How They Met Alice (BBC Sherlock Fanfiction)

Chapter 62

(Third-person View: )

 Shortly afterwards, John stormed out of the pub and stopped just outside, breathing heavily. He gazed up into the sky and blew out a breath, pulling himself together, and then looked into the distance and his eyes narrowed. The flashing light was back on the hillside. As it continued to flash, he started to walk in its direction.

 HENRY’S HOUSE

Henry was asleep on the sofa at the edge of the kitchen. He had a duvet over him and a pillow under his head, presumably brought in by John after giving him a sleeping pill. Now he woke, sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, sighing. He stood up and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and looked out into the dark garden. Still half asleep, he had a sudden mental flash of the word ‘Liberty’ stitched into material, and then the following ‘In’ word. Recoiling from the memory, he buried his face in his hands and sighed in anguish.

 MOORS

Using his torch to illuminate the way, John was walking towards the flashing light on the hillside. As he reached the top of the hill he could hear a rhythmic squeaking noise, and then as he shone his light around he realized that there were several cars parked up there. The drivers sitting in each car flinched and held their hands up to shield their faces from the beam from John’s torch, but they were also trying to avoid being identified and John now realized why as he turned his beam onto a car which had slightly steamed-up windows and which was rocking from side to side. Its headlights were intermittently flashing on and off. A woman’s voice came from inside the car.

 “Oh! Mr. Selden! You’ve done it again!” I woman cried.

 “Oh, I keep catching it with my belt.” A man said. As the inhabitants of the car groaned and continued about their... business, John lowered his torch.

 “Oh, g*d.” John moaned. He hesitated and squinted at the car, almost tempted to take another look and half-raising his torch again, but then it fully hit him that the Morse messages he wrote down yesterday were nothing more than the random flashings of a car’s headlights during the –ahem… goings-on of a dogging site. He turned and headed back towards the pub. “Sh...” He began as he walked away. His phone trilled a text alert, interrupting him. He got the phone out and looked at the message:

 “Henry’s therapist currently in Cross Keys Pub

S”

John wrote a brief reply, speaking it aloud as he typed.

 “So?” He asked. The reply came almost instantly:

 “Interview her?”

 “John answered:

 “WHY SHOULD I?” Angrily.  After a moment he got another alert:

 “Downloading image...” Shortly afterwards the image arrived and he opened it. It was a covertly-taken photograph of Louise Mortimer standing at the bar. She was pretty, and around John’s age. He looked at the photo for a moment and then walked on.

 “Ooh, you’re a bad man.” John mumbled. It was not clear, however, whether he was talking to himself or to Sherlock.

 HENRY’S HOUSE

Henry had sat back down on the sofa and had wrapped the duvet around him. The television was on nearby but he was dozing and not paying attention to it. He woke a little and looked out in the dark garden again, his eyes tired and heavy, then he turned to look at the TV. An old black and white film was showing several dogs running around somewhere dark and spooky-looking. Henry quickly changed the channel to a less threatening film that looks as if it’s set in a rural village during the 1940s.
Suddenly the security lights outside the house came on. Henry looked anxiously into the garden but could see nothing moving in the bright lights. A few seconds later the lights faded out again. Henry turned his head away and instantly – unseen by him – something moved quickly across the garden by the back fence. Henry changed the TV channel again and picked the worst possible choice as a wolf snarled straight into the camera while a woman screamed in terror offscreen. Recoiling in annoyed frustration, Henry turned the TV off. Instantly the security lights came on again. There still appeared to be nothing out there but Henry got up and walked closer to the glass doors. Just as the lights began to fade again, a huge shape flicked across the garden at the far end. It moved so fast that it was impossible to see what it was, except that it appeared to be fairly low to the ground. Henry recoiled in horror and looked across to a small cabinet on the other side of the room. He hesitated, almost afraid to move, but then ran across and scrabbled in the cabinet before pulling out a pistol. Panting in terror, he turned and looked out into the dark garden again and then, he walked slowly towards the glass doors. Just as he almost had his nose against the glass the lights blazed again and a massive shape, most definitely looking like the head of a huge dog, slammed against the glass on the other side and then immediately vanished again. Screaming and wailing in panic, Henry stumbled back and aimed his pistol at the glass. The lights faded out again. Henry sobbed and a couple of seconds later the lights flashed on yet again. His eyes raked over the garden but there was nothing to be seen. The lights faded one more time and by now Henry had sunk to the floor, his hands over his face as he sobbed in absolute terror.