by John L. Monk
If I could borrow a phone or use the store landline, I could call the minister. A sensible plan, but I held off for two reasons. One, the frozen orange juice wouldn’t stock itself, and I didn’t want George blamed for ruining merchandise.
The second reason was more troubling. I’d forgotten the minister’s phone number.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After packing the orange juice away, I hurried to the front of the store.
“Where you going?” a chunky gray-haired man said as I slipped through a checkout lane.
“Something came up.”
“You mean you forgot how lazy you are,” he said, grinning. Not maliciously. Just having fun.
I paused a second and considered. “No … that’s still there. Whew, huh?”
The man’s grin faded and he looked at me curiously.
The night was chilly and the sky clear, though spoiled with light from the city. There were about ten cars in the parking lot. I pulled out my keys, but they were the old kind with no buttons on them.
I immediately ruled out the shiny new truck and other cars less than ten years old. That left a rusted brown-and-white flat bed truck, a motorcycle, and an eighties-model red Escort with a primer-coated driver’s side door, which I tried first. The door unlocked. I flicked on the overhead dome light and had another look at George’s license, noting the address.
“Easy peasy,” I said, and contemplated the stick shift. Luckily for me, I still remembered how to use one.
A few places in my mental map were now missing completely, but Seattle wasn’t one of them. And if I ever needed to, I could still find Sandra’s house in Virginia. A cruel blow, taking away my memory of her face. I desperately wanted to fill that gap, but that’d have to wait.
The fuel gauge showed George sitting at less than a quarter tank. His address was in a denser part of the city, and when I got to an intersection and fixed my location, I knew there was enough gas to get there.
Ten minutes later found me in a block of apartments on 8th Avenue. The streets were packed with cars in both directions, and a metal gate guarded a short descending ramp between George’s building and the one next to it. I pulled up close to see if it would open, but it didn’t. Then I spied the covered keypad hanging inches away from my window. It seemed like everyone had a security box these days.
Circling the block, I found an empty spot in front of a fire hydrant and parked.
Naturally, the front entrance wouldn’t let me in without a key code. I tried the only code I knew, hoping for a miracle from the Great Whomever, but of course that didn’t work.
I rounded the building on foot and approached the back gate. Down the ramp were openings on either side to two different parking garages. My ride was young and seemed in good shape, so I easily grabbed the top rail, pulled myself up, and dropped to the other side.
After a quick look around—seemed clear—I snuck into the open garage beneath George’s building. There were about twenty parking spots, most of them occupied. And of course, when I found the door into the building it had another of those security pads. Happily, this one was broken. There was even a sign saying so taped to the front: Out of order. Likely placed there by a kinder, gentler sort of landlord.
To allow temporary access, someone had taped a thick pack of silvery duct tape over the latch so the door could no longer close properly. I strolled right in.
George’s room was on the third floor. I smiled when his key worked. Prepared for anything, I walked in, turned on the lights, and sighed in relief at the tidy studio apartment: no decorations, no cats or dogs, and no wife or anyone else.
My plan was to drive to Toledo and find the minister at his church. Then, provided Nate came through with the info, go after the landlord and end the threat to my family. To do that, I needed way more fuel than George had.
A quick search of the economical space turned up nothing of interest, except that he loved comic books and we enjoyed the same fiction. His refrigerator yielded cold cuts and mayonnaise, which I used to prepare a sandwich. Despite the late hour, I didn’t seem tired in the slightest. My guess was George worked every night like this and slept during the day. A night owl.
“Hoot hoot,” I hoot hooted, and took another bite.
Considering how old his car was and the size of the apartment, I didn’t hold out much hope for his credit cards. I went through the room more carefully and turned up two dollars in change, scavenged from under the sofa cushions.
“Cha-ching,” I cha-chinged.
Still not enough to get me to Toledo.
My mind kept returning to the Gray Wherever and that horrible blackness arching through the nether. And those snake things. They’d torn me up good.
What the hell were they? Were those other things really angels?
After cleaning my plate and putting it away, I found an empty gym bag in the closet and stuffed it with socks, underwear, shirts, and pants. Then I left.
Though scarred and violated, in truth almost all my memories were intact, including the location of the hopper house on the coast. Not a far drive, but I definitely needed those two dollars to get there. My fuel gauge had finally dipped to Empty.
I stopped at a gas station and tried my cards at the pump, but each got denied. The clerk behind the bulletproof window raised an eyebrow when I splashed my scrounged coins into the retractable metal tray.
“Half a gallon’s better than no-a-gallon,” I said.
“I’m not judging,” he said and processed the transaction with a superior little smirk, judging with everything he was worth.
I pulled back onto the road and wormed my way to the interstate, heading south.
George seemed like a decent enough guy. Certainly not a killer. If I got out of this in one piece without sending him to jail in the process, I’d beg Nate to send him a boatload of lotto money. Nate owed me his life and was also a decent guy, so he had to do it.
I smiled happily.
It took thirty minutes to get to the house. There were no cars parked in the lot, thank goodness. As much as I wanted to meet more hoppers—to see if any were normal—I needed to get in and out before the landlord sent someone to collect the money.
