When my son screamed for his Dad, I rushed up the stairs and flung open his bedroom door.

I saw him standing on the bed, pointing to the black darting creatures on the floor, “Daddy, the spiders! Get them.”

There must have been around thirty of the black arachnids scuttling over the laundry strewn over the floor. I hated spiders at the best of times, but this many? My wife, Sophie, always made fun of my phobia; I grit my teeth and started stomping.

I sat next to my son on the bed for a full hour after the last one was squished.

“I think I got them all,” I said, getting up, “I’ll just go get something to clean this up.”

As I reached the door my son spoke, “Hey Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks!”, he said, jumping down and running over to me to give me a hug.

“No problem, son,” I said as my heart began to race.

He left my embrace and turned towards the bed. With a span that stretched from his left shoulder, to his right, to his right hip and to his left, the eight long and hairy legs of a giant spider clung onto my son’s pajamas, it’s swollen abdomen a travelling nest for the hundreds of spiderlings that hung on to its mother. It’s eight dark portal eyes stared back at me, aware I was looking at it; I froze.

“Sophie,” I shouted out the door, “There’s a spider problem I need you to take care of.”