the leftover rainwater from its feathers, and returned its full attention to the still surface of the lake.
As dusk eased into night, a new sensation caused the bird to gaze upward again. For the first time in its many years of life, the kingfisher noted the utter silence of its surroundings -- especially the quietude that, like a nighttime blanket, wrapped about the mountain itself.
(New paragraph) The kingfisher soon returned its attention to the great expanse of water. With a slight shiver, the stately animal continued its nocturnal search for an unwary fish. An ever vigilant predator, the longtime resident watched as an evening mist began to form, sending out ghostly white tendrils, more like skeletal fingers, upward through the pine enshrouded mountainside.
***
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Jon, please note that the sheer volume of my suggested changes make your work appear to be much worse than it actually isn't. As mentioned early on, I wanted to give you an idea as to how self-editing might look, when done in earnest. And with a purposely (overly) critical eye.
This review also represents a graphic (albeit not purposely unkind) overview that demonstrates why multiple rewrites -- sometimes dozens of them -- are so necessary before we make claim that a given work is "finished".
In addition, this review is no doubt the most comprehensive one I've ever given. Because I appreciated your desire to be published one day, one way or another, it felt important that I show you a fully deconstructed piece of writing. By the way, this is how my own pages used to look, more often than not.
Note also that nothing here is, in any way, a suggestion that you write in the same style, and/or use the same words as I do. What I ask that you pay close attention to, are the reasons why I made the changes I did. If you have a question as to why I wrote one thing or another, please don't hesitate to ask me. Sometimes it's the rules that demand a given change, while other times it's more of a gut feeling that one word or term is better than another.
I'd like you to study the many different ways I restructured a lot of your original sentences and paragraphs. It's critically vital that you make note of how there's a sort of cadence, a rhythmic beat, if you will, as if good sentences and paragraphing sang their own melodic songs. Readers should almost never struggle to read your lines, or pause too long while trying to understand the meanings you intend.
Which brings me to my most critical observation of your story as a whole. Granted it's a short story, the piece left me unsatisfied, with far too many questions that remained unanswered. While it's often desirable to have readers reach their own conclusions, to invent their own answers, we may also run the risk of turning inventiveness into annoyance.
Such is the case with the large, humanlike skeleton the girls find inside the cave. Nothing ever comes of that and I felt cheated when nothing did. An easy fix is to give us a tad more to go on, for example, the women guessing (and disagreeing) as to the significance of the bones.
In my private library of films, I have about 1500 sci-fi movies, both old and new. So I'm pretty much up to speed with the many different plots film makers have used, trying to outdo each other. Another example of which are the modern "twists" we see in many movies nowadays. I refer to invading aliens who bring along, either intentionally or accidentally, secondary creatures, usually smaller, who pose their own unique threats to us hapless humans.
The tubes where the worms apparently live, are underplayed when they should instead be noticeably out-of-place within the general layout of the place. As if they had stowed away on the ship and perhaps even caused it to accidentally crash? A kind of living [computer] virus, for example.
That said, I really liked the fascinating twist you chose for the end of the story, where we find out the horrible creatures are very intelligent, even emotionally sensitive. Once again, however, I felt I was left hanging because I had no real recollection as to what the insanity-evoking sound was, that made the aliens become violent and attack instead of shaking hands (or feelers).
Maybe my biggest complaint has to do with the confusion caused by inadequate [overly vague] descriptions of the basic physical layouts of the various "stages" upon which the characters play. I found myself lost among a jumbled mix of shelves, edges, rims, slabs, downed spacecraft and a cave that left me completely disoriented.
The importance of accurately describing the physical nature of the environments that contain our various settings and characters cannot be overstated. It is truly an artful skill, an acquired and necessary ability, that one can learn [quickly] but only with practice.
Action scenes work the exact same way. Scenes without action also need to be as exciting and interesting as are the most violent of confrontations or events.
Again, please note that my intention here is not for you to adopt, word for word, any of my highlighted discrepancies. Rather, it's far more a matter of you "adapting" some or most of my recommendations.
In summation, you're one of those, what I call, "on-the-brink" kind of writers. By that I mean to say, I think you're very close to transitioning from just an "okay" writer, to a "great" writer. You've got all the pieces already at your disposal: the vocabulary; the "feel" for the sense of drama needed; a basic understanding of how action scenes are written; and, most important of all, the desire to learn and improve -- the key to everything else.
In some ways, I hope my review serves as a "wake-up" call for you. I certainly had my share of those over the years. Leave yourself open to literary "epiphanies" which can shine lights on what "works" and what doesn't. A lot of your work here, for example, fails to deliver because a word or two is missing, or a simple rephrasing, using the same words, can rectify what is otherwise confusing or incomprehensible.
Sometimes we're in too much of a hurry, which is totally understandable -- and okay to do. As long as you teach [force] yourself to go back, as many times as necessary, and fix what's weak or just plain wrong. Speaking for myself, I learned to keep a grammar book handy, plus a thesaurus. A free program, "Wordweb" sits in my taskbar, ready to use as a dictionary, spell-checker, and a decent synonym provider.
It really helps, also, to give reviews to other writers who pen work that is similar to your own. You don't do it for them, as much as for yourself. Become a good "spy" who can spot problem areas, and writing that leaves you bewildered for one reason or another. Once you learn to see the faults in the writing of others, you can start to see them in your own work.
Thanks for letting me take my time with all this. It's been awhile since I brushed up on my own writing, and much of what you see here, is a selfish refresher course that helps me blow the dust from my own mental bookshelves.
Bob
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