Many years ago, when I lived and worked in Sequoia National Park, I worked ten days and had four days off. Sometimes, I could run those four days together so I had eight days off to go hiking. I was on such a trip once when I realized I was being followed by a young couple from Germany on the same trail. We didn’t walk together, but we were in shouting distance of each other. Eventually, a man passed me going in the other direction. What was it about him? I’ll never know. He sent a cold shiver down my spine, and I remember thinking how glad I was that those other two were close behind.

So many of us think of a home as a living and breathing place. A house is witness to all of the good and all of the bad. Knowing what goes on behind our own closed doors and shuttered windows, we can only guess at what happens with our neighbors. So I wondered, if a house did have a soul and if a home is inherently good, then how would bad things affect it? How would a home exhibit PTSD? Would it co-opt the residents and use them? Was that the visible symptom?

I think most readers can relate to, or find the horror in, forgetfulness to some degree because, as you say, we deal with these things in real life. Losing a loved one to a disease like Alzheimer’s, even as they’re still with you physically—that’s scary for a lot of people. I suppose loss of memory for me means loss of identity. Without the accumulation of memories to inform and shape us, who are we? Why do we act the way we do? Personally, like the narrator, I would be scared of forgetting my own name.

I originally conceived of this story a few years ago, as a short audio drama. I was listening to a lot of podcasts then, and I think the idea was synthesized from days of listening to The Heart, Knifepoint Horror, and Limetown. Around that same time, my mom moved to an old farmhouse. To get there, you have to drive down a long, creepy dirt road, complete with an old graveyard. So I started from a particular scene on that dirt road: two characters in a car, and one of them unintentionally starting to drive dangerously fast. The story spun out from there