All night, most nights, she would lie there, too tired to stay awake, and to terrified to succumb to sleep. Carol-Anne stared across the room at the doorless closet, beads of perspiration dotting her head. She pulled her sweat-dampened covers even tighter around her shoulders, her body a living earthquake. Even with the door removed she didn't feel safe. The dark recess gawked at her, a gaping maw waiting to be fed. The monster today, with his slimy black tendrils, had reminded her of The Beast that had haunted her most of her life. The Beast had taken her sister, her brother, and her mother. It was just she and her dad now, hiding in their home the way a pair of mice hides from a hungry cat. They had been lucky so far, but she felt that they didn't have much longer. These were her thoughts as she lay in bed, her stomach tightened in knots of fear. The Beast, the evil thing who's name she didn't even dare to think, would come back, and no one, not Spider-Man, not Dr. Octopus, would be able to stop it.