Chapter 8 - THE SILENT SOS
With her physical defenses set, Lily knew she had to establish a secondary line of rescue. The police were delayed, but her next-door neighbor, Mr. Harrison, was a retired search-and-rescue coordinator. He was seventy years old, but he was strong, kept a massive, trained German Shepherd named Buster, and possessed a high-powered spotlight that could light up a football field.
Lily grabbed her active phone from the desk. Her hands were cold, but she forced her fingers to remain steady as she opened her messaging app.
She opened the chat with Mr. Harrison. She didn't just type "help." In an emergency, vague messages led to confusion. She tapped the map icon and dropped her live, real-time GPS location pin directly onto his chat screen.
Beneath the pin, she typed a rapid, precise message:
“Mr. Harrison, emergency. A tall man in a black raincoat is breaking into my house through the back sliding glass door right now. I am home alone. I have barricaded myself inside my second-floor bedroom. 911 is called but they are blocked by a fallen tree on the boulevard. Please turn on your backyard spotlight and release Buster. He is wearing yellow-trimmed work gloves with a red wolf logo.”
She pressed the send icon.
The screen glowed, the loading bar completing in a fraction of a second. She stared at the screen, her heart drumming a frantic rhythm. One second. Three seconds. Five seconds.
The status at the bottom of the text message shifted from Delivered to Read.
A bubble appeared, three moving dots showing that Mr. Harrison was typing. A second later, his reply popped up:
May you like
“I see him on my side yard camera now, Lily. I am coming with Buster. Keep your head down and stay away from the windows. I’ve got you.”
Lily let out a long, shaky breath, her chest deflating. The secondary rescue line was active. But just as she allowed herself a moment of hope, a deafening sound erupted from the first floor of her house, shattering the silence of the storm.
