Hopper House (The Jenkins Cycle Book 3)

by John L. Monk

  “Are those more houses?” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “How many houses have P.O. Boxes? Now listen, because this is important: if you come into a lot of money, you’re to send it to one of those addresses. That’s how we pay for taxis and drivers and the Internet and all that. Anything good you find that isn’t money, just leave it here in the donation box. Keep the police away, don’t die in the house, and don’t get kicked out while you’re here. If you can do all that and not burn the place down or hurt the other hoppers, you’re free to stay here as often as you want. But please, do try to clean up after yourself.” This last with pointed look at the little bits of hair still on the ground.

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Another hopper. I couldn’t believe it.

  A hundred years…

  Stephen stepped around me on the way to the kitchen, and I went looking for the vacuum. I found it in one of the closets, just like he’d said. A minute later, the floor was clean.

  He certainly was strange, but in the span of five minutes he’d told me more than Rose had in almost three weeks.

  I put the vacuum away and went to join Stephen in the kitchen—and gasped at the sight of him wearing an oven mitt and pressing a spoon against the stove’s glowing hotplate.

  “Hey,” I said. “Before you do whatever drug that is, I have a few more questions. You’re the second person I’ve found like me. For the longest time, I thought I was the only one. So you can imagine how I have a lot of—”

  “Hold that thought,” Stephen said, pulling the spoon off and dropping a pinch of cotton into it. He uncapped a disposable syringe and gazed at it lovingly. “Questions … right. A hopper named Ashley started a private forum about ten years ago—almost got her house privileges revoked when he found out. Likes us drugged, dumb, and happy, he does. Prefer it that way myself, to tell you the truth. Remind me later and I’ll get her to add you. Then you can ask all the questions you want.”

  Stephen carefully siphoned the drug and did the little flicky thing to get the bubbles out. He tied off with his belt, one-handed, and popped in the needle like someone who’d been doing it a hundred years.

  “If I die…” he slurred a few seconds later, “call the landlord … the body … just flop it off the pier out back.”

  Before I could ask what the hell that meant, Stephen lurched back to the couch—dropping the syringe along the way—and slumped down with a tortured smile on his face.

  “Can you hear me?” I shouted, snapping my fingers in his face. “You okay, man?”

  Stephen’s eyes fluttered briefly. A thin line of drool oozed from his mouth, but he was still breathing.

  I wondered if his ride used drugs regularly or if he was like District Attorney Rachael Anderson, the non-smoker. What would a hit of heroin do to someone who didn’t normally use it? Was Stephen’s ride a bad guy or a good guy? Between him and Rose, nothing I’d seen gave any indication they cared one way or the other.

  An afterlife without moral relevance. What a novel concept.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Compared to the other sex-maniac junkies I’d met, Stephen didn’t seem all that reliable. Which, in a way, made him very reliable. The information he’d given me didn’t seem crafted to trick me into or out of anything. More like he was just doing a job, providing me the basic information needed to orient me to the rules. Now I knew how the landlord made his money—we were supposed to empty our bank accounts and send it to him. The landlord had turned life after death into just another scam.

  I considered Stephen, perhaps fatally high in the living room. He seemed nice enough on the surface, but he was also a threat. The security bars on the bedroom doors suggested that yes, in fact, at least some of these hoppers were the kind you wanted to bolt your door against while you slept.

  After ensuring one last time that Stephen wouldn’t die on me, I found his wallet, took out his driver’s license, and learned his ride’s name: James Park, of Washington State. A quick check outside showed the driveway occupied by a white sedan. When I turned around to head back to the living room, I stopped and considered the video camera pointing at the front door.

  The camera at Rose’s house had barely aroused my curiosity. Didn’t most businesses have cameras these days? Sure, it was odd for a rental property, what with privacy concerns and all, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Rose and I had mostly used the back door, because we couldn’t go anywhere in the car.

