The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (3 page)

Chapter 7

HERE’S THE THING that I have to share with you.

I have these powers, and I don’t know exactly how I got them. I can create things, for example. Like my parents. Of course, technically they’re not my parents. My real parents are dead. My imagined parents are probably just mental projections that I make real.

And when I say
real,
I mean it. When I manifest my mom and dad, they’re as real as you or me. Right down to their DNA.

How do I do it? Good question.

I don’t know the specifics, but what I do know is that at its most microscopic, most subatomic level, everything in the universe—matter, people, the air, all the elements, and even energy—is made up of the same basic materials.
And I was born with a strange ability to rearrange the material at will.

I know what you might be thinking. I can just snap my fingers and what I want is there, but it’s not really like that. Not at all.

There’s only so much I can create, for a limited period. I have to be really calm, and concentrate like you wouldn’t believe. If I’m tired or cranky, forget it—it won’t work. Plus there seems to be a mass limit. Or sometimes I seem to run up against a mental block of some kind. One time I tried to create a really cool, flaming red Ferrari, but nothing happened.

Some things are easy to create. My mom and dad, for one. I do them a lot. When I’m afraid or lonely. They’re like a recipe you’ve done over and over again until you can do it in your sleep.

I’m pretty fast too. I’m talking about movement now. One time a New Jersey state trooper tried to arrest me for hitchhiking, and as he started to close the cuff on my wrist, I reached out, grabbed his hand, and pulled it forward so fast he actually cuffed himself.

Oh, and I’ve caught birds. Not slowpokes like chickens either. I plucked a passing sparrow out of the air—gently—just to see if I could. I could.

I’m strong, especially for someone who’s five ten, 140 pounds. Not strong enough to lift a car, but I could probably flip one in a pinch. I can influence people. Sort of an instant hypnosis type of thing. And I can sometimes tell what’s going to happen before it happens. Like knowing that there were cops at the door.

But this is the most important part. Life-and-death stuff. Don’t let anybody tell you any different: there
are
aliens on this planet. They’ve been here millions, maybe hundreds of millions of years. They were on the earth before man, even. And most of these creepy-crawlers are seriously homicidal lunatics.

Number 19 was a horror show and a half—but Number 6, my next target, was actually plotting to change everything about life on Earth. And I don’t mean he was going to bring in universal health care and solve global warming. I’m not talking homicidal, I’m talking
genocidal.
Number 6 wanted to take over Earth and destroy every life-form, then recolonize with freaks from his own planet. That’s why I had to go after Number 6 now, before he got on a roll . . .

One more thing I need to cover. There might be some good aliens here. I’ve never met one, but hey, never say never, right? The one thing I know to be true, there are definitely bad ones. I don’t think I can stress that part enough.

But wait a second.

This is going to blow your mind. It did mine.

Actually, I have met a good alien.

In the mirror. In every mirror I look at.

I’m pretty sure I’m an alien too.

Chapter 8

I LEFT PORTLAND, heading south on a Greyhound bus. Truthfully, I prefer the train, but Amtrak clerks usually ask questions if you look like you’re a minor, which I do, which I
am.

I tend to try to stay as paranoid as I can, and that’s because I’m always being followed. I don’t like the idea of my name, or even an alias, floating around in somebody’s database. In fact,
right now
I’m afraid I’m being followed. But I try not to think about it too much. Too depressing and disturbing.

On the positive side, the bus was only half full—believe me, few things in life are worse than a lengthy ride on a crowded bus, except maybe confronting an alien with an appetite—but even so, I only took the Greyhound as far south as Grants Pass, a town thirty miles north of the California border.

I could have gone all the way to LA, my next destination—Number 6’s home base—but fourteen hours riding the dog is my personal limit.

I laid out my Rand McNally in the back of a McDonald’s across from the bus station. I wanted to see if there was a way to Southern California besides Interstate 5 so that I could be a little more off the beaten path. Right away I spotted another, skinnier road, 199, heading for the California coast. The fact that I’d never seen the Pacific before settled it for me.

Oregon’s rain seemed to instantly turn to Northern California fog as I put the McDonald’s behind me and stuck out my thumb.

I don’t recommend hitching, by the way.
Do not.
There are some pretty sick wack-a-doos out there. If I hadn’t had the means to protect myself and the urgent need to cover my tracks, I would have stayed on the bus.

But you come across some good people on the road too. I actually caught my first lift from a couple of them, two nuns heading for a retreat house in Kerby. They were wearing habits, and I thought they would give me a sermon or something, but all we did was talk about the Mariners baseball team and its slim-to-none chances of making the AL wild card. Even better, they didn’t ask me where I was going, so I didn’t have to lie to them.

