1966

“Shawn?” he whispered. “Shawn, it's me. Wake up. Wake up, Shawn!”
The both of them were huddled under the boardwalk, and Shawn had fallen asleep in the sand, covered only by an old winter coat. The night in Santa Barbara was warm but rainy. Water seeped through the cracks in the boardwalk, drenching the brown paper bag that he held in his hands.

“Shawn, wake up,” he said again, shaking his younger brother gently. “I brought you something to eat.”

He pulled the winter coat away from Shawn's face and his fingers brushed his little brother's skin. It was cold as a stone.

The color drained from his face. Wet fingers slipped from the paper bag and precious food fell unnoticed into the sand. He stumbled backwards, panting hard, flailing, unable to stand. “Shawn?”

When he could finally get to his feet, he turned and ran, still stumbling, running blindly with no destination in mind. Shawn was gone, and he had nowhere to go. Nowhere at all to go…

*********************

45 Years Later

Hey Gus, Shawn carefully crafted a text message, Just got jerk chicken & on way. ready to RUMBLE!!!

This declaration, of course, was followed by exactly six emojis before he grinned and hit the “Send” button.

Twisting in his seat, he checked to be sure that the styrofoam containers of food were secure in the passenger seat and his mirrors were clear. Then he set out onto the open road.

The day was rainy, but otherwise lovely, and Shawn hummed along to an Aerosmith song on the radio. He just had to stop by his new living space to grab his birthday gift for Jules before he went back to the Psych office.
After the lease on the dry cleaners ran out, he’d started renting an old boathouse for a song. Sure, half of the space inside was designed for keeping a boat that he didn’t have, but the price was right and he had a beautiful view of a boardwalk and a pier overlooking the beach. The only downside was that sometimes, the sound of the waves and the creaking from the boat-keeping area of the building (what was the technical term for that, anyway?) kind of kept him awake at night, and all that sea air and wind didn’t help much either. Still, it was a roof over his head that didn’t belong to his dad or to Gus, so he couldn’t complain.

He skipped in through the teal-painted front door of the wooden boathouse and headed for his tiny, ramshackle living room---which was mostly a space next to the door. His gift for Juliet, wrapped in silver paper with a big pink bow, was right on top of the flea market coffee table. He turned and was about to leave when he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye…

He twisted and glanced all across the room, but he didn’t see anything except a shadow on the wall. He shrugged, locked the door, and got back in the car.

When he got back home a few hours later, he was as delighted as he was exhausted. Juliet loved not just her present, but also the giant ponies, too. Even though they pooped a lot. Apparently she was quite an accomplished horseback rider. Shawn, on the other hand…not so much. He flopped down into his plush-cushioned wicker chair and massaged his sore legs.

With a contented sigh, he drifted off to sleep.

Something was tugging at his shirt collar.

Shawn! Shawn, wake up!

Shawn bolted awake for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. He must’ve been dreaming, but if he had been, he couldn’t remember what it was. He yawned mightily. “Gus?” he said groggily, not really expecting Gus to be there, but still half-asleep and shaking himself into full consciousness. The room was chill and a little damp, not at all unusual for the boathouse at night. The glowing red numbers on the electric clock read 3:34 AM.

Yawning again, he pushed himself out of the wicker chair---stumbling slightly in his dazed state---and fumbled for the light switch. He grabbed a glass of water from the kitchenette and switched the light off again and turned up the heat a little before dragging himself off to bed.

He fell asleep---again---looking at the cutesy nautical decor left behind on the wall by the previous owner. He made a mental note to replace it with a Van Halen poster as darkness claimed him for the second time that night.

Wake up, Shawn!

Jolted awake by a loud rattle, Shawn sat up in bed, stiff muscles complaining, and looked blearily around the room. He didn’t see anything that would make a noise. Must’ve been the rocking of the ocean waves over in the boat-y part of the house. (He really needed to look up the term for that sometime. Preferably with Gus’ dictionary skills.) He yawned and looked over at the clock on his nightstand. This one had green numbers. 6:42 AM. He groaned slightly, rubbing his neck. He figured he could sleep in for another two hours before he would have to make a reasonable effort to get up. Just as he was laying down, he noticed a funny shadow on the wall behind the clock. But he was too sleepy to think much about it. This new house was full of shadows and water sounds.

