The whine from the bandsaw finally stopped. Bloody Saturday morning renovators, Helena thought, as she buried her head under the pillow. She got up and checked on Timmy who was fast asleep. How can a 12-year-old boy sleep for so long?

She pulled the new wire screen windows closed. Her upstairs neighbor, Roger, a friend with benefits, had installed them last week. The party had gone on until 3.00am. The last thing she clearly remembered was opening another bottle of red wine and dancing with Roger, whose work as an insect biologist bored her to death.

She’d apologise to old Mrs Carruthers who lived alone next door. She was deaf as a post but must have heard the Ramones playing ‘Pet Sematary’ at jumbo jet take-off levels.

The morning sun poured down the driveway of the apartment block and in to the kitchen. She made a percolated coffee and stared out of the window.

Tim had invited his friends for his thirteenth birthday party next week at the national park. He had also invited a girl from the private school across the bay. Anita was blonde, pretty and fun. Her little boy was growing up.  Soon he’d be voting, leaving home, studying at uni, getting a job, getting a broken heart, all while she twiddled her thumbs in a large three bedroomed apartment on the north shore.

She finished the dishes and placed the empty wine bottles in the communal bins. No clanking. A mosquito landed on the back of her hand. She was going to swat it but paused. It was different somehow. Its wings were tiny and iridescent. Like sunshine on oily water. She’d never liked bugs and creepy crawlies. She killed it.

An unshaven Roger ambled down the path carrying a suitcase and a rucksack.

“Good morning,” Helena said, “how’s the head?”

“Not too good. I’ll have to kick start it somehow. I’m off to Lismore. Something has come up at work. Bug business I’m afraid. Some irregularities in the breeding cycle.”

“Of what?”

“Mossies. Nothing to worry about,” he smiled. “I’ve packed my repellant. You need that when taking on Winged Victory – our pet name for the mosquito. I’m also travelling with my boss who humans and bugs find equally repellant. I’ll see you in a few days … and thank you for last night.”

“Winged Victory?”

“It’s from a DH Lawrence poem, ‘The Mosquito’.”

She picked a small ripe tomato and handed it to him. “Something for the doggy breath.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek and a ‘toodle loo’ as he walked up the path looking like a small bear with a sore head.

That night a rain storm lashed the city. In the morning, downpipes gurgled and water lay in culverts and gutters. Palm fronds dripped as Helena picked herbs from the garden.

Five days had passed since Roger had flown north. The least he could do was call. The tinny opening notes of Helen Reddy’s song, ‘I am Woman’ rattled from her mobile phone as she placed the basil in the sink. She tilted the blinds to stop the sun beating through the kitchen windows.

“Hullo, Helena. It’s Carmel, Anita’s mother. Yes, I’m very well. In fact, that’s why I’m calling. Some bad news I’m afraid. Anita’s in the Royal North Shore Hospital. We don’t know what’s wrong. She’s been lethargic for a couple of days with bad headaches. The doctors are running tests. I’m sure it will be all right. I’m just ringing to see if Tim is okay.”

“He’s fine,” Helana said. “He’s looking forward to Anita coming to his party. It’s next Saturday night – the night of the full moon.”

“It’s all Anita can think about.”

“It must be something going around,” Helena said. “We have a couple of staff away from the advertising agency. They called in sick last week with headaches and vomiting. Maybe it’s a virus. Give our love to Anita. We hope she’s up and about real soon.”

That night she sat down and did something she rarely did. She watched TV news. A skinny female TV reporter presented her story live outside the Lismore Hospital.

“Doctors are concerned over an outbreak of encephalitis. A young girl died last night and two more are in a critical condition. They are suffering from dizziness, headaches and nausea. I’ll bring you more as it comes to hand. Back to you in the studio.”

The humidity climbed with the February sun and by 3.00pm the city was a sauna. Helena turned on the reverse cycled air conditioners and closed the doors and windows.

She knocked on Mrs Caruthers door but there was no answer.

“Mrs Caruthers, are you home? It’s Helena. I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

There was a faint groan and the sound of a glass of water being knocked over and then a chair falling.

Helena rammed her foot against the lock, sheering it from the wood. Mrs Caruthers was crawling up the passageway in her night dress. She helped her back in to bed and closed the window. The room was oppressively hot. The old woman’s face and the underside of her arms were a mass of insect bites and suppurating sores. Helena called triple-zero and within five minutes Mrs Caruthers was stretchered in to the back of the ambulance.

