A Walk down Memory Lane
Two nights before Shawn would sit down with his friend, to have this walk down memory lane, before the idea about this walk down memory lane had even been an idea, Shawn was outside, sometime around midnight, taking a walk, to clear his mind.
All this talk about his dad´s old case, had made him feel dizzy these last few days. All these strange memories flooding his brain. Memories he hadn´t even known, he´d had. What did the shrinkers call it? Suppressed memories? Self protection? Maybe he´d seen something back in the days, something his consciousness didn´t want to remember. Maybe he´d seen the killer. Had he? Had he?
He looked up from his musing, never slowing down his pace, and realized where he was. The beach promenade was so abandoned at this time of the night, he almost didn´t recognize it. But he surely recognized his dad´s house. The house he´d grown up in. His childhood home.
Had it been here? Had it been somewhere else? When he´d seen whatever it had been, that had been too much for his young mind? If that was what actually did happen. Shawn realized he wasn´t sure anymore. And the mere idea of not knowing anything, a crucial part of your own life, your very soul, was frightening. Would he ever know?
After a while of just staring, he kept moving, walking down the rest of the way. The Psych office was closer than his apartment.
...
Today:
They´ve driven home right after the crime scene, settling down at Shawn´s place, a whole bunch of year books on the coffee table before them. Shawn has been looking at these pictures for hours, and slowly his eyes are starting to hurt.
Even though it has been fun to remember all these things with Gus, laughing their butts of about certain stories they have told each other. Exchanging memories about these people, who once were their school mates, and about all these little sins of their youth their parents never learned about. And it was good they never learned about it, because if they would have … oh dear, but one did never want to even think about this possibility. Not that Shawn is scared of his father – or his mother – anymore. But certain things were simply not for a parent´s ears.
He leans back, on the couch, resting his eyes for a moment. It has been a long evening, but he hasn´t remembered anyone who he´d believe to be a psycho killer. Okay, maybe a few of them. But seriously, not to that degree.
Eventually Gus gets up, to make them another coffee. Both of them are tired and a coffee sounds like a good plan. While he´s busy in the kitchen, Shawn sits up again, to look through the yearbooks one more time. He´s smiling and sometimes chuckling about how cheesy some of these guys used to look. Especially this dude, with the funny hair and the big nose. He leans forward to read the name under the picture. Spencer, Shawn.
He frowns. Weird. He would have sworn he´d looked hotter back then. Is that how his hair had looked like? Strange. How memory could be deceiving. But the weirdest thing is the necklace he wears on that picture. He can´t even remember to ever have had such a thing. It´s of dark leather, only one thing hanging on it. A silver tomahawk.
"Gus, do you remember me having a Tomahawk?" he asks.
When he looks up, Gus stands in the door with a small shovel and broom in his hand, the ones Shawn keeps in his kitchen closet.
"What´s that?" he asks and Shawn smiles amused.
"Oh, those are my archeological tools. I kept it after we dug out Zippy, you know, for the good luck."
"Shawn."
"What do you think this is?" Shawn challenges his friend.
"What are you doing with these?" Gus asks instead of answering this rhetorical question.
Shawn shrugs. "I try my hand in gardening."
"Why that?"
Here Shawn hesitates, a little. "Dr. Manny said gardening is good for the nerves." he says, eventually and Gus frowns.
"Since when do you need to calm your nerves?" he asks.
"Well, a case like this is not unnerving?" Shawn snaps, defiant all the sudden.
It seems to work. Gus hesitates, shamefully. "Sure." he says. "Sure it is."
He puts the tools back where he found them on his search for the trash can and returns to the living room with two mugs of coffee.
"What were you asking me before?" he asks when he sits again.
"What?" Shawn is confused for a moment but then he remembers.
"It was something about a ….."
"Oh yeah. Here I found this picture of myself. Can you believe I ever looked that ridiculous?"
Gus only shoots him a glance, one brow raised, a smirk sparkling in his eyes. Shawn raises his brow in return, answering the challenge.
"Forget the question." he says, lowly. "Just tell me what this is." he points at the necklace.
Gus frowns and looks at the picture closer. "Oh, that. You only had that for a few weeks. It was in the summer of 1991." he halts, thinking this through. "Around the time when these murders happened actually. But I could be wrong. All I know is you were totally crazy about this Indian stuff back then and you even slept with this necklace."
Seriously?"
"Yes. Your Mom used to tell you you might strangle yourself in your sleep."
"Dude, I don´t remember any of this."
Gus only shrugs. "You lost it somewhere, only a few weeks later. It never was an issue again."
Shawn tries to remember it one last time and fails. Eventually he shrugs and puts it aside. It´s probably nothing anyway.
After that he and Gus keep trying to figure out something for a few more hours. They remember a lot of things, some are bad – the time of the murders – some are good and some are funny. And some are even hilarious, but neither of them really feels like laughing too much today. Not anymore.
Around six Gus decides to head home. He wants to do some preparations for tomorrow at work he says and leaves. Shawn stays behind, sitting on his couch, unsure how to proceed. This walk down memory lane hasn´t brought any result. And he feels depressed, despite the laughter he and Gus have shared.