It never occurred to him that, with all the lights in the room turned off, there was nothing there to actually make a shadow.

He woke up around 8:30 next, feeling much more rested despite the crick in his neck. As he shrugged his way out of the covers, he stopped and stared in puzzlement as he realized that one of the cutesy decorations had fallen down in the middle of the night. The wooden anchor had fallen off the wall… And seemed to have been broken in half. That would explain the rattle he heard in the night, but…what would’ve caused it?

His phone buzzed, distracting him from the mystery. Juliet had texted him; there was a major crime scene downtown. He jumped up, got dressed, and zipped out of the house, eager for a new case. The broken anchor and the weird noises were completely forgotten.

Gus crashed with him that night. Mostly because they didn’t leave the police station until well after midnight and Gus’ place was on the other side of town, and neither of them felt like driving all the way over there when they were so tired. For once, Shawn actually let Gus take the bed while he crashed in the wicker chair again. For whatever reason, that big poofy cushion was amazingly relaxing, and the thrift store purchase was rapidly becoming Shawn’s favorite chair ever.

“Oh, Wickliffe,” he murmured to the chair, using his pet name for it. “I’ll never get rid of you, even when I move again. Maybe I’ll strap you to a teeny tiny trailer and take you along behind my motorcycle…”

Shawn dreamed that he was hanging out under the boardwalk, waiting for Gus. He didn’t really know why he was waiting, or why he was there. He just knew that Gus was coming and that he was going to bring jerk chicken as soon as he could. The tips of his fingers were going numb and cold, and he slowly realized with horror that he couldn't move at all. No matter how much he struggled, he was entirely paralyzed. He tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn’t move either. He couldn’t even scream.

“Shawn! Shawn! Wake up! Shawn, you’re scaring me!”

Shawn’s eyes flew open and he gasped, shaking in a cold sweat all over. His lungs heaved as if he’d just run a marathon. Gus was standing over him, brown eyes wide with the unmistakable look of the majorly freaked.

“Shawn, are you okay?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Shawn replied, hands trembling as much as Gus’ voice. “I just had the freakiest dream ever. I was under the boardwalk and I couldn’t move and I couldn’t even breathe.”

“You weren’t breathing, Shawn,” Gus whispered.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. That’s why the dream was so scary.”

Gus shook his head back and forth just once, very slowly. “Shawn. I was standing right here. I came in after I heard you scream. You weren’t breathing. Your chest wasn’t moving. I even put my hand in front of your mouth. If you hadn’t woken up, I would’ve called an ambulance.” He even held up his cell phone to show Shawn the screen---he’d already typed 9-1.

Shawn took a very, very deep breath. “Gus, you wanna grab a burrito and crash at your place tonight?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

*********************

He invited Gus back over to his boathouse again the next night. This time, he pulled the wicker chair into the bedroom.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Gus asked dubiously.

“Not really,” Shawn replied. “But I didn’t have any nightmares or problems when I was crashing with you. Now I need to prove to myself that nothing is happening here. I had a night terror, that’s it.”

“Shawn…”

“There’s nothing weird happening at all,” Shawn said stubbornly. “I just need you to be here to double-check. You know. For science. Scientists double-check stuff, right?”

Gus shrugged.
Shawn got into the bed and pulled the covers up halfway. “Here goes nothing.”
“Good luck, Shawn.”

It was a while before he could drift off to sleep that time, but he felt better having Gus with him.

He had the dream again. The dream of sitting in the sand, unmoving, paralyzed completely. This time, he noticed something odd. The paralysis was only from the waist up at first, and he still had feeling in his fingers. Then, it slowly worked its way up, numbing his hands and freezing his lungs. That’s when the panic set in. But he forced himself to stay calm; after all, it was only a dream, and Gus was right there.

This time, the voice he heard definitely did not belong to Gus.

Shawn, please, you have to wake up, the voice pleaded. You can’t die again. Please, Shawn. Wake up!

“Shawn!” Gus’ voice hissed. “Shawn, you need to wake up now!”

He sat upright the instant he was able to break free from the dream. Quickly, he took deep breaths to shake the feeling of suffocation. “Gus?”

“Shawn,” Gus said, more serious than Shawn had ever heard him. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

Shawn swallowed hard. “What time does the library close?”

Only when they were safely nestled into a quiet library alcove did Gus finally tell Shawn what he had seen.

