You're listening to The Dry by Jane Harbor.

Dread for You by Stephen Shanahan.

Huntsman

can do this…

sky. It'll break the farmers set as the months ticked over into a second year. They repeated

the words out loud to each other like a mantra and under their breath to themselves like

a prayer. But the weathermen in Melbourne disagreed. Be suited and sympathetic in air-conditioned

studios, they made a passing reference most nights at six. Officially, the worst conditions

in a century. The weather pattern had a name, the pronunciation of which was never quite

settled. El Nino. At least the blowflies were happy. The finds that day were unusual, though,

smaller and with a smoothness to the flesh. Not that it mattered. They were the same were

it counted. The glassy eyes. The wet wounds.

The body in the clearing was the freshest. It took the fly slightly longer to discover

the two in the farmhouse despite the front door swinging open like an invitation. Those

that ventured beyond the initial offering and the hallway were rewarded with another,

this time in the bedroom. This one was smaller, but less engulfed by competition.

First on the scene, the fly swarmed contentedly in the heat as the blood pooled black over

tiles and carpet. Outside, washing a hung still on the rotary line, bone dry and stiff from

the sun. A child scooter lay abandoned on the stepping stone path. Just one human heart

beat within a kilometre radius of the farm. So nothing reacted when deep inside the house.

The baby started crying.

CHAPTER 1

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