Chapter 49
I NEEDED TIME to set the stage.
The instant I arrived in Kansas, I morphed out of my double tick configuration back into my teenage self and enlisted another of my favorite powers: I slowed time down.
Okay—I practically froze it.
(This is also cool to do when engaged in something you never want to end such as drinking a chocolate milk shake.)
Using my imagination coupled with my photographic memory, I completely redecorated the house. I made it look exactly like it had looked when I was three years old—down to the throw rugs, overstuffed furniture, and framed old-world masterpieces hanging on the walls.
I propped up my pretend parents in the kitchen and living room, fighting the urge to pose Dummy Dad with his finger up his nose. I positioned Mom near the stove where she was stirring a simmering pot of her famous Pork Chops Diablo, slow cooked in a spicy chili sauce with caramelized onions. I inherited my love for gourmet food from my mom, who could also whip up a mean chili dog.
More importantly, I wanted the kitchen to smell the way The Prayer remembered it smelling that night. The tantalizing scents of pork chops, chili powder, and perfectly cooked onions were definitely in the air.
Next, I imagined up a three-year-old me and placed him in the basement. I made sure the three-year-old Daniel lived up to my Alpar Nokian nickname of “Stinky Pants.” I also popped open the lid on a couple of tubs of Play-Doh, so its salty-sweet kindergarten fragrance filled the air.
All these scents mingling in the air would definitely help sell the time and place. One huge thing I had picked up from studying The Prayer’s battle tactics was its reliance on the sense of smell when stalking its prey.
I made one final check.
Everything looked and smelled as it had that night.
Now I had to focus on matching the sounds. I spent a few nanoseconds mentally projecting a script into the minds of the puppets The Prayer had fabricated to play its mind games on me.
When the dialogue was downloaded, I released my grip on time.
“Daniel?” said the mom look-alike. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes. Time to start wrapping things up, honey.”
Using my ventriloquist skills, I pitched my voice higher and made it sound like it was coming up the steps from the cellar: “Yes, Mom. One minute. I’m making Play-Doh history down here.”
“Of course you are, dear. I would expect nothing less. Love you. Always.”
“Love you back, Mom. Always.”
Yes, even when I was three years old I spoke like I’d already graduated college.
Time slipped forward.
I saw my mother humming as she stirred her stew pot. My dad was in his favorite chair, reading the local newspaper, lowering its crinkly sheets as he drifted off into a pre-dinner catnap.
I glanced at the wall clock hanging in the kitchen and mentally did the countdown. Three, two, one…
BOOM!
Right on cue, The Prayer crashed through the window and into the kitchen.
Showtime!
Chapter 50
“DON’T HURT US!” sobbed my make-believe mom, just as I programmed her to do. “Who are you?”
The Prayer, grinning devilishly, raised its pincer and froze time the same way I had frozen it.
We were definitely all even Steven in the powers department.
I saw its antennae twitch as it took in the smells of the kitchen and then the whole house.
The thing actually purred because it was so satisfied that it knew where (and, more importantly, when) it was.
Then, with a quick sideways flick of its cornstalk neck, The Prayer spied me spying him crashing into our mutual past.
“My, my, my, Danny Boy,” sneered the sickening skeevoid. “What an extremely logical choice. Flying back through time to our first, fateful day together? At long last, you show some small promise as an adversary.”
“And you show your enormous stupidity,” I sneered back. “Falling into my trap.”
The giant mantis stalked around the room. I countered his every move. We were two deadly predators, circling each other.
“Clever, Danny Boy. Beat me here and you never become a poor little alien orphan. You never have to face all my many minions on The List. There is no hideous torture in your future. No black hole threatening to suck this putrid planet off into the vast void of space. Your choice of time for our final confrontation impresses me.”
Psyche. My mind-trick trap was working.
“I’m so glad you approve,” I said sarcastically, as I circled behind my stand-in dad who was frozen in midleap out of his chair. “I’ve been wanting to come back to this day my whole life. This is my chance at a do-over, Bug Face. If I kill you before you kill my parents, so much horrible history will change.”
