The Dangerous Days of Daniel X Read online

  “You can say that again,” Phoebe said, suddenly stiffening in my arms.

  What the —?

  She squirmed away. Then Phoebe gave me a funny smile. Not funny ha-ha. Funny weird. Funny contemptuous. Funny sickening.

  “What?” I said. “Phoebe? Are you okay? What’s going on here?”

  “You are so dumb, it’s amazing,” she said, shaking her head. “You still haven’t figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?” I said warily.

  Suddenly I fell back, blinded, as a silver-tinged explosion flashed before my eyes. Where Phoebe’s sneakers had been, there was now a huge pair of men’s black shoes. I slowly panned up—long black trousers, a black silk shirt, kinky chin whiskers.

  “Wh-wh-wh-what?” I said. Something very articulate and meaningful like that.

  Above the collar of the black shirt was an impossibly narrow, horselike head, a dead horse’s head, covered in slack, bone-white, bloodless skin. The skin was decorated with pea-sized, pus-oozing bumps, like a diseased chicken’s.

  I stared into the monster’s eyes. Shiny, bulging, blood-red orbs embedded in the loose skin like larvae.

  “Ironic, isn’t it? Here you were, knocking yourself out to find me.” A voice came from a rattling flap and a hole below the demonic eyes. A British voice. Seth’s voice.

  He switched back into Phoebe—and batted those startling blue eyes at me.

  “And here I was the whole time,” came Seth’s voice— out of Phoebe’s mouth.

  Chapter 47

  “WAIT A SECOND,” I said, trying to stop the sudden, awful spinning in my head. “That means . . . all along you were . . . Right from the start you were . . .”

  Seth changed himself from Phoebe back into the horse-headed monster—that is, himself.

  “Phoebe? Oh yes,” he said, winking an orb as the corners of his mouth pulled up in a horsey smile. “You’re quite a snuggler, Danny. I’ll always cherish the time we had.”

  I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. Talk about something sucking big-time. I’d been getting all googly-eyed and fog-brained over an alien slime pustule. Wow. I’d wanted to die before, but never so badly. I probably would in a second anyway. Cardiac arrest by embarrassment.

  “Quite a convincing performance, wasn’t it?” Seth said, taking a little bow. “And I just loved playing Phoebe.”

  “Wait a second. Aren’t you supposed to be a gas or something?” I asked.

  “PR story,” he said. “This is Tinseltown, dear boy. Image is everything. Don’t believe anything you read or hear in LA. Wasn’t I fabulous as Phoebe, though? I think I was. I needed to get close to you, Daniel. To see if you posed any danger. You don’t, by the way.

  “Now, where were we? Oh yes. Your imminent death. Imminent means you’re going to die soon.”

  He slid his hand—which was more of a seashell-like talon—along my temple. All of a sudden, I felt seasick. Then came a black, despairing nausea. A centrifugal sucking sensation started deep at my core, as if a plug had been pulled at the bottom of my soul.

  “My powers,” I whimpered. “They’re . . .”

  “Being disconnected? Indeed,” Seth said. “Good thing too. Your misguided thoughts matched with your kind of powers are a combination that is much too potentially dangerous to allow. Not to mention that you ruined my magnificent graveyard creation. That clinched it, I’m afraid. It was a masterwork, don’t you agree? I was particularly fond of the odor of rotting flesh I was able to achieve. That’s why I’m logging you off, son. Good-bye.”

  After another minute, the seashell claw withdrew. I lay motionless, hollowed out. I was surprised I could still breathe. I felt feverish, drugged, as Seth lifted me effortlessly in his arms.

  “Night, Daniel,” he said.

  In Phoebe’s voice, of course.

  Chapter 48

  AS IF FROM FAR AWAY, I heard the sound of traffic. Traffic?

  As my head lolled back, I made out an upside-down Honda Odyssey with tinted black windows. It was the same minivan that I’d spotted in downtown LA, carting around the drug-dealing children.

  It’s all coming together horribly, I thought as the van’s door slid open. Then I was flying through the air before slamming painfully into the far wall.

