Where does this story begin?

So the story begins in a town called Matoon, Illinois,

which has got about 17,000 people in it.

It is late August, early September of 1944.

So we are at the tail end of World War II.

This is a small Midwest town. There's some manufacturing nearby, but it's kind of your every town, USA, just kind of middle America. nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy about

Matoon that anybody had really given much thought about prior to these events.

What happens here?

What puts Matoon on the map?

Okay, so on the night of September 1st,

1944, woman named Aline Kearney is with her three-year-old daughter,

and they're alone because

Eileen's husband is serving in the Navy and so she's home with her sister Martha

who has two kids of her own so two women three kids in this house and it's night time

and a lien notices a what she describes as a sickening sweet odor. Now her sister Martha doesn't smell anything,

but suddenly a lien becomes paralyzed.

Her legs don't move,

and she notices a sudden tightness and dryness in her throat. Her sister

Martha, you know, calls her husband, Bert, who comes running over and when Bert arrives he

sees this man sort of crouching behind some bushes near the bedroom window.

A man he describes as being tall, wearing dark clothes, and a tight-fitting cap, kind of like a rubber cap, like maybe like a

swim swim cap but something sort of covering his whole head. So Bert gives chase to this guy, but he escapes.

...