Why am I reminded whenever I look around of a story by Edgar Allen Poe. I forget the name, of course, being terrible with names. But it was about aristocrats throwing a party during the days of the Black Plague. Seemingly isolated from the death in the surrounding countryside they had provisioned themselves with food and drink and were holding a costume ball. Overlooked by them in their revelry was a figure in a black mask. At the end of the story he is revealed as the spectre of death, a carrier of the black plague.

H

-- Alison Tieman (typhonblue@hotmail.com), April 30, 1999

Answers

Your thinking of "The Masque of the Red Death",

Then there's always "The Fall of the House of Usher"

-- Vincent Price (raven@nevermore.com), April 30, 1999.

the catatonia suffered by the Ushers reminds me of the reaction of IT managers when told about the y2k problem

-- dick of the dale (rdale@coynet.com), April 30, 1999.

Masque of the Red Death

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), April 30, 1999.