Fear of the Beast

The summer of 1954 spelled disaster for a majority of Wheatfields 34,000 residents. Terror surfaced in this rural town of Fork County, Nebraska, and few of the residents survived. It was called the summer of the digging. Among the dead was the towns minister, Alex Balloon. But his wife, Jane, and their unborn son, Sam, survived.

Wheatfield never regained its population, but a small pocket of survi...