Dick by Law (12 page)

"I
have made it my mission to
help
other
dicks
get the fame and fortune they deserve," said Horne. "I have sworn
to scour the Earth for the biggest dicks I can find
.
They will live together in
Dick Mansion
, and
I will pit them against each other in contests of
dickish
behavior. In the end,
one
will stand
alone
as the
ultimate
dick
. O
nly the strong wi
ll survive!"

"I wish someone would push him
off
that
rock
," said Josie.

Suddenly, the camera swooped around and zoomed in fast
on
Horne
's
stony
face. "
Who
will be the
ultimate dick
?
Let the battle
for
Dick Life
begin!"

As the music swelled and the show's title burst onto the screen, Ishi got up fro
m the sofa. "I think I get the picture
."

Simon held on to her arm. "Don't go, honey. We'll just watch a little more."

"Why bother?" said Ishi. "
Your
show won't be anything like this piece of crap, will it?"

"I just want to get an idea of what they're doing," said Simon.

"Then go watch the toilet flush,
"
said Ishi
.

"Look!" Chip laughed and pointed at the TV screen. "It's stately
Dick
Manor
!"

"The first event's a
road rage
competition," said Josie.

"Like I said." Ishi tugged her arm free
,
then bent down to whisper in Simon's ear.
The smell of her lilac perfume washed over him.
"
It's better if you just
ignore
them, you know."

Simon frowned. "Ignore who?"

"The dicks," said Ishi. "
You'
re better off not worrying about
every little thing they come up with."

"Like the ca
t litter attack at Belle Mere?" said Simon.
"A little
more
worrying could've headed off
that
fiasco
."

"Get over it, Simon," said Ishi.

"I
am
over it."

"Let it go," said Ishi. "
Then
call
me." She kissed him on the lips
before she left.

And Simon stayed behind with the
In¢entive$
team, watching as
a gang of
self-proclaimed dicks cursed, screamed, and
fought
in a mock road rage confrontation staged between mini-cars straight out of a Shriners' parade.

And
leering
Horne Shaw
kept score.

 

*****

Chapter 2
7

130 Million Years Ago

China

Grip was charging through the forest on the trail of the six killer dinos when he came to the scene of the bloodbath.

He stopped at the edge of
a
thicket of giant ferns and sniffed the hot afternoon air. A putrid scent hung over the thicket,
a scent
he knew well.

The scent of murder.

The trail, of course, le
d right through the middle of the thicket
. Mottled brown and white fur bristling along his back, Grip
slowly
crept forward
.

Dried fern frond
s crackled under him, and pine needles fallen from above jabbed his paws.
Sniffing the dirt, he breathed in an acrid smell. Licking his muzzle, he tasted blood and urine.

Then, as he proceeded onward, he came across
pieces of the victims. Bits of flesh and fur were stuck to the ferns and
brush in his path
.
Bloody gristle and chips of bone were scattered among pine cones and rocks on the dusty ground.

Grip growled as he sniffed the
r
emains
and recognition dawned
. The an
ger and hatred in his heart flash
ed like lightning as he realized what he'd stumbled upon.

The trail
of the six killer dinosaurs had led him to the remains of more of
his own kind
,
more dog
like
things with fur coats and powerful jaws.
Sorting out the scents, Grip counted two adults and three...four...five pups. All
ripped apart
and devoured, another family wiped out.

Just like his.

It was as if he'd walked in a circle and gone back where he'd started. The fresh murder scene was like a replay of his own family's slaughter--same smells, same traces, same tracks. Same blood-spattered fern
s
, same gobbets of
fur-flecked meat. Same
flies and beetles and ants swarming over the lifeless traces
.

Grip paused at the half-chewed body of a pup and kicked it gingerly with his paw. The brown-and-white-striped patches of fur on the pup's back reminded him of his own dead pups.

And that made his craving even stronger. His hunger for revenge.

It was his only reason for living, now. It was all he had to keep him going. He didn't think about how he could possibly do it...how one small doglike creature could fight and kill six vicious dinosaurs running in a pack.

