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Use the promo code Chicago to get 50% off your first three months. You're at home, you've already had a nice,

homemade dinner and relaxed in the living room by listening to the latest episode of Krononauts on the radio.

Now you're in bed, under the sheets, no blanket because it's late summer.

The windows open.

A slight breeze gently refreshes the warmness of the bedroom.

You're dozing off as the breeze carries in a delicate scent, sweet, probably from the flower bed outside the window.

Then all thoughts go silent in your mind.

There is no flower bed outside the window.

Your heart starts beating harder, faster.

Your breath is shortened, but there's a burning sensation with each inhalation. The smell has turned sickly sweet now and your eyes flash

open to see a smoky haze creeping in from the window. Your instinct is to run, but you can't. Your legs don't want to respond. A queasiness crawls into your stomach. The stinging in your lungs is too much, you cough and panic. Luckily a family member is

staying in a different room and comes to check on you. As they help you up, you see the

gaseous vapors dissipating, and the illness in your stomach is too much to bear, so you grab a trash can.

After a couple hours, your body feels exhausted but back to normal and you're left wondering what the hell just happened.

So it was for several residents of Mathune, Illinois in September of 1944 when the small town

was terrorized by an apparent Mad Gasser. Over the course of two weeks, the town was gripped by fear as an unknown assailant targeted

residents in their homes seemingly at random, with a gas that induced a number of dangerous, though not lethal, physical

effects.

Police were helpless as the newspapers carried the story like a torch, stirring up the public even more by calling the culprit

Mad Gasser, anesthetic prowler, and phantom anesthetist.

...