"Lock this whole place down! If my officer is not back in this bed in fifteen minutes very much alive, you're going to be on guard duty for Elvis, and I don't mean the impersonator. Do I make myself clear?" Detective Lassiter yelled, his fingers cutting across his throat to make his point to the suddenly compliant L.A. cop.
"Crystal, sir," Legault answered. Whomever had been on the other end of his phone call had obviously not been pleased when Chief Vick called his superior about the missing patient/prisoner.
XXXXXXXXXXX
Gus' shoulders touched the door of Shawn's room as he stood guard in the hallway. Everyone looked suspicious to him and every time he spotted something that was black and white, his mind tried to discern hidden symbols as if Yin was in the very walls. He peaked into the room, shouldering the door open just a crack while still craning his neck down the hallways which seemed endless. The room was dark, and Gus's eyes hadn't adjusted from the bright fluorescents in the halls. He had been under the impression that the eye tests were completed so the darkness in Shawn's room was even more unnatural.
"Um, nurse? Doc?"
No one answered.
Gus turned and opened the door further, flooding the dark interior with borrowed light from the hall. The Ophthalmologist and the nurse lay silently on the floor. An IV dripped pointlessly onto an empty gurney, a flatlined vitals monitor glowed sickly green against the stark, white sheets and monitors hung disconnected everywhere.
There was a red button on the wall. Gus pushed it not knowing what it would summon but knowing that whomever took Shawn hadn't given his doctor or nurse a chance to push it. Gus hadn't realized that the trauma rooms had adjoining doors to the surgical suites; it only made sense not to wheel a grievously injured person past grieving relatives to surgery or – Gus didn't want to think of other places where that door lead but morgue stood out in his mind. Trauma cases often didn't survive.
Gus wanted to blow through the adjoining room doors, he opened it to call for help then forced himself to place his fingers on the pulse of the doctor then the nurse. Both were alive. Within the seconds he had to contemplate everything that flew through his mind, people in various uniforms sped into the room. Gus told them he didn't know what happened and disappeared through the only door his best friend could have been taken. As he broke rule number one of the hospital, he literally ran into Lassiter.
"Guster, you're supposed to be watching Spencer, what the hell are you doing here!" Lassiter yelled, his gun lowering to his hip.
"They – he – took Shawn – Mr. Spencer told me to watch the door from the hallway because that's where more points of entry and exit are and from there I could maybe see suspicious activity first but they – took 'im through the surgical suite adjoining door. I should have stayed in the room," Gus spluttered, his hand raking his head.
Lassiter wanted to yell. It wasn't Guster's fault but they didn't need another victim. Lassiter demanded Gus's work cell, damn the evidence.
"O'Hara, Shawn's missing, regroup to the surgical suites adjoining the trauma room area, we're going to do a concentrated sweep here. Get security set up at all entrances, exits and parking garages; no one in or out without screening including ambulances and workers."
Henry's hundredth apology for invasion of privacy was on his lips as he searched everywhere from Labor and Delivery to Proctology rooms when he got the call that Shawn and Buzz were missing and headed back toward the surgery suites, his heart in his throat. His son had no fight left in him and McNabb…"
XXXXXXXXXXX
Shawn's chin hit his chest and he jarred to wakefulness, his feet scraping cold linoleum as the wheelchair he was in occasionally rubbed its gravelly wheels against his heels. He dumbly tried to place his feet in the rests but with a thrill of horror, his feet disobeyed his command to rise. His brain caught up soon enough with his body that nothing was right. His body was flung left as the wheelchair turned right and shock had him counting the only things he could see. Areas of bright and dark above him zooming by quickly.
One fluorescent bulb.
Two fluorescent bulbs.
And on they went as the hallways narrowed and the air lost that too-warm, antiseptic mugginess that always accompanied a trip to the hospital.
Nineteen! Nineteen fluorescent bulbs ah, ah ah, Shawn's damaged brain counted Sesame-Street- Count-style.
Count, count ze lights, Shawn; count zem with me"the vampire Count from Shawn and Gus' childhood encouraged. So, Shawn did. With each turn the crazy ride took, he started a new count and he must've been making the Count's trademark Uh! Uh! Uh! laugh too because someone cracked him upside the head and told him to shut up.
Well that wasn't very nice.
Shawn couldn't muster anything but calm detachment and obsession for counting between confused bouts of terror.
