Jeff Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

And as that thought hit home a red-hot surge of anger roared up inside me, burning away all my careful control. It could have been Lily Anne. Someday it still could be, and I was doing nothing to protect her. I was a self-deluded fool. I was being attacked from all sides, and I was simply letting it happen. I was allowing the predators to stalk and slay, and if someday they came for Lily Anne-or Cody and Astor-it would be my fault. It was in my power to protect my family from a very nasty world, and instead I was pretending that kind thoughts would keep the dragon away, while in fact it was roaring at my very own door.

I stood at the back door and looked out the window into the darkness of the yard. The clouds had rolled in up above, covering over the moon and bringing complete darkness. That was it, a perfect picture of all that was real; just darkness, hiding a few patches of brown grass and dirt. Nothing worked. Nothing ever worked, not for anyone anywhere. It was all just darkness, decay, and dirt, and trying to pretend there was anything else got you nothing but grief, and there was not a thing I could do about it. Nothing.

… And the clouds rolled open to let one small moonbeam trickle through to light up the darkness, and the sibilant whisper tickled and teased once more and said, There is one thing…

And that one simple thought made all the sense in the world.

"I'll be right back," we said to Rita as she sat on the couch with the baby held close. "I left some things at work."

"Back?" she warbled in confusion. "You mean you're going to-But it's night!"

"Yes, it is," we said, and we let a cold gleam of teeth show in our face at the thought of that welcoming velvet darkness just outside the door.

"Well, but don't you-Can't it wait until morning?" she said.

"No," we said, and the happy madness of it echoed in our voice. "It can't wait. It's something I need to do tonight."

The truth of it clearly showed on our face. Rita frowned but said no more than, "Well, I hope you-Oh! But I emptied the diaper pail, and it's really-Could you take the bag and-" She jumped up and went into the hall and the cold acid roiled through me at the interruption, but she was back in mere seconds, clutching a garbage bag. She thrust it at me and said, "On your way out, if you-You really have to go in? I mean, it won't take too long? Because, I mean, drive carefully, but-"

"It won't take long," we said, and then impatience flooded in and we were out the door into the welcoming night with its thin fingers of moonlight trickling through the clouds and promising that one wonderful thing that could wash away all the cramped misery of trying to be something we were not and never would be. In a hurry now, we flung the garbage bag onto the floor of the backseat with our playtime toys and got into the car.

We drove north through thin traffic, north to work, just as we had said we would, but not the daytime work of office and disorder; we went to a much happier task, beyond the dull and into delight, north past the airport, onto the off-ramp that led to North Miami Beach, and slower now, carefully nosing down the trail in our memory, to a certain small pastel yellow house in a modest neighborhood.

The club doesn't even open until eleven, Deborah had said. We drove past with care and saw the lights on, inside and out, and a car in the driveway that had not been there before. The mother's car, of course, and it made perfect sense-she took it to work during the day. Closer to the house, half into the shadows, was the Mustang. He was still here. It was not yet ten o'clock and the drive to South Beach was not a long one. He would be inside, enjoying his unjust freedom and thinking that all was once more right with his little world, and that was just the way we wanted it. We had made it with plenty of time and we felt a cold and pleasing certainty that we would not be disappointed.

We went one time around the block and watched for any sign that things were not what they should be and we found nothing. All was quiet and safe and all the little houses were clean and lighted and buttoned up against the razor-sharp fangs of the night.

We drive on. Four blocks away there is a house with a Dumpster squatting in its overgrown yard and this was just what we wanted. The houses nearby are dark, too, one light showing in a place two doors away, but otherwise it is all a quiet part of our night, and the house with the Dumpster is perfect. Foreclosed, empty, waiting for somebody to come in with a new dream, and very soon somebody will, but it will not be a pretty dream. We find a broken streetlight a block away and park there, beside a hedge. We get out slowly, enjoying the anticipation, enjoying as always the happy task of preparation, making things just right for all that had to happen and now would happen once more and oh so soon.

The back door of the foreclosed house is hidden from any possible prying eyes and it opens silently, quickly. Inside, the house is all empty darkness-except for the kitchen, where a skylight spills moonbeams across a butcher-block countertop, and as we see it the inner whisper rises into a chorus of delight. Here was a sign that this night was meant to be and it had been made just for us; this room was the perfect place for what we must do, and as if to underline the fact that all was right with the wicked world, there is even half a box of garbage bags on the counter.

Quickly now; time is pressing, but neatness counts. Slit the seams of the garbage bags and turn them into flat plastic sheets. Spread them carefully across the butcher block, the floor around it, the nearby walls, anyplace a random dreadful red splat might fall unobserved in the lighthearted rush of playtime, and soon it is ready.

We take a breath. We are ready, too.

It is a quick walk back to the small yellow house. Hands empty now, nothing needed, except the one small loop of nylon. Fifty-pound-test fishing line, perfect for making a leader, even better for making a follower out of some naughty playmate who would hear the light and powerful noose whistle through the air and settle on his throat and he would feel it speak into his surprise and say, Come with us now. Come and learn your limit. And he would follow, because he had to, as the world grew dark and dim and even his last few breaths would be given to him in pain and only when we wished it.

And if he squirmed or fought more than what was right we would pull just a little bit more until the breath no longer came and he heard nothing but the frantic growing thunder of his heartbeat in his ears and the whisper of the nylon saying, See? We have taken away your voice and your breath, and soon we will take away more, much more, take away everything, and then we will tumble you back into dust and darkness and a few neat bundles of garbage And the thought comes in on a slightly ragged breath and we paused to be calm, to let the icy fingers soothe away jangled nerves and rub them toward the first careful trickle of pleasure.

Steady now: Another breath until we become cool and certain and knew that all was bright and wary readiness and we let the clean steely awareness grow into the one true fact of the night: This will happen now. Tonight.

Now.

Our eyes snap open to a landscape of shadows and all our cool awareness slithered out and stretched into every dim hint of darkness, searching for movement, seeking any small trace of a watcher. There was nothing, no one, not human, animal, or Other like me. Nothing stirred or lurked; we were the only hunter on the trail tonight and all was what it should be. We were ready.

One careful foot in front of the other, a perfect imitation of casual walking, back around the block to the modest yellow house. Oh so carefully we slip past the house and into the shadow of a hedge next door and then we wait. No sound comes to challenge us; nothing moves or waits with us. We are alone and unseen and ready and we slide closer, careful and quiet, until we are there at the faded yellow corner of the house and we breathe deeply, quietly, and become a small and silent part of the shadows.