  A wire ran from the camera to a plate in the wall. I wondered where it terminated, and went to find out.

  The laundry room had an empty clothes rack, fabric softener, detergent, a washer and dryer, a toolbox, and nothing more. Briefly, I marveled at the sad fact that I’d never used a fabric softener even once in my life, nor on any ride.

  There was a closet off the living room between two of the three bedrooms, but all it had were bath towels and cleaning supplies.

  Scratching my chin, I looked around the living room. My gaze fell on Stephen, now fast asleep.

  “Hoppers,” I said, shaking my head. I was a rider, not a hopper.

  A careful check of the ceiling revealed a white three-by-five square of framed plywood next to a return vent. An attic entrance. I tugged the handle and the section came down with a twang of springs, revealing a folding aluminum stepladder.

  Taking the steps slowly, wincing at every creak, I poked my head up for a look. Gloomy and dark, with blinking lights near the front of the house. When I leaned forward for a better look, something hideous touched my face with a long, slimy tentacle. Desperately I thrashed around and almost slipped down the ladder. My hand closed around the horrid thing and yanked—and a light bulb turned on, momentarily blinding me. The tentacle creature turned out to be a pull string for the light, now dead and limp and hanging defeated in my white-knuckled grip. I’d snapped it free from the fixture. Now there was no way to turn the light off, short of unscrewing the bulb.

  Most of the attic looked empty, with nothing to see except exposed insulation between the rafters. A path of wobbly planking led over to the blinking lights. One misstep and my leg would crash through the ceiling, and I had to stoop to avoid bumping my head.

  A computer sat on the floor directly over where the camera hung in the foyer. There were wires coming out of it running to different locations in the attic. It looked like several of them went to the various bedrooms, but I knew those rooms were camera-free. One wire ran above the computer to a camera pointing right at my face. Same model as the one in the foyer. For lack of an appropriate reaction, I smiled and waved.

  Seconds later, a phone rang downstairs.

  Careful where I stepped, I quickly made my way to the attic door and navigated the creaky metal steps.

  I found the house phone over the kitchen sink and answered it.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “You’re a nosey little hopper, Mr. Jenkins of Allentown Pennsylvania, dead from suicide two decades ago.”

  “What?” I said, beyond shocked at hearing the landlord repeat back pieces of my past. “What makes you think I’m…”

  He chuckled. “When Rose refused to give you the number for the hotline, I was understandably upset. She only has one job, and she demands too much. Luckily, I monitor all Internet communication in and out of each house, or I never would have learned about your fascinating past.”

  The Internet? But how would … Oh.

  “You read my story, after I downloaded it for Rose.”

  “Got it in one,” he said. “Interesting tale. Tell me something: do you like Rose?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one with the cameras everywhere.”

  The landlord sighed. “Not in the Georgia house. That’s one of the problems with Rose—she’s not that pliable. Every time I put cameras and fun-fun toys in the bedrooms, she rips them out and throws them away. And she won’t allow security bars, either. I like my hoppers pliable, Mr. Jenkins, and you strike me as exceedingly pliable.”


  “Yeah, how’s that?” I said.

  “Rose holds you in high regard. I’ll bet you feel the same way about her. If you do, you know how much that house means to her. She often says it’s her childhood home, but it isn’t. She was born a little ways down the road and grew up quite poor. Despite her feelings, I’ve just about decided to relocate the Georgia presence closer to Atlanta. What do you think of that?”

  He’d laid a trap for me is what I thought. If I said I didn’t care, Rose could lose her house. If I said I hated the idea, he’d have leverage on me. The question was: why?

  “What if you did nothing?”

  “That’s one possibility,” he said. “Leave things as they are, not tear it down and sell off the land. Would that make Rose happy?”

  Rose was right, this guy was a real putz.

  “What do I care about some crummy old house?” I said.