The keypad beeped and the door unlocked when I entered the passcode. The camera was busted on the floor when I walked in, making me worry the landlord would assume it was me again, coming back against his wishes. Then I relaxed. He definitely would have heard by now that Trevor had been captured. If entering the passcode had alerted him, he’d think I was a totally different hopper.
To keep my family safe, I’d left the money in the donation box as instructed. I still intended to leave it there, but the landlord didn’t know how much we’d stolen. I counted out two thousand dollars—about half the haul—and pocketed it. Then I returned to the dining room and considered the gun on the table—the same one used to kill ten people. My brain had been so muddled with painkillers I’d grabbed the wrong one when I turned myself in.
It would have been nice to have the other gun to use on the landlord. But if I got caught with this gun, George would be implicated in the bank massacre, so I left it where it was.
Just as I was about to leave, the phone rang.
I answered it. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“What’s your name?” the landlord said.
I smiled.
“I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly, the…” I’d hit another hole in my memory, this one sliced mid-quote. “I am … shoot. Can’t remember the rest. But it’s literary as hell, take my word for it.”
“Ross?” he said. “Is that you? Why aren’t you acting normal? Ross?”
“I found a ton of money in the donation box. What do you think about that?”
“You leave that alone. Who is this?”
“But I like money,” I said. “It’s so green and papery. How will you stop me from taking it?”
Quiet from the other end.
“I see,” he said finally. “Let me tell you something, little man. I’ve managed the hopper house network for a very long time. I think things through, and I plan ahead. Take your foolish self, for instance. Standing in my house playing like you have the power here. Allow me to help you with that: you don’t. Care to guess why, Mr. Jenkins?”
How the hell…?
My mouth went dry, and for once I was speechless. A minute ago, he’d thought I was someone named Ross.
“Have you figured it out yet?” he said. “How I trapped you? Many of you hoppers are surprisingly stupid. When I complete my research, I plan to share my results only among the worthy.”
“Who’s Mr. Jenkins?” I said, giving it my best. Lying when someone knows is the absolute hardest.
“Ross Williams is a hopper I haven’t heard from in over ten years,” he said. “He was the last one to use that code I gave you. Didn’t Stephen tell you? That code is your personal key to the hopper house network. You should have said you were Ross and not tried to act witty and smart with me. I’m not sure how you switched bodies so quickly, but if you can do that, you can earn more money. The price for your family is now doubled.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That’s … I can’t get that kind of money. Not every time.”
The landlord grunted. “I expect your first payment within thirty days. If you miss the deadline, be sure to call me.”
“For an extension?”
“No,” he said. “For the torture pictures of your mother. Do you do Pinterest?”
When I didn’t reply, the landlord chuckled and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“The next time you feel like being clever,” I said quietly to myself, “don’t.”
Thirty days to make twenty thousand dollars or he’d send someone after my mother. A hopper like Stephen, I assumed. Maybe he’d do it and maybe he wouldn’t, but I couldn’t second guess him.
My loss of a way to contact the minister had left me in a bind. Redial would have worked on Stephen’s phone, but it was sitting in a police evidence locker. I cursed my drug-addled thinking. In my worry over call-tracking landlords, I’d completely forgotten about the police. They’d definitely want to know why a mass murderer had contacted a priest in Toledo during a statewide manhunt.
I needed to stay calm. In the end, reaching the minister wasn’t as important as talking to Nate, himself.
Years before, as Nate Cantrell, I’d written two checks for ten thousand dollars each and given them to a couple of furniture movers. Nate’s home number had been printed on them. Biting my lip in frustration, I broke down and dialed it using the hopper house phone.
A recording kicked in telling me the number was no longer in service. When I dialed Nate’s old mobile number, a tired man who wasn’t Nate answered.
“Hello?”
“Is Nate there?”
“Wrong number,” he said and hung up.
I shook my head and swore. I couldn’t even email the minister because the password to my account had been ripped from my mind, along with the site that hosted it—almost as if the snake things knew about the threat to my family and wanted to hinder me. My only recourse was to drive to Ohio and talk to him personally. Three days on the road for twelve hours a day, including stops for pastries, bathroom breaks, and gas.
I left the house, drove back to the gas station, and tapped on the snooty attendant’s window.
“Hope you can break a fifty,” I said, flourishing a fan of fifties and hundreds before selecting one from the middle—smooth and crisply minted, with all those funny colors they were putting on large denominations these days. “I do believe I’ll take the premium unleaded.”
“Uh huh,” the guy said, throwing me an odd look and shaking his head.
After filling the car all the way up, I didn’t bother counting my change. Just shoved it in my pocket in front of him, a paragon of trust. Then I left.
For the next twelve hours, I followed I-90 East through Idaho and Montana, stopping just outside Billings sometime in the late afternoon. There was snow on the ground, at least a foot high, but not on the roads. And it had gotten much colder as I left the temperate coast—near zero, turning each stop into an arctic adventure.
