Neil Carstairs lives in Worcester, England along with his wife and two children. He has been writing for pleasure off and on for twenty years but it is only recently that he has been submitting his work for publication. This is his first fiction sale, although he has also had a story appear in the March 2005 edition of the Aphelion Webzine.

The cantina had been out of alcohol for three days by the time Trent and Corben reached it. The owner stammered an apology and spread his hands in a what-can-I-do kind of gesture. The world had changed beyond his control. The owner offered them what was left behind the bar, which was water. Trent paid with a gold necklace he had assumed ownership of near Crystal City. He and Corben took the water on the rocks, and went to sit outside. The day had been hot, and the still air felt like a pressure cooker. The two men sat in the shade of a rose covered pergola and looked to the north. There was a dark line in the sky above the horizon. Trent and Corben waited in silence and drank the water. The cantina owner came outside occasionally, to look to the north. He didn’t speak to his customers until Corben asked.

‘Why are you still here?’

‘I’m waiting for my brother and his family,’ came the reply, ‘they should have been here last night.’

Trent and Corben exchanged a look that the cantina owner missed.

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ Corben asked, slowly.

‘He is the only brother I have,’ the owner told them before turning away and disappearing back into the cantina.

They got refills on their drinks that they didn’t have to pay for this time, and then resumed their examination of the sky. The town had the feeling of emptiness. Across the street the few properties they could see were boarded up. There was no traffic, and there were no residents. The only evidence of life outside the cantina was a soft hum, coming from a generator that sat outside a car workshop a couple of hundred yards away.

Two hours later, as the sun began to set, Jordache arrived. He drove a pick-up covered in desert dust and parked in front of the cantina. Corben gave him some water. Jordache finished the glass before speaking.

‘I think this might be the one,’ he said as he refilled the glass. He drained the water again before adding. ‘I laid a scent trail down from Webb and they seem to be following it.’

The cantina owner re-emerged from the shadows of the bar.

‘You know each other?’ he asked.

‘Trent and I are brothers-in-law,’ Corben said, ‘Jordache is my cousin.’

The owner hesitated before asking his next question, his eyes shifting from face to face of the three men. They each wore a look of weariness edged with something else, something indefinable that the cantina owner was wary of revealing. Finally, with a nervous glance to the northern horizon, he asked.

‘What did you mean when you said you laid a scent trail?’

Jordache was slow in responding, his eyes on the remainder of his drink until he asked softly.

‘How much do you know about what’s been happening?’

‘I know it has been very bad in the United States. Most of the people in this town fled south days ago. Television and radio has been taken off the air,’ the owner shrugged. ‘I wait for my brother to arrive and then we go south too.’

The three Americans shook their heads in unison. Corben spoke for them all.

‘We’re all construction workers, and were on a contract in southern Pennsylvania when the first outbreak was reported in New York City. That’s where we’re from. It’s where our families are – or were. At first we tried to get back to them. We saw some of the first infections outside of the big cities. Since then we’ve been on our own, hunting what’s left of our families. This time we are searching for Jordache’s son. That’s what he meant by laying a scent trail.’

The cantina owner felt his legs weaken. He pulled a chair close and sat heavily on it as Corben continued.

‘The first time we saw a parasite was in a suburb of Drexel Hill. We were in a residential area, Trent was driving, and suddenly this thing was flying down the road towards us. Trent hit the brakes and we skidded to a stop just as the parasite slowed down. It was dark skinned and ugly, hovering above the road as if it were lost. I guess it was just orienting itself, because it suddenly veered away, across a garden and up to a house. It used its two fore claws to smash a window and get entry to the house. We heard the screams over the sound of our truck’s engine. A woman got out of the house. The parasite chased her, caught her and stung her. There was nothing we could do. So we sat and watched the parasite drag the woman back into the house.’

Corben stopped talking, wishing he had a shot of bourbon in front of him and not just water. The cantina owner asked.

‘Why did the parasite attack the woman and not you?’

‘That’s what we wondered,’ Corben said. ‘Over the next few hours we saw it happen again and again. Then we understood why. The parasites are driven to search and infect their closest relations. Parents and siblings, husbands and wives. We lived because we were nowhere near our families. We were left alone long enough to escape out into the country. We tried to get close to New York, but it was hopeless. Once the first wave of parasite infections took care of family they start on any adult human. Remember that. Only adults are big enough and strong enough to be incubated by the parasite worm. Children and the elderly are used for feeding. Do you have any children?’

‘I have two,’ the owner said, his voice catching in a fear filled throat. ‘They are upstairs with my wife.’

‘Then get then away from here,’ Corben’s voice was suddenly harsh. ‘If your brother has been incubated by the parasite worm he will come here to infect you and your wife and feed upon your children.’

‘Madre de Dios,’ the cantina owner crossed himself before disappearing swiftly back into the building. A minute later the cantina owner reappeared, this time with his wife and two children in tow. They carried cases and bags around the side of the building. The three men heard a car start. The cantina owner drove round and stopped outside his bar. He got out of the battered vehicle and came across to Corben, holding out the keys to the building.

