Even now, staring at the thing, the feeling seemed to grow. It was stronger than any vibe he’d felt so far. There was more to it than déjà vu. There was—

Dryden flinched and took a step back. Danica turned to him, startled.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Just for a second, I felt … panicked. I can’t explain it.”

“Do you think it’s a memory coming back?”

Dryden was quiet a moment, trying to find the feeling again. Seconds passed. Nothing there.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said at last. “What about you? Are you getting anything from this?”

She stared at the vehicle for a long moment, narrowing her eyes.

“Nothing,” she said.

Dryden stepped closer to the car again, studying it. Of all the vehicles they had seen in the subdivision, it was the only one with all its windows intact. Its windshield had a big spiderweb fracture on the driver’s side, but the glass was still in one piece; ditto for the window above the hatchback. Every other car and truck they had seen, either parked in driveways or garages, had been damaged by falling hardwood limbs or collapsed sections of ceiling. This Escort, for whatever reason, had been left in somebody’s back yard; the two nearest houses both had rear decks pointing this way.

Dryden took hold of the door handle and pulled, half expecting the door to be fused shut with interior rust.

Instead it opened immediately. The hinges groaned, and because of the car’s angle, the door had to be lifted as it swung out, but otherwise the thing moved easily. The air inside the vehicle wafted out, stale and dry, as if undisturbed for years. Dryden leaned in and studied the interior: the front and back seats, the footwells. Nothing there. He released the door and let it fall shut.

“I don’t know,” he said again.

The sense of recognition was still there, but whatever else it was tied to had come and gone.

They continued south past the next line of homes, onto a street that turned out to be the last one. The houses beyond it formed the outer edge of the subdivision; they were the same houses Dryden had seen facing out over the slope above downtown Ashland.

“Wait a second,” Danica said.

There was something in her voice—a rush of excitement, Dryden thought.

He looked at her; she was focused on one of the outer-edge houses, across the street and down a ways. She stared a moment longer, then broke into a sprint toward the place. Dryden ran after her.

They came to a stop in the house’s front yard. Like every other home they had seen, it had weathered the years badly. Most of the windows were broken, and one corner sagged deeply where an upright beam must have rotted through.