"Amberly County would be a great place to live if it weren"t for this stupid curse." Jake Nichols from a televised interview on "Peculiar People and Places", February 28, 1979. Amberly County, Indiana, is used to media attention. The rivalry between the Division 3 Salem University Knights and the cross-state Westminster Dragons is followed nationally, and their yearly game televised every October. Then there was the trial of Earl Kennard, who drove a stolen bulldozer through the Wafting Winds Trailer Park. Earl took out fourteen homes in an attempt to destroy the mobile home his ex-wife received in the divorce, which he missed by three blocks. Needless to say, his ex-wife kept the trailer. The Knights and Kennards are great coffee break conversation, but what"s probably brought more cameras and reporters to town is John Barker"s Itch. "But Captain, how can we protect these people if they don"t believe there is a curse?" "By stopping the man who placed the curse in the first place." "But how, Captain? He"s dead." -Scene from "The X-Terminaters", Episode 54, loosely based on stories of John Barker"s Itch. John Barker"s Itch, known locally as "the Itch," is a superstition that has been handed down for generations, some say to frighten children out of trouble, though several claim to really believe it. As the story goes, every 20 years the county suffers a cluster of bizarre deaths. "It"s not a phenomena. I"d hardly call a 16 to 22-year span between events "clockwork". It"s a stretch to even call it sporadic regularity." Sheriff Conrad Watson interview, "Itch My Eye, Says Sheriff Watson", Salem Daily Digest, August 14, 1977 Certainly not many people believe in the Itch on this beautiful day in late June. But night is falling on Amberly County… In a rural cemetery, a party comes to an abrupt halt… In a suburban home, a young mother contemplates suicide… In Miltonville, a family is awakened by screams… On Harmony Road, a dead man walks… Amberly County is about to get the media"s attention again.