Tonight's the night.
For weeks now, my Dark Passenger has been clamoring in my head for this kill. And now I finally find myself with the means to silence it. That is, at least for the time being. It always comes back, my Dark Passenger, and that is something with which I believe I've made an uneasy truce. Then again, can you really bargain with darkness?
Yes. I believe I can. In fact, I wager one Barry Meyers.
It seems that Barry's been a bad boy; by butchering bunches of young women. Ordinarily, this would all seem pretty standard: Barry works in a deli by day (Well aware of the irony in that) and by night he takes to kidnapping unsuspecting young women who've come to take a late stroll down the boardwalk. Then he drags them to his shop where he separates the white meat from the dark meat, as well as limb from torso. So why hasn't Barry been caught for violating the health code? Simple. When it comes to this type of meat, he's the only customer, and he's got a big appetite.
Well, this all seems pretty standard to me at least. Except now that I know all of Barry's messy little secrets, I've got a bone to pick with him.
Tonight's the night. And I've been sitting behind the dumpster of this deli for approximately fifteen minutes now; my tranquilizer arm is beginning to get stiff. It would seem Barry is slacking off on the job today. Nine, close. Nine-thirty, take out trash. Ten, lock up. Ten-thirty, Sweeney Todd time. Come on Barry, your lack of punctuality is starting to bother me. I hear the back door swing open and I bite the top off of the tranquilizer as he walks over to dump the garbage. The smell of the stuff he's tossing in is pretty rancid, but it doesn't smell of human decay. I wait until he closes the lid and creep up slowly behind him, jabbing the needle into an artery in his neck.
"Closing time, Barry." I mutter gently as he collapses in my arms to the ground. I feel a flutter in my stomach and the adrenaline makes the blood in my ears pound like drums. I love it when everything works out just right. I jab him with another tranquilizer to keep him out a little longer. Unfortunately, the spot I wanted to use for the killroom was the place where he slaughtered the girls, but now at least I get to take my time setting it up.
I've set up so many killrooms that the whole process has become second nature to me by now, something akin to going on autopilot while driving a car. I know I shouldn't, because if I make even one little mistake I could accidentally violate the first law of Harry's Code: Don't get caught. Tonight though, I'm feeling pretty confident about this kill because at the rate I'm going, I should still have time to check in on Rita before heading back to my apartment.
After placing the finishing touches on the room, I crack open my kill-tools. I feel an involuntary smile creep onto my face as I remove the butcher blade from the sleeve holder. In this, I am the instigator of the irony. I zip open another pouch and break out a packet of smelling salts, its time to meat the butcher. Temporarily I swap my blade for my scalpel, as ritual must be observed. I crack the salts and slap Barry in the face lightly, but with enough force to bring him around and give him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light.
"Where am I?" he mutters.
"Barry the butcher; doesn't even recognize his own little shop of horrors."
"My wha-?"
"You mean to tell me you don't even recognize the room where you slaughtered five women, and then ate them? Come on now Barry, I didn't give you that much tranquilizer."
Barry tries to move his head around so he can see the room and finally realizes that he's stuck. I circle the table and stop above his head, and drag my scalpel across the tender flesh of the right cheek below the eye. Barry makes a hissing sound as I take a dab of his blood in a needle and place it onto a slide and for a moment, time slips away. I've always been entranced by blood…I don't know what it is about it that draws me in. Something about the look; all the forms it can take: how it can pool, flick, smear, coagulate. Fascinating. My Dark Passenger wants to see more.
"What the fuck is wrong with you man!" Barry cries out.
"What's wrong with me? I'd say I'm pretty tame compared to a guy who eats people."
Barry starts to laugh very hard. I don't find anything particularly funny about the situation, so I sit back for a moment, eyebrows raised, un-amused and quite frankly a little confused.
"Oh thank God," Barry sighs.
"You believe in God?"
"Its an expression."
"Right."
Barry smiles.
"This is great."
