Marcus looked toward the tree line.

The woods were still.

Only the wind moved through the yellow October leaves.

The ambulance siren echoed faintly in the distance.

“You heard someone?” Marcus asked.

The elderly man nodded weakly.

“My name’s Eli.”

“After I fell…”

“…I kept yelling.”

“For hours.”

His breathing became uneven.

“Then… sometime after dark…”

“…someone answered.”

Marcus frowned.

“What did they say?”

Eli swallowed.

“They said…”

‘Hang on. I’ll get help.’

“They sounded close.”

“Maybe fifty yards away.”

Marcus looked back toward the woods.

“But nobody came?”

Eli slowly shook his head.

“No.”

“I thought maybe I imagined it.”

---

Paramedics arrived minutes later.

They carefully stabilized Eli before loading him into the ambulance.

One medic examined the dog.

“Is he coming with us?”

Eli smiled faintly.

“He won’t.”

The dog had already backed several steps away.

Watching.

Always watching.

Marcus asked the medic to wait a moment.

“I’m going into those woods.”

The medic looked surprised.

“Now?”

“Eli heard somebody.”

“What if someone else got hurt?”

Without waiting for an answer, Marcus grabbed a flashlight from his motorcycle.

The dog stood.

Looked toward the trees.

Then started walking.

Marcus followed.

---

The ground quickly became uneven.

The brush thickened.

Broken branches lay scattered everywhere, as though something heavy had passed through recently.

The dog stopped beside a fallen oak.

He sniffed the ground.

Then continued.

Nearly two hundred yards later…

Marcus found it.

An overturned electric mobility scooter lay hidden beneath vines.

Its front wheel had snapped completely off.

Nearby rested a canvas shopping bag filled with canned food.

Marcus’s pulse quickened.

Someone had definitely been there.

“Hello!”

His voice echoed through the woods.

Nothing.

Then…

a faint cough.

---

Marcus followed the sound downhill.

At the base of another ravine sat an elderly woman wrapped in a thin blanket.

She looked exhausted.

But alive.

When she saw Marcus, tears immediately filled her eyes.

“Oh, thank God.”

“I thought nobody heard me.”

Marcus knelt beside her.

“My name’s Marcus.”

“Are you hurt?”

“My ankle.”

“I couldn’t climb back.”

She looked toward the dog.

“Is Eli okay?”

Marcus blinked.

“You know Eli?”

She smiled through tears.

“We’ve been neighbors for twenty-five years.”

Her name was Martha Greene.

The previous evening, she’d been returning from the small country market on her mobility scooter when the shoulder collapsed beneath her.

She had called for help until her phone battery died.

Hours later, she heard Eli shouting from somewhere nearby.

They spent the entire night talking across the darkness.

Unable to see one another.

Unable to reach each other.

Each trying to keep the other awake.

---

“When the dog started barking,” Martha whispered,

“I prayed he understood.”

Marcus looked at the skinny stray.

“So did he.”

---

Rescue crews carefully lifted Martha from the ravine.

The paramedics couldn’t believe the coincidence.

Two elderly neighbors.

Two separate accidents.

Only a few hundred yards apart.

Neither visible from the road.

Without the dog…

they might not have been found until much later.

---

As everyone prepared to leave, one deputy crouched beside the stray.

“You’ve got yourself quite a story.”

The dog quietly stepped backward.

Still unwilling to let anyone touch him.

Except…

he didn’t move away from Eli’s ambulance.

Instead, he sat beside the rear doors.

Waiting.

Marcus smiled.

“I think he’s finally picked someone.”

But the dog wasn’t watching Eli.

He was staring at something hanging from Eli’s wheelchair.

A faded leather collar.

With a rusted brass name tag.

Eli saw it too.

His face suddenly changed.

“Oh…”

“My goodness.”

“I haven’t seen that collar in years.”

— END OF PART 2 —