He just focused on finding
them.
The moment of confrontation would come like all moments in his
world
,
shaped by instinct and luck, flickering with possibilities
for life and death
like
dragonflies
dancing in midair.

Suddenly, Grip was startled by a rustling sound among the ferns.
Stopping
, he
crouched and
peeled back his upper lip in a snarl, prepared for battle. Had he misread the
scents? Had one of the killer dinosaurs stayed behind or doubled back?

The ferns rustled again as whatever they concealed pushed toward him. Grip crouched and growled, red-tipped ears swiveled forward, teeth bared.

But then the ferns parted, and he saw how wrong he'd been.
He'd misread the scents, but he hadn't missed a hidden dinosaur.

Instead,
Grip had
missed a live doglike thing
.

A black-and-brown fur-covered face looked out at him with one black eye like a droplet of tar--the other eye lost amid mangled flesh. It was a creature like himself, a male, nearly the same age and size.

A mirror image
,
dying from his wounds.

The male h
obbl
ed
forward
on torn and twisted limbs, barely breathing, crawling with bugs. Great hanks of meat
were
missing from his haunches
;
blood
was
oozing from the gaping holes in his head and sides.

The male's
pink tongue drooped from his mouth, twitching as he gasped for breath.
Half his nose was gone from his snout, and the half that was left flared at Grip's scent.

Normally, if the two had come across each other, they would have struck defensive positions, growling and posturing. This time, though, they were beyond that--one half-dead, the other with no wish to challenge him.
They simply stared at each other
, making no sound, among
the
limp and bloody
ferns of the killing field.

Grip cocked his head to one side, aware he was looking at the
killer
dinos'
handiwork...realizing on some level that what he saw could be his own future. If he stayed on the trail of the dinosaurs, they could very well do to him exactly what they'd done to the mirror image before him.

Another creature might have
given up the hunt at that point, faced with proof of the overwhelming odds against him. But it wasn't enough to stop Grip.
He wasn't an ordinary dog-thing.
If anything, seeing a brother creature suffering like that only made Grip want revenge even more.

Just then, the dying male whimpered and flopped to the ground. Tufts of his mate and pups' fur drifted around him on the breeze as he lay there and panted helplessly.

Sensing that the male was fading, Grip moved toward him.
He stopped short, then stretched forward, easing his muzzle closer. Sniffing death
and life,
he
breath
ed
in the ruined dog's story--where he'd been, what he'd eaten,
what battles he'd fought. All that he was and had ever been,
encoded
in puffs of vapor, rising up to merge with the clouds of the sky.
All of it almost gone forever now.

Then, with a sudden, surprising burst of energy, the
doglike
creature let loose a loud bark.
He barked again as Grip stumbled backward, and then again...and in the timbre and pitch of it, Grip heard a message.
In the language of dog-things, he understood loud and clear.

Run away! Run away!

The male didn't quite get out the next bark
.
It choked off in a strangled
, gurgling cry, an extended, wailing whine of pain and sorrow and things undone. Of shutting down.

In the way of his kind, Grip threw back his head, shut his eyes, and howled along with the male's death cry. The
forest
around them fell silent and seemed to fall
away, leaving the two of them crying alone in a universe of cold, white sadness. The realization of life's emptiness
was
like the t
ip of a claw,
stark and
unforgivingly sharp.

Grip went on like that for a long time, howling for the male and his family...howling for his own family, too. He lost himself for a while in the song of it, so much so that he did not at first realize
that he was singing alone.

When, finally, Grip was done pouring out his heart, and he heard and smelled that the male was dead, he stood for a moment. The male's warning rang in his head.

Run away!

He looked back in the direction from which he'd come, toward his own ravaged home. He looked at the dead male on the ground, the image of what
might lay in store for him.

And then, he gathered in a lungful of the killers' scents
and locked on to
their trail again.
Leaping
over the male's body
, he
stormed off
into the chattering, sweltering forest
after the creatures who'd killed him.

 

*****