Tamer- King of Dinosaurs Book 6

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “They are really, really dumb, and only good for making babies and doing manual labor?” I asked.

  They both clapped enthusiastically, and then Clone Emerald tapped her temple, pointed at me, and then opened her hands up wide.

  “You love me because I’m smart,” I answered, and they both nodded again.

  I opened my mouth to speak again, but Original Emerald raised a finger to stop me. I nodded, and then she gestured at the fire, then the camp, and then the dinosaurs as she stared at me. She gestured to her back and arms before she pointed at the empty spot beside her, then she pointed at another empty spot as she made a throwing motion with her arm and touched her bicep afterward, she ran her fingers through her hair and then mimicked Kacerie’s Lance movement with her hands, and then raised her hair up over her head and flexed her bicep again. Finally she pointed at the grass growing next to the fire and hugged herself.

  Once she was done, Emerald gestured to her clone and then held both her arms out to me as if she wanted to give me a hug. I almost stood up and walked around the fire so that I could give it to her, but she let her arms down and both her bodies smiled at me.

  “You like the home that I have made with the other women,” I stated.

  They both nodded, and pointed to their temples again, then they turned their heads to the side so that I could see the dark gem that was attached to their skulls behind their ears. They both tapped it at the same time, turned back to me, and shook their heads as their faces fell into a sad expression.

  “Wait, uhhh, are you saying that everyone that doesn’t have one of those gems behind their ears is dumb?”

  Both Emeralds nodded at me, tapped their temples, and shook their heads.

  “So, how many people on your world have those? Are they able to command the other--”

  Original Emerald held up two fingers and then shook her head.

  “Fuck,” I whispered. “Just you and your brother?”

  They both nodded.

  “What about the others? You said that there were other countries that you conquered. Did their leaders have those gems that let them control others?”

  Both Emeralds nodded.

  “But… uhhh, you killed them so you could fight your brother?” I asked.

  They both nodded, and for once, I saw a pained expression in Emerald’s strange white eyes.

  “But… why?”

  Original Emerald shook her head and then put up her two fingers again, one of them she used to gesture to herself, and the other she gestured to her crotch and raised a finger so that it looked like a penis. Then she pointed at me and drew a line across her neck before she pointed to her clone and did the same motion.

  “Your brother was going to kill everyone and take it all over anyway, but if you did it first, you’d at least get their armies and hope you could stop him?” I asked hopefully.

  They both nodded.

  “Well, shit,” I sighed. “Then what happened?”

  Clone Emerald gestured to Original Emerald, then she slowly lifted her hand in the air, pointed at the stars, and then gestured to the area surrounding us.

  “They took you and put you on Dinosaurland before you could fight your brother?” I asked, even though I knew what the answer would be.

  They both nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” I sighed. “That really sucks, but it sounds like a bad situation all around. What were you going to do after you fought him?”

  Emerald’s shoulders slumped, and then she pointed to her chest.

  Then she drew a line across her throat.

  “Fuck that,” I growled. “Couldn’t you have made more babies? I don’t know how your species worked, but even if everyone besides you was dumb, couldn’t you have made offspring or--”

  Emerald shook her head and then gestured to the black gem behind her ear. Then she held up her fingers in the shape of a zero.

  “So you couldn’t have babies with anyone else in your race because of the gem?” I asked.

  They both wiggled their hands from side to side as if they were saying the water was lukewarm.

  “You could have, but they weren’t good mates?”

  They both nodded.

  “And now you are gone, and your brother is going to take over your world?”

  They both nodded.

  “Fuck,” I growled. “What if we found a way to get you back? Then you--”

  Original Emerald shook her head sadly, and then she tapped her chest over where her heart was, pointed at me, and then gestured to the campsite and the dinosaurs.

  “I get it,” I said with a heavy sigh. “And I feel that way too. This is my home now. I don’t want to go back either. I’m still sad though. No one on my world really needed me, but it sounded like they all needed you.”

