It comes back every night, just like the nightmares. At first Grant thought it was just the nightmares causing it. He had been thrown in a pit full of camel spiders after all.

       "You and your men have been a thorn in my side for too long, so now I must make a grand example of you. You know in Medieval age England they tossed Vikings into pits full of snakes," the terrorist had told him.

       Nightmares don't leave sticky web stains on the side of your bed though. And nightmares don't create a man sized hole in the floor under your bed like a trapdoor spider.

      It had taken six days before he checked under his bed. It could have eaten him any of those days and no one would be the wiser. The couch was his friend on the seventh day, but on the eighth he decided he wouldn't live in fear. He was a hero, god damnit!! If anyone was going to take down this monster it would have to be him.

       So there he lay in a soft bed with the lights off, running on only three hours of fitful rest. You'd think it would be easy to drift off, but the adrenaline and fear flooded his veins with ice. The cold steel of his combat knife against bare chest was almost warm in comparison.

       Four hairy spider legs pinched the edge of the bed one after the other. They rose up an inch from the ceiling and flexed as they pulled more of the spider out from under the bed. Grant struck.

      Thin metal sliced clean through two legs and roughly through a third. With a bone rattling screech the bloody appendages scrambled back into the hole.

       Grant lay there long enough to feel relief warm his tension exhausted muscles.

       A bulbous body shot out from the other side of the bed. One powerful leg pierced Grants stomach and the beast was on top glaring at him with a multitude of eyes. Grant grabbed it by the fangs and slammed his blade down into the spiders skull.

       After spending the night twitching and spitting up blood both parties found some well deserved sleep. And Grant never dreamt of spiders again.