“It happened the same as before. You fell asleep and you were okay for awhile, but then you entered the REM stage.”
“Like the band?”
“Be serious, Shawn. It stands for Rapid Eye Movement. It's the part of your sleep where you dream.”
“Ohhhh! Suddenly that name makes a lot more sense.”
“Focus. As soon as you started dreaming, your body went really… I don't know. Just weird. Not relaxed like somebody who's sleeping. Just… I don't know. Like your muscles didn't work anymore. And after a while, you stopped breathing again, just like before.”
“Makes sense, considering I was having pretty much the exact same dream.”

Gus slowly shook his head. “This time was different, Shawn. I'm not sure exactly what happened…but I could see a shadow standing over you.”
Shawn's throat went dry. “A shadow? Like…of a person?”
“Exactly like that. A shadow, but it looked like a person was there beside your bed.”
“Man or woman?”
“I'm pretty sure it was a man.”
“Did he say anything?”
Gus shook his head again. “No, but it looked like he was trying to wake you up.”

For a long moment, Shawn could only stare. “We need to find out everything we can about that boathouse.”

An hour of searching left them fruitless, and the library was set to close in fifteen minutes. Sighing, Shawn ran a hand through his hair. “We're not gonna find anything, Gus. Let's just go, I guess.”

“Let's ask the librarian first,” Gus suggested. “Maybe she'll know a better place to look. Something that we missed.”

Shawn shrugged and Gus led him to the circulation desk. The librarian looked up from the papers she was working on and smiled. “Hey, can I help you? We're closing soon.”

“We won't take too much of your time,” Gus assured her. “My friend here, Flimflam Van Morrison, has recently purchased a boathouse near the old boardwalk, and he was hoping to find out more about the history of the property.”

The librarian's face lit in recognition. “You mean the one on the beach, over by the pier? The wooden one?”
Shawn nodded furiously. “That's the one!”
The librarian nodded. “I know that place. I grew up in the neighborhood right next to it. We have all kinds of newspaper articles about it on microfilm, back from ‘66.”
“What happened in 1966?” Gus asked.

“It's a long story. It was in the papers for weeks, because everyone was trying to make sense of what happened. To make a long story short, there was a little boy found dead there under the boardwalk. The boathouse owner was the one to find him. Apparently the poor thing had early onset ALS.”

“ALS?” Shawn echoed. “What's ALS?”
“Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” Gus replied. “It's also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.”
“Lou Gehrig's disease? Wait, I've heard of that before. How have I heard of it before?”

“The Ice Bucket Challenge,” Gus reminded him.

Shawn snapped his fingers. “That's right! I remember now! Isn't that where your muscles stop working or something?”
“Pretty much. The paralysis starts at the feet and slowly spreads upwards to the rest of the body. Usually, people only survive for one or two years after they're first diagnosed. It's really sad.”

The librarian nodded again. “My grandfather had it. He passed in 1962. Nobody could diagnose him until after he died, and they only figured it out after the autopsy.”

A cold pit formed in Shawn's stomach. “What about somebody's lungs? Aren't they muscles too?”

“Yeah,” Gus said. “When the paralysis reaches them, they stop. Same with the heart. That's when people start needing life support.”

“Gus---” Shawn started to say, but then he stopped. “Excuse me, but we need every single article you have on this subject, please.”

“Of course,” the librarian replied, adjusting her round spectacles. “I'm going to be working on this paperwork for at least half an hour, so you boys can stay and use the microfiche machines until I'm ready to close up.”

“Thank you,” Gus said. “Mr. Van Morrison and I appreciate it.”
The two of them pored over the host of articles, and what they discovered chilled Shawn to the bone.

“So, let’s take this from the top,” Shawn said as he and Gus sat at a table beside the microfiche to regroup. “This guy abuses his kids, and the oldest kid shoots him and runs away, taking his 16-year-old brother with him.”

“The 17-year-old was named Johnny and the 16-year-old was named Shawn,” Gus confirmed. “And they found the dad behind the Amtrak train station the following day, but the kids were still hiding out.”

Shawn frowned. “Either they were really good at playing hide-and-seek or the cops were really stupid. Where could they possibly hide for a week with one of them being half-paralyzed and sick?”

