Rheatown

The Locations

Ordinary places carry extraordinary weight once the Cooke family is changed forever.

Rheatown, Tennessee

Rheatown is a small Greene County community of about 4,200 people, roughly ten miles from Greeneville, the county seat. It has the everyday necessities of a small Tennessee town: a couple of churches, the Rheatown Grocery Store, a post office, a pharmacy, a few gas stations, and a couple of local restaurants.

It is large enough to have its own routines and familiar gathering places, but small enough that families know one another and news travels quickly. Greeneville is close enough for county business, larger stores, medical care, and anything Rheatown itself does not have.

Rheatown Grocery Store

Founded by Patrick's father, the grocery is the business that reshaped Patrick's life. When his father had a stroke, Patrick gave up college and the future he imagined in order to keep the store going.

Rheatown Grocery in 1938 with alien presence

The Store in 1938

The grocery as it appeared near the beginning of its history. This image represents the first known visit of the alien presence tied to the story, decades before Dennis Cooke's accident.

The Cooke House

Built in 1860, the large house overlooks Rheatown and has remained in the Cooke family for three generations. It is both family home and inheritance, a place tied to Patrick's past long before the events of 1985.

Myra's Mercury Marquis

Myra's gray 1984 Mercury Marquis is part of the ordinary family routine that ends at the intersection. The car becomes inseparable from the memory of the accident.

Greene County High School

Home of the Green Aliens. Myra teaches here. Dennis and Samantha attend here. After Dennis returns, school is where the differences in him become hardest to hide.

The Basement

A section of basement separated from the rest by hanging black plastic. White walls, a concrete floor, one chair beneath a single lamp, and a short chain attached to an eyelet set into the floor.

This is where Patrick keeps Greg after taking him.