Chapter 31: Sweet Mother Hubbard!
Once again panting in the pitch black room, Ralph's heart raced as the glowing spots of the scorpion slowly fading away.
"What was that thing?!" he blurted out loud, not realizing that he knew full well the answer- or the negative responses he would get.
"Uh, what?!" Marco cried out close by, having gathered around Sergeant Calhoun, Ralph, and their surprised, mutated guest. "That was a mutated scorpion! What else could it be?!"
"Yeah, how did you not know that, Captain Ralph?" asked little Maddox, peeking out from her place behind Mac.
"Because he's never even seen one," Calhoun hissed before Ralph could formulate an answer, her voice so sharp everyone could hear her exasperation.
The group of dogs around her gasped and drew closer in, shock filling them.
"What?!" one pup called out. "A mutated scorpion chewed off his collar though, remember, Sergeant?"
"Yeah!" Macro agreed, confusion clear in his voice. "And he's the Captain of Sugar Russia's K-9 Unit!"
The now irate doberman snarled in return, decide it was time to out the fake captain; no one snuck onto her force -and remain on it for very long. Especially now that both human and animal lives were at state.
"No, one didn't chew off his collar...and, no, he's not the captain of Sugar Russia's unit!!" she hissed, causing Ralph to shake in his place. "If he was, he would know all about the unit vans, all about the good dog collars, all about the mutated scorpions...all about being a leader, for crying out loud!"
Everyone gasped at her words, all shocked she had made such an accusation...but more shock at just how true her words were.
"He's no Captain!" she growled to her troops around her, anger rising in her voice. "He's just a low-down fraud!"
Calhoun then swiftly approached Ralph, fiercely forcing him to back up into a corner.
It was time to get some much needed-answers.
"Care to explain who you really are, mutt?" She hissed savagely into Ralph's, causing the mastiff to further shake and to gulp fearfully.
His mind frantically tried to come up with another suitable answer, another clever lie- but his thinking was far too clouded with the fact that Calhoun -and possibly the others- were merely ready to kill him then and there.
In that moment, Ralph coward- knowing Calhoun was about to chew into him worse than the mutated scorpion almost did.
There is no way out of this one, he panicked, squeezing himself up against the corner the best he could. I either fess up and die- or deny it all and die...Either way, I'm a goner.
Sensing that the other police dogs were approaching in on him as well, the mastiff was about to stumble out the first thing that came to his mind, greatly regretting his decision to even attempt to get on this force when-
"Sergeant Calhoun!" Madge interrupted Ralph's thinking suddenly from the far left side of the waiting room, right before another door. "I caught a scent of more scorpions!"
Jumping up, the chocolate lab pushed the slightly ajar door open with her paws- and instantly a large glow of neon lights from another hallway unexpectedly shined into the once dark room.
Steadily blinked repeated at the sudden harsh light, Ralph squinted in pain- before looking straight into Calhoun's face, still positioned in front of him.
There he saw that it was painfully clear on her face that Calhoun knew. The jig was up and she knew Ralph was lying through his fur, that wasn't a real K-9 police dog, let alone a Captain...no how much he tried to continue to lie to her.
And by her scrunched up eyebrows, piercing eyes, and wicked, deadly snarl, it was also clear the doberman wasn't too happy about being lied to.
But before she could attack him or even think anything else, a loud, now familiar buzzing sound slowly filled the animals' ears.
Frantically turning towards the hallway, Calhoun then backed off Ralph and approached the door cautiously. She peered down the hallway- and, even from quite aways and in low light, Ralph could see her eyes widen.
"Look out!" The doberman suddenly screeched as she darted back into the middle of the waiting room...with a whole flock of glowing and hissing mutated scorpions flying right behind her.
The winged, wicked creatures above the dogs immediately got to work and caused mayhem- some of them immediately starting to swoop down, some landed on the ground to chase their victims. No matter where the scorpions were found, though, it was clear: they each were defensively attempting to kill every mutt in the room.
