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Holmes of the Dead
By Taleya
The streets were bedlam. I fought my way through panicked hordes, an endless
stream of terrified refugees, wounded and unwounded alike, half-dressed and
shrieking, wide-eyed with hysteria. Women clutched their crying children to
their breasts, men fired wildly over their shoulders with revolvers - others
simply ran, faces fixed firmly to the ground.
The windows of houses were smashed, the frantic whistling of constables mixing
with the screams from the streets as I pushed my way towards my abode. Further
along the street a horse was screaming in its traces as two men and a woman
brought it down, teeth tearing into its frantic flesh and I shuddered at the
insanity. The woman raised her head suddenly, as if scenting the air and her
face turned towards me with an unearthly slowness. My body jerked forward,
medical instincts aroused by the sight of the terrible wound upon he cheek, but
then I saw the blood on her teeth and the madness in her eyes as she rose to her
feet, an ungodly moan issuing from her lips and hurriedly jammed my key into the
lock, desperate to escape to the sanity of my rooms.
Through the railing of the stairs, a hand snatched clumsily at the cuff of my
trousers, the nails torn and grimed with blood. I grimaced between my teeth in
disgust and struck it a smart blow with the base of my cane, the key finally
turning against the tumblers and spilling me into the hall as I was released. I
shut the door hurriedly against the mindless grasping, turning the lock and
bracing my back against it, waiting until the moans had subsided.
Madness, pure madness had struck my beloved London.
Mrs. Hudson was conspicuous by her absence as I made my way up the stairs and I
prayed our stalwart housekeeper had found a safe haven from the turmoil that had
struck the city.
Relief struck sharply at the site of Holmes silhouetted against the windows of
his lab. Clad only in shirtsleeves, the bands of his braces dangled carelessly
from his hips as he frantically worked on some bizarre chemistry. At the sound
of my step he paused, staring out of the window.
"Watson."
"Yes."
Holmes whirled. I barely caught a glimpse of some terrible wound on his forearm
before he was upon me. "Have they injured you? The creatures outside?" He was
almost frantic, in a state I had never seen before, hands on my arms, my chest,
turning my head this way and that, ignorant of the blood streaming down his own
arm; rifling through my clothing, searching in a desperate fear. "Have you been
bitten Watson? Tell me!"
I wrenched his hands from my jacket, pressing my hands to his shoulders. "I am
fine, Holmes - which is more than I can say for you." I reached for his left
arm, the material covering it shredded and stained with blood and he jerked away
from me with a flailing motion.
"Ignore it, ignore it, It's nothing, I promise. Nothing. You have your revolver?
Good, good. And your cane? If you fail with shot perhaps decapitation will
suffice." He turned away from me and once more to his lab.
"Decapitation! Holmes, what in god's name is going on? All of London is a
madhouse, the police are overwhelmed!"
He worked feverishly at his bench, decanting, mixing. "A contagion, Watson. A
vicious, ungodly contagion - one spread by the bite of these creatures."
I recalled the chaos of the streets. "Those poor, mad wretches outside?"
"Do not mistake me, Watson! They are not wretches - they are not even people!
Not any more." He leaned heavily against his bench for a moment, brushing me
away as I went to his aid, returning to his frantic chemistry. "The illness
takes it toll until it stops the heart - the very heart! But that is not the
worst of it." He laughed suddenly, a stuttered, staccato sound that verged on
the unhinged. "The dead rise, Watson. Against all logic and reason, the dead
rise!" He poured the result of his crazed alchemy into a beaker and swallowed it
before I could halt the action.
"It takes its toll in a rapid manner from what I have observed. A feverish
swoon, the muscles stiffen and paralysis quickly follows. The brain burns,
reason departing from its victims as they thrash in delirium. Then there is only
coma and death. The blood stills, the heart stops, the skin begins to cool." The
glass fell from his hand, smashing heedlessly upon the floor as he clutched at
his forehead with his hand, blood smearing in his forelocks. "And then - then
the victim rises, Watson! He rises, and he functions, with no breath, no
heartbeat. No memory. No sign of humanity. He feels no pain, no remorse, only
the desire to feed, to feed on the living. A single bite is all it takes, a
single bite and all is lost."
