Jeff Lindsay - Dexter is delicious

Closer, still careful and quiet, and all is exactly what it should be and then we are at the door of the Mustang.

Unlocked-the contemptible little beast has made it far too easy for us and we slide into the backseat so careful-quiet and melt into the unseen darkness on the car's floor-and then we wait.

Seconds, minutes-time passes and we wait. Waiting is easy, natural, part of the hunt. Our soft and steady breath comes in and out and everything about us is cool and coiled and waiting for the moment that must come.

And it does.

A distant yell; the front door opens and the tail end of the very last argument comes out to us.

"-lawyer said to do!" he says in his mean little tantrum voice. "I gotta go to work now, all right?" And he slams the door shut and storms over to the Mustang. His small and nasty voice mutters on as he opens the door and jerks himself into the car behind the wheel and as he puts the key into the ignition and starts the engine the shadows on the floor behind him spit out a shape and up we come with all our hushed and silent speed and the whistle of a nylon noose that whips around his throat and closes off all thought and air.

"Not a sound, not a move," we say in our terrible cold Other Voice, and he jerks to rigid stillness. "Listen carefully and do exactly what we say and you will live a little longer. Do you understand?"

He nods stiffly, bug-eyed with terror, face slowly growing dark from the lack of air, and we let him feel it, feel what it is to stop breathing, just a taste of what will come, a sample of his approaching forever, the endless darkness when all breathing is ended.

And we pull just a little, just enough to let him know that we could pull so very much harder, pull until it all stops right now, and his face gets even darker while his eyes begin to push out of his face and grow bright with blood -and we give him a breath, letting slackness run down our arm and into the nylon loop, just a little, just enough for one dry and tattered gasp of air, and then we tighten it once more before he can cough or speak.

"You belong to me," we tell him, and the cold truth of it is in our voice and for just a moment he forgets that he cannot breathe as the true shape of his future fills his mind and he flails his arms for just one second before we pull again, a little harder now.

"Enough," we say, and the frigid hiss of our command voice stops him immediately. We let his nasty little world grow dark again, not as much now, just enough so that when we loosen again he will have a very small hope-a frail hope, a hope made of moonbeams, a hope that will live just long enough to keep him docile and quiet until that quietness, too, becomes forever. "Drive," we tell him, with a very slight twitch of the noose, and we let him rasp in a breath.

For a moment he does not move and we jerk the noose. "Now," we say, and with a spasm of movement to tell us he is eager to please, he pushes the car into gear and we roll slowly out of the driveway and away from the pastel yellow house, away from his small and dirty life on earth and into the dark and joyous future of this wonderful moonlit night.

We take him to the empty house with the nylon tight around his throat, quickly and carefully marching him through the darkness and into the room we have readied, into the plastic-wrapped room where golden shafts of moonlight stab through the skylight and light up the butcher block as if it were the altar in a cathedral of pain. And it is: a true temple of suffering, and tonight we are its priest, master of the rites, and we will lead him through our ritual and into the last epiphany, to the final release into grace.

We hold him there by the butcher block and let him breathe, just for a moment, just long enough to let him see what is waiting, and his fear grows once more as he understands that this is all just for him, and he twists around to look at us and see if maybe this is some rough joke "Hey," he says in a voice already half-ruined. Recognition trickles into his face and he shakes his head slightly, as much as the noose will let him. "You're that cop," he says, and now there is new hope in his eyes and it blossoms into boldness as he ratchets on in his newly raspy voice. "You're the fucking cop that was with that crazy bitch cop! Motherfucker, you are in so much fucking trouble! I am fucking well going to have your ass in jail for this, you piece of shit-"

And we pull on the noose, very hard now, and the sound of his filthy crow-sounding words stops as though it had been cut off by a knife, and once more his world grows dark, and he scrabbles feebly at the nylon on his throat until he forgets what his fingers are for and his hands fall away as he drops to his knees and sways there for just a moment while I pull it tighter, tighter, until at last his eyes roll up into his head and he goes slack, flopping bonelessly to the floor.

We work quickly now, heaving him onto the butcher block, cutting away the clothing, taping him down into unmoving readiness before he wakes-which he quickly does, eyes fluttering open, arms twitching slightly against the tape as he explores his new and final position. The eyes go wider and he tries so very hard to move away but he cannot. And we watch him for just a moment, letting the fear grow, and with it grows the joy. This is who we are. This is what we are for, the conductor of the dark ballet, and this night is our concert.

And the music rises and we take him away to where the dance begins, the lovely choreography of The End, with its same sharp steps and familiar movements and its smells of fear amid the soft sounds of tape and terror, and the knife is sharp and swift and certain tonight as it races to the well-known rhythm of the slowly swelling music of the moon that rises and grows into the final chorus of fulfillment until joy, joy, joy is in the world.

Just before the end we pause. A very small and awful lizard of doubt has scuttled into our pleasure and squatted on the halo of our happiness and we look down at him, still writhing in eye-popping horror at what has happened to him and the certainty that even more will come.

It is nearly done, comes the whisper. Don't stop now…

And we do not-could not stop; but we pause. We look at the thing that squirms beneath our knife. He is nearly done and his breath comes slower now, but he is still moving against his bonds with one last bubble of hope forming and fighting to rise up behind the terror and pain. And there is one little thing we must know before we pop that bubble, one tiny detail we need to hear to make this complete, to blow down the floodgates and let our pleasure pour out across the land.

"Well, Victor," we say in our frosty happy hiss, "how did Tyler Spanos taste?" And we pull the duct tape from his lips; he is too far gone into true pain to notice the rip of the sticky tape coming off, but he breathes in deep and slow and his eyes find mine. "How did she taste?" we say again, and he nods with that final acceptance of what must be.

"She tasted great," he says in a raspy voice that knows there is no time left for anything but very final truth. "Better than the others. It was… fun…" He closes his eyes for a moment and when he opens them again that small hope still floats in his eyes. "Are you going to let me go now?" he says in a raspy, lost-little-boy voice, although he knows what the answer must be.

The whir of wings surrounds us and we do not even hear our voice as we answer, "Yes, you can go," we say, and very soon after, he does.

We left Chapin's Mustang behind a Lucky 7 convenience mart three-quarters of a mile from the house, the key still in it. It was far too tempting to last all night in Miami; by morning it would be repainted and on a boat for South America. We'd had to rush things with Victor just a little more than we wanted to, things being what they were, but we felt a great deal better now, as always, and I was very nearly humming when I climbed out of my trusty little car and trudged into the house.