“So true,” chortled Number 1, sliding to the left on his gangly limbs. “So true. Why, you could even save your pathetic planet if you killed me before I ordered its destruction. But of course, you couldn’t.”
I smiled. “You catch on quick. Especially for an insect with a brain the size of a frozen pea. Right here, right now, we’ll erase all the pain you caused my family.”
“If,” hissed The Prayer. “IF! A small but hugely important word, Danny Boy. If you can stop me before I do again what you were too cowardly to stop me from doing before.”
“Hey,” I said. “Cut me some slack. I was only three years old.”
The beast rumbled up another contented purr. “For me, you will always be an infant, Danny Boy. What you suggest will never happen. You defeat ME? Ha! NOT POSSIBLE!”
“Never say never,” I said confidently. “Besides, you’ve already messed up.”
Confusion filled the giant insect’s scuzzy black eyes.
“What?” It stamped its feet like a spoiled brat. “HOW?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re making way too much noise,” I said. “And, for another, you forgot to freeze time in the basement, thereby altering history.”
A three-year-old me holding a ball of pink Play-Doh appeared at the top of the staircase leading down into the cellar.
I threw my voice over to my childhood self. “Mom? Dad? Who’s this big loud bug?”
“Game over!” screamed The Prayer. “I will kill you now as I should have killed you then!”
In its blind rage, The Prayer stomped across the room, turning its back on the real me.
And giving me the chance I’d been waiting for all my life.
Chapter 51
SUMMONING UP EVERY ounce of my Level 3 strength, I flew across the room just as The Prayer went after mini-me with its saw-toothed forelegs.
“Leave the kid alone!” I shouted as I straddled the creep’s back. I wrapped my legs around its thorax. I palmed both of its basketball-sized eyes with my hands.
Pushing down hard on the slimy orbs, I was attempting to crush the insect’s skull in my vise grip—mostly because the thing was way too big for me to step on with my shoe.
But I forgot about the wings on its elongated abdomen.
The Prayer unfurled them in a flash and took off. Hanging on tight, I went along for the ride.
We tore through the ceiling of the living room, ripped through my old bedroom, crashed through another ceiling and the rolled-out fiberglass lining the attic floor. We splintered our way through the plywood and shingles of the roof, and hit the sky. Once we were outdoors and airborne, The Prayer reached back, behind its head, with its jagged forelegs. Using its superior strength (Level 11 beats Level 3 every time), it yanked me free of my double-eyeball grip and executed a series of flying barrel rolls to fling me off its back.
On my way down, I smashed new holes in the roof, the attic floor, and my bedroom’s ceiling.
Fortunately, the cushy mattress in my old racecar bed broke my fall.
The Prayer came crashing through the bedroom window, feet first. All six of them.
I instantly turned myself into a praying mantis’s worst n
ightmare: a very hungry, extremely large monkey. Not all the way to King Kong. Just thirteen feet tall. In other words, I was double the size of The Prayer.
I could’ve gone with a giant bird, snake, bat, or frog. They all prey on mantis meat. I chose the monkey because I like the way they laugh.
Feeling threatened for the first time since forever, Number 1 stood tall and spread its forelegs wide. Wings fanned out from its bubble butt. Its mouth flew open in a silent scream.
The creep looked like a catcher ready to catch a baseball without a glove.
Which gave me an idea.
I smashed a giant monkey fist up into that ceiling hole and ripped out a nasty chunk of nail-spiked two-by-four. I cocked back that stick of lumber like a baseball bat. When I swung for the fences, Number 1 shot out a pincer paw and, Mr. Miyagi-style, grabbed it one-handed in midair.
Then he crushed my weapon into a powdery cloud of sawdust.
Level 11 strength? It’s off the charts because it’s off the charts.
