Sherlocked (BBC Fanfiction)

Chapter 6 - Sinners

Sherlock and I strode up the porch steps, the tintinnabulation of the bells mixing in with the creaking of the wood.  With protection from the rain, I flipped my hood down and rubbed the small amount of rain on my face with my jacket sleeve.  I stepped over to the window and wiped away a circle of dust and peered in.  It was dark and what furniture there was had been topped over, flipped onto its side, or lay in a pile of rubbish on the floor.  Stepping back, I felt very uneasy and a nauseous feeling came over me, twisting my stomach into a butterfly knot.

            Sherlock banged on the putrefying door, one of the hinges practically crumbling under the abrupt usage.  I watched the door with a trepidation settling into my stomach.  After almost a minute of waiting, I said, “Sherlock, no one has lived here for decades.”

            “That can’t be right,” he said and strode over to the window, peering inside.

            “Look at the interior,” I said and gestured to the window he already had his face pressed upon.

            “Yes, yes, I see the interior,” he mumbled and backed away from the window, then focused his attention on the door.  Lifting his leg, he kicked it open, the door flying off the hinges and soaring into a wall, breaking in half. 

            “Alright then,” I said and followed him inside.  As soon as we stepped inside, I gagged.  The first smell that met me was the scent of burning flesh.  My memories tried to drown me in recollections of the battlefield but I rebelled, staying in reality.  The dust accumulation was extraordinary; my eyes watered and immediately felt dried out like raisins.  Shoving a sleeve-covered hand over my mouth, I choked out, “Do you smell that?”

            “Yes, what is it?”  Sherlock asked, wrinkling his nose as he knelt down on the ground to inspect a toppled over table.

            “Burning flesh,” I said.

            “How do you know?”  I only stared at him.  Still with my sleeve over my mouth and nose I wandered over to the window.  The one on the other side of the house had been smashed and the curtains still on the rod lay in a heap on the ground.  Set up against the window was a small table that had a large urn standing on top.  Judging by the amount of the dust on the vase, I’d say it hasn’t been touched in years.  I picked it up and felt something much heavier than ashes inside it.  Setting it down and yanking the top off, I peered inside.  With a sudden realization, I took a sharp intake of air, causing myself to start gagging and choking.

“What, what is it?”  Sherlock asked. 

After I recovered, I said, “I think someone lives here.”

“What’s in the urn?”  He asked and wandered over.

“Well,” I said and picked it up, showing him.  Inside were several, bloodied eyeballs that appeared as if they had been cut out of the socket using plastic spoons. 

Sherlock nodded and turned away, a disgusted look on his face.  Placing the lid and urn back on the rickety table, I backed away.  “People are fragile things, you should know by now.”  Sherlock and I both spun around in alarm.  Within an instant my fists had curled up and my brain lurched into battle mode, my military instincts taking over. 

A man in his mid-twenties stood with a gun clutched in both hands around four to five feet from Sherlock and me.  He was morbidly obese, wore too-huge glasses for his already big face, and had short brown hair.  Donning a white T-shirt that stretched too far over his midsection that had fresh blood and flesh smeared down the middle, a pair of black sweatpants, and his white trainers, his slowly walked towards where I stood, blood also smeared around his mouth, his hands leaving bloody prints around the handle of the Glock handgun he held.  “Augustus Warren,” Sherlock said enquiringly, only slightly tilting his head to the right, his cheekbone casted a shadow over the opposite side of his face.

Augustus began laughing and bent down, his hands on his knees.  I found this as a prime opportunity to attack and disarm him, but I thought otherwise.   “Where’s Amelia Williams?”  Sherlock asked.

Augustus straightened and looked over at me.   His eyes fixed themselves on something a bit lower than my collar bone and I shifted my weight.  Sherlock whistled at him and said sharply, “I’m over here.”  Augustus took his time, his eyes still raking over my chest. 

“I know exactly where Amelia is,” he said, his voice possessing a not-so-deep quality that I anticipated.  “Would you like to know why I chose you?  You, out of hundreds of policemen, of detectives?  Because I wanted you,” his voice rang through the air but with a pur like eminence.  Despite his stomach-churning appearance, his voice was like liquid gold.

“Yes, why me?”  Sherlock asked, becoming comfortable with the situation.  He clasped his hands behind his back and watched Augustus. 

“Because I knew you, Sherlock Holmes, could decipher this blessedly beautiful inscrutability in such a…fabulous approach.”

Fabulous?  Was my first thought.

“Then where is Amelia Williams?”  Sherlock asked again.  Augustus then looked down at his stomach, his bloodied T-shirt, and glanced up with his eyes, smiling.  I felt my intestines knot together and an overwhelming nausea filled my body. 

“Then how do we solve this case then?  If you’ve…ingested her…already,” I stated, speaking to Augustus.  He turned to me, the gun lowering.

“And who are you, beautiful?”         

“The one who’s going to break your neck.  Now what do you want us do exactly?  There’s not much of ambiguity here if you’ve eaten Amelia Williams,” I responded, my hand slowly inching toward the gun I kept in the holster under my shirt.

Before he could respond, Sherlock spoke up.  “And what about the note?  You originally sent it to my brother.”

“Yes, yes, I know.  I know I gave it to Mycroft,” Augustus spoke harshly, his words rushed.  I stole a glance at Sherlock.  I could barely detect the surprise of Augustus knowing his brother’s name on Sherlock’s face.

“But why-” Sherlock went to advance forward but Augustus immediately aimed the gun, all light-heartedness gone. 

“Take one more step and I’ll shoot you,” Augustus stated.

“You didn’t have to kill Amelia Williams.  What significance did she pose to you?”  I asked and Augustus spun around to face me.  Sherlock shook his head at me, a warning.

“What?  Did you say what significance she posed?”  He asked.  And then he seemed to change; his personally inverted. 

“Yes.”  He looked baffled.  Angry and confused.  He stared me, a perplexed and disoriented glare.  He was shooting daggers at me.

“She was…she…she was my step-sister!  What significance…,” his voice trailed off and his persona altered back.  “If you’re going to ask why I did it…why I…savored her flesh, why I gnawed on her heart that tragically beat in my hands…I only have one thing to say.”

“And what’s that?”  Sherlock asked.

Augustus smiled at him and then at me and said, “We’re all sinners here.”  And then he aimed the gun at my chest and fired.

Shit, did I leave the sink faucet running?