Chapter 66: Unwelcomed Discoveries

A paralyzing shock running through him, Felix felt a tremor race through his body as his corgi mouth flopped opened involuntarily.

Surely Calhoun couldn't be talking about...Ralph, could she?!

But as he forced his small paws to tiptoe over to where Calhoun stood on the other sude of the road...and as he past over the dividing median...

A specific bull mastiff smell, as weak, masked and singed as it was, drifted up into Felix' nose as well- making his stomach churn in fear.

And as his feet came to rest before the horribly burnt blob on the other side of the two-way road... once an actual car, he realized in horror... a bone-chilling shake came over the corgi once again- making his lungs feel like they had collapsed.

There was no doubt in his mind that Ralph had once been in this car... the now charred car, practically destroyed by some sort of fiery inferno of flames...

"This- wha- it...Ralph!" Felix squeaked finally as he blinked in horror, trying his hardest to take the reality in as his ears flattened up against his head. "This-this was the ambulance he had been in! A-and it's destoryed!"

Unable to stand still, the corgi began pacing back and forth on the pavement before the car, panic seizing him. If he had a longer tail, it would've been tucked far between his shaking back legs.

"Ralph's...dead! He has to be dead! There's no way he would've gotten out of there alive!" he continued to cry, blue eyes the size of proverbial plates. "He has to be mere ashes by now! If even that! The ashes probably disintegrated or blew away or- or good gravy, what does it even matter?! Ralph's dead! He's deader than dead! He's-"

"Oh, shut your chew hole, Corgi," Calhoun hissed heartlessly, cutting off his hysteria as she rolled her eyes, circling the burned up car. She sniffled the front end- the blistered headlights and hood just barely staying attached the car. "It's not that big of a loss to the world. That Ralph mutt deserved to go push up some daisies."

"Well, maybe," Felix natively responded, still shakily slightly as Calhoun raised a surprised eyebrow his way, "but he certainly did not to just die! Especially not in such a cruel, horrible way!"

Ignoring his innocence, the doberman continued to sniff her way around the car, her nose picking up less and less distinct scents of passengers. She took in the smoky smells by the passager side door, the side of the van...then apporached the back end of the van...

"If he was anywhere in the ambulance, it would've been here," she mumbled out, sniffing the rear doors- looking like they had been forcibly blown open by some kind of explosive.

Shifting through the suddenly renewed smells filling her well-trained nose, the doberman finally took in the odors of the van's one-time passengers: a scorpion, two different adult women, and Ralph being the only ensemble of characters she could tell were ever present.

Cautiously leaning in closer to peer into the van's back, Calhoun gulped slightly, not knowing what she expected to find.

Inside the emergency vehicle was as burnt and destroyed as it was on the outside- except three times as bad. The shelves once stocked with medicine and various tools were now melted and mushed together in a black, hard clump. The stretcher had morphed into the storage compartments the ambulance had, bearly recognizable as being two completely separate items...

Making it painfully clear to Calhoun the explosion had streamed from inside the ambulance instead of outside of it...

And unfortunately that whoever was alive inside when the animal EMS exploded had no chance of living.

At such grim odds of anyone surviving the inferno once in the van, Calhoun continued to smell the air drifting from inside- suddenly shocked at what her nose told her. She was so surprised that bearly noticed that Felix had crept closer to her side.

"Is he...was he in there?" the nervous corgi whispered nervously, his heart pounding in fear of her answer.

"Yes and no," Calhoun surprised him and herself by saying, not at all what he expected her to say. "Ralph was once in here, for sure- but somehow got out alive before the ambulance exploded...Good thing, too, otherwise I would've kicked his ashes," she hissed angrily under her breath.

"Wait...Ralph got out? Alive?!" Felix chirped astonishedly at the news, his whole body wiggling as he animatedly hoped around- before his body welted slightly in confusion. "How'd he do that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," his companion answered, smelling the van's air again. "Smells like the two humans got out, too, though. Probably helped the mutt get out safe. The only non-survivor was the explosive scorpion... let's hope, at least."

His earlier elation popping, a dark chill ran up Felix' spine.

"Explosive scorpions," he repeated uneasily, gulping at how unsettling the thought was before trying to play off sarcastic. "They sound like a fun bunch..."

"More like anything but, pup," the doberman replied bluntly with a snort. "Their way less 'fun" than just the regular mutated scorpions."

At her eerie words, she abandoned sniffing the charred vehicle and headed back towards the grass median- the only place on the scene where Ralph's scent was the strongest.

"So...we know that Ralph's alive," Felix pieced together slowly, prancing over to her side once again, "but the question now becomes where did he head from here? We kinda need to know that to find him."

He cautiously sniffed the median himself before looking around them. "He's free now, so he probably headed back towards Arcadia, back towards home-"

"Think again," Calhoun droned as she started sniffing the ground around the grassy division- her eye somehow catching a few huge paw prints left by the dog they seeked. "That'd be the smart thing to do, but remember how dumb the dog is that we're dealing with here, Fluffy."

Shaking her head in annoyance, she rolled her eyes down at the corgi beside her.

"Junkpile's scent and tracks leads south, not north towards our home town," she pointedly told him, her voice making it clear that such a fact was beyond asinine.

His large eyes flattening, the corgi welted slightly as he winced in embarrssment.

"Ralph probably got turned around once he got out of the van and accidentally headed down south," he thought out loud, then sheepishly shook his stub tail when Calhoun glared down at him. "Ralph's never been one too good with directions."

"Unfortunately for us," she sighed loudly, eyeing back briefly at the charred ambulance- then stoically peering back towards the dark south before them. "I guess our little trek isn't over yet."

Her mind made up, the doberman tossed her head for Felix to follow her, her strong, lengthy limbs marching onward- more determined than ever.

"We'll just have to follow his tracks down south until we find him," she mentioned, eyes narrowed. "Hopefully Ralph didn't actually obtusely venture down to Sugar Russia...for your sake."

Eyeing back at the destroyed medical van briefly himself, the corgi then quickly shuffled after the doberman, not wanting to be left behind again.

"Why do you hope that for my sake?" he inquired innocently, trying to curiously peer up at her face- before fragilely tripping over a tiny pebble in the road and face-planting the ground hard. His small corgi butt stayed up in the air, held up by two crooked knees as he blinked up in pure embarrassment.

Forcing herself not to snort at his ill-timed mishap, Calhoun paused in her strides and actually bent down to help him up, gently scooping the corgi's chin off the ground.

As he found his front legs again and sat back up, the adorable corgi shook his large head mawkishly...and as she peered down at his large, blinking blue eyes...

Calhoun discovered she felt a strange, abnormal sense of protection over her little companion. A shield-like protection, one that blanketed Felix...

A protection that was at a level the harsh doberman had felt only one other time in her life...for only one other animal in her life...

Shaking her head hard, she tensed her strong legs up, ready for a possibly daunting road ahead.

"You'll see if we must go into Sugar Russia," was all she could manage to say as she began marching forward once again- swallowing any forlorn thinking before it forcibly wiggle its way unwelcomed into her mind.