Dangerous Days of Daniel X

Then, for a long time, there was the roar of the flames, and my soft, little-boy cries as I stood alone in the world for the first time, orphaned and homeless.

I recalled a song my mom used to sing to me: Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight. She and my dad loved the skies and the stars.

And I remember thinking, very clearly, as if I had suddenly grown up on that horrifying, unforgettable night: I know where The List is-my father has taken me to see it many times. Maybe for just this reason.

And I know what it is: The List of Alien Outlaws on Terra Firma.

And I know who I am: Daniel, son of Graff, son of Terfdron-the Alien Hunter.

No last name, just Daniel X.

I have to tell you one more thing about that night. I must get it out.

Even though I was only three years old, I am ashamed that I didn’t fight The Prayer to the death.

DANIEL X, ALIEN HUNTER

Chapter 1

TWELVE YEARS HAVE PASSED. I’m fifteen now. All grown up, sort of.

When I tell you that I’ve seen it all and done it all, I’m not lying or boasting-though sometimes I wish I were, and that I lived a normal life in some place like Peoria, Illinois, or Red Bank, New Jersey.

Since the death of my mom and dad, and in my years as an Alien Hunter-up to and including the present moment of extraordinary jeopardy-I’ve been kidnapped by faceless metallic humanoids. Twice.

I’ve been chased and caught by a shape-shifting proto-plasm in London who wanted to make me into a jelly sandwich, without the bread.

I have done hand-to-antennae combat with an entire civilization of insects in Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Acapulco.

I’ve had my face run over again and again-for days-by self-replicating machines that were about to take over Detroit. And wait-it gets worse.

A billion or so “little wailing mouths” connected by an electrical network to a single mind-I don’t know how else to describe them-ate and digested me in Hamburg, Germany.

I will not tell you how I got out of that one.

But this particular creature, currently right in my face, was really, really testing my limits, and my patience.

Chapter 2

ITS NAME WAS ORKNG JLLFGNA and it was Number 19 on The List of Alien Outlaws. I had caught up with it in Portland, Oregon, after a month-long search through Canada and the Pacific Northwest, with a near-miss capture attempt in Seattle.

More to the point, it was at the moment blocking my escape out of a disgusting sewage pipe underneath the fair city of Portland, somewhere, I believe, between the Rose Garden Arena and PGE Park.

Orkng was actually living in the sewer, and on this particular night, at around two o’clock, I had come on an extermination mission. I despised this kidnapper of the elderly and their pets (dog liver is a delicacy on its hideous home planet). I can best describe this alien freak as part man, part jellyfish, part chain saw.

“You’re very impressive and scary, Orkng-may I call you Orkng?” I asked.

“Is that your last wish?” The creature growled and then spun its immense buzz saw toward my eyes.

“Oh, I hope not. Say, I’ve read you have Level 4 strength. True or false?”

Orkng took out a quarter and bent it in half-with its eyelid!

“And you’re a shape-shifter too?” I pretended to marvel, or grovel, I guess you could call it.

Rather than a simple yes or no, Orkng changed itself into a kind of squid with a human face featuring a mouth with hundreds of teeth.

The entire changing process took about five seconds.

Interesting, I thought. Could be something to work with here.

“That’s it? That’s all you can do?” I asked the squid thing. “I came down into this sewer for that?”

“That’s nothing, you little chump.” Orkng snickered, frowned, and burped up something resembling a dozen oysters sans the half shells.

Once again, it began to change-only this time, I leaped right inside the confluence of shifting molecules and atoms and photons. How brave, or dumb, was that?

How creative?

Then I used my Level 3 strength for all it was worth. I punched and I kicked gaping holes into the still- unformulated creature. I fought as if my life depended on it-which it obviously did. Then I began shredding the murderous monster into tiny pieces with my hands.

It was terrible and gruesome and took hours to accomplish, and I hated every second of it, every shred.

But when the deed was done, I was able to cross Number 19 off my List, and I was one step closer to Number 1-The Prayer, who had killed my mom and dad.

All in a night’s work in the sewers of Portland.

Chapter 3

THE SUN WAS JUST COMING UP- well, the grayish-white smudge that passes for a sun in forever-overcast Portland-as I lumbered through my rental apartment’s front door and plopped down on the couch.

I crossed my muddy boots on the coffee table and yawned as I opened the morning’s Oregonian.

As exhausted as my body was, my mind was still wired about the night before. I jumped up and went to my computer. I pulled up The List of Alien Outlaws and checked to see who was naughty and had been recently exterminated. Yessiree, Number 19 was no longer on the boards!

This was, in fact, the same List that The Prayer had been trying to find that fateful day twelve years ago. When I was thirteen, I finally revisited the burnt-down farmhouse where my poor parents had been incinerated. After several days of searching, I found The List-buried under mud and rocks in the rather picturesque brook that ran behind the house.

The List was on a computer-the one now before me, which is thin as a notepad and probably five hundred years in advance of anything currently offered by Apple or IBM. When I first opened it, I discovered that it contained the names, full description, and approximate whereabouts of the known outlaw aliens currently roaming the earth. And trust me on this: they are out there, watching and studying us.

There was also a disturbing message for me from my mom and dad. If I was reading it, the note said, I was to replace them. I was to be the Alien Hunter. I would have to learn how mostly by myself.

As I was pondering this troubling episode from my past, the front doorbell rang.

Not good. I wasn’t expecting anyone-I’m never expecting anyone. I don’t really like visitors, which is ironic, since I’m lonely most of the time and I adore people, actually.