  Original Emerald shrugged, but the clone just stared into the fire.

  Then for a few minutes I didn’t talk. I just stared into the flame and thought about my new family. We were all so different, but there were similarities as well. Emerald had kind of proved my theory that the overlords who were abducting us were taking the best, or most powerful, of each species to this world. I still didn’t know why, but everyone in my little clan had been exceptional on their own world.

  “We’ve got a big day tomorrow,” I finally said after the flames of the campfire had occupied my thoughts for too long. “We should get some rest. I’ll have the troodons do a watch cycle.”

  The Emeralds nodded, and I gestured to the small shelter we’d made. It was about the size of a pup tent, but I knew we could all fit in there and share body heat.

  I let them both crawl in first, and then I slid in after them. We had used some bamboo leaves as a ground covering, but it was still cold against my bare skin, and I shivered a bit as I nestled between the two identical women.

  I didn’t know which Emerald was the original, but they each snuggled into my side and moved their arms over my chest so that their palms laid across my ribcage in a half-hug. The gesture was sweet and comforting, and the leaves below my back quickly warmed up from our combined body heat.

  I felt my eyelids start to get heavy, but then the Emerald on my left traced her fingers up my chest, around my Adam’s apple, and across my chin. I felt my heart began to beat quicker at her touch, and then I felt her lift her head off the ground next to me.

  Emerald’s soft lips touched mine, and our tongues gently explored each other’s mouths for half a minute. I let out a soft gasp when our mouths finally parted, but then I felt the Emerald on my right side lift her head up from my shoulder. I turned in time to meet her hungry lips and her fingers drifted down my chest and across my abdominal muscles.

  They both lowered their heads back on my shoulders, and I slowly let out my breath. The two kisses had felt gentle and wonderful, and while I briefly had a fantasy about taking both of them in the small shelter, I got the feeling that they were both exhausted too, so I let my heart rate calm down as I closed my eyes.

  Sleep took me soon after, and it felt as if the sun was almost instantly waking me. It was morning already, and I hadn’t even dreamed during my rest.

  Then I let out a gasp when I realized that neither of the women were curled up next to me.

  “Emerald?” I called out, but the only sound that answered me was a loud warning hoot from Scoob that was quickly echoed by Shag, Fred, Velma, and Daphne.

  My troodons were worried, so I twisted my body around and dove out of the shelter.

  Chapter 9

  Both Emeralds were crouched next to the campfire. Original was holding a fish on a stick over the flames, and Clone had just grabbed the Cricket Bat of Doom from the ground. Their white eyes flashed toward me as soon as I rolled onto the ground, but then they both pointed around us as Clone Emerald handed me my weapon.

  Nicole, Bevis, Butt-Head, and my troodons were all glancing around and up at the trees surrounding our small campsite, and I could feel the tension roll off them like an electric shock. I glanced
behind me and saw Grumpy curled up between two of the banyan trees. His eyes were closed, and it actually sounded like he was snoring.

  Again, Grumpy just didn’t give a shit.

  “What’s goin--” I started to say, but then laughter sounded from the trees, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  “Such deliciousness…” a voice called out, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the trees behind me or in front of me.

  Original Emerald tossed her fish-on-a-stick down and crawled over to grab the stone axe we had used to build the shelter last night, and Clone Emerald grabbed a spear as she stood next to me. The troodons all let out a hiss-like hoot, and I saw them crouch lower against the short grass of the clearing as they tried to hide themselves.

  “Bruce,” I hissed, and the pteranodon let out a soft honk as he jumped into the air. I didn’t know if he’d be able to help me out against whoever was hiding in the trees, but he might be able to give me warning.

  “What do you want?” I shouted as I pulled up the Cricket Bat of Doom into the baseball swinging position.

  “Toooooo feeeeeeed,” the voice was a hiss of wind through the trees, and both Emeralds and I turned around and glanced up into the trees.