But there's no hats here, he thought. Dad's gonna be mad…
Forty seven! Forty seven fluorescent lights! Ah, ah, ah! And we begin again! The cloaked Count said enthusiastically inside Shawn's head as Shawn's body was jerked right for the third time and his knees slammed into a door with crushing agony. Shawn was thrust into a cube of light where only the corners were dark and small blocks of interrupted light, head-height from his seated perspective were spaced four feet apart.
Shawn's panicked cough echoed, and he inhaled a familiar scent. His brain rewound of its own accord to his ninth-grade science room the day he and Gus released three hundred frogs into a nearby lake, thus earning them both an all-inclusive summer school package to repeat the course. The lake was even more spectacular for Gus and Shawn that summer as they stole a day off to save yet more frogs until the school finally agreed to let them draw diagrams of frog's innards instead of murdering and dissecting them. Shawn of course endured another round of science class for drawing much too anatomically correct frogs.
Formaldehyde…
Shawn's lips felt as useless as his feet but his heart – it knew. He'd seen the first few frogs in the jars, the ones that overenthusiastic, sadistic students had gleefully thrown in along with wet, acrid smelling cotton balls. Shawn coughed harshly as something was waved under his nose. Smelling salts overwhelmed his sinuses, his nose dripping, his eyes streaming.
Formaldehyde … jars … no … morgue!
"C'mon Yin," Shawn slurred. "Itsssss cliché, man."
"And that would be your fault, Shawn," Yin said with measured calm. "You were to be immortalized in tribute of my daughter, Yang. I spent a week subliminally predisposing your idiotic friend, Guster to take you to Madame Tussaud's … phone ticket sale alerts, strategically placed assertions that a day away would be just the ticket to cure the blues and he fell for it."
"Wait – what were you going to…" Shawn gasped, the pain in his knee from being slammed into the door knee first catching up with his growing awareness of his body. He dragged his bare feet from the floor to rest on the metal plates of the wheelchair and felt them trail warm blood against the cold skin from scraping mercilessly against the wheels.
As his body thawed from whatever Yin had done to him, pain pricked at every nerve. His hyper sensitivity ramped up as though his veins were plugged into the national grid, causing a blackout to all but his hearing, smell, touch, taste and whatever sixth sense had cursed him with his gifts which he was going to demand a full refund for if he survived whatever freak show Yin had in mind.
Doors – no drawers opened and slammed shut, some with a dull thud, some with a hollow ringing.
And now Shawn knew – he was surrounded by the dead. But that wasn't right, because sudden gasping from his right indicated what Shawn could tell was a thin thread of life.
Shawn screamed hoarsely as a hand clamped onto the back of his shoulder. He tried to jerk his head around to see what disembodied ghost must surely be touching him but even if he could have made his body cooperate, lights and shadow were all that remained to him.
Yin laughed from across the room.
"Sh-Shawn?"
Oh God. Buzz.
For a second of insanity, Shawn was relieved, until the memory of Buzz hitting him in the chest with the barrel of his gun and threatening to tell Juliet his secrets and … his deadened eyes.
Shawn clumsily pushed the hand from him like a poisonous snake. Panic blanketed the fake psychic and he blocked out the sob of rejection from the hand's owner.
"L-look, Yin…"
"It's Mr. Yin, Shawn, we must always remember our manners. That was the one thing Yang admired about you, the manners in which your father instilled."
Shawn choked on revulsion. It had taken him years to figure out that Henry had not been torturing him with rules, but that he'd done the best he could – alone. But Shawn had never told his father that he knew that. And now he'd never get the chance.
Henry had put Shawn through hell, simulated kidnappings, hostage situations, robberies – Kick the taillight out; Zig zag; Tell them what they want to hear, Henry had said. Comply while figuring out what to do to survive."
There would be no zig or zag or kicking anything. Shawn's left leg felt broken in two at the knee and throbbed in time to his speeding heartbeat.
The hand found Shawn's shoulder again.
"Shawn … m'sorry," Buzz sobbed in between gasps of pain and Shawn wished he couldn't hear the wet, gurgling noise that accompanied the strangled, pleading whispers.
"You bastard," Shawn gasped at Yin's bodiless voice as he forced his hand to find his shoulder and cover Buzz's hand with his own.
"You're disappointed that your little teddy bear came back after I got him wet after midnight?" Yin sneered. "I wasn't going to let you off that easy, watching – oh wait, you can't see – hearing him die as the monster I made him would have been too easy."