“God bless you,” they said as they let me off. How nice was that? Maybe they had a sixth sense that I was about to need some extra blessings.

Chapter 9

IT WAS GETTING DARK an hour later when I came across a card-carrying, charter member of the wack-a-doo species. To put it mildly.

I didn’t mind so much that the pickup truck I stuck out my thumb at didn’t stop. It was the can of Busch beer that sailed out of his passenger window that I found quite unnecessary. It probably would have shattered the bone structure of my face if I didn’t have pretty good reflexes. I ducked at the last second and watched as the full can exploded with a foamy hiss against the trunk of a pine tree.

I decided I needed to teach that idiot truck driver a lesson about highway safety and etiquette.

I stared at the can and
willed
the spilled beer back into it. Then I sealed the crack and pop-top, and holding it in my hand like a runner’s baton, I started after the truck.

It took me a full ten seconds to catch up. I could have done it in less, but Busch boy was doing a hundred or so, and the roads were windy that day.

I gave the surprised driver a big wink as I drew alongside his pickup’s open window. “What the . . . how the?” he yelled over the howl of the wind.

“Hey, I think you dropped something,” I said, and I tossed the beer can into his lap. “Don’t drink and drive, you useless dink.”

I was acting pretty smug—until I realized that my ability to sense danger was not nearly as advanced as my super speed and strength.

Because suddenly it wasn’t a beer-guzzling fool who was driving the truck—it was a plug-ugly alien with a series of wide eyes that went all the way around his head, at least a couple of noses, and dueling mouths equipped with nothing but sharp fangs, dozens of them.

Chapter 10

“SO
WHO’S
CHASING
WHOM?
” he asked with one of the mouths. “And which of my mouths gets to take a huge bite out of you first?” he asked with the other.

Speed is the key,
I thought—and still keeping up with the truck, I stuck finger after finger into at least a dozen of the creep’s eyes. Then I held on to both of his ears and yelled, “Who sent you after me? I want to know right now!”

The cretin actually started laughing. “You’re getting
ahead
of yourself, punk,” he said with one mouth. “I’m not
after
you, I’m still to come,” he said with the other.

“Say again,” I told him.

“Number 6 sent me, and you better go back the way you came. You better run the other way! You get it? You turn around, you boogie, or you die a horrible death in the near future.”

Then the voice changed before I knew what was happening. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Please let me go,” he wailed. “Please,
please,
I’ve learned my lesson!”

And I knew why—because suddenly he was the truck driver again, and I was practically tearing the poor knucklehead’s ears off.

“Drive safe,” I said, and let him go.

So—Number 6 somehow knew I was coming. What other powers did Ergent Seth have that were as impressive as my own?

Chapter 11

BY TEN O’CLOCK, completely wiped and with still no sign of civilization, I decided to call it a night.

I stepped off the road into the dark woods, kicking myself for staying up late to watch
The Blair Witch Project
a couple nights before. I found a level clearing about thirty yards in that was as good a spot to camp as any.

I opened my minitent and made a little fire. Then I sat beneath the northern stars, propped against a fir tree, cold hot dog in one hand, warm Gatorade in the other. Ahhh, the great outdoors. Could it get much better?

I hoped so, because it was pretty lonely, actually. And scary, considering that I’m often hunted by aliens.

That’s when I heard a bunch of footsteps just outside the firelight.
Uh-oh.

“Quit tripping me, doofus.” I heard a girl’s voice.

“That’s not me. It’s Willy,” said a boy. “You know what a klutz he is.”

“No, it’s not. It’s Dana,” said another boy. “I’m not a klutz.”

“You are
such
a klutz.”

“Hello? Does anyone notice that it’s like pitch-black?” said yet another girl’s voice.

“No, Emma, we didn’t notice that.”

“Hey, guys,” I finally called out to the intruders. “What took you so long?”

My best friends—in the whole universe—had just arrived.

Let the party begin.

Chapter 12

MY BUDDIES WILLY, Joe-Joe, Emma, and Dana had come to keep me company. Just like I do with my parents, I create them. And if you think about it,
creating
is the best superpower of them all. It’s a whole lot better than being part
spider.

“Survival training. I love it,” Willy said, punching fists with me. “The great outdoors! The Pacific Northwest! Wow! You know how to travel, Daniel.”

Stocky and headstrong, with shoulder-length black hair, Willy is around my age—fifteen or so. He’s always ready, willing, and able to try anything, and mix it up with any
thing.
If anyone enjoys chasing down aliens as much as I do, it’s Willy. The guy is fearless, loyal to a fault, and all heart.