Gus shrugged. “Maybe the cops didn’t want to find them. After all, it was 1966. Even if someone knew those kids were living in an abusive home, it wasn’t like there was anything anybody could’ve done about it. Maybe letting them go was the cops’ way of admitting that their father was a terrible human being.”

“Could be, I guess,” Shawn sighed. “But it didn’t really matter either way, because a week later, the younger one died of complications from ALS. What happened to the older one?”

Gus shrugged. “Nobody knows. Johnny was never found.”

Shawn rubbed his face. “Gus… Look, man, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but… In the dream I keep having, the one where I can’t breathe… In the dream, I'm hiding under the boardwalk and I can’t move. And slowly I lose the ability to breathe. And…after that, I keep hearing a male voice telling me to wake up. Gus---Gus, what if this dream is reliving the kid’s final moments?”

Gus nodded slowly. “Then the shadow figure I saw standing over you---the voice must belong to him. What if that’s Johnny? What if he’s still trying to save his brother?”

“Shawn,” Shawn said. “That has to be it, Gus. Johnny’s brother was named Shawn. What if he’s gotten his wires crossed? What if the trigger--- Ghosts have triggers, right? Like, things that cause them to show up?”

“Sometimes. It happens.”

“What if Johnny’s ghost is appearing to me because he knows my name is Shawn? What if he thinks that I’m his brother?”

Both of them were silent for a long moment as this idea began to sink in.

“So what do we do?” Gus asked finally.
“I don’t know. Do we help him cross over or something? Like on Ghost Whisperer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think I should just move out?” Shawn asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Gus repeated. “Shawn, this isn't you pretending to be Wilting Flower anymore. This is a real spirit. Maybe one that isn't too friendly. …I'm scared, Shawn.”

“Me too,” Shawn said finally.

*********************

Despite everything that had happened, Shawn knew he had to go back to the boathouse. Maybe somehow he felt pity for this boy, this Johnny, who had lost his brother by trying to save him… And for his ghost, who was still trying to protect someone who died almost half a century ago. With a tape recorder and an electromagnetic frequency sensor in hand, he returned to the weathered old boathouse.

He stepped through the teal-colored door, shocked by what he saw. His sparse and eclectic collection of furniture had been ripped up, torn apart. The wicker chair was rolled on its side, cushion punctured with large holes. Tables upended, books shredded, computer screen cracked.

“Johnny,” Shawn said, switching the tape recorder on. “Johnny. This is Shawn Spencer. I know you're here. Can you talk to me?”

There was no reply that Shawn could hear, but a chill came over the room. Carefully, Shawn turned on the EMF device. “Johnny, I just want to talk. I know what happened to your brother. To Shawn.” He swallowed hard. “I know what your dad did to you.”

A shadow appeared at the corner of Shawn's eye. He remained still. The lights on the EMF flashed like a Christmas tree, lighting up amber and green. “I know that you were trying to protect Shawn by getting him out.”

The shadow seemed to ooze across the walls until it took shape directly in front of Shawn: the shape of a human being.

Shawn took a deep breath. “Shawn had Lou Gehrig's disease. There was no way you could've known. The doctors didn't even know.”

The shadow came closer to Shawn, inches away. Shawn didn't move. “It wasn't your fault,” he said softly.

The shadow hovered beside him.

“You did what you had to do to protect your brother. Nobody blames you. It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done to save him. Nothing at all, Johnny.”

The tape recorder made a sound of static. Shawn held his breath, stopped the recording, and played it back quickly.

No---ing?

The sound of the recording was garbled, but beneath the static, Shawn could clearly hear the voice he'd heard at night. He flipped the recorder back on.

“That's right,” Shawn replied. “You couldn't have done anything more than what you did. You did the right thing.”

The shadow seemed to grow smaller, somehow… Like someone hunching their shoulders. The tape sounded with static again, a long burst of it this time. Shawn played it back again.

So---y. ---give me, Sha--- S---y.

“You're my brother,” Shawn said quietly. “Of course I forgive you.”

At last, there was a long, slow, quiet sound, like an escaping sigh from a man holding his breath for a long, long time. And as the shadow drew its last breath, it slowly---very slowly---faded away.

“Goodbye, Johnny,” Shawn whispered. He grabbed the wicker chair and dragged it outside, propping it up in the sand beside the front door.

He never went back into the boathouse again.