Hopper House (The Jenkins Cycle Book 3) (23 page)

T
he storming
of the landlord’s mad scientist house, the killing of his guards, and the standoff with Paulie-and-pals had taken about fifteen minutes. Other than Rose’s sniper rifle, it had also been loud. We weren’t in the city, but neither were we way out in the countryside, and the glow of the population center lit the horizon.

As if reading my thoughts, the minister said, “We heard the gunshots. With all that noise, someone may have called the police. Rose has a car in the city. We’d planned to meet there afterward.”

“So let’s move,” Rose said, jumping in the back.

Karen got in on the passenger’s side.

“Mrs. Jenkins,” the minister said, extending his arm and helping her into the back with Rose before getting behind the wheel.

“What about me?” Paulie shouted, still on his knees.

I walked over and picked up the pistol. My normal inclination would be to execute Paulie with a bullet to the head, but I couldn’t do that with my mother watching. I also didn’t need the minister’s holy outrage warring with my shot arm and other pains. My body felt like a raw, pulsating nerve that had been dragged over gravel.

Smiling tiredly, I said, “It’s your lucky day, Paulie. You have one job, and if you do it right, we can be friends again.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, I know, but I still have something for you to do. Beats dying, right?”

He just smirked.

Quickly, I told him what I wanted. He needed to go upstairs, find that piece of malachite I’d killed the landlord with, and wipe it down. Then he had to find the command center with the TVs and computers and destroy the hard drives. I didn’t want the minister or my mom involved when the police eventually pulled the security footage.

“You need anything else? Want me to mow the fucking lawn, too?”

“I could use a hand with Lenny,” I said. “Take him with you when you leave, and get rid of the body.”

Paulie helped me carry Lenny’s corpse over to his car, where we dumped it unceremoniously in with the mobster I’d given the coup de grâce.

“Take care, Paulie,” I said.

He didn’t reply.

I got in the car and waved for the minister to lead the way.

The next twenty minutes passed tensely. I kept glancing at the sky, expecting a police helicopter to show up, but none did. Then we were in the city. A few minutes more and the minister parked next to a car in an empty post office parking lot.

Everyone got out. Rose and Karen immediately began chatting quietly together. Mom stood off a ways, looking everywhere but me, her face unreadable.

To the minister I said, “I guess Nate told you I was coming here.”

He nodded. “When I heard your mother was taken, I wanted to report it. Nate said we couldn’t be sure where they had her. He worried they’d kill her if we called the police, and so I agreed to wait for your return. Then he said you were going after them, and suddenly we had no time to prepare.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure which of you is stupider. He seems to think you’re some sort of action hero. He kept saying:
a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
.”

Good ol’ Nate. I owed that guy a lemon-filled doughnut.

“So what’s Rose doing here?” I said.

He glanced over at the two of them. They looked deep in conversation.

“After Karen realized who you were, she got in touch with her through an online forum the demons use. Rose stole that car over there and agreed to meet us. If I’d known she was bringing guns, I wouldn’t have allowed it. But Karen … um … distracted me, and well…”

It was dark out, but I could have sworn he was blushing. Some priest.

“Good thing you didn’t know,” I said. “Anyway, thanks for helping.”

The minister smirked. “As it turns out, not all these demons are as dependent on the landlord as he would have liked. I take it he’s dead?”

I nodded. “Sleeping with the cannoli. So what’s the deal with you and Karen? You weren’t too keen on her before, from what I remember.”

The minister cleared his throat. “After we left you at the hospital, she wanted to join me in the Lord’s work, exorcising the more violent demons. Many of them rob liquor stores or murder drug dealers to pay the landlord and fill those pantry boxes. She made me promise not to banish any of her friends. When I agreed, she told me the names of the really awful demons. I compel them to identify themselves, then do what I must.”

Karen, who’d been listening, said, “Bad enough I lost the houses. No way I’m losing my friends, too. We’re not all like Stephen.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rose said, leaning against the Hummer in a challenging pose.

Karen laughed. “You’re so full of shit.”

Mom watched us quietly, arms folded in a familiar manner I hadn’t seen in years: I was in trouble, and I had explaining to do. The others seemed to sense the change in the air and went around the enormous vehicle, giving us privacy.

“Convince me it’s you,” Mom said, eyes fearful and imploring and hopeful all at the same time. “Make sense of this.”

I leaned close and whispered something in her ear, then something else, then continued on that way for a good five minutes. At some point she started crying, and when I reached out and put my arms around her she didn’t pull away.

