A terrible spasm of fear for the woman he loved twisted him, but he drove it down.

Halfway back he'd gotten such terrible spasms in his back that he'd had to sit down before they abated.

He was in far less pain, and his coughs, when they came, were ghosts of his previous terrible spasms.

Thunder crashed in a final, shattering spasm, more terrible than any that had come before, and then, as suddenly as a slamming door, it died.

In one terrible bittersweet spasm, he gave up.

He began going blue: hypoxia, the lung muscles seized up in the terrible spasms of pain.

I stood swaying, my eyes unable to leave her face until I spun away to retch in deep terrible spasms.

A terrible spasm shook her and she fell back against the chair, fighting for breath.

Marino headed off to find a shower somewhere and I felt lighter of spirit, as if a terrible spasm had gone into remission for a while.

"Leo-" And then it was interrupted by a strangling, terrible spasm of coughing.