Ollie took me for a walk today.

Just Ollie and I.

That’s how it’s been for years. Ever since I retired from my job at the bank.

I got him as a pup just before my retirement party. He keeps me company. I never bothered with getting married.

Had a few flings over the years, but in the end nothing ever stuck.

This morning Ollie had some big plans apparently. When I woke up, he’d already made his way into the yard to do his morning sniff around. I could just see him trotting along the little fence we put up for him.

He came in just before I got his breakfast ready. Normally he waited for me to shake the bag or for the sound of the sink turning on as I got his “gravy” ready, but today it’s almost like he knew.

I wasn’t complaining. The company was always welcome.

I gave my best boy a pat on the head and settled into my chair after putting his bowl on the ground by my feet.

A bit rougher and more wiry than the soft fur I remember, but then again, he’s getting old and I can’t say my hair’s exactly any softer nowadays.

It was part of our routine, a good breakfast and a chance to sit down and take it all in.

A good dog, hot coffee, some warm eggs and a nice view. Things I’d worked for years to get.

Well, it used to be a nice view.

There in the corner of the window, breaking up the view of that luscious green.

That dirty yellow-brown of one of my ex-neighbor’s trailers, like a smear on clean glass that you can’t ignore.

The Johnsons were a nice family. Their kid was always a little off, but when he moved out Mary and Joe kept on being good neighbors. Kept to themselves, kept a tidy little garden that brought a little color to the place.

Then when Joe passed, Mary’s health wouldn’t let her stay, so when she moved into the home, their son moved back in..

Jackie ruined that place. What used to be a nice little trailer and yard quickly got overgrown with junk and weeds. Beer cans, broken glass, the usual trailer-park trash behavior.

Then he started moving in his “friends”.

One nice little trailer with hand-print paint from the boy’s childhood turned into a field of half-baked car

projects and odd visitors late at night.

It didn’t surprise me or the local cops when one of the trailers exploded. The fire from the meth lab burned hot and violent, consuming most of the other mobile homes that’d been crammed into the lot.

Jackie claimed to not know anything. I didn’t bother to look into the story much past that. All I know is it’s been abandoned ever since the cops cleared out the equipment and remains.

The morning glories that Mary used to keep so well pruned have now formed dead vines that coat the burned-out cars. Her hostas which had been beautiful at one point were now just untidy clumps of green and brown.

Right there in my window was just another reminder of why I hated neighbors. Why I just preferred living alone.

Just me and Ollie.

Speaking of, the spoiled brat was nudging my leg and tapping his paws in place. This was his own way of saying “hurry up Dad! I gotta go!”.

Draining the last of my coffee, I gave the guy a quick pat on the back. “Alright buddy, let’s go.” This set him off to spinning in excited circles as I pulled myself up, using the table as a brace.

I clipped the old leather leash to the blue collar around his neck. My rule of thumb was to always keep it one finger loose. I don’t want to choke the little guy, but he did have a tendency to pull when some new scent caught his nose, and it seemed a little loose that morning.

Normally he drifted towards the little patch of forest behind us. There was a feral cat colony or something out there that I think a little old lady down the road was feeding. Not a big deal and it gave Ollie something to check out, I guess.

Today, though, he was pulling me the other way.

Down the gravel driveway. Maybe a stray had marked the mailbox or there was some roadkill up the road. I don’t know what about today made Ollie wanna walk out there, but he was digging his little paws in. Dragging me away.

Away from the house, towards the long stretch of nothing road that led from the loose collection of houses that made up my “neighborhood” and into the larger parts of town.

I wasn’t really paying attention.

I guess that’s how the Doberman snuck up on me.

There was a moment where I noticed him. Where the ears started to flatten and a low growl rumbled up from its throat.

I know not all of them are violent, but the way this thing was growling.. The way it limped towards me with its ears drawn back and teeth bared.

It looked hurt. My first instinct wasn’t to run. I knew better. I kept Ollie behind me and tried to calm the thing, hoping if I just kept my back straight and didn’t flinch that it’d back off enough for us to get back inside.

This wasn’t the first angry stray I’d dealt with in my life.

But it was the first I’d dealt with while walking Ollie.

“Easy boy..”

Then a bark from behind followed by a yank of the leash.

Ollie had pulled away from me and was now barking and lunging towards what looked like a German shepherd mix with half an ear torn away and bald patches on its rear that had managed to circle around behind me.

It all happened so fast. I was so busy trying to keep an eye on the other dogs that I didn’t realize Ollie had slipped the leash.

Snapping, biting, and a white furry body along with a brown one tussling in the street.

I cried out, desperate to call him back, when my call turned into a shout of pain as something clamped down on my leg. I turned, kicked and scrambled back, landing on something hard with a loud thunk and the feeling of something giving beneath my weight..

My car. I’d parked it at the end of the drive a few days ago after hearing about a storm moving in. The driveway always

turned to mush during the rain and I didn’t want to get stuck in case things got bad.

I won’t say I was relieved. I wasn’t. The only thing running through my mind was getting away.

Getting Ollie.

The mutt came free with a chunk of my house pants and more than a little skin, foaming mouth shaking and thrashing the cloth, not yet realizing it had lost me as I scrambled to the top of the beige old thing I called a van.

I’d never been so thankful for how rounded the corners were on this thing. Scrambling up it was hard for me with hands and feet.

The dogs couldn’t find traction with their nails and paws.

