Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark

Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark

For Hilary, as always

It is impossible to write in a vacuum. The air for this book was
provided by Bear, Pookie, and Tink. My gratitude to Jason Kaufman and his aide
de camp, Caleb, for their enormous help in shaping the manuscript.

And as ever, special thanks to Nick Ellison, who made
it all happen.

IT REMEMBERED A SENSE OF SURPRISE, AND THEN FALLING, but that was all.
Then IT just waited.

IT waited a very long time, but IT could wait easily because there was no
memory and nothing had screamed yet. And so IT did not know IT was waiting. IT
did not know it was anything at that point. IT just was, with no way to mark
time, with no way even to have the idea of time.

So IT waited, and IT watched. There was not a great
deal to see at first; fire, rocks, water, and eventually some little crawly
things, which began to change and get bigger after a while. They didn't do very
much except to eat each other and reproduce. But there was nothing to compare
that to, so for a while that was enough.

Time passed. IT watched as the big things and the
little things killed and ate one another aimlessly. There was no real joy in
watching that, since there was nothing else to do and there were plenty more of
them. But IT didn't seem able to do anything but watch. And so IT began to
wonder: Why am I watching this?

IT could see no real point to anything that happened
and there was nothing IT could do, and yet there IT was, watching. IT thought
about this a very long time, but came to no conclusions. There was still no way
to think any of this through; the whole idea of purpose wasn't quite there yet.
There was just IT and them.

There were lots of them, more all the time, busily killing and eating
and copulating. But there was only one of IT, and IT did none of those things,
and IT began to wonder why that was, too. Why was IT different? Why was IT so
unlike everything else? What was IT, and if IT actually was something, was IT
supposed to do something, too?

More time passed. The countless changing crawly things slowly got
bigger and better at killing each other. Interesting at first, but only because
of the subtle differences. They crawled, hopped, and slithered to kill one
another-one actually flew through the air to kill. Very interesting-but so
what?

IT began to feel
uncomfortable with all this. What was the point? Was IT supposed to be a part
of what IT watched? If not, then why was IT here watching?

IT became determined to find the reason IT was here,
whatever that was. So now when IT studied the big things and the little things,
IT studied the ways IT was different from them. All the other things needed to
eat and drink or they died. And even if they ate and drank, they eventually died
anyway. IT didn't die. IT just went on and on. IT didn't need to eat or drink.
But gradually IT became aware that IT did need… something-but what? IT could
feel that somewhere there was a need, and the need was growing, but IT could
not tell what it was; there was just the sense that something was missing.

No answers came as ages of scales and egg clutches
paraded by. Kill and eat, kill and eat. What is the point here? Why do I have
to watch all this when I can't do anything about it? IT began to feel just a
little bit sour about the whole thing.

And then suddenly one day there was a brand-new
thought: Where did I come from?

IT had figured out long ago that the eggs the others hatched from came
from copulation. But IT had not come from an egg. Nothing at all had copulated
to bring IT into existence. There had been nothing there to copulate when IT
first became aware. IT had been there first and, seemingly, forever, except for
the vague and disturbing memory of falling. But everything else had been hatched
or born. IT had not. And with this thought the wall between IT and them seemed
to grow vastly higher, stretching up impossibly tall, separating IT from them
completely and eternally. IT was alone, completely alone forever, and that
hurt. IT wanted to be a part of something. There was only one of IT-shouldn't
there be a way for IT to copulate and make more, too?

And that began to seem infinitely more important, that
thought: MORE of IT. Everything else made more. IT wanted to make more, too.

It suffered, watching the mindless things in their roiling riotous
living. Resentment grew, turned into anger, and finally the anger turned into
rage toward the stupid, pointless things and their endless, inane, insulting
existence. And the rage grew and festered until one day IT couldn't stand it
any longer. Without a pause to think what IT was doing, IT rose up and rushed
at one of the lizards, wanting somehow to crush it. And a wonderful thing
happened.

IT was inside the lizard.

Seeing what the lizard saw, feeling what it felt.

