Dick by Law (18 page)

And the closest thing to a
friendly face was
Horne Shaw
's
.
So that was how much trouble
he
was in.

*****

Chapter
3
6

130 Million Years Ago

China

Grip was surrounded by enemies.
He stood
in the moonlight
between the bodies of
two
sleeping killer dinosaurs, choking on the stink of them. The moment was almost upon him...the moment for action.

The moment f
or
revenge.

H
e'd
spent a long time
tracking the dinos
through the forest
to this secluded thicket.
He'd
also
spent a long time creeping from the weeds where he'd been watching.

Inching along the ground from the weeds, he'd been
taking tiny, careful steps so as not to wake the killers. Stealth and surprise would be crucial to his success; after all, each of the killer
dinos
was five times his size and
at least
as vicious.

But Grip had motivation beyond the usual. The memory of his murdered mate and pups loomed large in his mind.
What he did next, he would do
for them.

Standing between the killers, Grip stared at them in the silver moonlight. Heart pounding, he picked his first target, the
white-spotted
dino
on the left, and crouched be
side
it.

He shifted his weight from side to side, considering his plan. Once he leaped,
he would have to move fast to get the job done
without getting killed
. Assuming he put down the first target, he would have only seconds to put down the second...during which he would be a target himself.

Grip gathered his strength and got ready to move. He drew back on his haunches, about to spring...and just then, something screeched loudly in the nearby
forest
.

Grip froze as both his targets stirred. He nearly backed away
, but neither killer moved another muscle or opened his eyes. There was more nearby screeching, but it didn't rouse them at all.

Grip waited another few moments to be sure the killers were completely at ease. Then, he drew back again and tensed
for the final plunge.

Revenge.

Suddenly, Grip launched himself from the ground, springing up onto the back of the white-spotted killer.
Immediately, the dinosaur's eyes shot wide open.

The killer's head laid in the meat of his back, nose facing his tail
,
neck strung along his spine. Before he had a chance to lift his neck out of range, Grip bolted over and pounced on it
, digging in his claws.
Then, he plunged his teeth into the flesh and ripped it open.

Blood spurted from the torn artery in the dinosaur's throat. Grip had bitten exactly the right spot.
S
ome things
were no different in bigger dinosaurs than in
the smaller ones he was used to fighting.

Grip got in another good bite before the wounded dinosaur started to wail.
W
hipp
ing
around,
Grip
saw
that
the other killer
was awake,
raising his neck and head, looking right at him.

If Grip had any hope of taking down the second dinosaur, he had to react instantly. It was his only
chance
for
success and
survival; drop the killer before the killer dropped him.

The spotted dinosaur was thrashing in his death throes just as Grip leaped off his back
, springing through the air toward the second dinosaur
.
Th
at dino
, with
its
jagged green and gold stripes
flashing in the moonlight
, tried to swat him
away
...but Grip caught himself the best way he knew how, sinking his teeth into the
green and gold
dinosaur's shoulder.

The
striped
dinosaur hacked at Grip with his claws, but only succeeded in slicing open his own chest. Screaming in pain, the dinosaur
stumbled and bucked, still clawing at the dog-thing on his shoulder.

But
holding on to things was
Grip's specialty.
The dinosaur cut him several
times, but Grip wouldn't let up the pressure even the tiniest bit.

And when he found another opening, he made the most of it. When the striped dinosaur tripped over the dying spotted one and fell over backward on top of him, Grip let go of the shoulder and went for the throat.

By the time the striped dinosaur got back on his feet, Grip was already tearing open his throat.
Holding on to the scaly hide with his claws, Grip ripped through the stringy meat with snarling savagery, digging for an artery.

Just before the striped dinosaur finally latched onto him, Grip found
the artery and tore into it
. The killer wrenched him free and hurled him away like a rock, sending him crashing into the brush.
..but
it was too late.
Grip had chewed through the artery.

Blood sprayed everywhere.
The striped dinosaur staggered around, screeching and braying, clutching its throat. By the time Grip was back on his feet, the killer had dropped to his knees.

The striped dinosaur's g
littering golden eyes stared at Grip,
flashing in the moonlight. The hostility quickly drained out of them, leaving only confusion.

And resignation.

The dinosaur whimpered and fell on
his
side at Grip's feet.
Blood poured out of the killer's throat, soaking the earth in a black, oozing pool like a
crawling
shadow.

T
hen, with a last moan and a shudder, the killer was dead. Both
killer dinosaurs
were.

Two of t
he monsters who
'
d slaughtered Grip's family were gone.
In spite of their greater size, he
'
d murdered them for what they
'
d done.

That just left four more for him to kill.