Footsteps sounded across the room toward him and Shawn braced but was bypassed.
"You disappointed me, Mr. McNabb. I was supposed to leave Tussaud's with a get well present for my daughter, Yang. Do you know how hard it is to preserve a human body in wax for presentation? – Neither do I but I imagine it would last longer than fresh cut, long stemmed roses. I mean, we could have thrown him out once he wilted, but Yang would have appreciated it just the same. In other words, Mr. Spencer was supposed to die. All you had to do was shoot him. You failed…"
"Wait! No!" Shawn yelled as Buzz screamed, his hand first clutching Shawn's shoulder, fingernails digging in with convulsive spasms. Shawn gulped in air and tried to lurch to his feet, shoving the wheelchair backwards against Yin's legs with the desired effect of hearing Yin hop on one leg cussing in pain. Even Shawn's ragged breathing from the effort stilled with shock as Yin counted to ten out loud to regain control.
The screams died and Shawn thought Buzz had died with them. He didn't know if it was better that pained panting and gasping replaced the screaming of agony. He didn't have any idea how to get out of here and he had no idea that upstairs, no bedpan was left unturned looking for he and Buzz. Hopelessness threatened from every corner.
XXXXXXXXXXX
The public address system continued to advise the public of special operations and conditions in the running of the hospital but never in terms anyone would be able to understand; it was all in code, no one said that there was a mass murdering madman holed up with two soon to be dead cops – and wasn't that a kick; now that Shawn was about to be murdered, he was suddenly proud that Lassiter had called him a detective what seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Shawn," Buzz mumbled. "S - so sorry. Don't hate me – please. Tell, Francie – t-tell Gus. S=sorry. God, Shawn I…"
"You're going to tell – them – yourself, Nabby," Shawn said.
"Ten," Yin said with satisfaction at the end of his patience mantra. "See there's no need to yell at people to get them to do what you want, right Shawn? I mean all of your dad's yelling didn't do anything to reign you in and look at you now – well not right now but you know, when you're doing your thing,"
Only McNabb saw Yin's imitation of one of Shawn's psychic visions he'd often performed at the station, fingers to his temple in mocking contempt.
Tell him what he wants to hear, Henry sounded in Shawn's head. Yin would never know that at this very moment, Shawn wished Henry would yell at him, tell him to use the force or some such nonsense – no wait, that was Gus's voice in Shawn's head.
"Yeah, my dad's a real dick," Shawn said, the words spoken so many times before but never as untrue as right now when they couldn't be taken back.
"The prodigal son rebels," Yin said appreciatively. "But enough chatter. McNabb failed to get me what I wanted but you know I never lose; balance must be maintained. Heat – cold, Yin, Yang, both will kill you and it is balance I suppose…"
Shawn heard the cadaver locker doors open with NCIS quality sound effects. "You see, people die as I direct them, not by my hand. I may have let McNabb live if he'd just done what he was told but now I'm afraid it's one more life to add to the list and after this I'll have to think of something to balance that out, very tiresome, McNabb," Yin scolded tiredly. "Shawn's death was predetermined but yours offsets balance. "
Monologuing, Yin was monologuing.
Yes!
But Shawn didn't have full use of his body and he didn't see it when Yin turned around rummaging around in the drawers muttering disturbing phrases such as, oh wasn't she a pretty one, must've been a car accident, or oooh, someone should have paid his dealer.
Shawn felt bile rise in his throat. Yin was looking at the occupants of the drawer and there were sickly, wet thuds emanating from his direction.
"Shawn," Buzz gasped and the wet cough from the young constable didn't make Yin turn around apparently because after a pause, Buzz's hand gripped Shawn's shoulder again as if he was trying to ground himself.
It sounded hard for Buzz to whisper between the wheezing and with an involuntary smile, Shawn realized that Buzz was trying to cough-speak to him like he and Gus had done in school when they wanted to communicate without being heard.
Buzz's wheezes were unfortunately very real as his revelation widened Shawn's blind eyes with hope that hurt almost as much as the fear.
"S-stole 'is cell, Shawn," Buzz wheezed. "Tried – a couple'a times – t-to call out but can't get it – unlocked. 'S an old flip."
Shawn felt the cell pressed into his hand.
Buzz's sudden scream of agony sent vivid pictures through Shawn's practiced mind as to what must have happed as metal on metal screeched and clanged. Yin had let one of the metal drawers open fully and it had bumped into Buzz's gurney.