For a long while IT forgot rage altogether.

The lizard did not appear to notice it had a passenger. It went about
its business of killing and copulating, and IT rode along. It was very
interesting to be on board when the lizard killed one of the littler ones. As
an experiment, IT moved into one of the little ones. Being in the one that
killed was far more fun, but not enough to lead to any real purposeful ideas.
Being in the one that died was very interesting and did lead to some ideas, but
not very happy ones.

IT enjoyed these new experiences for a while. But
although IT could feel their simple emotions, they never went beyond confusion.
They still didn't notice IT, didn't have any idea that-well, they simply didn't
have any idea. They didn't seem capable of having an idea. They were just so
limited-and yet they were alive. They had life and didn't know it, didn't
understand what to do with it. It didn't seem fair. And soon IT was bored once
more, and growing angry all over again.

And finally one day the
monkey things started to show up. They didn't seem like much at first. They
were small and cowardly and loud. But one tiny difference finally caught IT's
attention: they had hands that let

them do some amazing things. IT watched as they became aware of their
hands, too, and began to use them. They used them for a great variety of
brand-new things: masturbating, maiming one another, and taking food from the
smaller of their own kind.

IT was fascinated and watched more closely. IT watched
them hit each other and then run away and hide. IT watched them steal from one
another, but only when no one was looking. IT watched them do horrible things
to each other and then pretend that nothing had happened. And as IT watched,
for the first time, something wonderful happened: IT laughed.

And as IT laughed, a thought was born, and grew into
clarity wrapped in glee.

IT thought: I can work with this.

ONE

WHAT KIND OF MOON IS THIS? NOT THE BRIGHT, GLEAMING moon of slashing
happiness, no indeed. Oh, it pulls and whines and shines in a cheap and
guttering imitation of what it should do, but there is no edge to it. This moon
has no wind in it to sail carnivores across the happy night sky and into
slash-and-slice ecstasy. Instead this moon flickers shyly through a
squeaky-clean window, onto a woman who perches all cheerful and perky on the
edge of the couch and talks about flowers, canapés, and Paris.

Paris?

Yes, with moon-faced seriousness, Paris is what she is talking about in
that far-spreading syrupy tone. She is talking about Paris. Again.

So what kind of moon can this possibly be, with its
near-breathless smile and smirking lace around the edges? It batters feebly at
the window, but it can't quite get in past all the sickly-sweet warbling. And
what kind of Dark Avenger could simply sit across the room, as poor Dazed
Dexter does now, pretending to listen while mooning blearily on his chair?

Why, this moon must be a honeymoon-unfurling its marital banner across
the living-room night, signaling for all to rally round, sound the charge, once
more into the church, dear friends-because Dexter of the Deadly Dimples is
getting married. Hitched to the wagon of bliss pulled by the lovely Rita, who
has turned out to have a lifelong passion to see Paris.

Married, honeymoon in Paris…Do these words really belong in the same
sentence as any reference at all to our Phantom Flenser?

Can we really see a suddenly sober and simpering slasher at the altar
of an actual church, in Fred Astaire tie and tails, slipping the ring onto a
white-wrapped finger while the congregation sniffles and beams? And then Demon
Dexter in madras shorts, gawking at the Eiffel Tower and snarfing café au lait
at the Arc de Triomphe? Holding hands and trundling giddily along the Seine,
staring vacantly at every gaudy trinket in the Louvre?

Of course, I suppose I could make a pilgrimage to the
Rue Morgue, a sacred site for serial slashers.

But let us be just a tiny bit serious for a moment:
Dexter in Paris? For starters, are Americans still allowed to go to France? And
for finishers, Dexter in Paris? On a honeymoon? How can someone of Dexter's
midnight persuasions possibly consider anything so ordinary? How can someone
who considers

sex as interesting as deficit accounting enter into marriage? In short,
how by all that is unholy, dark, and deadly can Dexter really mean to do this?

