I WAS TREMBLING and pressing my small, vulnerable body up against an old water heater, petrified about what might have just happened to my mom and dad, when a beam of violet-tinged light shone down the stairs into the basement.

And then I saw it-a six-and-a-half-foot-tall praying mantis. At least it had taken that terrible form tonight.

From behind the water heater, I stared in horror at the creature’s long, grossly bulging, plum-colored body, its small, almost shrunken head, its large, liquid-black eyes. What a foul beast! It had long, stringy red dreadlocks hanging down between its antennae, and a dull black metal assault rifle cradled in its sharply jointed arms.

“I know you’re down here, boy,” the XXL-sized insect said with a slow, horrifying roll of its stalklike neck. “I am called The Prayer, and there is very little that The Prayer does not know. If you come to me now, I may go easy on you. May. But I do hereby promise, cross my heart and hope to live forever, if you continue to make me play this silly game of hide-and-seek, you are going to learn the meaning of the word punishment.”

This abomination, this beast that dared call itself The Prayer, proceeded to tear the basement apart, obviously looking for The List. Powered by its massive legs it suddenly leaped upstairs and trashed the rest of the house-screeching, “LIST! LIST! LIST! LIST!”

Then it was back in my playspace, looking for me, no doubt angrier and hungrier than ever.

The Prayer smiled eerily then, flashing jagged yellow, broken-bottle-shard teeth. It covered fifteen feet of room with a single hop.

“Game over, you pathetic little pukemeister. Maybe you know where The List is. Do you? DO YOU?”

That’s when I realized that behind the thick wall of fear, my mind was actually trying to save me.

Of course, I thought. I had a plan, a shred of hope that could salvage my life.

The Prayer swung its evil-looking head around the side of the water heater.

And found absolutely nothing!

THE REPUGNANT FREAK GASPED with surprise and outrage. “What?” it screeched at the top of its voice range. “Not possible! I smelled you there a second ago!”

Well, technically I was still right there. I looked cross-eyed at my new beaklike hypostome as I scurried away on my eight new clawed legs. The answer to my immediate problem had been straightforward: all I needed to do was make myself less conspicuous to the murderous beast.

Do you follow what had just happened? The full significance of it? It’s important.

You see, my abilities didn’t stop at being able to make ticks talk and do tricks.

Now I was the tick. I had transformed myself.

Towering above me like a skyscraper, The Prayer opened its razor-sharp jaws and there was a bubbling-wet, sickening sound. Then a jet of jellylike blue flame shot from his mouth. The basement walls, carpet, and ceiling caught fire in the blink of my eyes.

“Take that, you little nothing! I flame-broil my meat. Like Burger King! And Beelzebub!”

Still in tiny tick form, I raced away from the smoke and scorching heat until I was crushed against the basement’s concrete foundation wall, which now seemed as big as a cliff to me.

I reached up tentatively with one of my claws. Some good news at last. My claw stuck to the concrete like superglue.

Next I was scampering up the wall behind The Prayer’s head. Then I jumped and landed smack-dab in the center of the alien’s greasy, dreadlocked hair.

I locked my hypostome down tight like a seat belt on a strand of his hair just as the homicidal Prayer jumped effortlessly to the top of the burning basement stairs again.

There I got a horrific, never-to-be-forgotten look at my mom and dad lying facedown on the kitchen floor. I knew they were dead and there was nothing I could do for them. I knew it in my heart and soul. I just couldn’t believe it yet, couldn’t accept it.

Then The Prayer smashed through the kitchen window and burst into the night.

“FAILURE! FAILURE! FAILURE!” it bellowed. “I hate failure! WHERE IS THE LIST?”

Something struck my head then, the end of a tree branch maybe, and I found myself flying through the cold air. The breath was knocked out of me, and I landed hard on the packed dirt floor of the woods behind our farmhouse.

I was a three-year-old boy again. Transformed. No longer a tick. I stood and turned back, and stared in disbelief and terror that could find no voice at that awful moment.

Already our house was a blazing shell of its former self. My mom and dad were dead and being incinerated inside. There was the sound of glass shattering as the upstairs window to my bedroom blew out with the heat.

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

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.