Sherlock - The Game Is On!

The Hounds Of Baskerville- Twelve

Chapter Twelve

I step on the gas zooming down the road to Dewer's Hollow. Spotting Henry I hit the breaks and we continue walking on foot. Henry reaches the lip of the Hollow and begins to make his way down into the misty valley. Reaching the bottom he slows down and stumbles slowly forward, wandering around vaguely for a moment before coming to a halt. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Dad." Squatting down, he brings up the pistol and opens his mouth as he aims the muzzle towards it. "No, Henry, no! No!" I shout, scrambling down the slope, the boys shine their torches towards him. Henry stands up and stumbles backwards, waving the pistol vaguely in their direction. His voice is high-pitched and hysterical. "Get back. Get, get away from me!"

"Easy, Henry. Easy. Just relax." John tries to reassure. "I know what I am. I know what I tried to do!" Henry keeps denying himself. "Just put the gun down. It's okay." I state calmly bringing my hand forward for the gun. "No, no, I know what I am!" I retract my hand quickly. "Yes, I'm sure you do, Henry. It's all been explained to you, hasn't it? Explained very carefully." Sherlock reassures, once more. "Someone needed to keep you quiet; Needed to keep you as a child to reassert the dream that you'd both clung on to, because you had started to remember." I spoke. Sherlock carefully walks forward. "Remember now, Henry. You've got to remember what happened here when you were a little boy." Henry's gun hand begins to droop momentarily but then he raises it again, his face full of his struggle to understand. "I thought it had got my dad, the hound. I thought..." He loses control and begins to scream in anguish. Sobbing, he bends forward and aims the muzzle into his mouth again.

John and I lurch forward to Henry. "No, Henry! Henry, for God's sake!"

"Henry, remember. 'Liberty In.' Two words; two words a frightened little boy saw here twenty years ago." My voice began growing with urgency. Henry begins to calm a little but still remains hunched over with the gun's muzzle against his mouth. "You'd started to piece things together, remember what really happened here that night. It wasn't an animal, was it, Henry?" Henry starts to straighten up, blinking. "Not a monster. A man." Sherlock states.

"You couldn't cope, Henry. You were just a child, so you rationalised it into something very different. But then you started to remember, so you had to be stopped; driven out of your mind so that no-one would believe a word that you said." I stated. I step forward once more, holding out my hand encouragingly towards Henry as Greg Lestrade arrives and calls out while he trots down the slope towards them. "Sherlock!"

"Okay, it's okay, mate."' I carefully takes the pistol from Henry's fingers. Henry starts to speak tearfully to Sherlock. "But we saw it: the hound, last night. We s... We, we, we did, we saw..."

"Yeah, but there was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring witnesses, but it was nothing more than an ordinary dog. We both saw it, saw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus; That's how it works. There never was any monster."

"Sherlock, Michelle..." Sherlock stares up in disbelief as Henry turns to him, horrified. "No, no, no, no!"
He starts to back away as Sherlock tries simultaneously to hold out a calming hand towards him while keeping his own torch shining up towards the creature above them. "Henry, Henry..."

"Sherlock, Michelle..." The creature continues to slink along the rim of the Hollow as Henry begins to scream in abject terror. He crumples to his knees, continually screaming. "No!" My heart began thumping at a faster pace. "Henry!" The hound turns towards the Hollow and looks down at everyone, snarling viciously. Its eyes glow in the torchlight as Henry continues to scream, repeatedly. "Shit!" Lestrade murmurs. "Greg, are you seeing this?" Greg glances at him momentarily and his expression answers the question. Sherlock takes a quick look around to the inspector to see his face before turning back to stare up at the hound. "Right: he is not drugged, Sherlock, so what's that? What is it?!" John grows panicked.