"What?"
"You know what I am…I don't have to hide it anymore."
"So you admit to slaughtering those women?"
"Of course! You're going to kill me any way, why not take some pride in my work!"
This time my smile isn't involuntary. I enjoy it when my victims admit their transgressions. When they don't try to hide behind lies in a futile attempt to save themselves. When they show me how ugly they really are.
When we both remove our masks.
And darkness recognizes darkness for what it is.
"And do you regret killing those women?"
"Probably about as much as you're going to regret killing me."
Music to my ears. Now I swap my scalpel and slide for the butchers blade, and steadily put myself into position next to Barry. I feel something in this moment: a feat in itself, but it is a feeling that I have recognized before with victims and victims only. And this time the irony is so thick that you could…well, you know.
Because when the masks are removed and a monster recognizes a monster, I feel something…I feel connected. For a brief moment in my life, I feel connected to someone else.
"You're right. I won't regret this."
I bring the cleaver down and sever Barry the butcher's head from his body.
I cut the connection.
It's about 11:10 now as I pull up to Rita's house. The kids are probably already in bed, which means Rita and I will be spending some time alone together. Some days I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I started dating Rita mostly as cover for a normal life, and seeing as she's damaged it makes certain aspects of our personal life easier. But sometimes its difficult to spend time alone with Rita…it gets difficult to wear the mask.
She laughs, I laugh. She frowns, I frown. She kisses me, I kiss back. I've gotten good at wearing the mask; at faking human emotion. But being in a relationship is something I don't often deal with, mostly because of the trouble that can come from faking the wrong emotion. More often than not, I find myself wanting to not hold the smile. To let it drop.
Some days I just want to let the mask drop off my face, because it just gets too heavy.
I get out of the car and grab the Chinese food on the car seat next to me. What will be my excuse tonight? Probably the same as always—working late. Its funny, I've become so good at my day-job that moonlighting as a Serial Killer seems to be more of my actual career.
As I walk to the front door I daydream about what would happen if I let the mask fall. If I were to be talking with Rita and let it go, mid-conversation. Let her see the emptiness inside of me; the anger. What would she do? Would she scream? Ask me to leave? Or worse…would she hate me? What I am?
Of course she would. I'm a monster whose only real connection in life is to the people he kills.
The door to the house opens before I can knock and Cody and Astor come running out, both latching on to one of my legs in excitement.
"Dexter's here!" they both shout. I'm sure if they knew who they were actually holding on to, the connotation of what they were saying would be slightly different as they ran in the opposite direction.
"Hey! I'm here!" I chuckle.
"Sorry they ambushed you," I hear Rita sigh, "they were just so insistent that they stay awake until you got here."
I look and see Rita smiling at me, and I look down at Astor and Cody smiling up at me. Something inside me stirs.
"Hey you, its no trouble at all," I smile back at Rita. I hand her the Chinese food and pick up Astor and Cody, throwing them over my shoulders as they squeal with mock protest.
"But as for you two! Its time for bed!" I slide past Rita and kiss her on the cheek.
The blood rushes to her cheeks as she blushes, and for a moment I'm fascinated by blood once more. But this is different, I'm not fascinated by the blood, but rather what brought it about. It was just a simple, natural act of kissing her on the cheek, yet it was that act which made her feel something for me which caused blood to rise. I feel the thing stir within me again, and I recognize it…
It's the feeling I had earlier that night, when I connected with someone else.
But it isn't the same feeling, its lighter and sweeter.
Despite myself, I smile for real. With no aid of a mask.
Had I just connected with someone other than one of my victims?
The feeling flies away fast and I'm left with having to put up the mask again.
No, that couldn't have been it. Rita is just a cover. A disguise for me to hide in plain sight, and that is all she will ever be. Some day she'll find out that I can't connect with her, and then she will leave me. She'll find someone else, maybe get back with Paul, and she will live happily ever after with only a memory of Dismally Desolate Dexter.