  The landlord chuckled. “Spare me your subterfuge. Now here’s what I want: tomorrow, you’ll go with Stephen on a money-making expedition. He’s a fun fellow, you’ll like him. I take it he’s given you the money drop addresses? Of course he has. Pick one and send me half of whatever you get. Take the other half and do what you want with it. Follow my instructions and Rose keeps her house. Even better: you’ll have access to one of my properties in every state. How does that sound?”

  “Well,” I said, mulling it over, “I just can’t believe it.”

  “What can’t you believe?”

  “You actually used the word subterfuge in a sentence—just blurted it out like you do it all the time. You know what? That takes guts. Now, if I could only find someone to call me a nincompoop my life would be complete. Go fuck yourself.”

  Before he could hurl any supercilious invectives at me, I ended the call. That’d teach him to mess with Jackrabbit Jenkins, the most waskily hopper that ever lived.

  It creeped me out that he’d read my story. Now that I thought about it, Rose’s story had also been printed off that computer, so maybe he knew hers too.

  Given all the kinky rubber devices, I’d just assumed the wall and ceiling mirrors were there to heighten the experience. Now, after the talk about bedroom cameras, and after seeing the wires in the attic, I thought of another reason.

  A quick check showed the wall mirrors were sealed tightly in place and not hung there like paintings. I grabbed the hammer from the toolbox in the laundry room and a towel from the bathroom. Back in the bedroom, I laid the towel beneath one of the mirrors. Then I hit it with the hammer. The mirror cracked, but stayed stuck to the wall. I smashed it again in a different spot, closer to the middle and down a little, and it caved right in. Where there should have been drywall was a small camera pointing at the bed.

  The phone rang again. I went to the kitchen, put down the hammer, and answered it.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Jenkins,” the landlord said in a weary tone, “you’re beginning to disappoint me. I’ll ignore the foul language because I understand you’re not used to being squeezed. I’d feel the same way in your shoes. But I don’t appreciate the damage to my property. Now I have to send someone to make repairs, and that’s always a headache. Unless, of course, you feel up to the task?”

  “Why do you have all those cameras everywhere?”

  “Not everywhere,” he said with a hint of impatience. “Just the bedrooms. All common areas are strictly private.”

  “But why?” I said.

  “Like any business, I try to maximize my assets. Assets like you. Sometimes those assets hop into the rich and famous. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does…” He chuckled darkly. “Let’s just say it pays for a lot of broken mirrors.”

  Finally, I understood. “Blackmail.”

  “Fun for you, lucrative for me.”

  I wondered what the Great Whomever thought of all this—mortals messing with his helpers and blackmailing people.

  “How is it you can do this stuff?” I said. “What about God? You know there’s an afterlife. Aren’t you worried?”

  Laughter on the other end. “Is that what you think? That you’ve been blessed by God with eternal life?”

  “Well, if it’s not God, who is it?”

  The landlord paused briefly. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Maybe I would. I really want to know.”

  I did really want to know. Anything but aliens or demons.

  “Cosmic radiation,” he said at last.

  Anything but that.

  “Not just any type,” he added. His voice took on an intense quality, almost fanatical. “These are special rays, blasted from the origin of the universe across billions of light years, then funneled into you through a strange disturbance in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Energy and matter cannot be destroyed, Mr. Jenkins. They can only be transformed. You are the living embodiment of that fact. You and the other hoppers. Your energy field is like a magnet to cosmic radiation, preserving your life force beyond death.”

  “So that’s how hoppers get made.”

  “In the most basic of layman’s terms, yes.”

  “Huh,” I said. “And here I was thinking it was gluten.”

  The landlord heaved a tired sigh.

  “Go ahead and laugh. But I contend you were hit with one of these rays—a special type from another reality so strong it burst into this one at the moment of the Big Bang. The money you raise tomorrow with Stephen will be used to fund further research into the phenomenon. If I can reproduce the effect … why, just think of the possibilities.”

