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Hantavirus in Yosemite

Hantavirus is a rare but serious disease that humans can contract through contact with infected rodents or their urine, saliva, blood, or droppings. Since HPS was first identified in the United States in 1993, there have been 62 cases in California residents and over 600 cases nationally. Approximately 12 percent of deer mice carry hantavirus.

The deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) is the primary reservoir for Sin Nombre Virus, the strain of hantavirus responsible for the human cases in Yosemite National Park, and most human cases in the United States. The deer mouse is found throughout most of the United States, including Yosemite National Park.an enormous fan of King's oeuvre and this has certainly been a banner year for the author from Bangor. From television series based on his work (Delores Claiborne and The Mist) to a pair of movies (one reportedly terrible and one I quite enjoyed…

Issue 2.1 went live today over at Collateral Journal and my flash story, "The Ferry Back," is available for reading!

I wrote this story years ago as a part of a writing challenge. The professor of my last graduate class plopped a bag of odds and ends on the table in front of us, gave a moment to choose an item before giving us twenty minutes to write something about it.

The object described in this story, a small white patch of the Niagara Ferry, somehow seemed