The Prayer started working its moist mouth back and forth, revealing all sorts of razor-sharp cutting components that a normal, garden-variety praying mantis would use to grind through all the tough insect shells in its daily diet. Number 1, on the other hand, would use its razor-sharp grinders on me.
“Buh-bye, Monkey Boy,” it gloated.
I lunged forward, ready to bite its head off.
But my prey disappeared.
Suddenly, the Star Wars wallpaper lining my childhood bedroom started to move. The curtains and window frame, too.
That’s when I realized that Number 1 was using a praying mantis’s incredible camouflage skills to blend into the background the way a chameleon would.
I morphed out of my monkey suit and backed up a step or two.
The walls of the bedroom kept wavering. The Prayer was coming at me. Setting up its final deadly strike.
I kept backing up, even though I was pretty certain this wasn’t the kind of backup plan my dad had in mind.
Suddenly, things weren’t looking so good for me—or this planet.
And I had a sinking feeling that I’d be the one sent first into the black hole of oblivion.
Chapter 52
IT WAS TIME to change tactics.
Plan A had been to outmuscle and outfight Number 1. So far, that wasn’t working out so well.
Once again, my father’s words came echoing back to me, and I was glad I listened.
Time for Plan B.
Instead of bringing the pain to The Prayer, I’d let The Prayer be the one to lay down the hurt. It was time to try something crazy.
Using my internal Wi-Fi, I quickly downloaded everything the Internet had on mantids, which—I learned—was the proper plural for mantis.
Interesting fact. But it wouldn’t do me much good in a final fight to the death.
I also learned that the female mantis will often eat the male after mating because the extra protein boost from her husband’s carcass helps her eggs develop.
Unfortunately, there was no Mrs. Prayer to jump in and chomp off Number 1’s head.
However, the Internet search confirmed what I had already learned from experience: mantids are voracious eaters, always on the lookout for food. They live life with a very simple plan: Hunt. Eat. Hunt. Eat.
I needed to take advantage of that primal instinct.
So, just as Number 1 shed its cloak of camouflage and swung its forelegs at my head, I pulled another quick change.
This time, I turned myself into a tasty treat that The Prayer couldn’t resist but wouldn’t have a chance of catching: a big, juicy housefly the size of a bloated softball.
Stringy drool dribbled down from the thing’s garbage-disposal mouth.
It was hungry for fly.
When it made a grab for me, I flitted away before its vise grip could crush me.
When it lunged again, I buzzed around inside its flapping dreadlocks.
Number 1 went berserk trying to shoo me out of its hairy head. All six limbs were flailing. His skull did a 359-degree spin on its spindly neck. When it spun back the other way, its limbs got all tangled up together, and the giant beast fell on its bulbous butt, spraining its wings.
I hovered over his head for an instant—making like the circling stars when a cartoon gets walloped. Then, skimming across its antennae to make sure it could smell how good dinner would taste if it ever caught me, I zipped out the bedroom door.
The Prayer chased after me, its giant limbs clomping down the steps. It reminded me of that brainless dinosaur skeleton that had chased me and my friends around the American Museum of Natural History all those nights ago.
The Prayer was doing what its instincts told it to do.
It was hunting me. Relentlessly.
It was tearing through walls, smashing out windows, punching holes in drywall, chasing me around and around the backyard.
Number 1 was an excellent tracker. But it wasn’t doing a very good job of getting to the “eat” part of “hunt, eat, hunt, eat.”
Because to eat me, it had to catch me.
And that just wasn’t going to happen. Not that day. Not in Kansas. Because I was a fly with swifter moves than a hummingbird stoked on ten gallons of pure maple syrup.
Chapter 53
ONCE AGAIN, I wondered if Mikaela was watching from her heavenly perch, because for this battle I had definitely chosen flight over fight.
I wasn’t running away from the danger. I was just trying to wear the danger down so it wouldn’t be quite so dangerous. I was hoping to nudge Number 1’s Level 11 strength down into the single digits.
And it looked like my plan was working.