That afternoon, I stopped at the dumpiest hotel I could find and smiled when the clerk accepted a cash deposit in lieu of a credit card. When I got to the room, there was a missing brick in the wall down near the floor. I searched the room for animals that might have gotten in, but didn’t find any. After stuffing two pairs of rolled-up socks in the hole, I dialed the heat up to seventy-five. The heat worked, but the painted concrete floor was ice cold and painful to walk on.
With nothing on TV, I tried my best to get into a bestseller I’d picked up at a gas station, then gave up. My thoughts drifted to Rose down in Georgia, and I wondered if she was in her house. I tried to separate my feelings for Rose, the person, from Rachael’s body and face, which was harder than it seems.
Lying alone in my chilly hotel room, I smiled.
Once, while watching a scary movie together, Rose cuddled close and half hid behind my shoulder in anticipation of a looming gotcha moment. When the gotcha moment happened, she’d pinched me. Because I’m a coward, I spilled my drink everywhere in fright, causing her to roll around on the floor screaming with laughter. It was so nice seeing her having fun again I’d pretended to act offended to keep the moment going.
And there it was: I’d wanted to see her happy. That was real. Not her body, but Rose, the person. Deep down, I wanted to see that person again, whatever the packaging.
Around three in the morning, I showered with almost no discernible water pressure, got dressed, retrieved my socks from the wall, and left.
My next stretch ended just short of the Ohio border, leaving me tired as hell. And guilty, truth be told. I finally went looking on the radio for information about the robbery. A news station reported that Trevor Ellis had suffered a massive stroke in his cell and was now in critical condition. All things considered, I’d take it.
At the next hotel, there was an unfortunate spring in the bed that poked me all night. But the wall was hole-free, and the room had an actual carpet with a number of curious stains.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the police showed up to deal with a fight upstairs. Unable to sleep, I went out to watch. Domestic Disturbance, my favorite. Lots of yelling and slapping and crying children and people peeking out from the other rooms. A man was dragged out in handcuffs, chased the whole way by a woman in a nightgown hurling insults. After that, things calmed down again.
Six hours later, I entered Toledo and drove straight to the church. It was mostly empty, but for a man and a woman and a little boy sitting in the front pew praying.
I went over to the door that blended so well with the ornate wall it was almost secret. Trying not to disturb the parishioners, I knocked quietly. Nobody answered. I knocked louder, in case the minister was listening to Gregorian Chants. Again, nobody answered.
The man in the pew looked up. I raised a hand in apology and offered a weak smile. He bowed his head again.
I knocked one more time, and again nothing happened. The whole way from Seattle, I’d half expected to find the minister waiting with fresh coffee and the landlord’s address scribed on the finest vellum.
“Well, shit,” I said—then mouthed sorry to the man, who gave me an unforgiving frown.
With nothing to do until I talked to the minister, I wended my way through the Toledo streets heading south to Tara’s neighborhood in Perrysburg. She’d caught a hard break when her husband, Scott, had been sent to jail for sexually exploiting his patients and ripping off the state with phony medical charges. In my Jenkins way, I’d fallen hard for her, and came close to killing her husband.
I could still remember what Tara looked like—a little like Sandra Bullock. Talk about irony.
There were no cars in the drivewa
y. When I crept to the garage and peeked through the window, Tara’s car was there, but not Scott’s. I was surprised she hadn’t moved. When her marriage fell apart, she’d wanted to sell, but they owed too much money on the house. I’d asked the minister to get Nate to help out—on account of him owing me his life—and he’d donated heavily to the church to assist her.
Just as I was about to leave, there came the sound of thunder in the distance. Then a steady rumbling, as if from the cavernous maw of an ancient red dragon named Legion. I turned and saw it heading my way. A red Ferrari. I recognized the driver immediately, as well as the passenger.
The jerk stole Tara.
A tiny part of my intellect recognized how absurd that sounded. Nate was a good guy, unlike me. And Tara was a good woman—also unlike me. It made sense they’d hooked up.
Tara got out first. She looked happier than when I’d known her. Before, she’d always seemed tense, even when she wasn’t snapping at me. Now she seemed vaguely relieved.
“Hi!” I said, grinning and waving.
Nate eyed me warily, looking like a young god with his too-handsome face and stud-muffin physique. You’d never know it to look at him, but he was a junk food junkie. Not an ounce of fat on him, either, and no fillings in his teeth.
“Hello,” Tara said cautiously. “Can we help you?”
“I’m Dan,” I said. “Nice to meet you. You must be Tara. Nate must have mentioned you a hundred times.”
Tara looked at Nate, a perplexed half-smile on her face. “You did?”
“Dan!” he said, coming over to give me a painfully crushing handshake. “How’s it going?”
Though he was smiling, he stared at me hard, broadcasting his displeasure with every crushing pump.
“Nate and I are old college buddies,” I said, trying not to wince when he gave a final squeeze before letting go. “He used to spot for me at the gym. Hope you don’t mind me popping in like this. He said I might find him here.”
“Don’t mind at all,” she said.
