Fucking hell! He's a serial killer.
It's the only logical possibility that comes to mind, the only graspable explanation for the fake bottom in the trunk of the car and what he just found stashed in there.
No, not a body. Thank God, not a body.
Weapons. All sorts of them. From a closed case, claiming to contain a M24 sniper weapon (which looked kind of stolen from the military) to a crude knife with weird markings on the blade (which looked kind of stolen from a museum). And he's not even going to think about the wooden stakes, hanging charms, ninja throwing stars...
Fuck! He's a bloody imaginative serial killer.
The sun is beating harshly against the nape of his neck. Fat drops of sweat roll down his skin to soak the hem of his black shirt. The faded letters 'AC/DC' stand out in red at the center of his chest, surrounded by a drawing of white wings. Underneath it, his heart is beating wildly.
He doesn't even know if that's some sort of medical condition that he should be aware of or simply a reaction to what's happening to him; to the realization that he's a dangerous person and there's probably a bunch of cops on his ass.
The trunk's door closes with a clang that sounds accusing in the middle of the desert road he found himself in. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe he'll forget what he saw in there just like he forgot everything else.
He has no idea where he is. Who he is.
The man staring back at him on the black reflection of the dust-covered car has no answers for him. He doesn't look like a serial killer.
From what he remembers (and yes, he can appreciate the irony in that), serial killers rarely look like the monsters they are.
-o-
It was the strangest of things –strangest that had ever happened to him, if he could remember any of what had happened to him before- to find himself with his hands on the wheel of a car he had never seen before, driving down a road he had no idea where it lead.
He remembered how to use the breaks. Or at least his feet did. That much he was thankful for.
After a good twenty minutes of just sitting there, trying to calm his galloping breathing and racking his brain for anything other than the white noise that seemed to fill it completely, he had managed to gather enough strength to turn the rear-view mirror down and take a look at himself.
The broken face in the reflective surface could be anyone. He resisted the urge to look into the back seat, searching for the rightful owner of those troubled green eyes and haggard complexion. There was no one there but him, he knew that.
There was a nasty cut, swollen and brewing a deep purple color over his left eye. It looked as painful as it felt. It felt like a stain, accusing him of some wrongdoing he didn't remember doing.
The feeling had puzzled him. How many people, confronted with a broken face, assume that they're the attacker instead of the victim?
The skin over his knuckles was broken and covered in dry blood. He'd beaten someone, been in some kind of fight. What if he had hurt someone? Had it been in self-defense?
A quick search of the car's dashboard had done nothing to calm his nerves. There was a gun, stashed under some old receipts, and a rusty box of cigars. Inside, there were at least fifteen ID cards, all bearing the same face he had seen in the rear-view mirror, all listing him as a different person.
He was Hector Aframian, businessman.
He was Samuel Cole, Sheriff's Deputy.
He was Dr. James Hetfield, CDC.
He was Agent Ford, FBI.
He was Jerry Wanek, US Department of Homeland Security.
He was Deputy Marshall Billy Gibbons.
He was way too many people to be an honest man, and the blood on his busted knuckles had suddenly started to feel like acid.
It was only when he opened the car's trunk that he found out what he truly was.
A killer.
-o-
He was in Arizona. He realized that when he kept driving north and ended up crossing the line into California.
In the emptiness of a strange car filled with unanswered questions, the man found himself laughing. He had no idea what his name was, or how many lives he had taken, but he knew all of the fifty states by heart.
Maybe he'd killed one person per state. Maybe that was how he kept track.
The thought alone was enough to bring bile to his mouth. Rolling down the window to allow some air inside helped a little, but the idea is still there, refusing to be blow away by the sweet breeze. Everything smelled of dry wood and pine.
He had thought of driving to the nearest police station, throw his hands in the air and just beg the nearest officer to lock him up and throw away the key. He imagined himself on his knees, saying 'Arrest me, Mr. Officer. I have no idea what I've done, but I'm pretty sure I'm a very bad person.'
The scene sounded so ridiculous, even in his imagination, that he had ended up given up on it.
-o-
He finds himself in Palo Alto. He has no idea why or how. Maybe it was just the straightest line from where he had been to being some place else.
The place is as foreigner to him as his face. There isn't any particular street that triggers his memory; there is no specific building that looks more familiar to him than the others. It all looks, at the same time, unique and awfully ordinary to him.
His stomach rumbles as he drives by the Prolific Oven Coffee Shop, but that is probably due to the smell of freshly made pecan pie rather than any memory of having eaten there before.
The car stops in front of a random building, with nothing more peculiar about it than any of the previous fifty he drove by. Maybe the car knows someone in there, because the man is beginning to suspect that the thing he's driving has a mind of its own.
It's a students' complex, if he was to guess from the number of young people carrying books and backpacks that he's seen going in and out of it since he parked. The building is no different from any others surrounding it, and yet it calls to him.
He wants to drive away, to resist the impulse that is urging him to exit the car and go into one specific apartment in that building.
He's a serial killer, after all. Even if he doesn't remember it, his body is probably craving for blood as much as his stomach craved for that pie.
He should drive away, he knows that. It's what a decent person would do.
It's been pretty much established for him that he is far from being a decent person. Not with a trunk filled like that. Not with a stranger's blood on his hands.
He spends the night in the car, looking at that random apartment building, feeling like his heart is strapped to that place.
-o-
His hand is trembling as he knocks on the door. He wants to blame it on the lack of food –his stomach feels like it's stock full of salty stones, so there's not much room for anything else- and he wants to blame it on whatever happened to him that left him without memories; hell! he would even settle for blaming it on the poorly slept night, filled with nightmares that he can't really remember but that had left a sour taste in his mouth.
Truth is, he is afraid of what he will find on the other side of that door.
The past he cannot remember is violent; of that much he can be sure. And from the way his feet have almost dragged him unwillingly to that specific door, odds are whoever lives in there is a part of that past.
Some victim that got away? Maybe an accomplice?... Do serial killers even have partners?
The long legged, blond beauty that opens the door after his third knock doesn't look like a serial killer's partner.
She's still wiping the sleepiness from her eyes, but she doesn't scream as she gives him a long, lingering look, from the top of his mussed hair to the tip of his scruffy boots, so odds are he never tried to kill her. Before.
"Hello? Can I help you?" she asks from behind a still bolted door.
He notices the cute Smurf's shirt she's wearing at the same time he sees the white canvas leaning against one of the walls behind her and his brain tells him that the bolt keeping her 'safe' from him is a piece of crap that will break if he pushes with the right amount of force.
It's that last thought that almost sent him running away. He doesn't know his name, or why he was there, but he knew how to break into people's houses as easily as most people ride a bike.
The idea that he might be a burglar instead of a killer is almost smoothing.
"I—" his voice breaks and he can feel himself blushing. He has absolutely nothing to say to this woman. What was he thinking, coming to a stranger's door like that?
"Dean?"
The name is spoken softly, almost fearfully, as if mentioning it will break some spell and melt everything away.
It isn't the word that breaks the spell, he realizes. He realizes it almost at the same time that he realizes that 'Dean' is his name and that the man who spoke it is Sam. His Sammy.
His whole life comes crushing back in the space of a single breath and Dean finds himself staggering to the floor.
He remembers the shortness of his carefree childhood; he remembers losing his mother in the span of a night; he remembers losing his father in the span of a live time. He remembers every monster that he's fought. He remembers everything.
And all of a sudden, being a serial killer seems like the easiest choice.