Shawn swallowed his empathy and fiddled with Yin's phone. Password … He stabbed blindly at the numbers and almost let out a cry of incredulity as the word balance opened the cell to fleeting freedom. But the beep beep of every letter pushed could not be silenced with Shawn's finger's limited dexterity.
Buzz stopped screaming and Shawn feared the worst, but he heard the ragged breaths Buzz tried so pitifully hard to draw. He needed Buzz's eyes.
"Buzz, man, stay with me," Shawn pleaded. "You need to watch him."
"Can't – t-tired. Hurtsss, sorry." Buzz wasn't wheezing anymore, the last of his ragged breaths were involuntary, his body's last-ditch effort not to die.
"Buzz, I need you to make a – bit more noise," Shawn pleaded as Yin continued some banging and clanging of his own and now with added whistling of the graduation march, Pomp and Pageantry.
Buzz's silence sent ice through Shawn's veins and Shawn took that ice and put it into his next words.
"Figures," Shawn spat. "You got us into this mess, be a man and help me get us out."
"Eff you, Spencer," Buzz spat through another round of coughing.
That's it, Nabby, stay mad, stay alive, Shawn thought.
Shawn's brain sped through everyone's phone number that he knew. The most logical call would be to Gus. While his best friend would be looking for him, he would always pick up his phone or texts right away, even to an unknown number; the man had even dated a few times from wrong number connections.
Shawn's hands shook, the gooey burn cream was not easily wiped off his hospital gown and the phone would not go into silent mode. With every letter, a small beep was emitted, and Buzz wheezed loudly in time until a mutual rhythm of carefully conserved communication was established.
H cough E hack, LP, Sha, Nab, Yin.
Shawn was about to type the word morgue when his fingers slipped on the rubberized buttons depressing some of the keys which embedded into the plastic holes and refused to pop back up. He groped blindly along them, his mind seeing the letters that were no longer available as his fingernails tried to coax them back up.
Really, Yin, Shawn thought frantically, you couldn't pop for a decent touch screen? And then he realized he would have been screwed without sight with a touch screen anyway.
But he couldn't tell Gus where they were …
Shawn's heart raced. His father's voice inside his head told him to calm the hell down and think. His entire body locked in rigid pain and shook with cold. A slight whistle from Buzz's failing lungs accompanied Yin's incessant whistling. The last of the morphine left him but instead of clearing his head, his body warred with endless flashes of images that he had to physically force himself not to reach for. They weren't real.
Gus's face swam into his mind as if Shawn could actually see him. It was better times. They were five, sitting in Shawn's living room. Puppets danced across the screen of the black and white TV which Shawn complained about every two minutes.
"Next time, watch that ridiculous, huge bird at Gus's house if you're going to complain about our TV, Shawn," Henry groused. "Anything good and educational is just fine in black and white."
"Yeah, in nineteen fifty," Shawn muttered under his breath.
Shawn's eyes stung and burned, begging to close from tests and procedures the ophthalmologist had performed. The room grew colder. The more Shawn struggled to see the screen, the more his head ached and his heart pulsed in his head. The old wheelchair sounded about to pop a wheel as his body shook, the thin hospital gown doing nothing to protect him. He hadn't pressed send =. Begging didn't wake Buzz; he had no one to watch that Yin didn't turn around and catch him. He was as discreet as his shaking hands would allow and with no blankets there was nowhere to hide what he was doing.
Shawn lived between two worlds; the useless cell clutched in his clammy, aching hands. He closed his eyes, his body jumping with every loud clang and bang Yin made.
If only Gus were here to focus him.
"Come on, Shawn, let's watch Sesame Street," Gus said excitedly.
"Nah, it's black and white on my TV, Gus, it's lame."
"The Count's sort of black and white even on my color TV anyway and he's your favourite part," Gus prodded.
Shawn felt his chin hit his chest and bit his lip to force himself not to pass out; or would passing out be better? Yin was going to kill him anyway.
Su-nny days sleeping the day away, friendly neighbours, that's where we'll meet, can you tell me how to get, how to get…
One! One left turn! Uh, Uh, Uh! One! One right turn! …
Hm, The Count had never counted like that before…
Shawn gasped, his fingers groped clumsily over the numbers on the cell,
Look around, son, what can you use to help you get out of here? Henry said in Shawn's head.
Look around? Look? In case you haven't noticed Pops, I'm blind! Shawn spat.
