A deep breath, a slow and steady flush of clarity and control, and all the cold dark blues of the night around us glowed warm and bright in our eyes and the night smells came alive in our nose and all the clicks and whispers of nocturnal life began to blend into the thrumming music of the hunt, and we go forward with them.
Slowly, with casual carelessness in our steps, we walk toward the house. TV glows and blathers in the neighbors’ living rooms, and all is just as normal as it can be, everything peachy fine and hunky-dory—everything except for the nonchalant Monster strolling by on his way to a pleasant evening of lighthearted play that does not quite suit these sleepy suburbs.
We reach the hedge and all is still just what it should be, what it must be, and we pause to be sure, and when we are sure we slide without sound into the deeper darkness of the side yard and move carefully, quietly, perfectly down the shadowed hedge to the backyard.
And moving softly soundless across one brief bright patch we pause once more behind a key lime tree only ten feet from the pool cage at a place where a large flap of ripped screen hangs loose, and we stand there and we do nothing at all except breathe, wait, listen, and watch.
Several minutes go by and we remain motionless and soundless in our predator’s patience. Nothing happens. There is no sound or sight or smell and still we do not move, just waiting and watching. This side of the house is very clearly visible; one window shows a faint glimmer, as though a light is on in the hall just outside the room. Along the back of the house, facing the pool, there is my door, and then a large sliding glass door, and then another window. In this last window a bright light is on, and in the center, seen through the sliding glass door, there is a muted glow, spill from a light set back from the door.
But on our side, at our door, there is only lightless shadow, and nothing moves there, and we feel the gleaming happiness that all is right, all is ready, that once again things will go our way, as they always do when we are on the hunt, and at last, when there has been no sign of anything moving for a very long time, we move, one long smooth glide of purpose, out of the shadows and across the brownish grass and through the tattered flap of screen to the door.
We pause, one hand on the knob and one ear pressed against the door: nothing. No more than the muted rush of the central air conditioner blowing through the house. All is quiet, all is ready, and out of our pocket we take the key to Our New House, a newer and bigger and brighter and freshly painted house, ready for a wonderful new family life that will never move in now, because that dream was built on fumes from a happy hookah, a wispy picture of something that was never any more than hallucinations of hope, and that delusion has evaporated like the mirage it was and left cold dark ashes. And that does not matter. Nothing matters at all except this moment, this night, and this knife, this Right Now.
This is what is: Dexter with a blade and a target. This is the only Real there ever was: the sly stalk through shadows, the sudden pounce, the snicker of steel in a darkened room, and the muffled squeals and groans as the Truth slowly, gleefully pushes through the curtains and takes its bow. This is what is and what was and what shall be, and there was never really anything else in the world but this Dark Purpose, and never any time but now, and we push the key into the lock and with a silent twist of the wrist the door is open.
An inch, two … six slow and careful inches the door swings open and we pause once more. No movement, no sound, no sign of anything but the dim walls, still giving off the faint smell of fresh paint.
Still slow and careful we push the door open wider, wide enough now to slide through sideways, and we do, and as we turn to push it quietly closed we hear a melon-breaking thump and the dim room lights up around us like a bursting star and a bright pain blooms on the back of our head and as we pitch forward from dull surprise into painful darkness we are filled once more with the awful truth of our complete and brainless incompetence and the mean and mocking voice of our self-reproach as it calls out, Told you so!
And just before the blackness floods in and pushes out everything but regret, I can hear a small voice from a very great distance, a familiar voice, the snide and snarky voice of an eleven-year-old girl, as it says with great and bitter self-righteousness, “You didn’t have to hit him so hard.…”
And then happily for me, or for all the stupid inept shards of self-delusion that are left of me, black nothingness takes the wheel and drives us straight into a long and lifeless tunnel.
THIRTY-FIVE
FOR A VERY LONG TIME THERE WAS ONLY DARKNESS. NOTHING moved, or if it did, there was nothing to light its way, and nothing there to see it. There was only timeless, bottomless, thoughtless gloom, without shape or purpose, and this was very good.
And then somewhere far off on a bleak horizon, a persistent bleat of pain began to nag at the edge of the darkness. It throbbed insistently, and with each rhythmic beat of its pulse it grew bigger, brighter, sending out thorny little vines of misery that grew larger and stronger and pushed back the darkness piece by ever-shrinking piece. And at last the pain grew into a great and luminous tree with its roots driven deep into the bedrock, and it spread its branches and lit up the darkness and lo! It spake its name:
It’s me, Dexter.
And behold, the darkness answered back:
Hello, stupid.
I was awake. I could not be sure that this was a good thing; it hurt an awful lot, and so far I had done much better when I was unconscious. But no matter how much I might want to roll over and go back to sleep, the throbbing pain in my head was strong enough to make sure that I had to wake up and live with my apparently boundless stupidity.
So I woke up. I was groggy and dopey and not really tracking things very well, but I was awake. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone to sleep normally, and I thought there might be some really important explanation for why I hadn’t, but in my numb and painful state I couldn’t quite think of it, or of anything else, and so I dove right back into the same stupidity that had landed me here and I tried to stand up.
It didn’t work very well. In fact, none of my limbs seemed to be doing what they were supposed to do. I pulled on an arm; it seemed to be behind my back for some reason, and it jerked about two inches, dragging the other arm along with it, and then it stopped and flopped back to where it had been, stuck behind my back. I tried my legs; they moved a little, but not separately—they seemed to be held together by something, too.
I took a deep breath. It hurt. I tried to think, and that hurt even more. Everything hurt and I couldn’t move; that didn’t seem right. Had something happened to me? Maybe—but how could I know if I couldn’t move and couldn’t see? My head throbbed its way through one or two thoughts, and came up with an answer: You can’t know if you can’t move and can’t see.
That was right; I was sure of it. I had thought up the right answer. I felt very good about that. And in a fit of overwhelming and completely unjustified self-confidence, I grabbed at another thought that floated past: I would do something about that.
That was good, too. I glowed with pride. Two whole ideas, all by myself. Could I possibly have another? I took a breath that turned the back of my head into a lake of molten pain, but a third idea came. I can’t move, so I will open my eyes.
Wonderful; I was firing on all cylinders now. I would open my eyes. If I could only remember how …
I tried; I managed a feeble flutter. My head throbbed. Maybe both eyes was too hard; I would open one of them.
Slowly, very carefully, with a great deal of painful effort, I pushed one eye open.
For a moment, I could not make sense of what I was seeing. My vision was blurry, but I seemed to be looking at something cream colored, maybe a little fuzzy? I could not tell what it was, nor how far away. I squinted and that really hurt. But after a long and painful time, things began to swim into focus.
Fuzzy, underneath me, where a floor should be: Aha, I thought. Carpet. And it was cream colored. I knew there was something I could think of that had to do with cream-colored carpet. I thought really hard for a while, and I finally remembered: the master bedroom at the New House had cream-colored carpet. I must be in my New House. The carpet was blurry and hard to see because my eye was so very close to it.
But that meant I was lying on my face. That didn’t seem to be right, not something I would usually do. Why was I doing it now? And why couldn’t I move?