I used to love the term catacombs. It's one of those perfect words; so descriptive, so mysterious, just saying it used to send a shiver up my spine. But now that I'm in it, running behind Jackson with this thing at my back, all mystery went out the window. This was just plain awful.

It was so damn close, moving faster than a hulking thing like that should have. For every step I took, it took two until I could almost feel its breath in my ear and it began to crush my spirit, making my legs feel heavy with dread. It reminded me too much of the time I was forced to lie on my back and listen while another monster grunted in my ear.

It seems funny now, but that had been the worst part of it all; hearing that bastard groan in ecstasy while he got off at my expense. At the time, the sounds involved had been the least of my concerns, but when it was over and time passed, all the other details became foggy; his face, everything else he said during. What stuck with me the most, the two things that stood the test of time, actually, had been the image of that knife pointing straight at me when it became obvious that this wasn't an injured man who needed help with his bags, and the sound of those heavy exhalations while I looked up at the sky in disbelief wondering if he was going to kill me when he finished, almost wishing he would.

That had been the most terrifying experience of my life, and rightly so….until now.

As we went on, I thought about the light and knew that I had seen it. I swore it was there because there was no way in hell I would have given away our position otherwise. I'm organized, a born planner…I just don't make stupid mistakes like that. But now all I could see ahead was a dim light that kept going off and on – the lighter on its' last legs – and as we kept going, I prayed that it wouldn't burn out and that this cave wouldn't come to a dead end.

Too much time thinking and not enough time observing, I stumbled once and felt my ankle turn. No, I told myself, willing it to be so. Don't go down. If you do, you'll never get up again.

"Keep going, Leese. Don't look back," Jackson yelled, echoing my sentiment.

I took a few more awkward steps, leaping ahead, practically jumping because I simply could not lose ground. It's amazing to me what a person is capable of when something has to be done. The loss of your life…you can't buy a more powerful motivator than that. In the face of it all, I defied the odds, besting a nearly twisted angle to keep myself upright.

"Oh God, Oh God," I kept repeating, or was I chanting at this point?

"Keep going," Jackson yelled again.

But then I did go down. One more divot in the rocky floor and I fell, landing flat on my face. My only consolation was that whatever had tripped me up, had taken It down as well. We both screamed, for very different reasons, and I heard it scrambling to its feet as I tried to do the same.

Refusing to look back, I felt something close around my ankle and knew it had me. This could very well be it, my life could be over and in all my days, I had never wanted to live so badly.

Then the lighter burned out.

"Jackson!" I screamed and felt his hand grasping my wrist. He pulled and it pulled, and there I was, caught in a sick game of tug-o-war with Jackson as my only hope of salvation.

"Don't let go. Don't leave me."

"I won't. Kick your feet, Lisa. Kick!"

I didn't need the instruction; my legs were already in overdrive, but he made me realize that if I didn't focus my efforts, I'd never get out of this. Trying my best to aim in the dark while being pulled in two directions – an impossible situation to put it lightly – I struck at where I thought its knuckles might be, kicking as hard as I could.

They always say the third time is a charm, but in this case it took four blows before I literally forced its hand. Just as quickly as I got up, I almost went down again, what with Jackson pulling me forward with all the strength he could muster. In fact, both of us almost fell and what a sight that would have been, the two of us lying there; me on top, of course.

Thankfully, that didn't happen and we took off, trying to use that forward momentum to our advantage, knowing that it wouldn't be long before that thing was at our backs again. With those precious seconds we gained, Jackson was able to fire up the lighter again, not that it did much good. The flame flickered briefly, and then died out, but Jackson being Jackson, refused to give up. I kept hearing that telltale flick and the light would come back on. Off and on, off and on, like a strobe light, creating an effect that only made things worse.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I didn't know what this thing was, how it got here or how long it had lived here, but the time it spent in this cave must have been significant. There was carnage everywhere. Even in my worst nightmares I could never have imagined something like this.

