Jeffry Lindsay - Dexter in the Dark

I had never felt so stupid-which is to say, I felt as close to being a real human being as it was possible for me to feel. What on earth had I been thinking? I had not, in truth, been thinking at all, merely reacting to a bizarre twitch of panic. It was all too ridiculous, too patently human and laughable, if only I had been a real human who could really laugh. Ah, well. At least I was really ridiculous.

I drove the last few miles thinking of insulting things to call myself for such a timid overreaction, and by the time I pulled into the driveway at Rita’s house I was thoroughly soaked in my own abuse, which made me feel much better. I got out of my car with something very close to a real smile on my face, generated by my joy in the true depth of Dexter Dunderhead. And as I took one step away from the car, half turning to head for the front door, a car drove slowly by.

A white Avalon, of course.

If there is such a thing in the world as justice, then this was surely one of the moments it had arranged just for me. Because many times I had enjoyed the sight of a person standing with their mouth hanging open, completely incapacitated by surprise and fear, and now here was Dexter in the same stupid pose. Frozen in place, unable to move even to wipe away my own drool, I watched the car drive slowly past, and the only thought I could muster was that I must look very, very stupid.

Naturally, I would have looked a great deal stupider if whoever was in the white car did anything other than drive past slowly, but happily for the many people who know and love me-at least two, including myself-the car went by without pausing. For a moment I thought I could see a face looking at me from the driver’s seat. And then he accelerated, turning slightly away into the middle of the street so that the light gleamed for an instant off the silver bull’s head Toyota emblem, and the car was gone.

And I could think of nothing at all to do but eventually close my mouth, scratch my head, and stumble into the house.

There was a soft but very deep and powerful drumbeat, and gladness surged up, born from relief and anticipation of what was to come. And then the horns sounded, and it was very close now, only a matter of moments before it came and then everything would begin and happen again at last, and as the gladness rose into a melody that climbed until it seemed to come from everywhere, I felt my feet taking me to where the voices promised bliss, filling everything with that joy that was on the way, that overwhelming fulfillment that would lift us into ecstasy-

And I woke up with my heart pounding and a sense of relief that was certainly not justified and that I did not understand at all. Because it was not merely the relief of a sip of water when you are thirsty or resting when you are tired, although it was those things, too.

But-far beyond puzzling, deep into disturbing-it was also the relief that comes after one of my playdates with the wicked; the relief that says you have fulfilled the deep longings of your innermost self and now you may relax and be content for a while.

And this could not be. It was impossible for me to feel that most private and personal of feelings while lying in bed asleep.

I looked at the clock beside the bed: five minutes past midnight, not a time for Dexter to be up and about, not on a night when he had planned only to sleep.

On the other side of the bed Rita snored softly, twitching slightly like a dog who dreamed of chasing a rabbit.

And on my side of the bed, one terribly confused Dexter. Something had come into my dreamless night and made waves across the tranquil sea of my soulless sleep. I did not know what that something was, but it had made me very glad for no reason I could name, and I did not like that at all. My moonlight hobby made me glad in my own emotionless way and that was all. Nothing else had ever been allowed into that corner of the dark subbasement of Dexter. That was the way I preferred it to be. I had my own small, well-guarded space inside, marked off and locked down, where I felt my own particular joy-on those nights only and at no other time. Nothing else made sense for me.

So what had invaded, knocked down the door, and flooded the cellar with this uncalled-for and unwanted feeling? What in all the world possibly could climb in with such overwhelming ease?

I lay down, determined to go back to sleep and prove to myself that I was still in charge here, that nothing had happened, and certainly wouldn’t happen again. This was Dexterland, and I was king. Nothing else was permitted inside. And I closed my eyes and turned for confirmation to the voice of authority on the inside, the inarguable master of the shadowy corners of all that is me, the Dark Passenger, and I waited for it to agree, to hiss a soothing phrase to put the jangling music and its geyser of feeling into its place, out of the dark and into the outside. And I waited for it to say something, anything, and it did not.

And I poked at it with a very hard and irritated thought, thinking, Wake up! Show some teeth in there!

And it said nothing.

I hurried myself into all the corners of me, hollering with increasing concern, calling for the Passenger, but the place it had been was empty, swept clean, room to rent. It was gone as if it had never been there at all.

In the place where it used to be I could still hear an echo of the music, bouncing off the hard walls of an unfurnished apartment and rolling through a sudden, very painful emptiness.

The Dark Passenger was gone.

ISPENT THE NEXT DAY IN A LATHER OF UNCERTAINTY, HOPING that the Passenger would return and somehow sure it would not. And as the day wore on, this dreary certainty got bigger and bleaker.

There was a large, brittle empty spot inside me and I had no real way to think about it or cope with the gaping hollowness that I had never felt before. I would certainly not claim to feel anguish, which has always struck me as a very self-indulgent thing to experience, but I was acutely uneasy and I lived the whole day in a thick syrup of anxious dread.

Where had my Passenger gone, and why? Would it come back? And these questions pulled me inevitably down into even more alarming speculation: What was the Passenger and why had it come to me in the first place?

It was somewhat sobering to realize just how deeply I had defined myself by something that was not actually me-or was it? Perhaps the entire persona of the Dark Passenger was no more than the sick construct of a damaged mind, a web spun to catch tiny glimmers of filtered reality and protect me from the awful truth of what I really am. It was possible. I am well aware of basic psychology, and I have assumed for quite some time that I am somewhere off the charts. That’s fine with me; I get along very well without any shred of normal humanity to my name.

Or I had until now. But suddenly I was all alone in there, and things did not seem quite so hard-edged and certain. And for the first time, I truly needed to know.

Of course, few jobs provide paid time off for introspection, even on a topic as important as missing Dark Passengers. No, Dexter must still lift that bale. Especially with Deborah cracking the whip.

Happily, it was mostly routine. I spent the morning with my fellow geeks combing through Halpern’s apartment for some concrete residue of his guilt. Even more happily, the evidence was so abundant that very little real work was necessary.

In the back of his closet we found a sock with several drops of blood on it. Under the couch was a white canvas shoe with a matching blotch on top. In a plastic bag in the bathroom was a pair of pants with a singed cuff and even more blood, small dots of spray that had been heat-hardened.