“The phone calls,” she said. “I knew it was you. All those years. Why didn’t you just—” She choked back a sob and shook her head.

I leaned back but didn’t let go. “If I’d shown up with a story like this, what would have happened?”

“I would have liked to find out! How dare you make that choice for me?”

With a feeling akin to being dressed down in front of the other kids, I lowered my voice. “Well, obviously I’m
sorry
. It’s not like I’m an unknown quantity here.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she said, not quietly at all.

I heard Rose laugh.

Mom squeezed my good arm, her angry expression replaced with one of concern.

“Have you seen your father?” she said. “On the other side?”

For a moment, I was tempted to say
yes
. To give her some comfort in the face of all this madness with the guns and murder—which she was taking considerably well, all things considered.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“So tell me how it works.”

From behind me, Rose called, “Later—I’m freezing my ass off!”

“Then sit in the car!” Mom snapped back.

Karen said something and Rose snorted, then they got in the stolen car and started the engine.

“Well?” Mom said.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for the truth,” she said. “Something to explain what you did, what happened to you. I tried religion, but it made no sense, so I stopped going to church. When the calls started, I tried astrology and tarot cards, but it was either junk or it didn’t work for me. I’m ready for the truth. I’ve earned it.”

Before she admitted to sacrificing chickens, I glossed over the suicide and explained how in the beginning I thought I’d fallen into a coma, and how I’d come to call the void with the portals the Great Wherever.

When I got to the Great
Whomever
, she stopped me.

“It’s not this
Whatever
person you call him,” she said. “It’s
God
, Daniel. The
real
God. How come you don’t know that?”

“I thought you weren’t religious?”

“Mind your tone,” she said and motioned me to continue.

I told her about my super memory, the killers and rapists and sicko torture nuts I’d inhabited over the years—again glossing over the gory details. The mother I’d grown up with had been against capital punishment, and I dreaded what she thought of her back-from-the-dead son dishing it out personally. But when I admitted how I frequently killed them, she didn’t bat an eye.

Twenty minutes later, it was just the two of us standing there shivering in the cold while the others kept warm in their vehicles.

“So what do you think about all this?” I said.

Mom smiled sadly. “I don’t know what to think. It’s all so bizarre. Mostly I’m happy you’re back.”

Karen got out of the car and into the Hummer, and Rose came over to us.

“Maybe you should get out of the cold,” I said to my mother. “I’ll be along in a sec.”

Mom rubbed her arms and nodded, then got in Vinnie’s car.

“Can you sit with her?” I said to Rose.

“Sure, Dan.” She gave me a quick hug, then got in the back seat.

I tapped on the minister’s window for attention. He rolled it down.

“How’d she take it?” he said.

“Freakishly well. So where you going to now? Back to Toledo, I hope.”

The minister shook his head. “There’s a reason I’m here. Now, in this place, among you demons. There’s still work to do. Whatever comes from tonight won’t be noticed immediately. My guess is those codes for the houses will work for a while. I need to finish what I started before they fail. With Karen’s help, it might be possible.”

Karen leaned over and smiled. Despite being a hopper myself, it felt weird seeing her in another person’s body.

“So how does it work?” I said. “She gets you inside and then what? You charge in, wild eyed and flinging holy water?”

The minister barked a rare laugh. “Close. Once she finds out who we’re dealing with, she calls and lets me know if I’m needed.”

“What about the snake things?”

“She lets me in the door and waits outside. The chains can’t harm me, though they do hiss quite a bit. I’m not sure what their language is, but I’ve written some of it down. It’s not Aramaic, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I shook my head. Perish the thought.

“Karen and I make a great team,” he said.

She smiled happily and raised her hand up. The minister gave her a high five, and I had officially seen everything.

I felt a weird stab of jealousy. With Karen stepping in, I felt left out.

“Good luck, you two,” I said, grinning to hide it. “Try not to get shot.”

“The Lord is my armor,” he said.

The minister raised his window and turned on his lights. Karen waved from her seat. Then they drove off, leaving me standing in the cold and wondering where a good sunset was when you needed one.

“Not sure what your plans are,” I said to Rose when I got in the car, “but you’re welcome to tag along while I take my mother home.”

“Way ahead of you,” Rose said, beaming her a smile.

“I invited her to stay with us,” Mom said, beaming it back.

O
n the ride home
, Rose and I talked while Mom listened from the back seat. Now that I knew the truth about Cupcake the dog, she said she felt she could open up more to me. I seized the moment and asked about the bizarre wall of corpses she’d constructed in that tangle of rose bushes and rocks.

In a rare first for her, she told me everything.