  Bang-up job, Dannyboy, I thought as my wrists and ankles were duct-taped. Way to go get ’em. You are your father’s son! You’re definitely ready to battle Number 6 to the death. Yours!

  More ugly horse-heads—half a dozen—wearing muscle shirts and tracksuits and gold chains stared down at me with yellowish, cue-ball eyes.

  “Meow,” one of them said.

  The rest burst into howling laughter. Hey, these were the same losers who’d trashed my house, the ones who’d done the cat attack.

  “That’s incredibly funny,” I said as the van’s tires squealed. “I know a good one too. This horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, ‘Hey, buddy. Why the long face?’ ”

  I was barely able to cover my head as a dozen shell talons clawed at my eyes.

  “Slime ’im! Slime ’im! Slime ’im!” came an eerie chant. Whatever it meant, I didn’t want it.

  A particularly ugly, freak-show horse-face appeared a foot above mine. Something was oozing from the inside corners of its mouth hole.

  I slammed my eyes shut as something warm and thick dripped onto my forehead and began to pool. The contents of my stomach rioted as I caught the spoiled clam-chowderish whiff of it.

  I almost managed to close my mouth before the rancid, vomitizing ooze dripped off my nose, and onto my lips, and right down my throat.

  By the way, don’t say I didn’t warn you back around page four that the story might get a little rough at times.

  Chapter 49

  I DON’T KNOW about you, but whenever I’m slimed and hog-tied in the stow-and-go seat well of a minivan, I tend to do a little soul-searching.

  First of all, I was pretty angry with myself. I’d let Seth play me like an iPod Shuffle. I’d been sooo sure about how ninjalike and under the radar I was being, but now I realized Seth must have felt me the moment I set foot in LA. He was Number 6, after all!

  What else? Oh, yeah. I was in paralyzing fear of losing my life. Lots of kidnap victims can say they don’t know what their captors will do to them, but I really, really didn’t know. I mean, were these pus-headed aliens going to slime me again, or was it something worse? I figured . . . worse.

  Then they started playing their music, which was a sophisticated form of torture in itself. The List of Alien Outlaws never said these freaks were fanatics of early eighties bands. We’re talking Journey, Air Supply, Styx. And some group I’d never heard before called Yes that should have been called No. In my humble opinion, anyway.

  The eardrum-walloping volume wouldn’t have been so bad if these intergalactic thugs didn’t have to sing along, like this was a karaoke van, banging their mallet-shaped heads back and forth and playing air guitar, air drums, air cymbals.

  I just lay there in shock, gazing out the back window at the tops of telephone poles zipping by on our road trip to who-knew-where and who-knew-what.

  I should have listened to my mother and father.

  I should have listened to Dana.

  I should have listened to Ergent Seth.

  I’d been warned, hadn’t I?

  Chapter 50

  IT WAS PITCH-BLACK when the silver van pulled off the highway to hell. I was barely able to catch the top of a DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK sign that flashed in the brake lights out the back window.

  I was yanked up roughly as we came to a stop about a half hour later. Outside in the headlights stood half a dozen weathered wood factory buildings.

  Welcome to the middle of the middle of nowhere, I thought. So why did this scene seem extremely familiar to me?

  “Hey, isn’t this where they shot Texas Chainsaw Massacre? The remake of the remake?” I said, thinking out loud.

  “Very observant, Daniel,” Seth said proudly. “A
true masterpiece of the chain saw–wielding cannibal genre. At least you have good taste in bad movies. I told you, I was in the industry, didn’t I? That remake was one of my finest awful films. Here, let me give you a tour of the shoot,” he said. “No cameras, please!”

  He ripped the duct tape off my feet, then dragged me out of the van by my hair. A very painful way to go.

  I was pulled past a huge, rust-pocked metal tank into one of the buildings. Dozens of kids were inside, some of them in large cells and some chained to the walls.

  I winced as I took in the faces. These were the same missing kids I’d seen from the file “Phoebe” had shown me in LA.

  “So that part of the story was true,” I said. “You really are off-loading kids from the earth. You’re nothing but a slave trader.”