At the scorpions attacks, chaos and panic broke out almost simultaneously among almost all the dogs- despite most of them being trained to stay calm in such a situation. Marge and Maddox went racing and yelping behind a row of flipped tables, using them as a suitable shelter. Mac and Marco ended up ramming straight into each other before scrambling behind a fallen chair- both narrowly avoiding getting stung.
Calhoun was the only one who seemed to be unafraid of the creatures. She was confident being in the middle of it, darting around with expertise and dodging blow after blow.
One scorpion, with pinchers as large as Ralph's paws, suddenly aimed straight for the doberman's head- a terrifying sight to watch. In response, though, Calhoun swiftly ducked and missed the wallop, causing the attempting murderous creature to crash into the wall. When another took unexpected aim at her, the sergeant jumped out of the way, nearly missing being killed this time.
To make matters worse, Ralph realized only then, was that each scorpions appeared to be mutating slightly differently.
Most of the winged demons had huge, deadly stingers as its mutation- but it was sometimes coupled with large pinchers or sharp, big eyes to see and avoid oncoming dangers. Some seemed to have bigger wings and could fly more rapidly than others; some seemed to have longer legs, perfect for scurrying away quickly from low aimed kicks.
But no matter what mutation they possessed, each scorpion was determined to inject it's venomous into one of the dogs- and kill them all the same.
Beginning to panic even more, Ralph's eyes widened in horror when he saw just how many scorpions there were in the room. Hundreds of the creepy, out-of-control killers were swarming around- and still more were flocking in through the open door, ravenously seeking to kill.
This made dealing with the smallish one the mastiff had to earlier seem like nothing.
"Sweet Mother Hubbard!" he whimpered as he back up more into the waiting room desk, hoping not to be seen the cloud of scorpions buzzing about.
Unfortunately, Ralph's movement caught the attention of a few scorpions that had gone unnoticed as they landed not too far from him. Deciding he was their next victim, the creatures quickly scampered over to him, hissing as they raised their threatening stingers up. Completely frozen in fear, Ralph felt paralyzed for a moment.
When another one started to swoop in his direction, though, the terrified mastiff suddenly found his legs and quickly tried to jump out of the way or hide as the others had. But he quickly found that he wasn't quite so graceful and effective.
Ralph ended up clumsily tripping over his large paws yet again and crashing into the floor. The only upside was that the scorpion diving at him in the air had missed his skull and crashed into the desk, crumbling instantly.
The mastiff yelped as the other scorpions on the ground started crawling towards him, forcing him to roll out of the way. He ended up rolling onto the end of a pair of medical scissors, causing the sharp blades to point up.
Fortunately, instead of striking him, the scissors stabbed one of the creatures when it tried to dive a him, killing it instantly.
Scrambling up, Ralph began forcing his paws forward, tucking his long tail underneath him- one less thing for the scorpions to sting. Seeking safety from the other scorpions seeking to kill him, he tried to dive behind the desk, only to discover three more scorpions were already laying there. As the mastiff backed away from the desk and looked around, he saw that the numbers of the creatures were growing by the second.
"There's too many of them!" Calhoun exclaimed loudly as she herself got overwhelmed by the large amount of creatures swarming the room. Looking back towards the hallway, she knew the only chance her troops -and the idiotic impostor- had was to get out of the room immediately.
"Everyone retreat into the hallway, now!" the sergeant then commanded, darting towards the door and into the now unlit hallway.
Without any hesitation, every dog abandoned their hiding places and bolted for the door as well, eager to get out of the danger zone.
Stumbling towards the door as well, Ralph tripped into the hallway- to faintly see that the others had already started galloping down the long stretch, their vague forms almost being swallowed by the darkness. Gulping, the mastiff took off after the mutts leading the way, seeking escape from the hundreds of killing creatures...
Only to peer over his shoulder to see that they were now flying him, seeming excited about the chase.
Gulping, Ralph hysterically focused back on the hallway before him- and only had time to think one solo thought.
Forgot the collar! I'd be lucky to get out of here with just my neck!!