Then feel around for what you can use! Henry yelled. Not for first time, Shawn wanted to tell his dad to back the hell off, but then; You're a genius, Pops! Real Henry would of course never hear this. Shawn closed his eyes and let his fingers rove the buttons to find a way to communicate what he needed. The letters he needed were there.
"What have you done!" Yin screamed. And Shawn knew. Buzz was dead. He would never have let Yin turn around and catch him without warning him.
Shawn pressed the send button just before his head snapped back from a lip splitting blow out of nowhere sending his wheelchair over backwards. He fought for the wind that had been knocked out of him as his back connected with the floor through the thin plastic backing of the chair. Shawn heard Yin snatch the phone from the floor.
"You can't change this, Shawn. Now, be a good – or dead boy like Buzz here and stay put until I get back."
A lock clicked into place and Yin was gone, didn't take sight to figure that out. But he was coming back, and Shawn could only hope Gus could figure out his cryptic message.
"Now you have to hide, son," Henry groused in Shawn's head. "But first you have to start breathing again."
"Gah!" Shawn rasped loudly, his breath sucking in all at once as his diaphragm spasmed back to life.
You have a few minutes of adrenaline now from Yin's attack, use it. What do you see?
"I'm blind you ass-" Shawn screamed out loud.
Watch your mouth, kid, I mean what do you see with your other sight?
"You know I'm not psychic! Jules knows m'not…" Shawn sobbed, his back spasming from his sudden blow as blood trickled down his chin and froze in place.
Close your eyes
"Why!"
So you can see, Shawn.
"M'scared, dad," Shawn admitted, sounding very small, his chattering teeth stinging his lips with every crash. "Wh-why – why Buzz, why…"
Because you're the only one who can finish this, son. Now please, close your eyes and look around, see what you can use
Shawn complied just so his dad would stop. He doubted there were any hats in this room. Dead people didn't wear hats, they weren't going anywhere but … drawers.
There you go, Henry said. Hide.
Shawn took as deep a breath as he could and pushed himself up. His knees ground into the cement floor and a rough metal drain that he tried desperately to ignore bit into his skin. He grabbed onto a thin mattress, his hand connecting with Buzz's leg. Shawn gulped. Buzz's body was still warm. He stifled a cry of agony as he stood, his left leg threatening to pull him down. His hands found their way to Buzz's neck.
One! One faint heart beat! Uh, Uh, Uh Not dead!
Shawn was going to tell The Count to shut up, but the vampire's company helped him focus in lieu of Gus.
Shawn limped over to the bank of metal drawers, tapping them to see if one sounded hollow or – full, but they all sounded the same. He bit his already bleeding lip as he pulled one open with more effort than he could spare. With one index finger, Shawn poked downwards.
Gah! Not empty then.
"Sorry," Shawn muttered stupidly as he forced himself to open the next drawer. He withdrew his hand several times before getting the courage to check for tenants again.
Plane crash victim? As timid as his touch had been, the unmistakable sound of crunchy ribs would be something Shawn would never forget for as long as he lived, so maybe five more minutes tops by the way he was feeling.
It was getting harder to think, harder to breathe. He hated that he missed the oxygen mask upstairs probably hissing away pointlessly onto his bed. Even with an open mouth, it was hard to pull a full breath. He could still taste wax, like he'd eaten ten sets of the red, sexy wax lips that were sold in candy stores when he was a kid. He opened another drawer. What he wouldn't give for a thirty-nine-and-a-half-inch pole right about now.
Empty at last.
Shawn used Buzz's gurney as a crutch and wheeled the tall man over to the empty drawer.
"Sorry 'bout th-this," Shawn hissed as he shoved Buzz off the higher gurney into the drawer in a tangle of arms and legs which he straightened as best he could and closed the drawer without rechecking for a pulse. It was one count he just couldn't make again. Too slow. Too weak.
Shawn opened the door of the morgue, apparently Yin had only locked it from the outside. Yin was nowhere in sight, but Shawn heard distant, metallic noises in the distance. He stumbled back inside the room feeling along the walls for a landline, anything, but there was nothing. If there were stairs, Shawn was sure he couldn't climb them. His ears were ringing, and his chest hurt and spasmed with his back. He knew he was doing more damage to himself, but he had to do something.
Shawn pushed Buzz's empty gurney down the hall, leaning on it for support as his left leg screamed in agony and shook. He couldn't feel his left foot and it dragged as he willed it to lift with every step.