All wonderful questions, and very reasonable. And in
truth, somewhat difficult to answer, even to myself. But here I am, enduring
the Chinese water torture of Rita's expectations and wondering how Dexter can
possibly go through with this.

Well then. Dexter can go through with this because he must, in part to
maintain and even upgrade his necessary disguise, which prevents the world at
large from seeing him for what he is, which is at best not something one would
really like to have sitting across the table when the lights go out-especially
if there is silverware present. And quite naturally, it takes a great deal of
careful work to make sure it is not generally known that Dexter is driven by
his Dark Passenger, a whispery-silk voice in the shaded backseat that from time
to time climbs into the front seat to take the wheel and drive us to the Theme
Park of the Unthinkable. It would never do to have the sheep see that Dexter is
the wolf among them.

And so work we do, the Passenger and I, work very hard
at our disguise. For the past several years we have had Dating Dexter, designed
to present a cheerful and above all normal face to the world. This charming
production featured Rita as the Girlfriend, and it was in many ways an ideal
arrangement, since she was as uninterested in sex as I am, and yet wanted the
companionship of an Understanding Gentleman. And Dexter really does understand.
Not humans, romance, love, and all that gabble. No. What Dexter understands is
the lethally grinning bottom line, how to find the utterly deserving among
Miami's oh-so-many candidates for that final dark election to Dexter's modest
Hall of Fame.

This does not absolutely guarantee that Dexter is a charming companion;
the charm took years of practice, and it is the pure artificial product of
great laboratory skill. But alas for poor Rita-battered by a terribly
unfortunate and violent first marriage-she can't seem to tell the margarine
from the butter.

All well and good. For two years Dexter and Rita cut a brilliant swathe
across the Miami social scene, noticed and admired everywhere. But then,
through a series of events that might well leave an enlightened observer
somewhat skeptical, Dexter and Rita had become accidentally engaged. And the
more I pondered on how to extricate myself from this ridiculous fate, the more
I realized that it was a logical next step in the evolution of my disguise. A
married Dexter-a Dexter with two ready-made children!-is surely a great deal
further from seeming to be anything at all like what he really is. A quantum
leap forward, onto a new level of human camouflage.

And then there are the two children.

It may seem strange that someone whose only passion is
for human vivisection should actually enjoy Rita's children, but he does. I do.
Mind you, I don't get all weepy-eyed at the thought of a lost tooth, since that
would require the ability to feel emotion, and I am quite happily without any
such mutation. But on the whole, I find children a great deal more interesting
than their elders, and I get particularly irritable with those who cause them
harm. In fact, I occasionally search them out. And when I track these predators
down, and when I am very sure that they have actually done what they have been
doing, I make sure they are quite unable to do it ever again-and with a very
happy hand, unspoiled by conscience.

So the fact that Rita had
two children from her disastrous first marriage was far from repellent,
particularly when it became apparent that they needed Dexter's special
parenting touch to keep their own fledgling Dark Passengers strapped into a
safe, snug Dark Car Seat until they could learn how to drive for themselves.
For presumably as a result of the emotional and even physical damage inflicted
on Cody and Astor by their drug-addled biological father, they too had turned
to the Dark Side, just like me. And now they were to be my children, legally as
well as spiritually. It was almost enough to make me feel that

there was some guiding purpose to life after all.

And so there were several very good reasons for Dexter to go through
with this-but Paris? I don't know where it came from, this idea that Paris is
romantic. Aside from the French, has anyone but Lawrence Welk ever thought an
accordion was sexy? And wasn't it by now clear that they don't like us there?
And they insist on speaking French, of all things?

Perhaps Rita had been brainwashed by an old movie,
something with a perky-plucky blonde and a romantic dark-haired man, modernist
music playing as they pursue each other around the Eiffel Tower and laugh at
the quaint hostility of the dirty, Gauloise-smoking man in the beret. Or maybe
she had heard a Jacques Brel record once and decided it spoke to her soul. Who
can say? But somehow Rita had the notion firmly welded into her steel-trap
brain that Paris was the capital of sophisticated romance, and the idea would
not come out without major surgery.