People talk about monsters in the woods or in the water. But nobody looks up. Not until the fall of nineteen-oh-three. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was working at the brick and tile factory then, just outside of town. It was a quiet place. Good people. Until the nights turned strange. It started late in September. U.G. Griffith, the bank cashier, saw it first. He said he saw a light moving across the roof of the bank. Not a lantern, he said. A searchlight. But there wasn't a man in Iowa with a light like that in 1903.
I didn't believe him. Not until I saw it myself a few nights later. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was perched on top of the telephone pole near the hardware store. It was huge. Human-shaped, maybe, but wrong. It had these massive, bat-like wings folded against its back. Black as pitch. But the terrifying thing was the horn. Van Meter incident was reported in newspapers at the time, multiple witnesses, all respectable citizens - Dana' Right in the middle of its forehead, this blunt horn... glowed. It projected a beam of white light, bright as noon, cutting through the darkness. It turned its head and that beam swept across the street like a lighthouse. When the light hit me, I froze. It wasn't just bright; it felt... cold.
Then the smell hit me. That's what people forget to mention. The stench was unbearable. Like sulfur mixed with old, rotting eggs. It made you gag just standing fifty feet away. Dr. Alcott and the bank manager, Mr. White, they came running with their rifles. They saw it too. They aimed right for that glowing horn and fired.[
[ Story continues in the full game... ]