It Started With Stealing | Sherlock Holmes

89 - Terror At Dewer's Hollow

"Met a friend of yours."

"What?"

"Doctor Frankland." He specified.

"Oh, right. Bob, yeah..."

"He seems pretty concerned about you."

"He’s a worrier, bless him." Henry nodded, as they came to a bit of an edge that dipped down into a rather large crater, "He’s been very kind to me since I came back."

"He knew your father."

"Yeah."

"But he works at Baskerville. Didn’t your dad have a problem with that?"

"Well, mates are mates, aren’t they? I mean, look at you and John."

Sherlock was intrigued by his point, "What about us?"

"Well, I mean, he’s a pretty straightforward bloke, and you..." He decided against explaining as he couldn't really explain it himself, "They agreed never to talk about work, Uncle Bob and my dad."

Henry stopped by the edge, looking down sullenly into the dark abyss before them. Sherlock paused too, looking at Henry and awaiting an explanation as to why he had stopped.

Mr Knight nodded in the direction he was looking, speaking with some dread in his tone, "Dewer’s Hollow."

Sherlock wasted no time at all in making his way down into the hollow, beckoning Henry to follow him. There had to be some clues left here after his father's murder - be it by beast or by man. He noticed paw prints and disturbed ground, certainly a sign of some animal being there.

That's when they heard her ear-splitting scream followed by a blood-curdling howl.

Sherlock and Henry shared an alarmed look as they shone their torches around the top of the pit that they stood in. The detective's heart pounded in his chest - was Elizabeth okay? They should have never come here, this was a stupid idea of his.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth sprinted through the forest, dodging trees and leaping over thick branches and growth. She had no light source with her as she had dropped her torch in pure terror, more desperate for some safety instead of light. Monsters weren't real, she thought as she pelted onwards, God knows where, but what had attacked her was a beast and she could still hear it chasing after her. The thief dared not look back though in the fear of tripping and falling and meeting a grizzly end.

Without noticing that the ground dropped, she fell anyway, sliding down the mud and leaves that made up the sides of the pit that the two men were in. She cried out as she tumbled down the steep edge, rolling until she hit the ground at the bottom and even then she didn't stop, scrambling away from the ledge she had fallen from.

"Elizabeth!" Sherlock called to her, eyes wide with fear of what had happened to her as he crouched to take her in his arms, "Elizabeth, it's me, calm down."

"Oh God, is she alright?" Henry asked, hurrying over.

She clutched his coat with fearful strength as she shook her head, eyes as wide and as frightened as a doe faced with a hunter. The thief panted, tears streaming down her face. Sherlock looked her over, spotting that her jacket now had a jagged tear in the front as he took her face in his hands.

"Elizabeth, look at me, breathe. What did you see, what happened?"

"The - the - we have to - to go. I - I saw it."

More howling was heard.

"Oh God, where - where is it?" She asked tearfully.

"It's alright, you're safe." Sherlock reassured her.