Hansel and Gretel 'im, Shawn, Gus told Shawn.
Hansel and Gretel, Gus, you're such a girl! Shawn groused gratefully.
Okay, Die Hard 'im then, Gus said.
Breadcrumbs?
McClane was bleeding, Shawn, the bad guy followed his blood trail but McClane was ready for 'im…
"Best Christmas movie, ever!" Shawn coughed.
Your lip is bleeding, Shawn, so's your temple and your foot,
"Oh!" Now that Gus had mentioned it, every time Shawn bent over to rest, the unmistakable drip, drip, drip of his blood hitting the floor was audible. Shawn consoled himself that it was a drip, not a gush but his feet slipped from burn cream and blood.
Dark shadows against white halls marked where doors were as Shawn felt his way around. He opened an unlocked door and his foot hit a pail of warm water that splashed onto his feet, the heavy, cleanser burning until he almost cried out. That meant a janitor was nearby.
"A-anyone here?" Shawn whispered but as no one had screamed at the sight of him, his assumption that he was alone was right. He couldn't call out; Yin was still around. Shawn hid the gurney in the room, knocking a broom that must have been reclining on the wall over into his head.
"That would never have happened to Val Kilmer or John McClane," Shawn hissed, vaguely wondering if his detachment from his body when the broom didn't hurt was good or bad but the knock had caused him to stumble onto a pair of large, rubber boots that industrial floor cleaner staff wore.
Shawn bent to pull the boots on, but dizziness spun him to the floor which turned out to be a good thing because there was no way he could have lifted his left leg into them anyway. The waxy cleaner stung Shawn's nose and his mouth dried with the memory of drowning in wax. He wretched and sure enough, wax passed over his tongue in a mad race to leave his stomach from where it had lived since he'd swallowed it. His vision narrowed out even the light and shadow he'd been ungratefully privy to until now.
Go back, Shawn, and hide, you know how, Henry shouted. No zig zag, follow where you came from, don't retrace your exact steps, leave the one-way blood trail…
Oh, that's what the boots were for! Yin will think I pushed Buzz away and out of the morgue!
Shawn grabbed the broom and used it as a staff, taking as much weight off his left leg as he could. His arms shook as he tried to squint out the door for a shadow against the flickering fluorescents. He had to take his chance; he just couldn't tell.
So he closed his eyes. Left, right, right, left.
He stood before the bank of morgue drawers sooner than he thought his battered body should have brought him.
Was it bad that he no longer shivered?
Turn the lights off, Shawn, right of the door like always, he'll think you did it on purpose and he'll follow your bloody prints going in the wrong direction, away from here, Henry advised.
"Ya could-could'a told me that – when I got back," Shawn sniffed.
Shawn groped for the light switch. There were levels of blindness and now Shawn's eyes tried to open wider searching even for the lights and shadows. There were no windows down here, only complete, all encompassing darkness. Like the grave…
Shawn tripped over Buzz's abandoned IV pole which pulled his hospital gown down off his chest as his fingers caught it from leaving him entirely. He caught himself, his hand gliding down the wall with the rest of him, hitting a box light used for autopsy X-Rays or something he mused. Purplish, white light emanated. A UV light used for biological evidence gathering - or glow-in-the-dark mini golf Shawn mused sadly, knowing he'd never play a game with his best friend again. And that's when Shawn's damaged eyes picked up the sliver of phosphorus against the all encompassing black. Yin and Yang's mark – on his flesh, still glowing smudged and watered down by wax, water and burn ointment.
"NO!" Shawn yelled, forgetting everything as he clawed at the hated symbol on his flesh.
Shawn calm down, Henry told his son gently but firmly.
"Get it off! Get it off m-me!"
Use it to your advantage, Shawn. Use it! Gus said excitedly.
"It's not the force, Gus! Well, an evil force I guess…" Shawn said distractedly and suddenly grateful.
"Got it," Shawn said. In revulsion that threatened to release more wax or whatever else swam around Shawn's queasy stomach, Shawn wiped some of the fluorescent symbol from his chest. He placed his hand on the drawer that Buzz was in. He smiled sadly…
And mark it with a B…
Shawn groped for the light box he'd found accidentally. He didn't have a marker or anything to leave a clue. Shawn touched his temple and bloodied his finger. He smiled sadly as he drew an infinitesimal pineapple on the corner of the light box switch and shut it off, plunging the room into complete darkness once again.
