A/N: Really short one this time.

Arachnophobia

"Ugh!"

"What is it?" Kelly asked from where he stood in the kitchen making coffee.

"Another one," Casey said as he came in the front door with the paper.

"Another one what?"

"Another spiderweb, they're all over. Come here, look at this."

Kelly didn't know what Matt was complaining about but he went out to the front hall and Casey threw the door open and pointed outside. Kelly looked, and he couldn't believe it. The sun had to hit everything just right, otherwise you would miss it, but there were long silky strings of spiderweb covering everything in the front yard, some trailed down from the porch roof, the railing, there were strings crisscrossed all over the lawn, and in some parts there were thick round webs spun in a ball. He counted eight balls in the grass.

"Where the hell are they all coming from?" Casey asked.

"I don't know but the last time I mowed over those things," Kelly nodded to the balled up webs, "it sounded like they were choking the mower."

"This is nuts," Casey said as he went back in the house. "I remember they were spinning their webs everywhere back in late July, August...by now they've usually stopped."

"I know," Kelly followed him, "I could never figure out why spiders were a symbol of Halloween when they seem to have their busiest season in the summer."

"So why are they still here?" Casey asked as he unrolled the paper, "why haven't they gone...wherever it is they go, that we don't have to walk through webs every time we go out the door?"

"I don't know, but after breakfast we better clear some of them or the mail lady ain't gonna like it."

"At this rate we're gonna have to bug bomb the outside of the house," Casey said, "or get a flamethrower."

After breakfast Casey took a broom to all the web strands hanging over and on the porch, the rail and swung at a few that seemed to be trailing down from the trees. Didn't those damned things ever sleep?

"I hate spiders," he concluded as he put the broom back on the porch. He especially hated walking face first into the webs and then trying to get them off, and he seemed to be doing that more and more often these days.

"I don't know anybody that likes them," Kelly replied as he picked the broom back up and headed over to his car and swept it up and down, clearing out another mess of strings spread all over the car and especially across the windshield.

"You realize we're about two steps from a real life horror movie, right?" Casey asked.

"Well if they start growing to be 20 feet, then we'll know we have a problem," Kelly responded half jokingly.

Casey's truck was in the shop so he was riding with Severide to work. He got in the passenger side of the Mustang and put the window down, it might be October but it wasn't chilly yet, the inside of the car was stifling. They got about five blocks from home when Casey saw something drop down in front of him, he looked and saw a spider dangling from the car ceiling, and he just about freaked out. He swung his arm and smashed the spider back against the ceiling, he felt a spot on his forearm that was definitely going to be bruised, but he'd rather that than see that thing flexing its fangs at him.

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"They're even in the damn car now," Casey said.

Kelly kept one hand on the wheel, reached around behind him and held a flyswatter out for Casey to take.

"Seriously?" Matt asked.

"You think that's bad? A couple weeks ago one of those fat hairy ones was walking across the windshield while I was driving, talk about distracting," Kelly said, "I got to a red light, then reached through the window and flattened it."

Matt took the flyswatter and looked around the car for signs of any other spiders.

"This is crazy," he said.

"I know, but hopefully they'll die out or migrate or do whatever it is they do soon, and we won't have to keep dealing with them," Kelly responded.

"It can't happen soon enough for me," Casey said, "this is one trick I can do without this Halloween."