  “C’mon, that’s not all I am,” Seth said as he opened a cell door and kicked me inside. “Don’t forget all the stealing, murdering, and drug dealing I do. Not to mention the hit movies I’ve made about zombies, cannibals, vampires, and cutting instruments.”

  I watched as Seth transformed himself into Phoebe Cook.

  “Oh Danny. I need your help soooo much,” he/she taunted. The rest of Seth’s horse-head buddies slapped their thighs and broke up laughing.

  Seth turned back into his vile and demonic self.

  “Absurd logic on your part. Why would a girl as hot as Phoebe Cook need the help of a weak, stupid, substandard, inferior, about-to-be-extinct failure like you? Phoebe was a test, Daniel. You failed. Miserably. Look at you.”

  Whatever Seth had done to sap my power, it had worked. I was having trouble staying on my feet, or even focusing on his hideous horse’s head.

  “Now that we’ve come face-to-face, Seth,” I said, staring steadily into his reddish-brown eyes, “my only regret is that you’re not the insectlike lowlife who actually killed my folks.”

  “Oh, I just might be their killer after all,” he roared.

  “No, you’re not,” I said with a shake of my head. “I marked that miscreant on his skull after he murdered my mom and dad. The creature who took out my parents, the one who is going to pay with his life, is The Prayer. You’re only sixth on my List, Seth. Dream on!”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” Seth said. “You learn something new and useful every day. Speaking of which, maybe I can tell you something that you didn’t know, Mr. Smart-ass. You’re Number 1 on the Hit Parade of every alien currently residing on this backworld of a planet. We were hunting for you, young Daniel X. And I just won the jackpot. That’s why you’re still alive. I want to show off my prize. I won, you lost. Maybe I’ll drag you from galaxy to galaxy—in captivity.”

  Chapter 51

  “YOU’VE BEEN A WOEFUL, pitiful dupe all along,” said Seth. “I guess it’s to be expected, given what dullards your parents were. What were their names—Graff and Atrelda? Who can even remember? Who cares? The way I hear it, those two were actually too stupid to let live. They practically murdered themselves.”

  If I’d been in fighting shape, I would have ripped a hole through the steel mesh to get at Seth’s lopsided face. My parents had been selfless protectors and friends of humanity, horrifically murdered by a misshapen monster without a conscience.

  “I’ll admit it. You got me,” I said. “For the most part, you really did keep your thoughts consistent with a normal girl like Phoebe Cook. It was a pretty brilliant operation.”

  “Please. Pulling the wool over your eyes was as easy as beating you at chess,” Seth said. “But what’s with the ‘for the most part’ rubbish?”

  I looked at him as if I were suddenly bored . . . which I definitely was not.

  “At Phoebe’s house that night, remember our sleepover? You let down your guard. You blew it, Seth. You had a dream. I scanned it. At first I thought it was a really odd nightmare coming from Phoebe, but now I realize that it was your dream. It all makes perfect sense. I know what your greatest fears are, Seth. Your deepest vulnerabilities, even what you’re going to do next. You’ll never get away with it. Won’t happen.”

  Seth stared at me even more dead-faced than usual, seemingly confused for the moment.

  His cronies were staring at him now, waiting for their leader to strike back.

  “What dream?” Seth said. “What was in my dream?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to agonize about, you donkey-faced freak,” I said. “I’ll give you a hint. Dumb-Dumb,” I whispered.

  It sounded like a couple of grenades going off in the cage as Seth kicked it again and again. I stifled laughter, then decided the heck with it, and let myself crack up.

  “Dumb-Dumb,” I repeated.

  Chapter 52

  “YOU READ MY DREAM, did you? I’m truly impressed.”

  Suddenly Seth had a smile on his face. An awful, pinched smile, matched with an even more heartless gleam in his dark, demonic eyes.

  “Wait! Maybe you’ll be impressed with something I have in the back room,” he said, clapping a claw to his head as if he’d been forgetting something. “Hold on, I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go anywhere. You’ll love this.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Even his disgusting followers looked worried when he shouldered his way past them and disappeared down a long, dingy hallway.