In the beginning, when Rose learned how awful her rides were, she began killing them at the end. She stacked them up around that sinkhole and squatted in the rundown and vacant house for years. Later, when she met the landlord, she used his money to fix it up and stayed there with his permission. Unlike me, she never investigated the extent of a ride’s guilt.

That had always been something of a temptation with me: to ask no questions and assume the worst. Much easier to enjoy myself without playing amateur detective. But if I’d done that, it would have ruined a lot of lives—like Nate’s new girlfriend, Tara, or those kids I’d saved in Connecticut years ago. Though I didn’t know his ultimate plans for me, the Great Whomever’s careful selection of my rides couldn’t be shrugged off.

“What about the good ones?” I said. “You can tell when it’s a good one, can’t you?”

Rose grimaced. “Yes. With those, I stay out of trouble and hope for the best. Don’t worry—my latest skin’s a baddie.”

This time, I took her word for it.

“I don’t like that sinkhole,” I said. “Gave me the creeps.”

“I won’t be going back there. With the landlord dead, the house will likely fall into new hands. Then a lot of missing persons cases will suddenly get solved.”

For a while, we drove in silence. Then something occurred to me.

“Where’d you get that cool sniper rifle?” I said.

Rose chuckled. “From my collection of deadly weapons. I have a storage unit a couple of miles from the house with a combination lock. That way, the hoppers who stay at the house can’t steal from me. Not an issue anymore, I guess. I pay for it every year in cash.”

Mom asked Rose more about her gun collection, seemingly fascinated by every piece of information she had to offer. I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder at this woman who’d raised me, sitting there chatting away about guns.

I glanced at her in the mirror. “Why are you so calm about all this?”

She leveled me a look of motherly patience. “Your father’s dead and I just found out there really is life after death and that God exists.”

“It’s aliens,” Rose said. “
Aliens.
”

Ignoring her, Mom said, “But you know the best thing? My son’s returned when he needs me the most. Really, Daniel, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”

I relaxed in the seat and realized I knew more about her now than ever before. She’d sensed my presence across death and common sense for twenty years and never given up.

I hadn’t earned that kind of love from anyone. Especially her. Now it was time for me to return it.

M
om called
my sister to say she wasn’t missing. She’d merely taken a surprise vacation. Jane announced she was flying home right away. Mom confessed she’d spent too much on souvenirs and couldn’t pay for Jane’s ticket until next month—effectively nixing my thrifty sister’s travel plans.

Seeing my old bedroom again was definitely weird. The room was completely different—no Rush posters on the walls, no homework desk or hamster cage. I did find some old things up on a shelf in the closet, including an old Dungeons & Dragons box we kids used to smuggle Playboys and Penthouses around in.

For the remainder of our rides, Rose and I stayed with my mother. Both of them took turns treating my arm, which was purple and swollen from the gunshot. Luckily, the bullet had passed right through. A flesh wound, as they say. That first day, Rose bought a ton of antibiotics designed for use in fish tanks, which she made me take three times a day. She said they were just as safe for fish as humans. The next day, when I didn’t die from poisoning, I knew she was right.

As the days wore on, Rose and Mom grew increasingly closer, often staying up chatting deep into the night. It became obvious to me that, though Mom was happy to have me back, we didn’t have a lot of normal things to talk about. She seemed merely content that I was there. It also became clear Rose had become a sort of surrogate daughter—despite Rose being older than her by at least ten years.

One very cool development: every night, after staying up talking, Rose would slip upstairs, pass by Jane’s old room, and sneak into mine. We did our best to keep quiet, and Mom pretended not to notice.

Rose and I felt our first kicks at the same time. Uncanny, how our cycles were now synced.

When we were kicked again the next day, she said, “Are we boyfriend and girlfriend now?”

She’d said it playfully, but I sensed real concern just below the surface.

“Do you want to be boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Rose shrugged and ran a finger down my chest. “What about that girl you killed yourself over?”

That was a good question.

“Remember those snake things I told you about?”

“Hard to believe,” she said. “Hopping without going to the spaceship.”

I let the spaceship thing slide.

“One of the memories that got snatched away was of Sandra. I remember her being pretty, but can’t picture her face. Somehow, without that image to hold on to, I don’t think about her anymore. Who knew I was so shallow?”

“Maybe you were too young and mixed up love with desire,” Rose said.

“Maybe.”

Rose took my hand and held it to her face. “Will you want to see me again if my face is old and wrinkly? Or if I’m just plain ugly? Or too fat or too thin?”

I cupped her cheek and kissed her.

“Yes.”