He opened the drawer next to Buzz and marked an invisible S on it with the hand he'd swiped across his chest and got in and took as deep a breath as his throbbing lungs would allow and closed the drawer as if expecting it to be devoid of oxygen. And as this whole situation was complete BS, it was only fitting that those letters secretly marked his and Buzz's hiding spots.
XXXXXXXXX
"Lassiter, give me back my phone! The message is from Shawn, I know it is!"
Lassiter tossed the phone back to Gus after jotting down the caller/texter ID.
"Why the hell doesn't Spencer just tell us where he is then? Because it's not him, Guster, no matter how much you want it to be. How much we all want it to be. This is one of Yin's games, it's a riddle and it will lead us nowhere. Yin's trying to throw us off the track. For all we know, he could have taken Buzz and Shawn out of the building by now. And even if he didn't, this isn't Santa Barbara, it's L.A.. this hospital is twelve stories, has a basement and sub-basement…"
"Lassie, yell at me again about how big this place is," Gus demanded, jumping to his feet annoyingly, very Spencer-like.
"We don't have time for this, Guster, let me think, please just for one damn moment."
"Basements, sub basements…" Gus muttered. He looked at the message on his phone and left Lassiter to pore over floor plans he'd scared the hospital CEO into giving him.
"Gus, I know you want to find Shawn and Buzz but this isn't Scooby Doo, you can't just take off, you're not – we're not even an official part of the search team," Juliet told Gus, remembering how Gus and Shawn had bragged about their marathon Scooby Doo session when Shawn was recovering from his appendectomy.
"Just for the record, Juliet, Shawn thinks you're Velma-smart and Daffney-pretty, so right about now he's hoping that you'll help find him so that Old-Man-Yin will finally have to admit that he would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for us meddling kids."
Juliet slipped away from her boss. It wouldn't hurt to have a look around if Gus had a feeling, after all, the man had known Shawn since they were babies.
"What are you thinking, Gus?" Juliet asked as more and more of L.A.'s finest filled the hospital hallways.
"I got a glance at the floor plans. The elevator indications for the sub basement are floor - 0. Then there's just a bunch of R's and L's. Shawn is trying to tell us where he is, it isn't Yin. Yin is always on about specifics from Shawn's childhood and rhymes, not actual coordinates."
"O'Hara if you see anything, call for backup, "Lassiter ordered his partner without turning around as if he had eyes in the back of his head. "Henry and I will check the basement, keep in contact."
"Spencer," Lassiter called Henry who was currently listening in on some plans of action from the guys from L.A., "let's get a coffee."
"What, are you out of your mind? I'm not getting coffee while my son and McNabb are miss … Oh! Yes, I need coffee."
Henry stepped away from the officers and Lassiter told him about the possibility of Shawn being in either the basement or sub basement.
"Let's go," agreed Henry. "Those guys are still setting up perimeters and planning."
XXXXXXXXXXX
St. Francis was an old hospital. The sub basement hadn't been privy to the revitalization projects that had modernized the public areas. As the elevator dinged to a stop, Juliet and Gus waited for their eyes to adjust from the modern lighting in the elevator to the flickering old fluorescents that looked like they'd been rewired to fit into old gas lights. There was no antiseptic scent. Groaning and belching pipes lined both sides of the significantly narrower hallways and the ceilings were low.
"Chilly down here," Juliet whispered for reasons she couldn't fathom. The elevator door dinged closed as she and Gus stepped out and Juliet's hand rested over her sidearm. They stood still, listening as the elevator made its way back up. As they looked at Gus's phone for clues, the elevator dinged again and they both jumped from nervous tension and from the very real fact that a cold-blooded murderer lurked these halls somewhere in this hospital.
"Damn it, the door isn't opening!" someone said in the elevator.
"Lassie?" Gus squeaked once he'd calmed down.
"Yes, it's me, the elevator is stuck and it missed our floor, we're calling someone, go look for Spencer."
Gus took a deep breath. "Follow me," he said to Juliet who was about to retort but reminded herself that Gus was in tune with his best friend and probably the best lead they had.
"R'okay Shaggy," Juliet said to break the tension.
"You do know that makes you Scooby, right?" replied Gus gratefully.
"Yeah, and Lassiter would think of Shawn as Scrappy," Juliet said. "Get Buzz a blond wig and he could be Fred."
