LEGAL A/N: Psych and all characters belong to Steve Franks, Tagline Pictures, NBC Universal Television Studios, GEP Productions and USA Network.
8. Prom Night
On the night of Halloween, Hollywood producer Cristina Kubrick's Montecito mansion was a total madhouse. Hundreds of guests, most of them celebrities wearing all sorts of costumes, lined into the gigantic ballroom where Rob Zombie's "Halloween (She Get So Mean)" currently filled the entire mansion: "Freak on her like a maniac, yeah / Go, baby, go / A psychopath and a poor white trash is all she'll ever know / Yeah, Halloween, Halloween / That's when she get so mean… / Halloween, Halloween / Come on, baby, scream…"
Servers were dressed in tuxedos and the mansion itself had been transformed into the Gold Room of the Overlook Hotel from Stephen King's novel The Shining. The only people not in costume were the security guards standing steadfast at the doors, checking the identification of every patron.
Shawn and Gus stood together at the edge of the ballroom, gazing around in star-studded bewilderment. Shawn was dressed head-to-toe in black as Batman, complete with black chest of armor, utility belt and a long, black cape. However, he refused to be acknowledged as Batman, instead opting for the title of 'The Dark Knight.' Gus was dressed in green scrubs with a stethoscope (a real one which he sold on his medical supply run) and a surgical cap over his head. According to Gus, women find doctors very attractive.
"This place is amazing!" Gus excitedly declared.
"Yeah," Shawn agreed calmly. "Except for the threat of death this party is pretty kick ass."
Gus glanced over towards the corner and his eyes lit up. "Ooh, is that Jennifer Aniston?" Both men turned quickly to the direction of the blonde in the corner, eager to meet her.
Shawn's face fell flat. "Oh… no, it's not. That's Tara Reid." Both of them, disappointed, kept their positions at the wall.
"Hello, gentlemen," Jessica declared from the side as she approached wearing an elegant, hunter green, velvet dress from the Renaissance period which reached the floor. Her blonde hair was now a warm brown which was lifted up onto the top of her head behind a queen's crown, a colorful mixture of crystals and curls. Stars fell from Gus' eyes as he viewed her and a giant, dopey smile formed on his face.
"Hi," he blurted.
"Enjoying the party?" she asked.
"I am now," Gus replied, a bit smoother.
Shawn glanced over to see Juliet approaching wearing a rather sexy black and white pirate's costume with high leather boots and her hair tied back in an adorable ponytail with a red striped scarf on her head. He couldn't help but forget why he was there to begin with. Juliet shyly approached and came face to face with Shawn.
"What are you looking at?" she declared.
Shawn snapped out of his daze. "Uh, nice… boots."
Shawn and Juliet glanced over to see the best sight of the entire party. Lassiter angrily tromped towards them. It was only a few moments before Gus and Jessica noticed too, Jessica gasping, then holding her tongue and looking away.
Juliet turned to Shawn. "You'd probably better not say anything. It was the last costume in his size at the store."
Lassiter, dressed in a giant foam Twinkie costume, stepped up to Shawn with a livid, red face. "Don't speak," Lassiter growled as he stared down at the grinning young man.
Shawn swallowed his laughter as Jessica tried to change the subject. "Uh… let me explain who some of the hosts are." Jessica stepped up and pointing to one of her other friends, a young blonde woman dressed as Marilyn Monroe talking to that guy from One Tree Hill near the fondue fountain.
"That's Jen Myers," Jessica explained. "The daughter of California Senator Myers? She'll be starring in the Dawson's Creek film adaptation next spring."
Jessica then pointed off in another direction towards a dark haired young woman running around from place to place nervously wearing a devil costume. "That's Cristina Kubrick," she explained.
They could hear Cristina ordering one of the butlers. "No, no, not there," she declared. "That's where the Ferrari cake is going!"
"She's currently working with Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn on Lord of the Rings 4," Jessica explained as politely as she could.
"LOTR 4?" Gus declared in shock. "How?"
"Dunno," Jessica shook her head. "But Sean Astin's in."
Cristina turned around and caught a horrifying sight from across the ballroom. "Oh, no, no!" she barked as she ran off. "Pants back on, Swayze!"
"I guess you'll have to meet her later," Jessica blushed as she turned back to the guests.
"Meanwhile, our suspicions aren't wrong," Juliet noted. The detectives turned and glanced across the room to see Agents Crane and Ellis scanning the crowd. "The F.B.I.'s here too."
"Well, then let's get to work," Lassiter ordered. "Everyone spread out."
Jessica agreed, "I'll make sure the security team is on guard in the kitchen."
"I'll search the bathrooms," Gus declared.
"And I'm going to talk to Sarah Michelle Gellar," Shawn announced and strolled off.
Forty-five minutes passed and there was still no sign of Hodder. The voices of System of a Down were filling the ballroom as the song "Chop Suey!" played over the deluxe sound system. "I don't think you trust in my self-righteous suicide / I cry… when angels deserve to die…"
An explosive guitar solo followed as Shawn walked through the crowd and passed the only person not wearing a costume. Henry turned around and exclaimed angrily, "Shawn! What are you doing here?"
