It was September fourteenth, two days after the encounter. Zack sat motionless in his car, parked by a curb, a quarter of a mile away from the property. Whatever had finally drawn him out to sate his curiosity on the twelfth now held a magnetic repulsion over him, as if he and the location were two like poles that couldn’t meet. The word was dread.

He moved his tongue—felt as if he were swallowing it—and restarted the car. His eyes darted, glossed over the roundabouts of this neighborhood; his hands led the wheel finally around to the property. It glided into view in seconds.

He blinked as he pulled by it. He meant to keep going, to defeat irrationality, but he found himself braking more and more gently until he stopped again, at the edge of the driveway.

There was the same hollow field, the same tendril-like trees, and the same winding asphalt, but now a house stood at the edge of the driveway.

In the rearview mirror, Zack suddenly saw a corpse in the backseat. It clutched keys to its chest.