Dana Blankenhorn

Typhoid Murray

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, in Las Vegas, Nevada, killed 58 people.

Larry Murray, known as Murray the Spreader among the regulars at Biloxi’s Beau Rivage casino, where he was a dealer, felt certain he could beat that.

He also thought he could get away with it.

When the Beau Rivage re-opened in early June, he was ready. The company had protocols in place to check temperatures and separate gamblers, but Larry Murray was confident these were garbage. Besides, they couldn't police his off hours.

He knew it was only a matter of time before he got the virus.

Zombies

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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Clean, bright Florida beaches aren’t where you go for horror.

For that, you need a place like the Maine woods. Deep, dark, filled with the noise of animals and the crackling of branches. The hoot of an owl, the rustle of an eagle’s wings as snatches its prey.

That’s where the scare is.

Madison “Mads” Fitzpatrick, a 20-year old University of Florida sophomore, loved a good Stephen King story. She had read them all. She had also read his imitators, and much of his fan fiction. She even wrote some of it. She wanted to be an English major. Her dream was to become the 21^st century’s Stephen King, to meet him at a book launch, and to win his praise.

She was starting to write a horror story when the virus sent her home from the dorm, back to Homosassa, where she lived with her grandparents. Mom and dad had perished on 9-11. They were traders at Cantor Fitzgerald. She was a baby then, staying with Dot and Bill Lawson at their home on Long Island.

The Coward

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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Jake Frederickson idolized his grandfather.

Buck Frederickson was approaching 70 as the year 2020 opened, but he still went to the shop every day. Buck’s Appliances in St. Cloud helped Buck’s son, Chuck, become the first Frederickson to graduate college, in 1990. Chuck became a State Farm agent and earned enough, in turn, to pay all Jake’s bills when he went to the U in 2018.

Jake wanted out. He had a vague major in the sciences. He wanted to do something relevant.

The Chef

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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He was born Frank White in Newnan, Georgia. But he became known around the state, and wanted to be known around the world, as Lem LeBlanc.

Lem grew up in the “Age of Emeril,” the golden days of the 1990s when he would sit at home with his mother and watch FoodTV. His father had left before he was born, so he never took the man’s last name. The home belonged to his mother’s parents.

Lem wanted desperately to follow his hero’s path. That’s why, when he got into Johnson & Wales (the Charlotte campus, not the one in Providence Emeril had gone to, but he didn’t know that) he changed his name. LeBlanc sounded like Lagasse, but he couldn’t be Emeril (that would be silly), so he was Lemuel.

By the time he finished in 2005, chefs around the country were becoming established stars. But there was a new style coming along. It was a search for “the good stuff,” for authentic foreign flavors, pioneered by an ordinary sous chef named Anthony Bourdain.

The good stuff held local or regional provenance. The good stuff took poor, local ingredients and made magic with them. The good stuff wasn’t American cooking. So instead of seeking a four-star restaurant or resort gig, Lem LeBlanc sought to travel the world.

The Survivor

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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In early 2020 Ann Jefferson was the golden girl of Tulane University.

It wasn’t her looks. It wasn’t her athleticism. It was her grades and her study habits. She was going to spend the next few months choosing among Harvard, Baylor, and Stanford Medical School. Her grades, MCATs and references were immaculate.

Then came COVID-19.

Ann had grown up in what became one of the early hotspots, Albany, GA. Her parents had been at one of the funerals which fueled it. Her mother, Anita, died from it. Her father, Albert, was crippled by it.

Ann went home the moment Tulane closed. She volunteered at a local hospital, the world’s most overqualified candy striper. Soon she was doing a nurse’s duties.

During that whole sad spring and summer, Ann Jefferson nursed strangers all day and her father all night. She lived in a gown, a mask and face shield, without complaint. She washed her hands and face so often her skin blistered.

Albert Jefferson had the full range of post-COVID symptomology. He couldn’t eat. He suffered a stroke. His lungs were permanently scarred. His right foot was amputated. His kidneys were damaged.

The Scientist

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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Taye Jones was a big man when he came home.

Taye had grown up in Swainsboro. It’s in deep southeast Georgia. Most of the people in Swainsboro are black. Most are poor. Taye was both. Only half the people in Swainsboro own their own home. In the summer, when the temperatures shoot up near 100, and the mosquitoes come out to play, there’s little to do but sit outside on the porch and swat them.

But there is a college in Swainsboro. East Georgia State College. The Bobcats. It was founded as a junior college. It wasn’t given permission to offer bachelors’ degrees until 2011. In 2012 it enrolled its first four-year students in Biology.

Taye Jones was one of them.

It turned out that Taye Jones had a gift. He had a gift for science, for research. He could explain what he wanted to do. He had the skills to do it, thanks to years spent helping his mother cook.

Two years into the program, Taye was offered a full scholarship at the main Georgia campus in Athens. There he found mentors, sponsors, people who believed in him. When he graduated in 2016, he was offered several fellowships and chose MIT.

He lived frugally and was able to send money home from his stipend of roughly $30,000. He worked hard and was able to propose some important experiments involving kinases and other protein structures.

The Soldier

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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Q Flint had made service his life’s work.

He was raised in Selma, Alabama. His grandmother was of the Greatest Generation. She had made sweet bean pies for Dr. King in the 1950s. She told Q that he liked them.

From the time he was a little boy, during the Clinton years, Edna had drilled it into him. You are not what you say. You are what you do. You don’t talk about service. You serve. Life isn’t about your getting ahead, but all of us.

Q joined the service as soon as he could. He trained for the mission to take out Bin Laden but broke a small bone in his ankle and was scratched. The moment his tour was over he applied to join the Secret Service. The President himself approved the application.

That was four years ago. Now he was on body detail, his strength concealed by a dark suit, his all-seeing eyes hidden by dark glasses. His face was expressionless as he scanned his surroundings, keeping the Man safe.

Dolly

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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For the first year of her life, Dolly stayed in the hills.

It was quiet in the hills. There was a lot of grass. Her mom was by her side.

Then, one day, her mom went away. Dolly did not know where. There was still grass, so Dolly ate it. It was good. She was in the flock. The flock made her feel better about missing her mom. In time she forgot all about it.

On a fine early spring morning, Dolly and her friends all flocked together into a big space that soon became small. One by one they were grabbed by their hind legs and dragged away. Dolly was one of the last, because she did not want to be grabbed.

They got her anyway.

Interview with a Virus

This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited. 

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“My first guest tonight is the hardest get in the news right now. Ladies and gentlemen, COVID-19, the coronavirus!”

“Thank you, Steve.”

“It’s Stephen. Sorry we don’t have the orchestra tonight. Or the theater. We’re social distancing.”

The virus looked askance. “What-evs.”

“So. Coronavirus. You’re pretty famous for something that may not even be alive.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Yes, there is dispute about that, Steve. Many scientists don’t think viruses should be classed as living. But here I am.”

Russian Roulette

In honor of the coronavirus quarantine, and because April 1 is coming, here's another fiction story for you. 

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Pandemic response had improved by 2050.

Instead of a stay in place order, the government was ready with mass testing on the onset of SARS-49.

The tests were sophisticated. Not only could they tell if someone was infected, they could scan their likely response and predict who might survive the infection and who would likely die.

As with all pandemics the infection was coming, but not everyone was going to get through it.

I felt confident. My name is Alan Petrie. I live in New Rochelle, New York, with my wife Kim and our two children, Bill and Alice. We lived through the first global pandemic back in 2020. We had a basement full of food and medical supplies. We were ready for what was to come.  

Everyone would get the virus. Everyone would take the bullet.