Grip stood there a while, smelling the
dissipating scent on the cool night air. He sensed other creatures smelling it, too, scrabbling in the trees and brush and dirt, closing in on the meal to be had there.

Grip thought about digging in before the scavengers took over. It had been a long time since he'd last eaten, and his stomach growled with hunger.

But he couldn't do it. The killers still smelled too much like his family.
Grip couldn't even bring himself to have just a nibble.

He wasn't sure where he would find his next meal, but it wouldn't be
t
here.
All that meat was laid out before him, still fresh, still pulsing with blood...and all of it would go to the scavengers.
Eating would have to wait.

Anyway, he had more pressing matters on his mind.
Other scents flickered on the breeze, drawing his attention away from the two dead killers.

Grip turned awa
y from the bodies and pulled
in
deep breaths of the cool
night
air, filtering out everything extraneous and focusing on the scents he wanted most. The signals were dim, yet st
ill he was able to track them.

They were the scents of the
other four killers.

Leaving the two bodies behind, Grip headed
deeper
into the
forest
, sniffing out the trail of the four
surviving
killer dinosaurs
...t
he other four who'd helped slaughter his mate and pups.

The other four he was going to kill, just as he'd killed the two who lay rotting on the
forest
floor
behind him.

 

*****

Chapter 3
7

130 Million Years Later

Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda

Simon
and Horne
sat on the floor of the filthy garage
where they
had been taken
by the white van
,
hands tied behind their backs
against the wall, and watched Mobai strangle a man with his bare hands.

Mobai
was still dressed in his orange, red, and black dashiki and leopard-skin hat and cape from the Running of the Dicks. The outfit made him look like even more of a maniac as he toyed with his prey like
a cat with a mouse
.
"Poor little traitor.
"
He
smiled lovingly at the
dark-skinned
man in his grasp
. "
Have you had a change of heart about betraying the revolution?"

The choking man
was stripped down to his white boxer shorts and bathed in sweat. He
nodded as best he could with Mobai's paws wrapped around his throat.

"Are you sorry for what you did?" said Mobai.
"Do you promise not to do it
ever again?"

The
choking
man managed another nod. "I promise!" His voice was a strained, barely audible squeak.

"Sparing your life would be so easy." Mobai leaned down and kissed the man's sweat-soaked forehead. "But I
'm
such
a
dick
."
As soon as he said it,
Mobai aimed a wicked grin across the garage at Simon
and Horne
.

Just then, Poppa Free
ambled
in the door from outside. "Emperor! We gotta get rollin'!"

Mobai sighed.
He licked his lips and locked eyes with the choking man. "Make me a pr
e
mise, traitor boy. When you see the Devil, tell him Mobai says he's a fuckin'
pussy
."

L
aughing
, Mobai suddenly tightened his grip, crushing the man's windpipe. The man's final breath gurgled out of his throat, and Mobai drank it in like a rose's perfume.

Then, he tossed the man aside like a used towel and pointed a thick finger at Simon. "
You
next."

Simon shrank back
against
the wall
, shivering with fear.
Horne
, on the other hand, gave no reaction. He just sat there beside Simon,
sweating in the midday heat in the cinder-block building,
head tipped
bac
k
against the
oil-stained
wall.
He was starting to smell bad in his black track suit with the words "TOP DICK" in big white letters on the chest.

Mobai grinned and blew a
kiss in their direction. "Thanks to you, I'll
seize
new titles!
Killing you will make me World's Biggest Dick and
Lord Dick with cherries on top
!"

"Is that all you want?" said
Horne
.
"Then
consider it
done
. Now let's skip the
killing
part."

"But that's the
lovingest
part." Mobai kicked the dead body
in the grease and dust
on the floor. "
A meeting of
soul mates
. Next best thing to a
wedding
."

"You need me alive," said
Horne
. "I'm the only one who can
give you the
ultimate
title. No one else can crown you
Biggest Dick of All Tim
e and Space
."

"I'm making a mental note," said Mobai. "'
Force
Horne Shaw
to crown me Biggest Dick of All Time and Space before I fucking kill his life.
'
"

Horne
rolled his eyes and shook his head. "
Fuck
."
He said it softly, with a sigh.

"Goodbye, precious
chil
dren
s
!" Mobai laughed as he stomped out of
the garage. "Daddy loves you to death!"

With that, Simon and
Horne
were left alone in the garage.

"Oh my God," said Simon. "We
're dead."

Horne
snorted
. "Thanks a lot, by the way."

Simon frowned. "It's not
my
fault."

"Then it must've been some
other
fuckhead who sabotaged my
dick race
," said
Horne
. "I must've been chasing someone
else
when these freaks
abducted
me."

