Otter Falls was a small town by many standards. It would have been even smaller but a few years ago the affluent had discovered it as a nice place to vacation, but not live, and so otter falls had grown a good bit with vacation homes. Fortunately for Otter Falls it was in such a unique location that any season was a reasonable time to come. It had no outstanding season it was always a nice place to visit. Just not very remarkable in any way. As such it didn't have a seasonal tourist trade but a year round small trade that brought some money into the town to keep it in existence.
The native population was small but largely united. The town had decent schools thanks to Mayor Marie Silverman sinking a good deal of the tourist trade money into them. The thinking behind this was that the children should have more to depend on then Yuppies. So far the idea had been successful and many Otter Fall natives had gone onto college. Those that had not had at least finished high school. Thanks to that environment pretentious people loved Otter Falls because they could discuss high minded things with the general populace all the while feeling challenged and still at least feel slightly superior. This had only gone to make the town more of an interesting place to live.
Mayor Silverman had leaped on this unique facet from the schools and had quietly advertised the town in intellectual magazines as a good vacation place but she had done it in such an unobtrusive manor that it immediately gained the crowd she and the town wanted.
The people of Otter falls tired not to hate the yuppie visitors and most of the visitors were good sorts who were not as pretentious as most of their ilk. All around things kept a unique balance not found in many places.
Otter Falls was named after the falls right under what the local villagers called 'Otter Town' an out cropping of rocks and wood that, well before the town was founded, had been home to large collection of otters. Otter Town was jokingly called the larger of the two towns. It was oddly stuffed with otters and had been prosperous for the little mustalids for a very long time. The town of Otter Falls was founded just under a hundred years ago. What records there were from the time even stated the existence of Otter Town.
By Midnight of that night the virus had swept through the water in Otter Town and had splashed down the falls. In fifteen minutes it had reached the outskirts of Otter Falls. Within an hour it would pass out of the town's meandering river. It took so long thanks in part to the flood control small dams the city had place in the water to stop flooding. Thus creating small ponds throughout the town where the virus accumulated until it flowed over into the river again, leaving a wake of changed lives and transmuted bodies.