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Chapter 5: Not Alone

The Air Patroller was in bad shape. The left wing was destroyed, and the right wing was completely missing, sliced off in a clean cut. A hole gaped in the left side of the hull, giving access to the inside of the plane. It showed a thoroughly burnt interior inside, still partly aflame. After 5 minutes of some careful maneuvering, Rocky successfully retrieved Marshall's water cannon and firefighter gear, enabling Marshall to put out the fires on the inside of the cabin. Next he located and pulled out Chase's pup pack, but unfortunately the light was inoperable.

"Aw man! Sorry, Tracker, the arm is busted. It's not gonna work," Rocky lamented. "Well, um, I guess I could get Zuma's pup pack? It has a light too."

"I have an idea," Marshall spoke up. "You can wear my fire helmet! I rarely use the flashlight on it anyway." He flipped the helmet off his head and caught it with his teeth, offering it to Tracker.

"¡Gracias!" Tracker said, taking the helmet and putting it on. It sagged on his head, covering his eyes. Tracker laughed and pushed the brim back up.

"Sorry about the size," Marshall chuckled. "My head's a bit bigger than yours."

"¿Qué dijiste? What did you say?" Tracker glanced around, "Wow, everything's quiet now."

Rocky and Marshall glanced at each other in apprehension. "That's not a good sign," Rocky observed.

"Can you hear me now?" Marshall questioned, talking a bit louder.

"¡Sí!" Tracker replied, "I can hear you, it's just hard to make out what you're saying."

"You might want to take off the helmet when you try listening to people," Rocky said.

Before anyone could say anything else, Skye ran up to them. She looked anxious. "Guys, have you seen Everest? She must have woken up while we were talking and now she's gone!"

"Have you followed her paw prints?" Rocky asked.

"Yes, they led into the woods; I think she's lost in there," Skye replied worriedly.

Chase and Rubble ran over, drawn by the commotion. "What's going on?" Rubble asked.

"Everest went into the woods," Marshall answered him.

Chase glanced behind him into the forest, "We need to go look for her."

"Why don't we just call her?" Rocky pointed out.

"Good idea," agreed Skye. She looked down at her pup tag, "Everest? Can you hear me? Where are you?" she asked into it. Everyone held their breath as they waited for a response.

"Oh thank goodness you guys are there!" Everest replied over the com, "I got lost in the woods trying to follow you guys."

"Follow us? Into the woods? But we're at the beach!" Skye responded, confused.

"But- But I thought I saw Zuma at the edge of the forest when I woke up… He ran off into the woods!"

Chase spoke into his pup tag, "We believe you. Stay put; we'll come find you." Chase looked back up at the others. "Zuma's still unconscious, right?"

Marshall looked over to where Zuma was, "Yeah, he's still there."

"Let's go look around," Rocky suggested.

They all walked over to where Everest had been and started looking around for clues. Marshall checked up on Zuma while the others investigated the sand. Besides Skye's and Marshall's paw prints from when they each had checked on Everest, there was the lone mark from where Everest had landed along with a trail of her paw prints leading into the forest. Before they walked around too much, Tracker flipped on his flashlight and attempted to retell what had happened.

"Everest was here, then she woke up. She rolled onto her paws here, looking at the woods. She jumped towards whatever she saw and stopped, then she started running. You can tell she was running from the sand spray pattern. Her path curves, so whatever she was running after started moving." Tracker looked up as he approached the edge of the woods, where the sand started turning into dirt. Marshall joined them. "Judging from the curve of her running pattern, whoever she saw would have started right… here! ¡Aquí está!" He pointed down at a spot on the ground and shone his light there. In the circle of light, four lone paw prints in the sand faced the beach. They were somewhat small and looked to belong to a pup about Tracker's size. In the front right paw print was a line stretching from the bottom left to the upper right, apparently some sort of scar.

Chase bent down and sniffed at the ground, "It's definitely none of us."

"Huh, that's strange, look at this," Tracker called out.

"What's up?" Skye asked.

"No, not up, down!" Tracker said, clearly misunderstanding her. The sound muffling of the helmet probably didn't help. "Look! There aren't any more paw prints!" Sure enough, there were only those four paw prints. There were no tracks to or from that point.

"Maybe he covered his tracks?" Marshall offered.

"No, Everest said he ran," Rocky reminded him.

Rubble looked around in fear, "Maybe it was a- g- g- ghost!"

"A GHOST?!" a voice shouted from behind them.

"AAAAAAHHH!" everyone yelled as they jumped into the air and turned around.

"AAAAAAHHH!" shouted a startled Zuma.

"Zuma, you're awake! You scared us!" Marshall sighed in relief.

"Heh, sorry dudes," Zuma said, "Is there really a g- ghost?"

"Ghosts don't exist. Besides, ghosts don't leave paw prints. Whoever it was did," Chase replied.

"Then how did it disappear like a ghost without leaving tracks?" Rubble asked.

"I don't know, but we'll find out," Chase said. "First we need to find Everest. We've waited too long already. I'll need someone to help me track her."

"¿Sí? ¿Llamaste? You said my name?" Tracker questioned.

Chase laughed, "No, but if you could help me find Everest that would be great."

"¡Sí! I can help! I'm all ears! ¡Soy todos oídos!" Tracker stood to attention, causing the helmet to slide down over his eyes again. Tracker pushed it back up grinning, generating more laughter from the rest of the pups.

"Great! The rest of you keep doing what you were doing. Zuma, you can help Rubble in my place," Chase declared before turning toward the forest, "Let's go find Everest." He sniffed the air and started walking in the direction Everest had gone. Everyone else went back to their work.

"Wait, so what are we doing?" Zuma's voice faded off as they walked away.

Tracker, left at the edge of the woods, looked into the inky blackness with his flashlight. "Oy-oy-oy…" he muttered as he followed Chase into the darkness.

This chapter was the first one that literally took on a life of its own. I didn't plan for it to go this direction at all. This chapter was very fun to write, and all stemmed from the simple fact that Ryder didn't have enough common sense to give a simple flashlight to the one pup that was scared of the dark. (I mean, seriously?) In the original version I simply had him taking Zuma's pup pack. Then I remembered about Marshall's flashlight, realized his helmet didn't have ear holes, and the rest of this chapter basically wrote itself. A lot of what I had planned to include in this chapter ended up turning into the beginning of chapter 6.