"Who came up with the Dicklympics in the
first
place?" said Simon. "Who came
up
with the whole 'World's Biggest Dick' idea?"

"And
who
had
me
legally declared a
dick
?"
Horne
's face turned ruddier than ever as he flushed with rage. "
That's
the smartass whose fucking
fault
this all is!
None
of this would've happened without
his
bullshit!
"

"Typical
dick
," said Simon. "Always blaming your fuckups on somebody else!"

"You
wish
you were a dick like me." With that,
Horne
pulled his legs in
, braced his feet on the floor,
and pushed himself up, using the wall for leverage.
"You
wish
you had some fuckin' balls!"

"What now?" Si
mon said it sarcastically. "Are you going to
kick box
the armed gunmen?"

"Hide your eyes, pussy," said
Horne
. "This could get ugly."

Just then, one of Poppa Free's soldiers
, a black man with a short afro haircut,
walked back in from outside.
He was laughing over his shoulder at something someone had said.

Before the soldier could register that
Horne
was no longer slumped against the wall,
Horne
was
barreling
across the garage t
oward him.

Horne
charged the soldier like a bull, head down, back arched. He plowed a beefy shoulder smack into the soldier's solar plexus, smashing him up against a
tool rack on the
wall. When the soldier hit,
dozens of wrenches flew off their hooks and crashed straight down on his head.

Horne
danced away from the first soldier and spun to face
another who'd
bolted through the door. The second soldier swung up his rifle, taking aim...and
Horne
kicked it right out of the man's hands, sending it flying.

With a
guttural
cry of rage,
Horne
lashed out with a kick to the second soldier's groin.
As the soldier howled in pain,
Horne
followed up with a head-butt to his throat, which shut him up fast.
Swinging
around
, Horne drove
a shoulder hard into the soldier's chest, then
cried out again as he swung the other shoulder around and pushed him
over with it.

Just like that, the guards were sprawled on the floor, out cold.

Simon was stunned.
He looked from one soldier to the other, then gaped at
Horne
. Had he really just done
a
ll
that
with both hands tied behind his back?

Horne
stomped over from the far side of the garage, leaned
down
, and roared like a bear in Simon's face.
"
How do you like me now, pussy
?"

Simon turned his head to escape
Horne
's bad breath. It smelled like
rotten meat.

"
Boo yeah
!"
Horne
stood straight, looked around for a moment, then headed for a nearby work bench.
"Now
that's
what a
dick
can do! That's fuckin'
dick power
!
"

Simon watched as
Horne
grabbed a rusty box cutter from the work bench.
Horne
held it behind his back, struggling to aim the blade at the ropes around his wrists...and failing.

Horne
kept trying, again and again, but he couldn't angle the blade and cut the ropes. The more he tried, the more jerky his movements became.

Finally, Simon spoke up. "You can reach mine."
Bracing his b
ack against the wall, he pushed himself to his feet.
"Cut mine first, and I'll cut yours."

"Yeah, right," said
Horne
. "I'll cut
yours
, and you'll make a
run
for it."

"I promise I won't." Simon turned his back on
Horne
and held up his bound wrists. "I swear to God. We're in this together."

After a moment, Simon heard
Horne
's footsteps approaching. "I wish I had a video camera
right now
."
Horne
bumped up against Simon so they were standing back to back and started cutting the ropes around Simon's wrists. "
You
begging
me
to
rescue
you!
That's ratings
gold
.
"

"Just hurry," said Simon. "We have to get out of here before the guards wake up."

"Unless they
don't
wake up," said
Horne
. "That would sure make our lives easier."

"Or it might get us in
bigger
trouble." Simon could feel the ropes starting to pull apart. "Who
knows
who these guys are?"

"You think we could
get
in bigger trouble?"
Horne
laughed.
"I'll take my chances improving the odds!"

"We don't have
time
for that." The ropes gave way, and Simon shook them off. Turning, he took
the box cutter
and worked
on
the ropes around
Horne
's
wrists
as promised
.
"General Mobai and Poppa Free could be back at any moment."

Just then, they
both turned at the sound of a car pulling up outside.
Simon stopped cutting, ran to the garage door, and looked out the window
at eye level
.

It was the same white van that had brought them
t
here. Poppa Free was at the wheel, and Mobai was beside him.

"It's them!" Simon pointed
across the garage
at a back door that was
coated in
grime and oil. "That way! Let's go!"

Scowling,
Horne
clenched his teeth and bore down on the ropes, wrenching
at the weakened fibers. With a strain
ing
groan and a burst of strength, he
tore apart his bonds and cast them to the floor.

Then, he followed Simon out the back door into the deepening twilight.

 

*****