“Watch it!  Are we ever going to find help?” Dana wondered, helping Alice step around a crack in the ground.

“We have to,” Alice insisted.  She paused.  “Eventually, anyway.  Besides, we should make it to those houses in a couple of minutes, right?”

“I hope so,” Dana muttered.  “Cause I don’t feel so hot all of a sudden.”

Alice peered at her worriedly.  “What’s wrong?”

“My head and side really hurt, and it’s painful to breathe.  I also feel like I’m gonna puke,” Dana told her.  “And I’m just so tired.”

“We have to keep walking, then.  We can’t stop.  You could pass out,” Alice replied, trying to urge Dana to hurry up her steps.

Dana’s eyelids were fluttering.  “But I’m so tired, Al.”  She yawned widely.

“Stay with me, Dane,” Alice encouraged, feeling Dana’s body slackening a little.

“Do you two need help over there?” a voice called out.

Both women looked up to see an older man and woman standing several feet ahead by the side of the highway.

“Oh thank God,” Alice breathed, as they limped toward the pair.  They reached the couple.  “We need a hospital.”

The man nodded.  “Okay, but we’re gonna have to walk you down there.  My truck is down the highway a bit.  We couldn’t come through due to the condition of the road.”

“Thank you so much,” Dana said, looking slightly more alert.

The woman peered curiously at her.  “Are you Dana Fairbanks?”

Dana tried to hide her surprise.  These two didn’t look like big tennis fans.  “Yes, I am.  You watch tennis.”

“Not really,” the old man replied.

“How’d you know who she was?” Alice demanded, her curiosity getting the better of her.

The old man wordlessly pointed up to a spot behind them.  Dana and Alice clumsily turned around, and then both burst into hysterical laughter.  They clutched at each other, unable to stop laughing as they stood in the shadows of a huge Dana Fairbanks Subaru billboard.