“Chex Mix! Righteous!” Joe said, plopping down and snatching the bag out of my hand. Joe-Joe, on the other hand, is more like
all stomach.
Which is crazy, because he’s super skinny. He’s also messy, an athlete at nothing but competitive eating, and the most sarcastic, funniest motormouth I know.

“Oh, wow!” Emma said, twirling around. “Spruce, cedars, Douglas firs, cypresses. Amazing! I love it here. Great spot, Daniel.”

Emma’s a year younger than Willy, and she’s his sister. She’s also our little group’s Earth Mother. Compassionate to a fault, Emma loves two things: the planet Earth and all of its animals, even the insects.

“Hey,
you,
” Dana said, smiling at me with a jaunty shake of her head. “Decided to take us camping, huh? Interesting. I mean, heat and indoor plumbing, how overrated are they?”

I smiled back, my mouth suddenly dry.

What can I say about Dana? She’s tall, with pin-straight blond hair that flows like a waterfall of flame down her back. She’s probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen—just my opinion, of course—but the neat part is that hands down, Dana’s the most genuine person I’ve met. No ego, no big head, no agenda.

I have a crush on Dana so bad that it makes me physically shake sometimes. It’s embarrassing! Like when I look into her eyes, which are in the blue family, somewhere between chambray and shaved ice.

I stared at her in the firelight across from me and felt my wet, cold carcass instantly warm up.

“Way to go, Daniel!” Joe said, his cheeks bloated with Chex Mix, wincing as he sat on a hard root. “Sweet spot you picked here, buddy. I mean, I love the cold by itself, but
wet,
too? And lousy grub.”

“Joe’s actually right for once,” Willy said, whittling a stick into an arrow with my pocketknife. “This place is a dump.”

“A dump?” Emma said, outraged. “The Pacific Northwest is like one of the biologically richest areas in North America. Maybe in all the temperate areas of the world. Besides all of the coniferous growth, it’s home to the mourning dove and the western fence lizard.”

“Hey, you’re right, Emma. This eco-biosystem thingy is really starting to grow on me,” Joe said. “In fact . . .”

Joe got down on one knee in front of the Douglas fir beside him and mimicked opening a jewelry box. “Will you marry me?” he said to the tree. “Seriously. I love you, tree.”

“Enough, clown boy,” Dana said to Joe. “I call Trivial Pursuit.”

Chapter 13

WHAT CAN I SAY? We like to play board games. All right, so we’re a little nerdy. And since this whole scene was my creation, we could bend the rules any way we wanted.

“First question, Dana,” Emma said, drawing a card. “Category is entertainment. Who played the role of George Bailey in Frank Capra’s Christmas classic,
It’s a Wonderful Life
? I know you know it, girl.”

Joe finished my Gatorade and gave a deafening burp. “Samuel L. Jackson,” he said. “No, wait. It was Mini-Me.”

“Jimmy Stewart,” Dana said.

“You go, girl,” said Emma. “Next question—Joe. Category is theoretical physics. In quantum electrodynamics, what is the full scattering amplitude the sum of?”

“Theoretical physics!” Joe said, outraged. “E equals MC squared. How should I know? Let me see that card!”

“Incorrect,” Emma said. “Daniel, your turn. Science and nature. What does
elephant
mean in Latin?”

“An
elephant
question!” Joe said, rolling his eyes. “I get the thermo whatzit and Daniel,
the elephant nerd,
gets an elephant question? Besides, he knows Latin.”

“And about a hundred other languages,” said Dana.

“Huge arch,” I said, ignoring them. “
Ele
means arch and
phant
means huge.”

After we played Trivial Pursuit for about an hour more, I finally said, “You know what, guys? I think I’m gonna hit the sack. I’ve had a long, hard one today.”

“Where we headed this time?” Will said.

“LA,” I said. “On the trail of Number 6. He’s nasty, and I think he’s getting ready to make a big strike at Terra Firma. He already sent a henchman to warn me off.”

“LA, cool!” Joe said. “Number 6, cooler. The scarier the better. The few, the proud,
us.
”

“You got my back tonight?” I said to Willy as I stood up and stretched my arms toward the moon.

“Anything gets close to this campfire that Joe can’t eat,” Willy said, punching my leg as I stepped past him, “you’re going to be the first to know.”

Dana poked her head down close as I slid into my sleeping bag. She looked incredible in the pitch-black—but in the firelight,
wow!

“Hey, you,” I said.

“Just wanted to say good night,” she whispered, leaning in. “You handsome devil, you. You are gorgeous, you know? Good night, Dannyboy.” The last thing I felt was the sweet brush of her lips on my cheek.

And then I was dreaming.