James Patterson - Dangerous Days of Daniel X

“Here, boy,” he said, clucking his tongue as he dropped the bowl next to my head. “Oh, what’s wrong? Does the little doggie have a tum-tum ache? Don’t want to play epic hero anymore? No more a-hunting-aliens-we-will-go? I came down here just to watch your suffering and humiliation. The thing about moments of triumph, you want to make them last!”

“Please don’t hurt me,” I said, shivering. “Please.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Seth said as he squatted down to get a better look at my misery. “I will.”

That’s precisely when I manifested Willy, Joe, Dana, and Emma into the open doorway behind the big horse-headed creep.

That’s right. Never give up, never say die, live in complete denial. I even remembered to dress them in the filthy gray jumpsuits that were all the rage with the abducted tween-age slave set this season.

I told you I was feeling a little, teensy bit better. It’s hard to keep a good Alien Hunter down. I think it was the sleep that had done it. I’d recharged enough to work at least a little of my power. Maybe five percent.

I watched my gang hoof it out of my cell and down the corridor of the ship.

“You are pathetic, do you know that?” Seth continued. “You actually thought you could come after me? And win? I even warned you. But losers such as yourself never learn, I suppose. Losers like you are never satisfied until someone actually hands them their head.”

“I should have listened to you,” I moaned, crying. Shia LaBeouf couldn’t have done a better acting job, not even with Steven Spielberg directing. “Please, please,” I said, writhing for effect. “I’ll do anything you want.”

Seth merely smiled. “Of course you will.”

FOR THE NEXT couple of hours, I lay flat on my back in my cell with my eyes closed. What with all I’d been through, I was putting up my feet and taking a major breather.

Yeah, right! Actually, I was busy communicating telepathically with my friends as they searched the ship for a way out, or at least a way to strike back at Seth and his goons.

First off I watched as Willy searched level upon level for any sign of a lifeboat or an escape pod, but unfortunately there was nothing. It was a Hail Mary, I knew, because even if he found one, there was no way of knowing how to operate it or even which was the direction back to Earth. Willy tried to get near what he thought might be the bridge, but it was crawling with heavily armed mutant horse-faces.

On the main slave factory floor, Joe and Emma discovered that there were chains and pallets underneath all the worktables. The kid slaves worked and slept in the same five square feet.

But Joe and Emma did manage to do something positive. They sat with about twenty or so abducted girls gathered around them. Emma had snagged some yarn from one of the sweatshop shelves, and she was showing them how to make friendship bracelets. Leave it to Emma to find a silver lining just about anywhere.

The most heart-shredding of the psychic podcasts came from Dana. She had spoken to one of the prisoners, a pale Asian American boy who had more than a passing resemblance to the ghost kid from The Grudge.

“How long have you been here?” Dana asked. “Can you tell me that?”

The kid looked right through her.

“Dunno.”

“Months? Years?”

“Dunno.”

“Where are the older kids?” Dana said.

A look of horror invaded the kid’s face.

“Taken away,” he whispered. He began sobbing as Dana picked him up and put him in her lap. “Sold.”

Of course, I thought. As if breaking their spirits wasn’t enough, Seth had put the kids on the auction block and sold them to whoever-or whatever -could come up with the highest price.

Maybe that was why I was being kept alive-to be sold at auction. How much for an Alien Hunter, slightly used? With five percent of his former powers?

“You’re going to be okay,” Dana said, hugging the boy as tears rolled down her cheeks. “We’re going to get you out of here and back home. Hey, you want to play I spy? I’ll go first. I spy with my little eye something cute. You. ”

The kid actually giggled. How do you like that? Leave it to her. Even in hell, Dana could make people laugh.

Okay, then, what had I learned? Fact one: there was no resistance against the impossibly cruel alien creeps. Fact two: there was no possibility for escape.

I reminded myself for the millionth time to never underestimate an opponent again. Oh, wait. What was I thinking? There wasn’t going to be an again.

I WAS EATING an imaginary cherry sno-cone-which helped my spirits more than you might think. I was planning on an imaginary lemon-and-lime one next.

“Bet’s to you, Daniel,” Pork Chop said, peering at me over her massive pile of chips. “Quit stalling and lose the hand already.”

If you think regular solitary confinement is boring, you should try it on an alien spaceship. That’s why I decided to host a family World Series of Poker tournament in my cell.

I guess I was feeling a little better. In the special power sense, at least. I was able to manifest my parents and sister, the poker table, cards, some chips, sno-cones.

“And on our left, the Danster continues to hold up the game,” my sister complained. “And to slurp in the most disgusting way imaginable.”

“I call,” I said, turning over my aces.

All six of them.

“What the -?” Pork Chop said in outrage. She picked up two of my aces and shook them in my face. “This is outrageous. I don’t care if you are delirious.”

“That’s the ace of crosses and the ace of cats,” I said proudly.

“Those cards don’t exist,” Pork Chop said. “Those suits don’t even exist.”

“Daniel, c’mon. That’s not like you,” my mom said.

“Gee, Mom,” I said, clutching my aching stomach. “I guess I haven’t been in the best of moods since Seth gave me this new belly button here.”

An overwhelming sense of sadness and anger had finally enveloped me. Here I was about to be executed or maybe something worse-and what was I doing? Sitting here and taking it.

“Who am I kidding with this garbage?” I yelled. “Pork Chop, listen to me! You think cheating at cards is a shocker? I know something that’ll blow your mind… You’re not real! I invent you, create you, bring you into being. I daydream you like the alien that I am. Mom and Dad aren’t real either!”

“What are you? Crazy?” Brenda said, making a face. “Who died and made you God? Explain that one to me.”

A chilling realization came to me then. I knew who Brenda really was. And why I could manifest her so easily.

“Okay, here’s your explanation. Ready? You used to be real, but you were killed.”

My sister’s face was drained of its color.

“What do you mean? I feel perfectly fine. When did this happen?”

“When I was three a killer came to our house. His name is The Prayer. Mom must have been pregnant with you. When she died, you died.”

Pork Chop turned to my mom and dad. Tears beaded in her eyes. “He’s lying,” she said. “I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want you both to be dead.”

I looked across the room, where my mother and father were hugging Pork Chop. Both of them were crying too.

And then they were gone.

I WAS SLUMPED over in my cell, feeling awful about what I’d said to Pork Chop, when I sensed wraithlike movement on the other side of my cell door. Then Seth entered with a contingent of formal-looking, uniformed alien guards. Now I felt even worse. If I was murdered, I’d never be able to tell Pork Chop how sorry I was.