  “You see him?” I whispered to Clone Emerald, but she just shook her head and then stepped so that she was a bit closer to me.

  “You won’t see me,” the voice laughed, and it bounced between my ears like someone was playing with the fade and balance on my car stereo.

  “If you are hungry, we’ve got extra food,” I said. “We don’t mind sharing.”

  The voice didn’t immediately reply to me, so I glanced back to my dinosaurs and saw them all frantically looking up into the tree branches. They couldn’t see who was talking to us either, and I wondered if the owner of the voice had the power to blend into their surroundings.

  Then I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and spun toward the spot in the trees.

  The movement instantly vanished, and I took a deep breath to keep my heart from slamming a hole in my ribcage.

  “Stand back to back,” I whispered loud enough for both Emeralds to hear, and Original jumped over to us so that we could stand closer.

  “Not going to workkkkkk,” the creepy voice mocked as the Emeralds and I searched the trees.

  “No need to be aggressive,” I called out. “We are friendly. Like I said, we’ll share our food and water with you. We don’t want any trouble.”

  The voice just laughed again, and now that I’d heard it enough, I suspected it was a man talking, even though it was a low alto pitch.

  “We are just traveling through,” I continued. “If this is your territory, I apologize for intruding.” The reality was that I didn’t give a shit about his territory, or being nice to him. I just figured that getting him to talk more would help us locate his position, and then we could kill him.

  I’d learned long ago that the best time to negotiate or befriend the other survivors in Dinosaurland was when I had them at the point of my spear.

  There was a flicker of dark movement on the trees to my right, and I twisted my head and could have sworn I caught sight of a humanoid shape before it disappeared. Then there was more laughter, and I felt my frustration build in my stomach.

  “Leave your women, and I’ll let you live,” the voice cackled. “They are deliciousssss.”

  “Nope,” I answered quickly, but almost as soon as the words left my mouth, I suddenly saw a vision of the clearing from above, and a dark shape dashed from one of the trees on the east side and darted toward the three of us. The wind parted behind me, and I twisted around in time to see something that was a cross between a shadow and the Predator in the movie jump on Original Emerald.

  I twisted my hips around and tried to swing the Cricket Bat of Doom, but one of the shadow’s limbs hit me in the chest like a bowling ball, and I felt the air explode out of my lungs as I stumbled away.

  Clone Emerald thrust her spear at the shadow, but it yanked Original Emerald in the path of the flint point, and the Clone twisted her hands aside at the last second so that she wouldn’t hit the other woman.

  “Stop! Or she dies!” The creature’s voice was a guttural growl, and I paused mid-step some ten feet away from where our attacker held my friend.

  Clone Emerald also stopped her shuffle forward, but she had her spear raised and her arms coiled back so that she could strike. I could see that both Emeralds looked surprisingly calm, though, but the dickbag had Original Emerald hostage, and I didn’t know what would happen to Clone Emerald if he killed my friend.

  “That’ssss goooood,” the man growled as he slowly stepped away from us. As he moved, his body flickered in and out of the strange shadow-like cloak, and I saw hints of purple skin and long gray hair.

  “Look, we don’t want any problems,” I growled as I tightened my fingers around the handle of my weapon. “Let her go, and we can all be on our way. There is no need to fight.”

  As I spoke, I inched forward a bit toward him, and my troodons began to creep forward on the ground so that they could take his back.

  “Nooooo,” he cackled. “You leave your women, and I let you live. Stop your pets!”

  “What?” I sighed as I commanded the troodons to stop creeping forward.

  “You don’t think I knowsss you control the animals?” he growled, and then his image flickered off the shadow effect, and I was able to see exactly what he looked like.

  The man was tall, maybe six foot four, but he was super skinny and probably weighed one hundred and twenty pounds. His limbs looked to be mostly long bone covered by a dark purple skin and the faint outline of white veins.