"Right, Left…" Gus said with each turn they took, trying door handles and peering into darkened, circular door windows that must've been around since the place was heated and lit with coal and gas. The panes were etched with time and near impossible to see through. There were rooms full of cleansers, floor stripping machines, and even an old iron lung that Gus made a mental note to check out later when, not if Shawn and Buzz were found safe.
It was like walking backwards through time, museum relics like wicker wheelchairs, ancient X-Ray machines, creepy old incubators that looked like easy bake ovens and even an old sign that read the very un-politically correct term, insane asylum ward.
And suddenly Gus wished Lassiter was here because he would have now been saying reassuring things such as, when we find Spencer, I'm going to have him committed to the insane asylum ward. To which Gus would reply that Shawn had technically been-there- and-done-that, albeit to the mental health facility and under false pretences of a case even though Lassie did try to have him looked at while he was there.
"They could film a movie down here," Juliet whispered, her voice echoing, nonetheless.
Gus shuddered visibly. "That would be right up Yin's alley," he agreed as he suddenly stopped, uttering a gasp.
"Oh, no," Juliet said, picking up her pace and telling Gus to get behind her while she drew her gun and avoided trampling further on the bloody trail of footsteps that now disappointingly veered from the reassuring Lefts and Rights on Gus's cell.
"They're Shawn's," Gus stated solemnly. Before Juliet could ask, he added, "Size ten, crooked baby toe on the left, weirdly pointed big toe on the right."
They really had known each other since infancy.
"We'll get him back Gus," Juliet said, swallowing her revulsion as she told Gus to call for backup and kept her gun out in front of them.
"I've got my previous messages but no bars down here. How can they have no cell down here!"
"Keep lookout for a landline." Juliet said with forced calm, her hand steady.
They bypassed the rest of the lefts and rights listed on the message and followed the blood; Shawn's blood until they reached a janitor's room.
"Gus on the count of three, you flatten yourself to the left of the door out of the way. One – two – three - freeze!" Juliet shouted, banging the door open and stepping inside.
"Clear," Juliet told Gus as he slipped to the floor in a huge puddle of soapy water. "Damn it!" There was an old gurney with orange vinyl armrests and mattress on it. Close inspection showed a layer of dust and – more blood.
"Where can he have gone, there's no more tracks," Juliet said in frustration.
"I'm gonna retrace the lefts and rights," Gus said as once again, Juliet reminded him that he was to stay behind her.
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With a thrill of horror, Shawn uncrossed his hands where they were resting like a posed corpse. He tried counting sheep, but fought sleep because sleep meant death, he was bleeding, he was cold, Shock was setting in.
"B- Buzz?" Shawn chattered as the cold metal sipped more heat from his back. He didn't expect a reply but the silence that surrounded him was now inside him, threatening to absorb him. The hot tears that leaked from his eyes did nothing to warm him.
The door to the morgue opened.
"What in the hell…"
Yin was back. Not Gus, Not Henry, Lassiter or Juliet.
Shawn's hands narrowly missed banging against the top of his drawer as they flew to mask the scream that he choked back. He smothered his breathing, rapid, shallow and nearly useless to him as his head swam with colors that weren't there. His ears fought against the relentless ringing in his head and he heard the regular light switch being snapped on.
"Can't have gotten far with the gurney," Yin muttered, leaving again. There was no sound of the light switching off.
"No," Shawn sobbed. He reached up to push open his drawer. His hands clawed above his head for leverage. As hard as he shoved, the drawer didn't even shimmy.
"M'sorry, Buzz," Shawn choked. "I can't get us outta – this one."
"He would'a – killed us by now, Shawn – did your best."
Buzz's voice wrecked Shawn. To have come so far now only to die. And he wasn't sure if Buzz was inside his head or beside him. So he talked to him just in case.
"S'not okay," Shawn said stubbornly.
"Can't feel m'legs, Shhhh-awn, an – an you said snot," Buzz slurred. "Don't wanna die…"
So Shawn lied to him.
"Gonna be okay, Nabby, y'already died – twice; one more, you get a – free sub."
"P – pretty sure th-thass not how – it works, Shawn."
""I've heard it – both ways," Shawn told his neighbour.
The time in between Buzz's assertions that he wasn't dead, lengthened until he was silent once more and Shawn was left in the dark without ever having told the officer that he had other ideas about getting them out.
The darkness won.
Shawn's body temperature dipped, the thrumming in his aching head quieted. The formaldehyde mixed with death.