Jeffrey Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

She was at the chain-link gate, reaching through the mesh for a padlock. "Shouldn't somebody point out that you're about to illegally enter the property?" I said. And even though that was true, I was really more worried about finding Samantha again and turning her loose on a world that was far too eager to listen to her lurid tales.

But Debs pulled at the lock, and it fell open in her hand. She looked at me. "This lock has been opened," she said in a voice meant for the witness stand. "Somebody has gone into the park, possibly illegally, and possibly to commit a felony. It is my clear duty to investigate."

"Yeah, hey, just a second," Chutsky said. "If this kid is hiding out in there, why would it be unlocked?"

I managed to stop myself from hugging him and instead merely added, "He's right, Debs. It's a setup."

She shook her head impatiently. "We knew it might be," she said. "That's why I brought you two."

Chutsky frowned, but he didn't move forward. "I don't like this," he said.

"You don't have to like it," Deborah said. "You don't even have to do it."

"I'm not letting you go in there alone," he said. "Dexter won't, either."

Normally I suppose I would have felt like kicking Chutsky for offering up Dexter's tender skin on the altar of unnecessary danger. But as it happened, I agreed — just this once. It was clear to me that someone with a little bit of common sense should tag along, and looking around our gathering, counting everyone, that left me. "That's right," I said. "Besides, we can always call in for backup if it gets sticky."

Apparently, that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Deborah glared at me, and then marched over to me and stood one quarter of an inch away from my face. "Give me your phone," she said.

"What?"

"Now!" she barked, and she held out her hand.

"It's a brand-new BlackBerry," I protested, but it was very clear that I was either going to hand it over or lose the use of my arms under a barrage of her arm punches, so I gave it to her.

"Yours, too, Chutsky," she said, stepping over to him. He just shrugged and handed over his phone.

"Bad idea, babe," he said.

"I'm not having one of you clowns panic and fuck it up," she said. She trotted back to her car and threw the phones into the front seat — hers, too — and came back to us.

"Listen, Debbie, about the phones — " Chutsky said, but she cut him off immediately.

"Goddamn it, Chutsky, I have to do this, and I have to do this now, my way, without worrying about Miranda or any of that shit, and if you don't like it shut up and go home." She yanked at the chain and it fell open. "But I'm going in and I'm going to find Samantha, and I'm going to take down Bobby Acosta," she said, and she yanked the lock off its chain and kicked at the gate. It bounced open with a tortured squeal and my sister glared at Chutsky and then at me. "See you later," she said, and she whipped away through the gate.

"Debs. Hey, Debbie, come on," Chutsky said. She ignored him and marched on into the park. Chutsky sighed and looked at me. "Okay, buddy," he said. "I got the right flank; you got the left. Let's move out." And he followed Deborah through the gate.

Have you ever noticed that no matter how often we all talk about freedom we never seem to have any? There were few things in the world I wanted to do less than follow my sister into the park, where a very obvious trap was set for us and, if everything went really well, the best I could hope for was having Samantha Aldovar ruin my life. If I truly had any freedom at all I would have taken Deborah's car and gone down to Calle Ocho for a palomilla steak and an Ironbeer.

But like everything else in the world that sounds good, freedom is an illusion. And in this case, I had no more choice than a man strapped into Old Sparky who is told he's free to stay alive as long as he can when they throw the switch.

I looked up at Roger the Pirate. His smile looked kind of mean all of a sudden. "Quit smirking," I told him. He didn't answer.

I followed my sister and Chutsky into the park.

I am sure we have all seen enough old movies to know that sensible people avoid abandoned amusement parks, especially when the sun is going down, which it was. Terrible things lurk in these places, and anyone who wanders in is only setting himself up for some kind of dreadful end. And perhaps I was being oversensitive, but Buccaneer Land really did seem spookier than anything I had ever seen outside of a bad movie. There was an almost audible echo of distant laughter hanging over the dark and moldering rides and buildings, and it had a mocking edge to it, as if the long years of neglect had turned the whole place mean and it just couldn't wait to see something bad happen to me.

But apparently Deborah had not done her due diligence in the old-movie department. She seemed quite undisturbed as she drew her weapon and strode into the park, looking for all the world as if she were headed into the corner store to shoot some bacon rinds. Chutsky and I caught up with her about a hundred feet inside the gate, and she barely glanced at us. "Spread out," she said.

"Take it easy, Debs," Chutsky said. "Give us time to work the flanks." He looked at me and nodded to the left. "Go nice and slow around the rides, buddy. Go back behind the booths, sheds, anyplace somebody could be hiding. Sneak and peek, buddy. Keep your eyes and ears open, keep one eye on Debbie, and be careful." He turned back to Deborah and said, "Debs, listen…" But she waved her gun at him to cut him off.

"Just do it, Chutsky, for God's sake."

He looked at her for a moment. "Just be careful," he said, and then he turned away and moved out to the right. He was a very large man, and he had one artificial foot, but as he glided off into the dusk the years and injuries seemed to melt away and he looked like a well-oiled shadow, his weapon moving from side to side automatically, and I was very glad that he was here with his assault rifle and his long years of practice.

But before I could begin to sing "Halls of Montezuma" Deborah nudged me hard and glared at me. "What the fuck are you waiting for?" she said. And so even though I would much rather have shot myself in the foot and gone home, I moved out to the left through the growing darkness.

We stalked carefully through the park in best paramilitary fashion, the lost patrol on its mission into the land of the B movie. To Deborah's credit, she was very careful. She moved stealthily from one piece of cover to the next, frequently looking right to Chutsky and then left at me. It was getting harder to see her, since the sun had now definitely set, but at least that meant it was harder for them to see us, too — whoever them might turn out to be.

We leapfrogged through the first part of the park like this, past the ancient souvenir stand, and then I came up to the first of the rides, an old merry-go-round. It had fallen off its spindle and lay there leaning to one side. It was battered and faded and somebody had chopped the heads off the horses and spray-painted the whole thing in Day-Glo green and orange, and it was one of the saddest things I had ever seen. I circled around it carefully, holding my gun ready, and peering behind everything large enough to hide a cannibal.

At the far side of the merry-go-round I looked to my right. In the growing darkness I could barely make out Debs. She had moved up into the shadow of one of the large posts that held up the cable car line that ran from one side of the park to the other. I couldn't see Chutsky at all; where he should have been there was a row of crumbling playhouses that fringed a go-kart track. I hoped he was there, being watchful and dangerous. If anything did jump out and yell boo at us, I wanted him ready with his assault rifle.