The Prayer’s gnarly red dreadlocks were dribbling droplets like waterlogged anchor ropes. The beast was breathing hard. Its asparagus stalk of a body kept bellowing in and out.
Meanwhile, I kept flitting, floating, and fleeing all night and into the early hours of the morning. The Prayer never stopped chasing me. We went trampling through the old farmhouse so many times, there wasn’t much left of it besides a pile of smoldering rubble and a freestanding fireplace and chimney. Number 1 had bashed down all the walls in his quest for what it wanted: me.
I took a few pit stops, now and then, to replenish my energy by grabbing a bite to eat. The rotting fast-food garbage littering the sides of the road became my Quick Pick Mini Mart.
Yes, it was gross. Especially when you realize a fly can only eat liquids. They turn solid foods into a liquid by spitting or vomiting on it. After that, they use their tongue like a straw to suck the slop up.
After a while, I decided I’d just go hungry and skip the moldy french fries and rancid Whoppers with half-chewed lettuce and tomatoes until after I defeated The Prayer.
Yes, I wanted to eat. And, believe it or not, garbage smells great when you’re a fly. But always getting what you want—when you want it—is a horrible way to live your life. Especially if what you want is no good for you, or if it constantly escapes your grasp.
For The Prayer, I was a little of both.
He couldn’t quite catch me.
And even if he did, I definitely wouldn’t agree with his stomach. The second he swallowed my fly body, I’d pull one of my classic moves and morph back into being a full-sized teenage boy, which would definitely bust open his gullet.
You see, my father taught me to fight with my head as much as my hands.
No way could I ever beat The Prayer in any kind of hand-to-hand combat or martial arts duel. Not even if I summoned up Joe, Willy, Dana, and Emma. The Prayer would outmuscle all of us combined.
To beat this brute, I had to count on the muscle in my head.
Chapter 54
FINALLY, ABOUT THREE hours after dawn, The Prayer’s knobby knees buckled.
The lanky creature crumbled to the ground.
“Enough!” it cried.
I hovered six feet in front of his face. I know mantids have incredible eyesight. So it could probably see the hug
e garbage-eating grin on my fuzzy face.
But then it did something I should have expected.
It materialized an Opus 24/24.
The weapon whined, signaling that it was fully charged. The Prayer aimed the thing at me.
He was going to swat a fly with a bazooka blast.
I could dodge the shot, but the shockwave would send out thermal waves of incredible turbulence, making the air impossible for me to navigate through.
So I decided to fight fire with fire.
I could’ve materialized my own Opus 24/24 and blasted him before he blasted me. But I had something better in mind.
“Wait!” I squeaked in a tiny fly voice as I made the switch back to my own body.
“You’ve obviously won,” I said. “Let me make this easy for you.”
I raised both my arms and opened them wide, giving The Prayer an easy shot at my heart.
“This is the first smart move you have made, Danny Boy. I will make your death swift and clean, yet excruciatingly painful.”
I just grinned. “Go for it.”
I saw him twist a knob. The weapon’s molecular resonator wailed a shrill, high-pitched squeal that kept screeching higher and higher.
I zoomed my eyes in on Number 1’s trigger pincer.
“Say hello to your mommy and daddy for me on the other side, Danny Boy!”
The serrated limb budged back half a millimeter.
I instantly threw time into superslow mo so I’d have half a second to materialize my weapon: a four-by-four sheet of extremely reflective and totally impenetrable adamantite, a rare green metal found only in the mines on the planet Ramdon Nine.
The adamantite shield would block my body. It also fit perfectly in my outstretched hands.
I let go of my grip on time. The Opus 24/24 exploded with a deafening roar.
A plasma pulse of pure, blue-white pain erupted from its muzzle. I felt it hammer into my adamantite shield, making it shimmy. But then the pulse ricocheted off the adamantite and rebounded onto The Prayer.
Number 1 squealed in shock and agony. He had just shot himself in the foot. All six of them.