  He did look kind of human, but his forearms were a little too long when compared to his upper arms, so that he almost seemed more like a praying mantis. The guy’s face was where he really started to look alien, though. His skull was a long diamond shape, with two slots that looked like button holes for a nose, a mouth in a “U” shape that was filled with shark-like teeth, and eyes that were the size of silver dollars and piss-yellow colored.

  He was one ugly asshole, but now that his cloak was down, I could see that the nails on his too-long fingers were sharpened talons.

  And they were pressed up against Emerald’s neck.

  “Make them move backkkk,” he demanded as he nodded his head toward the circling Bevis and Butt-Head.

  “No,” I sighed.

  “I’ll kill her!” he hissed as he pressed his nails into the tender scales of Original Emerald’s neck. She stiffened slightly as she tried to pull away from the points, but her attacker held her with his other arm, and I guessed from how bad my chest hurt from where he had hit me that he was really strong.

  “So?” I scoffed. “If you kill her, we’ll kill you, and I guarantee you that I’ll be a lot fucking slower. I’ll make it hurt really bad, and you’ll wish you’d just avoided us.”

  “Liesss,” he hissed as he pulled her away from me another step. “I watched you kiss them. She is your mate. You don’t want to lose her.”

  “You just told me to leave them and you’d let me live,” I growled as I took another step toward him. “I’m not going to let you do that. I’ll just kill you instead.”

  “Fineeee,” he whispered. “I’ll kill all three of--”

  Original Emerald had been holding onto his right arm with her right arm, but she surprised everyone by suddenly slamming her neck into his claws so that his fingers tore through her neck. Red blood sprayed across the dirt, and both the purple-skinned asshole and I both let out gasps of surprise.

  “No!” I screamed, but Clone Emerald was already moving.

  She leapt forward with her spear coiled back as the gem on her forehead exploded with purple light. Her face wasn’t turned toward me, so the flash didn’t blind me, but the vampire-praying mantis dude let out a screech as he closed his giant yellow eyes.

  He tried to spin away, but Original Emerald still held
onto his arm as her throat gushed bright red blood, and he wasn’t really strong enough to get rid of her weight in the instant between Clone Emerald blinding him and her spear attack. The flint tip took him right in the shoulder, and he let out a grunt of surprise that turned into a screech as soon as I hit him in the back of the left leg with the Cricket Bat of Doom.

  The razor sharp obsidian spikes tore through his limb like it was made of celery, and his shin separated from his knee-joint with a spray of dark blue ichor.

  Original Emerald came loose from his arm when he toppled over, but then I brought down my weapon like it was an axe and separated his other leg from his knee. More blue blood sprayed across the campsite, and I heard the fire hiss as some of it landed on the flames.

  “Wait,” I growled as I held up my hand to Clone Emerald as she stepped forward to finish him off. “I said I’d make it slow.”

  Clone Emerald nodded, and then she raised the spear over her head and slammed it down on his uninjured shoulder. The asshole let out a high-pitched screech when the weapon pinned him to the ground, and I saw tears pour out of the side of his closed eyes.

  “Please! Mercy! I was just so hungry!”

  “Fuck you,” I hissed as I pressed the tip of my Cricket Bat of Doom into the cut on his leg.

  “Owwwwwiiiiieee!” he cried, and it sounded like a toddler who had just fallen and skinned his knee.

  I turned away from him and knelt by the dying Emerald. Her white eyes were still open, and she blinked a few times as they focused on my face.

  “I’m sorry,” I choked out as I reached down to take her hand in mine. “I should have been faster.”

  Clone Emerald shook her head, and then she knelt down to place her hand on Original Emerald’s forehead gem. The dying Emerald smiled at me and then her eyes closed as her gem let out a soft pulse of violet light.

  Then her body began to shrivel, turn brown, then gray, and then it turned into a fine ash in only a few seconds.

  “Damn,” I sighed as I wiped a tear away and looked up at Clone Emerald. “Are you going to fade away too? I know she was the original one.”