Chapter 44: Burned

As Ralph backed up as far as he possibly could away from the woman with her mini crowbar of a medical tool, the animal emergency vehicle suddenly raced over a large dip in the road without slowing down a bit, making the entire thing and the passengers inside go airbore for a few split, terrifying seconds.

When the vehicle's tires made contact with the road again, the tool the vet assistant Peach was holding went flying out of her hand and crashed onto the floor of the ambulance, slidding around and under the drop legged stretcher. Before she could even think to bend down to pick it up, however, the vehicle lurched to the right down a fork in the road.

Ralph wondered just how this crazy driver even got her license to begin with as he skidded back to the right...crashing into side of the emergency vehicle once again.

The only fortunately thing that happened was that as the vehicle straighten up, the force and pressure of the crash was too much for the hypnotized scorpoin to remained attached to Ralph's face.

When the mastiff shook his head to clear it from the imaginary fluff toys now dancing in front of his eyes, the scorpion released its' death grip on Ralph's nose... and fell on its' back to the animal ambulance floor.

Ralph, happy he could see in front of him again, gave his head one last, good final shake before eyeing down at the creature now on the floor.

The scorpion's legs stayed in their curled- over, attached postion, motionless like curly sticks attached to a large, flat topped bal las it laid numbly on the floor for a moment.

At another bump in the road, though, the creature was sent slidding down towards the woman in the back part of the vehicle...causing her to screech and jump on top of the drop legged stretcher for safely.

"Hey!" she called as she peered at the creature now laying harmlessly on the floor. "The scorpion is off of the dog's face now, Daisy!"

"Great! You got it off!" the driver called as she -thankfully- slowed down a bit to look in the rear view mirror.

"Well, actually, it just fell off!" the woman in the back with Ralph answered, slowly getting off the stretcher and stepping back onto the floor.

A starlted gasp was heard and before Ralph -or the woman in the back 'helping' him- even knew what was happening, the vehicle abruptly screeched to a hault. It nearly flipped over as the stopping caused its back wheels to lift of the ground and the passengers to go flying foward. Even Peach didn't have time to steady herself up as she crashed into the back of the driver's seat.

The woman in the driver seat angrily put the vehicle in park and flipped around to look at her colleague, her brown hair nearly slapping herself in the face as she wearily eyed a crumbled, yet unhurt Ralph.

"What do you mean it just fell off?!" Daisy hissed at Peach, who was still struggling to stand up. "Don't you remember our training?! These scorpions don't just stop attacking things!...Unless...unless it's a..."

"Look!" Peach suddenly gasped as she finally got her footing and stood up, pointing to the scorpion still on the ground- only now it was no longer on it's back.

It had rolled over and was now standing upright, although clearly on still frozen, slightly curved legs. It's eyes were still glowing blue, in a repetitive motion...only they were now more starting to glow faster and faster than before. But that wasn't what startled it's audience of two women and a dog the most.

It's tail, a once large, harmless stump with no stinger, had now suddenly swelled to be triple the size of the scorpion itself...and was still continuing to grow in size.

Daisy's eyes got wide, and her face turned stone white...and before Ralph could even blink, he was being frantically pushed by both women into the driver's side front seat and towards the side door.

"Why didn't you tell me this was an exploding multated scorpion?!" Dausy hissed behind Ralph as she pushed his rear end with all her might.

Wait... EXPLODING?! Ralph yelped in his mind as he turned his eyes back at the creature on the floor. It's tail was even bigger as it's eyes glowed blue and flash with even shorter distances between the next flash.

"I couldn't see it's eyes!" Peach gruntted in defense as she continued to pry at Ralph's back, gloves still on her hands as she tried to get the frozen dog to move. "They were facing the dog! I had no clue the were glowing blue or flashing, okay?!"

"Never mind that!" the other woman snapped back. "We've got to get out of this car before it-"

A sudden hiss was heard from the scorpion, making everyone freeze and eye the creature with wide eyes. But it hadn't move, nor acted like it wanted to.

The hiss seeping from it started off low, but it was constant, never stopping or slowing down. Instead, it gradually got louder and louder, with the creature's eyes now blinking faster and faster.

Wasting no time, Daisy somehow managed to reach around Ralph to open the driver's door, the hissing now at an all time high...along with it's swolen tail.

With one last desperate push, Ralph was shoved hard out of the vehicle and onto the ground, which he was thankful was a soft, grassy median.

He stumbled up onto all four of his feet in time to see the two women had too jumped out of the ambulance to the safety of the ground when-

BOOM!

A ear-splitting sound was heard, so strong it caused the ground to shake violently underneath Ralph's paws. Not even a moment later, the ambulance the three had been in just seconds earlier suddenly exploded into a heeping ball of red, orange and yellow as fire completely consumed it.

The white frame of the vehicle was now barely seen as it burned, slowly shrinking the vehicle itself. The nauseating smell of burning medicine filled the air before another explodion errupted, destorying what little was left of the vehicle. The flames built high into the air, slowly followed by intense and dense smoke.

The two women who had barely escaped the car quickly backed away from the area around it, nearly getting scorched by the intense heat. People in their own cars a few stop lights down came running towards the buring ambulance, either to get a better look at it to rubberneck or to actually help the possible people affected.

"Thank goodness we got out of there in time!" Peach breath out in shaky relief as the people began to surround them. "That was a close one!"

"Yeah, we barely made it out in time before the scorpion exploded, eh, boy?" the other woman turned to look down briefly...to discover that the now free the bull mastiff was no where to be seen.