Jeffrey Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

"I'm not fucking Cinderella," Bobby said happily. "Stop the wicked-stepmother shit."

"Yes, but let's try to keep things a bit neater, shall we?" she said. He shrugged, and it was very clear that they were as fond of each other as two monsters could ever be. Bobby took a pot from the rack under the grill and placed it underneath Samantha's arm.

"I actually did straighten Bobby out," Alana said with just a trace of something that might have been pride. "He hadn't a clue how to do anything, and it was costing his father a small fortune to cover things up. Joe just couldn't understand, poor lamb. He thought he had given Bobby everything — but he hadn't given him the one thing he really wanted." She looked right at me with all her very bright teeth showing. "This," she said, waving at Samantha, the knives, the blood on the deck. "Once he had a small taste of long pig, and the power that goes with it, he learned to be careful. That dreary little club, Fang, that was Bobby's idea, actually. A lovely way to recruit for the coven, separating cannibals from vampires. And the kitchen help provided a wonderful source of meat."

She frowned. "We really should have stayed with eating immigrants," Alana said. "But I've grown so fond of Bobby, and he begged so prettily. Both girls did, too, actually." She shook her head. "Stupid of me. I do know better." She turned back to me, her bright smile back in place. "But, on the positive side, I have a good deal more cash this time for a new start, and a smattering of Spanish, too, which I shan't waste. Costa Rica? Uruguay? Someplace where all questions can be answered with dollars."

Alana's cell phone chirped, and it startled her for just a second. "Listen to me prattling on," she said, looking at the phone's screen. "Ah. About fucking time." She turned away and spoke a few words into the phone, listened for a moment, spoke again, and put the phone away. "Cesar, Antoine," she said, beckoning to two of the shotgun flunkies. They hurried over to her and she said, "He's here. But…" And she bent her head down next to theirs and added something I could not hear. Whatever it was, Cesar smiled and nodded and Alana looked up at the revelers by the grill. "Bobby," she said. "Go with Cesar and lend him a hand."

Bobby smirked and lifted up Samantha's hand. He took a knife from the table and raised it up, looking expectantly at Alana. Samantha moaned.

"Don't be a buffoon, love," Alana said to Bobby. "Run along and help Cesar."

Bobby dropped Samantha's arm, and she grunted, and then said, "Oh," several times as Cesar and Antoine led Bobby and his friends down the wobbly ramp and away into the park.

Alana watched them go. "We shall be getting started with you shortly," she said, and she turned away from me and walked over to Samantha. "How are we doing, little piggy?" she said.

"Please," Samantha said weakly, "oh, please…"

"Please?" Alana said. "Please what? You want me to let you go? Hm?"

"No," Samantha said, "oh, no."

"Not let you go, all right. Then what, dear?" Alana said. "I just can't think what." She picked up one of the oh-so-very-sharp-looking knives. "Perhaps I can help you speak up a bit, little piglet," she said, and she jabbed the point into Samantha's midsection, not terribly deep, but repeatedly, deliberately, which seemed more terrible, and Samantha cried out and tried to squirm away — quite impossible, of course, lashed to the mast as she was.

"Nothing at all to tell me, darling? Really?" she said, as Samantha at last collapsed, with terrible red blood seeping out in far too many places. "Very well, then, we'll give you some time to think." And she put the knife down on the table, and lifted the lid of the barbecue. "Oh, bother, I'm afraid this has burned," she said, and with a quick glance to be sure that Samantha was watching, she took the long-handled fork and flipped the piece of flesh over the rail and into the water.

Samantha gave a weak wail of despair and slumped over; Alana watched her happily, and then looked at me with her serpent's smile and said, "Your turn next, old boy," and went to the rail.

In truth, I was quite happy to see her go, as I had found her performance very hard to watch. Aside from the fact that I did not actually enjoy watching other people inflict pain and suffering on the innocent, I knew full well that it was at least partially intended for my benefit. I did not want to be next, and I did not want to be food — which I would be, apparently, if Chutsky didn't get here soon. I was sure he was out there in the dark, circling around to come at us at an unexpected angle, trying to find some way to improve his odds, performing some strange and deadly maneuver known only to hardened warriors, before he burst upon us with gun blazing. Still, I really wished he would hurry up.

Alana kept looking off toward the gate. She seemed to be a bit distracted, which was fine with me. It gave me a chance to reflect on my misspent life. It seemed terribly sad that it was ending now, so soon, long before I did anything really important, like taking Lily Anne to ballet lessons. How would she manage in life without me there to guide her? Who would teach her to ride a bicycle; who would read her fairy tales?

Samantha moaned weakly again, and I looked at her. She was rolling against her bonds in a kind of slow and spastic rhythm, as if her batteries were slowly running down. Her father had read to her, too. Read her fairy tales, she had said. Perhaps I shouldn't read Lily Anne fairy tales — it hadn't worked out very well for Samantha. Of course, as things stood now, I wouldn't be reading anything to anyone. I hoped Deborah was all right. In spite of her odd moodiness lately, she was tough — but she had taken a hard shot to the head, and she had looked very limp when they dragged her below.

And then I heard Alana say, "Aha," and I turned to look.

A group of figures was just now stepping into one of the pools of light cast from a working lamp. This new clump of young partiers in pirate costumes had come into the park and joined up with Bobby, and I had time to wonder: How many cannibals could there be in Miami? The group circled excitedly like a flock of gulls, waving pistols, machetes, and knives. At the center of their circle, five more figures came on. One of them was Cesar, the man Alana had sent off into the park. With him was Antoine, the other guard, as well as Bobby. Between them they were dragging another man. He was slumped over, apparently unconscious. Behind them stalked a man dressed in a black, hooded robe that hid his face.

And as the partiers circled and cawed, the unconscious man in the middle rolled back his head and the light caught his face so I could see his features.

It was Chutsky.

Einstein tells us that our notion of time is really nothing more than a convenient fiction. I have never pretended to be the kind of genius who actually understands that sort of thing, but for the first time in my life I began to get a glimmer of what it meant. Because when I saw Chutsky's face, everything stopped. Time no longer existed. It was as if I was trapped in a single moment that went on forever, or a still-life painting. Alana was etched against the dim lights at the railing of the old fake pirate ship, face frozen into an expression of carnivorous amusement. Beyond her in the park were the five unmoving figures in their pool of light, Chutsky with his head rolled limply back, the guards and Bobby pulling him along by his arms, the strange black-robed figure stalking behind them, holding Cesar's shotgun. The group of pirates held comic-menacing poses around them, all in lifelike postures without motion. I no longer heard any sound. The world had shrunk down to that one still picture of all hope ending.

And then in the near distance, in the direction of the Steeplechase, the horrible migraine-inducing beat of the music from Club Fang started up; somebody shouted, and normal time began to return. Alana started to turn from the rail, slowly at first, and then back up to regular speed, and once again I heard Samantha moaning, the Jolly Roger flopping at the masthead, and the remarkably loud pounding of my heart.