  They actually dove out of the way when he returned a moment later. He was holding something above his head. My eyes locked on it. Oh boy! An Opus 24/24 assault rifle.

  “Say hello to my little friend,” Seth said. “Nothing like the cool steel of an Opus 24/24. And what a coincidence. I could be wrong, but isn’t this the same sort of weapon that did in your dear departed mother and father? I believe it is.”

  The door of my cage screeched like a banshee as Seth flung it open. A chill raced down the ridge of my spine. Everyone was deathly quiet—the kids, Seth’s thugs, even Seth.

  Slowly he raised the deadly rifle to his shoulder.

  “What are you going to do now? Shoot me?” I asked with a fake smile.

  A bloom of fire burst from the gun’s barrel. What felt like dynamite exploded inside my stomach.

  “Good guess,” Seth said with a smile as I flew backward about fifteen feet and landed spread-eagled on the floor.

  What can I tell you about getting gut-shot? It’s bad. About as bad as it gets. Excruciating is the tip of the iceberg. I could actually feel the bullet deep in my stomach, feel its heat, feel it burning into the torn tissue that surrounded it.

  I slapped my hand to the wound as blood—red blood, not green or anything—started pouring out from between my ring finger and pinkie.

  The most sickening sadness laced the pain as my vision started to blur, then flicker. I wondered if this was how my mother and father felt just before they died.

  Talk about having a sucky last day, I thought, as I fell away into darkness.

  And I had kind of liked Terra Firma too.

  I would miss night baseball, sno-cones, Spider-Man, the Winter Olympics . . .

  White Castle sliders, Bart Simpson, did I mention sno-cones? . . .

  Chapter 53

  I DON’T KNOW how long it was before I came to—I wasn’t even sure if coming to was what I was doing. All I knew for sure was that there was a worried face floating maybe a foot above me. The innocent face of a seven or eight-year-old girl.

  I would have believed she was an angel—except for the terrible waves of pain throbbing in my stomach.

  I looked down and saw that the girl had balled up my shirt and stuffed it into my wound. A tear rolled out of my eye onto the stone floor. Abducted, terrified, and most likely in shock, this little girl had probably saved my life.

  Gestures like that were why humans were worth saving, I thought. Or even worth dying for.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “These ugly horse-heads better watch their step. They’re starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Mine too,” said the girl.

  “Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing
in there?” came a voice. One of the aliens was crouching by the cell door. “Didn’t I tell everyone not to touch him?”

  The little girl stared at him like a deer frozen in headlights, at least the way I’ve always imagined that cliché looks.

  “Hey, give me back my wallet,” I croaked at her, loud enough for the thug to hear.

  “Oh, why didn’t you say you were just robbing him?” the guard said, turning away. “In that case, go for it. You humans are lower than dirt. Tear each other apart. Go for it.”

  Chapter 54

  I SPENT the better part of the next hour lying there on the cold stone floor, writhing in pain, probably close to death. I’d lost what seemed like quarts of blood, and my intestines and vital organs must have been ripped apart by the gun blast.

  Gut-shot down in the salt mine, I thought, starting to shake a little with the agony. Gee, my life had become the title of a country-and-western song.

  A short time later, a door banged open and a couple of guards charged in. They were carrying electric stun guns.

  “For me? You shouldn’t have.”

  “Get moving, you filthy mammals,” one of the aliens yelled as he herded together the Earth kids I was sharing the chamber with. The little girl who’d helped me started to sob.

  “Hey, guys, look! This one’s sprung a leak.” The alien laughed as he waved the cattle prod next to her tear-filled face. “I can’t believe we actually get paid to have this much fun.”

  “You too, worm,” Seth said, tapping a couple of thousand volts near my face. “Get up! Get moving. Hold your intestines in.”

  I probably should have been in an ICU, but I shot to my feet and stumbled out of the cage. No way I’d let them know how badly I was hurt.

  “Nice acting job!” Seth said, and roared with laughter. “You could have been in one of my films. As an extra.”

  It was pitch-black outside in the desert. And freezing cold. At two, maybe three o’clock in the morning.