A sharp yelp of pain followed by more snarls forced me to look away from the Doberman and two other mutts that’d joined in the chaos and were now jumping and snapping as my body curled into a ball on the top of the hail-damaged roof.

I saw a flash of white go behind the hostas, followed by that brown mutt crashing through the green.

The sounds I heard after..

I knew he wouldn’t make it.

My leg throbbed painfully as I brought it to my chest. The torn edge of thin blue cloth turned a darker shade as the wound on my leg pulsed.

I’m not ashamed. I cried. I curled together and sobbed like when my mother died.

Maybe some of you will judge me, but he was my baby boy.

I was only pulled out of it when one of the bastards managed a lucky nip at my back that had apparently been just a little too close to the edge.

I pulled myself away from one edge only to see a dog jumping higher to try to reach me on the other.

Something cracked beneath me.

Sunroofs aren’t really made to support a full-grown man.

It wasn’t exactly clean. The glass panel shattered into dozens of small tinted glass pebbles.

I scrambled to grab the edges of the roof as my left leg painfully fell down, causing my hip to jerk.

When I felt the warm breath and spittle from one of the leaping dogs, the decision was made for me.

I adjusted, pulled myself up just enough to get my other leg in and slid awkwardly into the now glass-covered driver’s seat.

The sound of claws digging at glass windows, the repetitive assault to my ears that was the bark of several mutts that now circled my car, looking for entry.

It wasn’t exactly comforting, but knowing there was at least -something- between us at least gave me a chance to breathe.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me was still trying to figure out a way to Ollie.

But the saner parts of me, the ones that had kept me alive working the oilfields, knew that wasn’t going to happen. Knew I had to call for help and maybe find a way back home.

Back to the shotgun I kept leaned up in the corner of my doorway.

My initial thoughts were animal control, maybe the police department. In the end it didn’t really matter.

Hard to make a call on a shattered phone. I guess somewhere between me falling onto the car and my scramble onto the roof, I’d managed to land on my phone. I tried, I really did, but the thing wouldn’t even let me get past the lock screen.

I’d only learned later that I could’ve used the voice assistant to make the call for me. Sue me, I’m old.

A paw slamming into the window next to me, followed by a series of short deafening barks, made me jerk away from the driver’s side window. I’d unconsciously started to lean into the door.

My face fell into my hands, elbows resting on the dash as the aches I’d previously been ignoring started to come back into focus. The bite wound throbbed, my hip and back twitched painfully with every shift.

My eye went to the blanket I kept in the passenger seat for Ollie. It didn’t feel right, getting it dirty.. But my leg was still bleeding and he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

The barking was trailing off. The hope that maybe they’d lose interest died when two of the pack took to laying down in the middle of my driveway, panting and looking all the world like normal dogs.

Nothing like the picture of the snarling monsters that had forced me in here.

Somewhere to my right something slid across one of the fenders. In the passenger side wing mirror I could see a gray dog with a more pit-bull-like build digging and sniffing at one of my back tires before sitting down.

They were settling in.

No phone, no car keys, no gun.

Stuck.

I’d probably have panicked if I wasn’t so drained from the experience. The makeshift bandage seemed to be helping, so bleeding out wasn’t really something that worried me.

What worried me was how long they could wait.

Have you ever thought about what a dog does when they run a squirrel up a tree? You hear about it, but how many of you have actually seen it?

The squirrel probably just hops to a different tree, up and away..

But what if the squirrel didn’t? What if the thing the dog wanted was just there? Just out of reach?

At one point I tried to poke my head out the sunroof to get a peek down the road, partly out of desperation to just do something, partly out of hope I’d see a car I could flag down.

Apparently that was enough noise to set the mutts off again. The one by my wheel well let off a bark and that got the attention of the others, brought them back to circling my car and making half-hearted leaps towards me.

Any time I made a major move in the car, it’d seem to set them off.

Looking down to my cup holder, I could just barely make out the time from the ruined screen of my phone.

One hour.

Just as the thought of reclining back and trying to sleep crossed my mind, though I doubt I could’ve managed it, a loud “Honk” forced both me and the dogs to look towards the road.

A truck, dented and green, was slowly creeping down the road. Maybe one or two of the pack had been loitering in the road? Maybe they were guard dogs that this guy was rounding up. Never did find out.

The thing that mattered was it drew them away from me.

I gave it a solid minute before working up the courage to try and make a break for the house.

The first step out of the car felt unreal, like I’d open the door and they’d suddenly turn around or come out from behind the bush.

But the most I saw was the hint of something furry running down the road in the direction the truck went.

The hobble I managed wasn’t fast, but it got me down the driveway, to the door and into the little hall that served as the entryway to my house.

No phone meant no ambulance. I needed to get to a hospital to get my leg looked at.. But my keys weren’t hanging in their usual spot on the keyring by the door.

Cursing myself for leaving them on the nightstand, I started the awkward hobble to my bedroom, down the hall, past the living area..

In through an open door where something sucked the breath out of my lungs.

Ollie was on the bed.

Splayed out on my pillow like he owned the place, tail giving one slow wag when he saw me.

He crawled his way over to me, dragging his belly across the bed and messing up the sheets..

My hand was shaking as I reached out, still not believing what I was seeing..

My thumb brushed the red leather at his neck, the same one he always wore. His fur felt soft in my hand and I almost lost it when the wag picked up speed.

I sat on the bed, dragging the old dog into my lap, and just rocked back and forth.

My baby boy was alive.

But..

Ollie was here.

Ollie had been here.

So who had I taken outside?