"I was invited," Shawn answered smartly. "What's your excuse?"
"Leave," Henry sternly ordered. "This is no place to—"
"Let's get something straight," Shawn defended himself. "I'm not here to impress you! I'm here to stop a killer."
"Go home, Shawn," Henry hissed. "After all Halloween is the one night you have an excuse to act like a child. You wouldn't want to miss it."
The two of them shouted over the lead singer's voice: "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit / Father, into your hands… Why have you forsaken me/ In your eyes/ Forsaken me / In your thoughts/ Forsaken me / In your heart/ Forsaken… me…"
"Miss it?" Shawn repeated. "That's funny. Because what I remember about Halloween is you not letting me have one when I was a child because you hated me that much." Henry stared at him with a blank expression as Shawn finished, "That's one thing that'll never change. And it doesn't have to."
Silence fell between them as Henry gazed at him in puzzlement. "Is that what you think?" Henry asked, amazed.
Lassiter's booming voice broke through their conversation like a sledgehammer. "Cannonball!" he shouted in a half-slurred voice. Shawn and Henry glanced over to see the Interim Chief of the Santa Barbara Police Department standing on top of the bar in his Twinkie costume with an ecstatic expression on his face. "Clear the way! Official police business!" he shouted in a daze.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" Henry asked as he and Shawn stared with a mixture of awe and fear.
"I love this song!" Lassiter screamed as the crowd of equally-inebriated celebrities below him cheered him on. Lassiter leapt off the bar and soared across the crowd, landing in the pit as they lifted him up and carried him across the top of the ocean of partygoers.
"Didn't know we were in for an edition of Detectives Gone Wild," Shawn noted with a confused, apprehensive expression. "God help us if he tries to flash."
Henry and Shawn glanced around and noticed that the entire crowd was pushing into them. Each of their faces carried a trace-like, hyperactive gaze. Through the horde, Shawn caught a glance of Gus pulling Jessica difficultly through the people towards them, moving slowly through the swarm.
"Shawn!" Gus called out as he was constantly elbowed in the side. "Shawn!" Finally, the two groups converged as Gus shouted over the blaring music. "What the hell is going on? What happened to everybody?"
Henry reached out and grabbed a champagne glass from one of the dancing partiers nearby, the drinker being too inebriated to notice. He also grabbed a hold of the partier and noted the excess sweat and chattering teeth. "The drinks are spiked," Henry declared.
"What?" Jessica said with wide-eyes. She glanced around, "Oh my god, these people need to get to a hospital!"
"I don't think it's poison," Henry stated. "They've been drugged. Hodder's here."
A female scream broke out over the blaring guitars and climbing piano. Gus, Shawn, Henry and Jessica began to look from side to side. The terrified screams seemed to be coming from everywhere as they grew more frantic. Henry glanced straight across the pulsing, bustling crowd to see Jen Myers struggling with an unseen attacker.
"Help! Help me!" she screamed, but her cries were drowned out by the roaring rock music. The young blonde actress was being dragged away and no one around her was sober enough to notice.
"There!" Henry called out and was off in a snap. He vanished into a wave of people as Shawn, Gus and Jessica ran after him.
"Dad!" Shawn shouted as he bounded off after his father. He could only move a few feet before he was shoved aside by dancing patrons. Shawn continued to push against the force of the gargantuan crowd, but someone pulled him back by his cape and he toppled to the floor.
"Shawn!" he could hear from above. Gus appeared over him, extending a hand down to him. Shawn was pulled off of the floor by Gus and Jessica as the three of them came to a stand. They glanced around for any sign of Henry or Jen, but both of them were missing now.
"Dad! Dad!" Shawn called out to his father, but his shouts were carried away by the music. The three of them stood alone in the sea of insanity as their control over the situation slowly began to slip away.
The steady thumping of a base beat beneath the voice of Marilyn Manson in the song "I Put a Spell on You" filled the room as Shawn fought his way through the entranced, dancing crowd. "I put a spell on you / Lord, lord, lord / 'Cause you're mine / I can't stand the things that you do when you're fooling 'round…"
Through the flashing of the strobe light and special effects fog, Shawn spotted Juliet fighting her way towards him. "Juliet!" he called as he struggled to make it to her. He was relieved to see that Juliet was as sober as he was.
"Juliet!" Shawn declared as he reached her. "Thank god you're not hopped up!"
"Same to you," Juliet responded with a voice of worry. "Did you see Lassiter?"
"I think he's still surfing the crowd in the back," he answered.
"My god, this is horrible."
"What about the F.B.I. agents?" Shawn asked.
"Smashed," Juliet declared. "They were moshing during 'Dragula.'"
"We've got to call for backup," Shawn declared. "Hodder is here. I think he's somehow got Jen Myers and my dad."
"That's impossible," Juliet responded.
"No," Shawn explained, "they were there one second and gone the next—"
"You don't understand," Juliet explained. "I just got off the phone with McNabb. Hodder was apprehended an hour ago in Las Vegas. He's been there for a week."
"Vegas?" Shawn repeated, stunned. It finally dawned on Shawn as he kicked himself for being so foolish. "We screwed up," Shawn understood, gritting his teeth with dissatisfaction. "It's been a copycat the whole time."