‘Please lock up when you finish. If my brother comes before you leave…tell him we have gone south. He will know where.’

Corben took the keys. The owner looked at Jordache.

‘The scent trail?’ He asked softly.

‘I had a call on my cell phone from my son. He was trapped in a building with parasites outside. He told me he loved me. I heard the buzz of their wings and his screams as they came for him. My son is one of them now. I think he is a part of the nearest swarm. If they follow my trail we will know.’

Jordache and his companions watched the family drive away in a cloud of dust, taking the road south. The rattling sound of the car engine died to nothing.

‘Might be time for us to think about moving,’ Trent said, with a nod to the north.

Corben and Trent had arrived in a station wagon they had taken from the lot of a used car dealership. They transferred two gas cans across to Jordache’s pick-up, and then siphoned the rest of the wagon’s tank into a third canister. Jordache searched the cantina. He found bread, cheese and fourteen bottles of water. They all went into the pick-up. When he finished, Corben carefully locked the doors and hid the key under a terracotta flowerpot that held nothing but dried earth.

The generator picked that moment to die, coughing its way to silence. Trent saw an old man come slowly out of the workshop. His overalls were dark with oil and grease. When he saw the northern sky the old man turned in his tracks and ran back inside. Steel roller doors clattered down to seal the workshop off from the world.

‘Fat lot of good that’ll do him,’ Corben spat onto the road surface.

With the failure of the generator another sound reached out to haunt them. A subtle sound, like static on an FM radio turned down low, whispering the threat they had been living with for four months. Jordache sighed; he’d had fifteen minutes rest.

‘Let’s go,’ he said quietly.

Jordache climbed up into the bed of the pick up and settled next to the cab. He rested his hand on one of the flame-throwers that lay there. The metal of the cylinder still held the day’s heat within it. Jordache found himself facing north as Corben drove, and Trent navigated, them out of the town. They took the same road as the cantina owner, past boarded up shops, empty houses, and a deserted market place. As they passed the last building, a low stucco church with a single bell tower, the road stretched out ahead of them. There were no other vehicles on it. Two miles past the church, as the desert took over once more, Corben pulled over, he killed the engine. In the sudden silence the three men felt more alone than ever before. Jordache climbed down from the bed of the pick-up and stood facing north. Corben drummed the steering wheel. The sun was over to his right, painting the sky a vivid crimson. In the mirrors, all he could see was darkness. No, that wasn’t quite true. It was darkness with movement. Subtle currents that played across the surface of the cloud, ripples and waves that were evidence of life. Beside him, Trent said,

‘The swarm is getting bigger.’

‘Been through another life-cycle,’ Corben said softly in reply.

Jordache saw the cloud change shape. A thin gossamer thread seemed to descend down towards the town. It thickened rapidly, growing darker and wider, spiralling until it resembled the funnel of a tornado. Then, as the funnel touched the ground, it spread outwards in moments, until the town vanished in a growing shade of blue-black. Jordache watched as the formation on the ground grew towards him. He couldn’t make out individual details as yet, simply a swirl of movement.

The sound of the swarm reached out to him as if they were pebbles on the beach at this distance. Maybe his whole family was up there amongst them, or maybe not. They may have died when the chain of nukes were detonated from Virginia Beach to San Francisco in a vain attempt to stop the swarm. They may have died when the Texas oil fields were fired. And what was the full life cycle once the worm had metamorphosed a human into a flying parasite? He had no idea. The collapse of government and social structure had been rapid once the infection burst out countrywide and then across international barriers.

Now that the sun was setting, a soft wind began to blow from the south, stirring Jordache’s hair and ruffling his clothing. Small dust devils rose and fell along the parched ground of the roadside verge. Jordache reached into the bed of the pick up and dragged out one flamethrower. He carried it a few yards away from the truck, set the canister on the ground and held the discharge tube ready. Trent and Corben remained in the cab, silent witnesses to what was to come.

One of the creatures caught his eye, an individual on a path around the main body, followed at a short distance by maybe a dozen others. Jordache knew they were the parasite’s spawn, tracking their parent until they ran through another development cycle and were fully-grown. The parasite’s slow zigzag flight, seemingly aimless, yet perfect for this predator, caught the drifting currents of air and the scent of Jordache that was carried upon it. It came closer, sunlight catching the translucent wings in saffron and jade flashes. Jordache felt his heart beat faster. He knew this was his son, but wanted more than his own certainty. He wanted the parasite to know that he was its father. The creature straightened its flight line as it homed in on Jordache’s scent. Now Jordache could make out the individual sound of this one parasite above the hum of the trailing group and the hiss of the main swarm. The chitter-thsk chitter-thsk of wing and mandible movement ground on his nerves. He raised the flame-thrower as the creature came closer. The sound of its flight seemed to transmit in bursts of noise that rang in his ears as ‘Daddy, Daddy’.

Jordache waited until he saw the yellow of the parasite’s eyes blossom in recognition before he squeezed the trigger.