“It was an accident,” Brian said quickly, as if afraid I would actually introduce him by name. He had flipped the hood back up to mask his face. “Anyway, I rescued you, so let’s just get out of here quickly, before anybody else shows up, all right?”
Chutsky shrugged. “Yeah, sure, okay, you got a knife?”
“Of course,” I said. I leaned over him, and he shook his head impatiently.
“No, fuck, come on, Dex, get Deborah first,” he said.
It seemed to me that a man with only one hand and one foot who is bound hand and foot, as well as tied to a pipe, is in no place to give orders in a cranky tone of voice. But I let it pass, and I knelt beside Deborah. I cut the tape off her wrists and picked up one hand. The pulse felt strong and regular. I hoped that meant she was just unconscious; she was very healthy, and very tough, and unless she had caught a really bad break I thought she would probably be all right, but I did wish she would wake up and tell me so in person.
“Come on, quit fucking around, buddy,” Chutsky said in the same petulant tone, and I cut the rope that secured Deborah to the pipe, and the tape that held her ankles together.
“We do need to hurry,” Brian said softly. “Do we have to bring him?”
“Very fucking funny,” Chutsky said, but I knew that my brother was serious.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “Deborah would be upset if we left him behind.”
“Then for goodness’ sake, cut him loose and let’s go,” Brian said, and he went to the door of the cabin and looked out, holding the shotgun at the ready. I cut Chutsky loose and he lurched to his feet—or to be accurate, to his foot, since one of them was a prosthetic replacement, like his hand. He looked down at Deborah for a second and Brian cleared his throat impatiently.
“All right,” Chutsky said. “I’ll carry her. Help me out, Dex.” And he nodded at Debs. Together we lifted her up and got her onto Chutsky’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind the weight; he shifted once to get her settled more comfortably, and then he moved toward the door as if he were off on a hike with a small day pack.
On deck, Chutsky paused briefly by Samantha, which made Brian hiss with impatience. “Is this the girl Debbie wanted to rescue so bad?” Chutsky said.
I looked at my brother, who was practically hopping on one foot in his eagerness to be gone. I looked back at my sister, draped across Chutsky’s shoulder, and I sighed. “That’s her,” I said.
Chutsky shifted Deborah’s weight slightly so he could reach over with his one real hand. He put it on Samantha’s throat and held his fingers there for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. “Too late,” he said. “She’s dead. Debbie’s going to be very upset.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” Brian said. “Can we go now?”
Chutsky looked at him and shrugged, which made Deborah slip a little bit. He caught her—fortunately not with his steel hook—readjusted her weight, and said, “Yeah, sure, let’s go,” and we scurried for the ramp off the boat.
Getting down the wobbly gangway was a bit tricky, especially since Chutsky was using his hand to hold on to Deborah, leaving only his hook to hold the guide rope. But we did manage, and once we were on terra firma we headed quickly for the gate.
I wondered if I should feel bad about Samantha. I didn’t really think there was anything I could have done to save her—I hadn’t even done a very good job of saving myself, which had a far higher priority—but it made me uncomfortable just to leave her body there. Perhaps it was because of all the blood, which always unsettles me. Or maybe it was just that I was always so tidy with my own leftovers. Certainly it was not because I thought her death was tragic or unnecessary—far from it. It was actually a small relief to have her out of the way without having to take any of the responsibility for it myself. It meant that I was in the clear; there was no piper to be paid, and my life could slip back onto its well-oiled and comfortable rails without any more worry about frivolous court proceedings. No, on the whole, it was a very good thing that Samantha got her wish, or most of it. The only thing gnawin
g at me was that it made me want to whistle, and that didn’t seem right.
And then it hit me—I was feeling guilt! Me, Deeply Dead Dexter, King of the Unfeeling! I was wallowing in that soul-crushing, time-wasting, ultimate human self-indulgence—guilt! And all because I felt secret happiness from thinking that the untimely end of a young woman was a good thing for my selfish self-interests.
Had I finally grown a soul?
Was Pinocchio a real boy at last?
It was ludicrous, impossible, unthinkable—and yet, I was thinking it. Maybe it was true—maybe the birth of Lily Anne and my becoming Dex-Daddy and all the other impossible events of the last few weeks had finally and fatally killed the Dark Dancer I had always been. Maybe even the last few hours of mind-numbing terror under the reptile glare of Alana’s dead blue eyes had helped, stirring the ashes until a seed sprouted. Maybe I was a new being now, ready to blossom into a happy, feeling human, one who could laugh and cry without pretending, and watch a TV show without secretly wondering what the actors would look like taped to a table—was it possible? Was I newborn Dexter, ready to take his place in a world of real people at last?
It was all fantastically interesting speculation, and like all such navel-gazing, it almost got me killed. As I blindly marveled at myself, we came through the park all the way to the go-cart track, and I had wandered slightly ahead of the others, unseeing because of my ridiculous self-absorption. I slid around the shed at the edge of the track and very nearly stepped on two party-hearty pirates who were kneeling on the ground trying to start a thirty-year-old go-cart. They looked up at me and blinked stupidly. Two large cups of punch stood on the ground beside them.
“Hey,” one of them said. “It’s the meat.” He reached into his bright red pirate sash, and we will never know whether he was trying to get a weapon or a stick of chewing gum because, happily for me, Brian stepped around the shed just in time and shot him, and Chutsky came around and kicked the other one in the throat, so hard I could hear it crack, and he went over backward making gacking noises and clutching at his windpipe.
“Well,” said Brian, looking at Chutsky with something like affection. “I see you’re not just eye candy.”
“Yeah, I’m terrific, huh?” Chutsky said. “Really useful.” He sounded a little bit down for somebody escaping unharmed from a cannibal orgy, but perhaps getting Tasered left an emotional afterglow.
“Really, Dexter,” Brian said. “You need to watch where you put your feet.”
We made it to the main gate without further incident, which was a relief, since sooner or later our luck was bound to run out and we would stumble onto a large number of pirates, or enough who were sober, and we would have a very hard time. I had no idea how many shots Brian had left in his borrowed shotgun, but I didn’t think it could be many. Of course, there were presumably plenty of kicks left in Chutsky’s foot, but we couldn’t count on being attacked by any more bad guys thoughtful enough to charge us from a kneeling position. Altogether, I was very glad to get through the gate and back to Debs’s car.
“Open the door,” Chutsky said to me in a demanding tone of voice, and I reached for the car’s door handle. “The back door, Dexter,” he snapped. “Jesus Christ.” I made no attempt to correct his manners; he was too old and grumpy to learn, and after all, the strain of his failure this evening must have been taking some toll on his always basic etiquette. Instead I simply shifted to the car’s back door and pulled on the handle. Naturally enough, it was locked.