Suddenly, a hand yanked Shawn's arm and he turned to see Gus with a terrified expression. "Shawn! Jessica's gone!" Gus nervously declared.
"What?" Juliet replied. "What happened?"
"We were coming towards you," he explained, stuttering. "And… I-I turned around and… she was gone! What if Hodder took her?"
"It's not Hodder," Shawn explained.
"Huh?"
"That's it," Juliet declared, shouting over the music. "We're shutting this party down!"
Cristina Kubrick stood with a maintenance man at the entrance to the building, a mechanical rotating door that was currently making strange whirring noises. The electrician kneeled down on his knees with a toolbox as he tried to assess the problem. Shawn, Juliet and Gus approached them, Juliet trying to turn her cell phone back on unsuccessfully.
"Top of the line my ass!" Cristina spat as she kicked the door in her shiny, red, high-heeled boots.
"We've got to stop the party!" Gus shouted.
Cristina turned around towards them with a baffled expression. "What?" she shouted over the blaring screams of the music. "Who the hell are you?"
"Santa Barbara PD," Juliet shouted an explanation. "There's a serial killer attacking the guests. We believe three people have already been taken. I'm ordering you to shut this down!"
"Nice try," Cristina answered, "but it's not like I could if I wanted to. Some ass spiked the drinks and food! Even my security team is wasted! I've got no control."
Juliet stared down at her cell phone with frustration. "There's no signal in here anymore. I've got to get outside." Shawn and Gus glanced down at their cell phones to find that neither of them had enough signal to make a call either.
"Can't do that either," Cristina explained. "I had this revolving door installed for the party and it's stuck. We can't get out."
"You had a door installed just for this party?" Shawn said in disbelief.
"Diddy did it," the movie producer shrugged in reply.
"Can't we break the glass?" Gus suggested.
"Bulletproof," Cristina shook her head. "Something else I learned from Diddy."
Shawn glanced over at Gus. "Now what are the odds that there would coincidentally be a killer in a giant mansion to which there is no escape?"
"There has to be another exit somewhere," Juliet declared. "I'm gonna look while I keep trying my phone. We need to get through to the department for backup."
Juliet rushed off as Shawn and Gus turned back to Cristina and the maintenance man. "You two keep working on this door," Gus ordered.
"Well what else are we going to do?" Cristina rolled her eyes. "My party's been ruined. And nobody even had Ferrari cake!"
Shawn glanced over to see the giant yellow Twinkie several yards away hopping up and down to the screeching guitar. "It's a mosh, bitches! Get in and push!" Lassiter howled.
Shawn grabbed Gus by the shoulder and pulled him back through the crowd. When they finally reached the mosh pit, they yanked him out and pulled him to the sidelines.
"Detective!" Gus shouted, trying to get his attention.
"Lassy, talk to me!" Shawn ordered.
"Spencer?" Lassiter called out in a daze.
"It's me! I'm right here!"
With a glazed-over expression, Lassiter glanced down at his costume, "This suit feels so… squishy…" He began to rub the foam of his Twinkie suit in a trance.
"Shawn, this is no use," Gus declared.
"Hold on, we've got to try to communicate," Shawn said.
"I don't think I can stand next to this man as he strokes his Twinkie," Gus firmly stated, then paused in his speech and thought. Shawn glanced up at Gus with bewildered silence. They both turned back to Lassiter, letting it go.
"Lassy, did you bring your police radio with you?" Shawn asked.
"Ye… yeah," he answered in a slur.
"Good, where is it?" Shawn asked excitedly.
"I… I had it…" Lassiter said as he began to slowly glance around his poofy costume. He patted the foam down, but wasn't finding anything. "Somebody borrowed it and didn't give it back."
"What? Who?" Shawn exclaimed.
Lassiter thought hard for a few seconds, then replied, "Freddy Krueger." Shawn and Gus glanced at each other with a frustrated sigh which was interrupted by yet another terrified scream. Another worried look followed as the detectives rushed over towards the direction of the shout, back towards the revolving door.
They arrived at the doorway and there was no sign of Cristina or the electrician. Shawn stared down to find the tools all still spread out in the exact position that they were in before he left. However, he quickly noticed a line of dark red leading away from the door. A blood trail smeared across the floor into a dark corner where the DJ booth was located.
Gus gave Shawn a worried look as they stared down at the blood trail. Hesitantly, they began to follow away from the roaring crowd. They entered the dark corridor and were now alone and secluded in the dimly lit area. Carefully they followed the trail as Shawn's eyes found a still figure at the end of the hallway, stretched out across the floor.
"Oh, no," he breathed as he gazed at the body. It was the stabbed electrician with four gash marks in the chest of his blue jumpsuit. Four marks, he noted. "Freddy Krueger," Shawn said with a newfound fear. Shawn and Gus glanced over and spotted a red striped cloth on the ground. Shawn himself had just enough time to recognize it as Juliet's. "Gus," he nervously said. "I think we're walking into a trap."
A half-second later, the floor gave way beneath them as they were tumbling into darkness.