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Chapter 46
“IT’S OKAY, PHOEBE,” I said as I rocked her gently back and forth. “I’m here now. Everything is okay. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You can say that again,” Phoebe said, suddenly stiffening in my arms.
What the -?
She squirmed away. Then Phoebe gave me a fu
“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 pa
“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 spi
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, Da
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 disco
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, Da
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 fu
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?