He decides to get his head clear and puts in a movie. Secret Window, the one he didn´t get to finish the other day. He still doesn´t know how it ends and he´s determined to find out now. But he falls asleep on his couch halfway through it.
...
When day turns into night, Gus is still in his car, not driving but standing. Watching. Observing. He´s done that so many times with Shawn sitting beside him, but this time it´s different. This time he´s observing Shawn.
He doesn´t even know exactly why he´s doing this. Something in the back of his head just won´t let go of the thought that he has to do this. That he has to find out. About what exactly? He´s not sure. He just knows he has to know.
And then after a while, the door to Shawn´s apartment opens and Shawn comes out. Gus tenses. Shawn is carrying something in a sack. Gus can´t be sure but it has the size to be the little shovel and the broom.
He shakes his head. That´s ridiculous. Why should Shawn take them out with him, at that hour of the day? Except … but that´s even more ridiculous. He hasn´t come here to prove his friend since childhood is a psycho killer. Even if that should be the shovel and the broom in there, Shawn could have a perfectly rational reason to take them with. Maybe he got an idea concerning the case and wants to test his theory. He´s done stranger things over the years.
Gus can´t see him clearly enough to read his face, he´s too far away for that, and that has a reason. If he´d dared it to park any closer, Shawn would notice him, he just knows. But Shawn doesn´t seem to notice him. He just mounts his bike and drives off.
Gus follows, keeping his distance but not too much to lose him. Eventually Shawn stops in town, at the entrance to the park, and dismounts his bike. Gus quietly slips out of the car and locks it, following Shawn when he enters the park. The first victim has been found in the park, Gus recalls, buried in the flower beds, so maybe Shawn really wants to test something. Maybe how much time and strength it needs to bury a body there. Maybe.
He keeps following him. Shawn doesn´t hurry. He seems to stroll as if on a little walk, the sack with the shovel and the broom idly swinging at his side. Gus realizes that he´s changed to the conviction that this is the content of the sack. And he also realizes that Shawn is wearing leather gloves. He usually doesn´t wear gloves when he rides his bike. Why does he now? Because of the chilly night? Usually it´s Gus who complains about the cold, not Shawn.
He sees a movement ahead the path Shawn walks and spots someone coming from that direction. Another stroller. A young woman. Gus´ heart skips a beat. But no. Don´t be ridiculous.
Shawn smiles at her, and greets. She stops, smiling back. The two of them exchange a few words, but Gus can´t understand them. The voices are low, as if they´re afraid to disturb anyone if they talk too loud that late. Shawn points at something ahead and the girl follows his finger for a moment. To Gus it looks as if he asks her for the way. Her turn and brief hesitation, is the typical gesture of someone who tries to find the right words of explaining the way.
And then the shock. Shawn has something in his hand, something small, that he got out of his pocket, so quickly Gus could barely see the movement. But he sees the movement when Shawn wraps his arm around the girl, cupping her mouth with his hand. A moment later the knife in his hand, cuts through her neck and blood splashes forward, away from Shawn. He never was in any danger to get hit by it.
The girl tenses, only for a moment, before her body goes stiff, her hands clutching her own throat. When she turns around to see the face of her killer Shawn has taken some calm steps back, watching her from a save distance, while she writhes in pain, choking on her own blood, slowly doubling over, legs giving in.
Gus watches all this, and when he sees the girl dying under the uncaring stare of his life long friend, his body catches up with his numb mind, and he starts screaming, not able to hold it back. On the path, the girl is on the ground now, and Shawn swirls around, his eyes searching the direction where Gus is hiding.
Gus doesn´t stay any longer, to wait for what will happen. He starts running and without looking over his shoulder he knows that Shawn is chasing after him. Oh, god, he can almost feel him running after him. And then he hears him.
"Gus." he calls his name. Not angry, not surprised or worried, just in a tone as if he needs him to please stop, because he´d like to talk to him for a second.
Of course, Gus doesn´t comply. He keeps running, keeps screaming, all the way back to the parking lot. But Shawn´s steps are so close behind him that he doesn´t dare to stop now and waste time to open his car. He just keeps running, over the street and into the next dead end.
When he realizes his mistake it´s already too late. He turns around to run back out. But Shawn´s already there, barely panting.
Gus sees his eyes, smiling at him, and he screams again. It´s all his mind can think of in this moment, all he can do, because his legs refuse to move all the sudden. Like the rabbit before the snake.
But this is no snake. This is Shawn, the guy he grew up with, and still he´s not. Because Shawn never looks like that. This is the gaze of someone else, someone who kills and buries young women in the middle of the night. And Shawn would never do that, would he?
Gus is still asking himself that question, is still screaming helplessly, when Shawn closes in on him, the knife in his hand, glistening in the little light that falls into this allay from the street. And he keeps screaming when the two police officers come running around the corner and take Shawn into custody. He barely fights them and only a minute later, a minute that felt like an eternity for Gus´ terrified heart, everything´s over.
Only that it isn´t.