  I glanced over at Stephen: passed out on the couch, drooling onto his shirt but still breathing. Must have been those cosmic rays keeping him going.

  “Mr. Jenkins? Daniel?”

  “Dan,” I said. “Look, I’m sort of tired. I’m not getting you any money, and I’m not fixing your mirror. Also, you can quit with the threats about Rose’s house. Level the place, for all I care.”

  I hung up before he could call my bluff.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Decades ago, a brilliant scientist got blasted with massive amounts of gamma radiation in a freak laboratory accident. At first he appeared unscathed, but later learned to his dismay that whenever he got super angry—something that happened all the time, apparently—he’d turn into an enormous green monster with frizzy hair and shredded purple pants. That scientist’s name was Bruce Banner.

  As a child, not having access to a good source of gamma rays, I thought if I could make my eyes white like the contacts Lou Ferrigno used in the TV show, I could turn into the Incredible Hulk. But I wasn’t a child anymore. The landlord wasn’t either, but he believed in comic book science. That’s why he needed money—to fund his supposed “research.” He wanted to be immortal, just like childhood Dan wanted to have huge muscles and green skin and white irises. Unlike childhood Dan, the landlord didn’t mind pushing around unstable hoppers like Rose to get his way.

  First thing tomorrow, I’d find my way back to the church and inquire about a homeless shelter I could stay in for the next three weeks. That guy Max hadn’t pushed me around. He didn’t seem obsessed with space radiation. I could hang with a guy like that.

  Before bed, I locked the door to my room using the security bar, then crawled onto the icky mattress. Though the linen seemed clean enough, I found myself tensing a little at the feel of it against my skin. Who knew how many sex-happy hoppers had been there before me?

  “Just like a hotel room,” I said. “No different.”

  In time, I drifted off.

  * * *

  I awoke to the sound of someone banging steadily on my door.

  “Who is it?” I said.

  “Are you still sleeping?” Stephen yelled from the other side.

  Unbelievable.

  “Give me a minute,” I shouted back.

  Still tired, wondering if I could persuade Stephen to drop me off at the church, I shrugged into yesterday’s clothes and went out to see what he wanted. Despite my grump
y start, I smiled at the sudden scent of bacon, pancakes, and buttery goodness.

  “I bought groceries,” Stephen said when I walked into the kitchen. There were plastic bags from a supermarket displayed on the counter like trophies. “You’ll love my fluffy pancakes, Dan-Dan.”

  “They sure smell great,” I said.

  Overnight, Stephen the drugged-up sex-maniac had been swapped for a cheerful man with surprising culinary skills. Maybe I’d misjudged him. If his attitude held, perhaps he’d answer more questions.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting down at the table. “Last night you said I could ask you some questions.”

  Stephen cocked his head at me and frowned. “Doesn’t sound like me at all, but I admire your clever lie. I’m in a fluffy mood this morning and shall grant you a boon—ask away.” He held up a prescription pill bottle and rattled it.

  “Have you really been doing this for a hundred years?”

  “Don’t bother asking about me or I’ll clam right up.”

  Great, another one.

  I nodded. “Right. Sorry. How’s this: do you know anything about the life and death process? How it works?”

  Stephen shrugged. “A bit early in the day for meaning of life stuff, don’t you think?”

  “For you, maybe. But I’ve waited a long time for the answer.”

  “No idea,” he said. “Have a seat. Eat first, talk later.”

  Stephen was almost as flighty as Rose. I wanted to press him, but held my tongue and sat down.

  He piled my plate high with pancakes and set a paper towel beside it, which he then loaded with bacon. Crispier than I preferred, but still bacon. I ate as quickly as I could without seeming rude.

  Stephen leaned back in his chair, watching me with a kind of manic fascination.

  “You’re a beautiful man,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said around a mouthful of fluffy pancake wedge. “You too, Stephen.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t mean that way. I mean inside. You’re different than the others.”