Blood Lite

Mick the Mick considered hitting him again, but his hand was getting sore.

"Think bigger than MacGyver, Willie. We're going to be rich. Rich and famous and powerful. Once I figure out how this book works, we'll be able to go to any point in history."

"You mean like we go back to summer camp in 1975? Then we could steal the candy from those counselors so they couldn't lure us into the woods and touch us in the bad place."

"Even better, Willie. We can bet on sports and always win. Like that movie."

"Which one?"

"The one where he went to the past and bet on sports so he could always win."

"The Godfather?"

"No, Willie. The Godfather was the one with the fat guy who slept with horse heads."

"Oh yeah. Hey, Mick, don't you think those big pink flowers look like—"

"Shut your stupid hole, Willie. I gotta think." Mick the Mick racked his brain, but he was never into sports, and he couldn't think of a single team that won anything. Plus, he didn't have any money on him. It would take a long time to parlay the eighty-one cents in his pocket to sixty grand. But there had to be other ways to make money with a time machine. Probably.

He glanced at Willie, who was walking toward one of those pink flowers, leaning in to sniff it. Or perhaps do something else with it, because Willie's tongue was out.

"Willie! Get away from that thing and try to focus! We need to figure out how to make some money."

"It smells like fish, Mick."

"Dammit, Willie! Did you take your medicine this morning like you're supposed to?"

"I can't remember. Nana says I need a stronger sub­scription. But every time I go to the doctor to get one, I forget to ask."

Mick the Mick scratched himself. Another dragonfly—this one shaped like a banana wearing a turtleneck— flew up to one of those pink flowers and was bitten in half, too. Damn, those bugs were stupid. They just didn't learn. He scratched himself again, wondering if the crabs were back. If they were, he'd be really angry. When you paid fifty bucks for a massage at Madame Yoko's, the happy ending should be crab-free.

Willie said, "Maybe we can go back to the time when Nate the Nose was a little boy, and then we could be real nice to him so when he grew up he would remember us and wouldn't make us eat our junk."

Or we could push his stroller into traffic, Mick the Mick thought.

But Nate the Nose had bosses, and they probably had bosses, too, and traveling through time to push a bunch of babies in front of moving cars seemed like a lot of work.

"Money, Willie. We need to make money."

"We could buy old things from the past then sell them on eBay. Hey, wouldn't it be cool to have four hands? I mean, you could touch twice as much stuff."

Mick the Mick thought about those old comics in Willie's basement, and then he gri

"Action Comics' number one, which had the first appear­ance of Superman!" Mick the Mick said. "I could buy it with the change in my pocket, and we can sell it for a fortune!"

Come to think of it, he could buy eight copies. Didn't they go for a million a piece these days?

"I wish I could fly, Mick. Could we go back into time and learn to fly like Superman?"

"Shh!" Mick the Mick tilted his head to the side, lis­tening to the jungle. "You hear something, Willie?"

"Yeah, Mick. I hear you talkin' to me. Now I hear me talkin'. Now I'm singing a sooooong, a haaaaaaaaappy soooooong."

Mick the Mick gave Willie a smack in the teeth, then locked his eyes on the tree line. In the distance the canopy rustled and parted, like something really big was walking toward them. Something so big, the ground shook with every step.

"You hear that, Mick? Sounds like something really big is coming."

A deafening roar came from the thing in the trees, so horrible Mick the Mick could feel his curlies straighten.

"Think it's friendly?" Willie asked. Mick the Mick stared down at his hands, which still held the Really, Really, Really Old Ones book. He flipped it open to a random page, forcing himself to concentrate on the words. But, as often happened in stressful situations, or even situations not all that stressful, the words seemed to twist and mash up and go backward and upside down. Goddamn lesdyxia—shit—dyslexia, "Maybe we should run, Mick."

"Yeah, maybe ... wait! No! We can't run!"

"Why can't we run, Mick?"

"Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer went back in time and stepped on a butterfly? The point is, evolution is a really fickle bitch. If we screw up something in the past, it can really mess up the future."

"That sucks. You mean we would get back to our real time but instead of being made of skin and bones, we're made entirely out of fruit? Like some kind of juicy fruit people?"

Another growl, even closer. It sounded like a lion's roar—if the lion had cojones the size of Chryslers.

"I mean really bad stuff, Willie. I gotta read another passage and get us out of here."

The trees parted, and a shadow began to force itself into view.

"Hey, Mick, if you were made of fruit, would you take a bite of your own arm if you were really superhungry? I think I would. Wonder what I'd taste like?"

Mick the Mick tried to concentrate on reading the page, but his gaze kept flicking up to the trees. The prehis­toric landscape lapsed into deadly silence. Then, like some giant monster coming out of the jungle, a giant monster came out of the jungle.

The head appeared first, the size of a sofa—a really big sofa—with teeth the size of daggers crammed into a mouth large enough to tear a refrigerator in half.

"I think I'd take a few bites out of my leg or some­thing, but I'd be afraid because I don't know if I could stop. Especially if I tasted like strawberries, because I love strawberries, Mick. Why are they called strawberries when they don't taste like straw? Hey, is that a T. rex?"

Now Mick the Mick pee-peed more than just a lit­tle. The creature before them was a deep green color, blending seamlessly into the undergrowth. Rather than scales, it was adorned with small, prickly hairs that Mick the Mick realized were thin brown feathers. Its huge nostrils flared and it snorted, causing the book's pages to ripple.

"I think we should run, Mick. I don't wa

Mick the Mick agreed. The tyra

"The T. rex has really bad vision, Willie. If you stay very still, it won't be able to ... Willie, come back!"

Willie had broken for the trees, moving so fast he was a blur. Mick the Mick tore after him, swatting dragonflies out of the way as he ran. Underfoot, he trampled on a large brown roach, a three-toed lizard with big dewy eyes and a disproportionately large brain, and a small furry mammal with a face that looked a lot like Sal from Ma

Behind them, the T. rex moved with the speed of a giant two-legged cat shaped like a dinosaur, snapping teeth so close to Mick the Mick that they nipped the eigh­teen trailing hairs of his comb-over. He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the mouth of the animal open so wide Mick the Mick could set up a table for four on the creature's tongue and play Texas hold 'em, not that he would, because that would be fucking stupid.

Then, just as the death jaws of death were ready to close and cause terminal death, the T. rex skidded to a halt and squinted down at the dead little furry thing that used to look a lot like Sal from Ma