“This is the third case we’ve seen in 24 hours,” the driver said. “Old people can’t afford the power bill so they sleep next to an open window. Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a big mossie outbreak. Worse at sunrise and sunset. We’ll look after her.”

The siren trailed off in to the distance as Helena walked back in to her apartment. She swatted a mosquito as it landed on her forearm. It was full of blood.

It was 8.30pm and Helena put the final touches on Tim’s birthday cake. The big day was tomorrow. They’d had a row as she had moved the party to midday instead of sunset. ABC radio had warned people living by the river to stay inside at night.

“The party is ruined thanks to you,” Tim sneered. “We were going to paddle the canoes down the river under the full moon. Now that’s completely fucked because you’re worried about bugs.”

“Don’t you use that language to me young man or I’ll call the whole thing off! I’ve told all the other parents it’s going to be at midday and they’ve all agreed. The less bugs the better. Get it?”

Tim slammed the kitchen door behind him and stomped down the corridor.

She poured herself a glass of wine. Jesus, first you get Council permission, you hire the canoes, ring all the mothers, make the food, order all the drinks and finally make sure the kiddies aren’t going to be eaten alive by insects and that’s the thanks I get. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest.

The outside motion sensitive spotlight went on, catching a possum crawling along the fence. It blinked at her and took off. Then the spotlight went off. She stared out in to the darkness and heard what sounded like an electric saw. The buzz got louder and louder. Was it a drone? She pressed her face closer to the window and stared out in to the night.

The spotlight flashed on and a twisting tornado of insects whirled in front of her face. There were millions of them. The light made them go faster and faster. A terrible drone noise shook the window pane. Mosquitos. Then, as suddenly as they had arrived, they disappeared.

The blistering noon sun beat down on Helena’s neck as she watched the kids throw water bombs at each other. The water bombs looked suspiciously like condoms. Only seven kids turned up to the party. There was a flurry of last minute phone calls by parents, giving their apologies. Their children were sick. There was nothing they could do. But Tim was having the time of his life.

A charity group was holding running races for blind kids in the picnic spot next door. Two guide dogs wore party hats.

Helena sat with the other mums under the gum trees making hot dogs and dishing out sun block and insect repellant. She had left a note on Roger’s apartment door, giving the GPS of the party. He’d been gone a week without a call. Total charmer.

To the north about 300 metres away, half a dozen families stood and shielded their eyes as if looking up at a sky writer. Helena thought she heard the sound of a model airplane, the type her dad used to fly using wire control lines. Roger’s old 4-wheel drive roared in to the car park. He grabbed Helena by the shoulders.

“Where’s Tim?”

“He’s by the river ….”

Roger grabbed Tim by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

“Hey Roger dude, chill out. I’m the special man today or haven’t you heard?”

He grabbed Helena and Tim and marched them to the 4-wheel drive, threw them inside and did the windows up.

“This had better be good Roger because ….”

“Jesus woman, look!”

A 200-metre tower of black mosquitos sounding like a chainsaw, their wings flashing like a million tiny mirrors, fell on the families at the edge of the park. Behind the swarm another tower of insects approached.

“They mutated right before our eyes but we didn’t pick it up. The sickness is like Murray Valley encephalitis but worse. It doesn’t kill straight away. You get sick, then you get better and then it explodes in the brain two weeks later.”

The other families fled to their cars and stared horrified through the windows as the black twisting mass headed towards them. The blind kids stood transfixed in the open as their guide dogs tried to pull them towards the river.

Roger pulled a tarpaulin and two jerry cans of petrol out of the back of the 4-wheel drive. He got the kids and dogs to lie down under the tarpaulin and poured the petrol on a pile of leaves and twigs raked under one of the giant pine trees. He lit it and ran back to the four-wheel drive as the swarm engulfed the camp site.

The fire raced up the bark and one side of the pine tree exploded in flames. Burning ash blew on the eucalypt trees, which also caught fire. As the fire spread, the mosquito swarms veered south west, towards the city. Roger and Helena pulled the kids and dogs from under the tarpaulin and led them on to the mini bus.

“Just keep the windows up”, Roger told the driver, “and don’t stop.”

As they drove back to the apartment block, Tim scratched his left ear and saw a spot of blood. He shook his collar and a pair of small iridescent wings fell on to the car seat.

That night silver jets sprayed chemicals over the city. In the morning, Helena lifted her head from the crook of Roger’s arm and put the kettle on. She walked down to the common. A fine dust covered the herbs and tomatoes. There were no birds or crickets. The land had fallen silent.