Plague: A Novella — John Lutz

A Short Story by John Lutz

Excerpt

1901, Fredricksburg, Kansas

Count Alronza Matraque Mearitoir, alias Billy the Idiot, pounded his gavel on the table and called the meeting to order.

"We have," he said, "a situation that has reached the proportions of an emergency."

"Surely not," said Wallace Beard from the nearby town of River Bend, where he owned and managed a dry goods emporium.

"I have the statistics," the count said. "Nationwide, during the past year, ten of us have perished."