Dark stains on the walls, which I just assumed was blood. A blue sweater lying on the ground with a heavily decayed human arm still tucked inside, and even a stray bone here and there, glowing in the light of that dying flame. That last part is what got me thinking about time. It must have been here a while to have brought so many innocent people to its home; for their bodies to remain here, rotting away until there was nothing left but crumbling bones, killing enough people to become a legend, but never enough to prompt a full scale hunt. Either that or there was more than one of them, but that was a thought too horrible to consider.

I was about to tell him to stop, that I didn't want to see it; this cave, this thing as it chased us down, none of it, but before I could do that, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I looked over my shoulder and saw it head on. Its cream colored hair was still tainted red with the blood of that poor hunter and the look in its eyes told me that its hunger was no where near satisfied. I didn't think it could ever feel sated and if I didn't know better, I would swear that it had grown since I'd last set eyes on it.

That face, so appallingly human, made me scream out of sheer fright. I couldn't stop yelling and couldn't turn away; those deep-set eyes holding me rapt with their strange familiarity. I didn't look ahead until I heard Jackson cry out and by the time I turned, he was gone.

He vanished and every bit as quickly, the ground fell out from under me. For an instant, I felt myself falling and for the second time that night, Jackson grabbed my hand and pulled me to safety.

Hot on my heels, the monster came through the end of the cave in pursuit and I watched as it plunged off the edge of what turned out to be a cliff; its arms still outstretched because it was sure it had me. Everything got quiet, eerily so. The only thing we could hear was the sound of tree branches snapping, echoing throughout the open air and I knew they were slowing its fall, lessening the damage that would be done when it did hit the ground. Maybe that's why it never cried out in alarm? It had to know its lair better than we did. Try as I might, I couldn't make sense of it all. Were we that lucky, or did this thing have yet another human emotion…arrogance?

But no matter what it was feeling or what had become of it, I was still alive and I had Jackson to thank for that. I took a moment to look around, to see exactly where we were and how Jackson had done it. We were standing on a shelf of sorts; a piece of stone jutting out of the mountain side and with his left hand, Jackson held firmly to one of those plentiful tree branches. I clung to the mountain side, gripping branches, grass, anything I could get my hands on and I rested, watching Jack as he rubbed his shoulder since grabbing onto me had almost pulled his arm right out of the socket. I was drained, but mostly I just felt grateful that he'd been blessed with such quick reflexes, shocked that he even bothered.

And the light I saw had been the light of the full moon, shining bright even if it was only intermittently. It would come and go as the occasional cloud passed by, explaining why it had been so clear to me one minute and gone the next. As ominous as it might seem, the orange hue it cast made me sigh in relief. I thought back to that saying, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight," and saw the sky clearing. If nothing else, the weather might cut us a break on this night.

I looked at Jackson again, his face clearly visible and beautiful in the pale light and I knew that two things would change from this point on: I would never fear mortal men like Jackson ever again, and I would always check under my bed before I went to sleep, because now I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that monsters really did exist.

"The things I have to do to get some time alone with you," he joked, almost panting from our recent sprint, but apparently not too tired for a little mischief.

He's incorrigible, I thought, but I offered no sarcasm or cutting remark. I was too relieved and quite frankly, exhausted to do so.

"I'm beginning to think we might get out of this alive, Jackson."

"Of course we will," he responded, being his characteristically over-confident self, but it was just what I needed at the time.

"So, what now?" I asked.

He turned away from me, looked up, looked around.

"Well, we can climb," he began, though neither one of us was thrilled with that prospect or physically capable of doing such a thing after spending so many long hours in the cold. That left only one alternative. "We go back the way we came."

The dark, smelly, gruesome way we came.

Wow, this just gets better and better, doesn't it?

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Author's Note: Happy Easter everyone! Consider this my little present of sorts. I hope you enjoy the chapter as well as your holiday.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and/or review. You guys are the best!