A single drop of blood slid from his sleeve and my heart froze. "Holmes - " The
remainder of the sentence, the question could not come, my voice locked and
choking in my chest, drowning in fear and all I could say again was his name as
I took his arm - gently at first, then roughly, pulling him to face me.
"Holmes."
He would not meet my gaze as I pulled at his sleeve, gently easing the
blood-soaked material away from the wound. A brutal gouge; rough, unclean, a
chunk of flesh missing from the lean form of his forearm. Despite my years in
the regiment and as a doctor, the gorge rose in my throat at the sight and
stench of it. The shape was ovoid, the edges ragged. This was no clean injury
caused by shot or blade, this was- this was-
His hand closed over it, hiding it from my sight, pressing his forehead into my
breast.
"The victim rises an unthinking, unreasoning beast." he murmured softly into my
shirt. "Devoid of all rational intellect." He shuddered suddenly, tearing
himself away and pulled my old service revolver from its pocket, pressing into
my hand with fingers streaked with gore. "There is only one way sure way to halt
the spread." He wrapped my fingers about the grip with his own. "A shot to the
head - that is the only way I have seen that will stop them. Nothing less." He
dragged my hand up and pressed the barrel to his own temple. "Here. The head.
Destroy the brain. And quickly. Remember that Watson. Do not hesitate." His
finger quivered against the trigger and I pulled my arm away with a cry of fear,
suddenly certain he would press upon it and end his life.
"Promise me, Watson! If my concoction should fail and if I should - " his voice
failed him and his hands clutched at me with a feverish urgency. "Please.
Promise me. If you have ever loved me - if you love me still, I beg you, do not
let this be my fate. Promise me!"
The gun was a heavy weight in my hand, but nothing compared to that on my heart.
Screams rose from the street outside, shrieks, moans, a hellish cacophony of the
damned and my mind reeled on the verge of madness.
"Promise me!"
"I...I promise." Each word was wrenched bleeding from my breast, half-spoken and
half-sobbed. "Damn you."
"Thank you. My friend. My dear friend, my Boswell, my dearest Watson." He
reached up with a sudden affection, his uninjured hand hooking behind my neck,
pulling my head down so that our foreheads pressed together. My hat tumbled
unheeded to the floor; I could feel the heat of fever already building through
the skin touched to mine. "Forgive me, please," he murmured, voice soaked with
an uncharacteristic remorse. "Forgive me for asking you this. I would never have
wished it upon you, I swear of it. Not for all the world." He pulled away, the
brightness in his eyes reflecting my own. "You have never failed me, my friend,
I know you will not fail me in this."
I reached for him then, laying a hand upon his cheek. "I will not fail you," I
whispered. I could not.
I dressed and cleaned the hellish wound as best I could, helping him to the
couch as his strength failed. Taking up solemn guard in the seat beside, I
watched helplessly as Holmes slipped into a restless sleep, occasionally raising
a hand to touch his throat, his chest, needing to feel the strong heart that
raced until I feared it would burst; murmuring words to calm him as he stirred
in the throes of fever.
I cannot recall the words I said to him as his body fought to rid itself of
infection, the external fires reflecting some unfathomable battle raging deep
within. I cannot recall the tone, the timbre of my voice during those fearful
hours, only the terrible dread that overtook me and the sick resolve that clawed
at my heart.
I waited faithfully beside him, a helpless observer as the night dragged its
dark hand across the city, the grip of my Webley revolver cold and unwelcome in
my grasp. I waited as Holmes trembled and cried out in delirium; as the screams
and chaos from the streets outside filtered in through the open window. I
waited, alone and afraid, a fearful friend in vigil to see which would rise
victorious from this terrible battle: my beloved Holmes or a shambling, unholy
fiend.
I pressed the back of my hand to my lips, feeling the cold metal of the gun
caress my cheek at the motion as the moans began again at the door downstairs.
How long it would last? How long until the fiends burst through my feeble
barricade? The Webley was loaded and my aim was sure even at this extremity -
but for how long could I hold them off? And what if all was lost, what if the
entirety of London itself came beating at our door?
It did not matter, I decided. If it should come to that fateful climax, if all
indeed was lost and these were the last of days, then it did not matter how many
shots I had within my gun.
I released the safety from the Webley, resting a gentle hand on the still,
silent cheek of my friend.
Only two bullets would be required, after all.
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