Chapters (41)
- Dexter in the Darkby Jeff Lindsay
- IN THE BEGINNING
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
D INNER WAS READY WHEN I GOT TO RITA'S HOUSE. CONSIDERING what I had gone through and what I was thinking about it, you might have thought that I would never eat again. But as I walked in the front door I was assaulted by the aroma; Rita had made roast pork, broccoli, and rice and beans, and there are very few things in this world that compare to Rita's roast pork. And so it was a somewhat mollified Dexter who finally pushed the plate away and rose from the table. And in truth, the rest of the evening was mildly soothing as well. I played kick the can with Cody and Astor and the other neighborhood children until it was bedtime, and then Rita and I sat on the couch and watched a show about a grumpy doctor before turning in for the night.
Normality wasn't all bad, not with Rita's roast pork in it, and Cody and Astor to keep me interested. Perhaps I could live vicariously through them, like an old baseball player who becomes a coach when his playing days are over. They had so much to learn, and in teaching them I could relive my fading days of glory. Sad, yes, but it was at least a small compensation.
And as I drifted off to sleep, in spite of the fact that I really do know better, I caught myself thinking that maybe things weren't that bad after all. That foolish notion lasted until midnight, when I woke up to see Cody standing at the foot of the bed. "Somebody's outside," he said.
"All right," I said, feeling half asleep and not at all curious about why he needed to tell me that. "They want in," he said.
I sat up. "Where?" I said.
Cody turned and headed into the hallway and I followed. I was half convinced that he had simply had a bad dream, but after all, this was Miami and these things have been known to happen, although certainly seldom more than five or six hundred times on any given night.
Cody led me to the door to the backyard. About ten feet from the door he stopped dead, and I stopped with him. "There," Cody said softly.
There indeed. It was not a bad dream, or at least not the kind you need to be asleep to have. The doorknob was moving, wiggling as someone on the outside tried to turn it.
"Wake up your mom," I whispered to Cody. "Tell her to call 9-1-1." He looked up at me as if he was disappointed that I wasn't going to charge out the door with a hand grenade and take care of things myself, but then he turned and walked back down the hall toward the bedroom.