The Devil Was Never Here

The Veil Between Life and Death

Entry #1 October 21st 2017: You don't have to believe me. I know, I know that this all sounds fabricated, you probably think we're just more serial liars trying to make money off of people's fears. You've heard the story, of course, if not from this log but from the newspapers and the TV. But if you didn't know the name John Watson you do now. You may think I'm lying about this whole thing, but I'm not, not this time. I saw him, well, I saw him afterwards. I couldn't see anything in that house, it was dark, pitch black, and Mary dropped the flashlight when the gun went off. She was scared, we all were. But he...well, he should've gotten back. He should be writing this beside me. It's because of me that he's dead, and I wish that I would've known ahead of time, I wish that he had told me just how to beat it, so that he didn't have to do it himself. I feel stupid just having to write this all down. Rosie said I should make it into a book, tell our story. But it's not a story if no one believes me, so I need to be sure before I try to hunt down any publishers. So I'll just say it now, to get it out there, to get it in the open. It wasn't the Devil that night, hiding in the darkness, hiding inside of me. But that doesn't mean it wasn't evil. If that thing wasn't the Devil, then it was the closest thing there could've been. End Entry. 

Four Weeks Earlier: In the eyes of Sherlock Holmes, the world was a battlefield. But not the type you might expect. He wasn't constantly under threat, no, he wasn't hiding for his life or attacking civilians with makeshift weapons. There were no soldiers, no weapons, no war. It was the aftermath. Because wherever Sherlock went, the dead followed. The veil between life and death is thin, that much has been known for centuries. But for some it's thinner than others, and that didn't mean they died easier, it just meant they could see through. Sherlock could see through that veil, he could see the living, going about their day, but he could also see the dead, wandering around the streets and walking straight through people and telephone poles and parked cars. They trailed blood wherever they went, but it was never cleaned up. They spilled their internal organs over the sidewalk and no one batted an eyelash. They screamed like a banshee yet no one heard. Unless of course, they were heard. Then there's mass chaos, but that's rare occasion and not one Sherlock liked to talk about. He had some sort of gift; some called it a gift at least. He thought of it more of a curse. Ever since he was born he had been scared of the dark, and not until he could talk did they know why he started crying every time he looked around a seemingly empty room. Every night Sherlock's grandmother would come into his room and tuck him deeper into his blankets, sing his a soft lullaby and wait until he fell asleep. Sherlock vividly remembered her face, her voice, and her hair color. And then, when he was a little bit older, he learned that his grandmother had died of a heart attack before his parents even got married. That was the good part of this 'gift'. The ones who looked normal on the outside, the ones who acted like civilians. There were others though, car crash victims hobbling along the deserted road, people who had half of their skill missing from a gunshot wound walking across the street, it was scary. But Sherlock got used to it in the end, he started to learn not to fear the dead, he started to learn to ignore them. The thing about death is that it strengthens some and weakens others. The people who use their death to waste away get their wish; they lose all sense of communication, movement, and sanity. They're the ones that seem like the stereotypical zombies, growling and screeching just for the sake of making noise, limping around and watching Sherlock with those yellowing eyes. But there are some who continue their lives through death, they're the ones that keep their language and their mobility, and they nod to Sherlock as he passes by, and they smile with their rotting lips. They're the ones he tolerated, even though they weren't the prettiest sights. The dead knew that Sherlock could see them, for some reason they could always tell when a clairvoyant walked by. See that was the annoying part, because they all suddenly thought that he was their savior. They wanted him to finish their business, avenge them, or make sure their ashes were spread off their favorite mountain top. See this wasn't Sherlock's job, and this was what really bothered him. He could be sitting in a little café sipping coffee and checking out the hot waiters in their little black aprons, and there could be an old woman sitting next to him with blood streaming out of her mouth, trying to tell him exactly what she wanted to write on her will. Sherlock was known here as nothing more than a freak, he had been spreading his bad name around town until finally he learned to just stop mentioning the dead people. They all thought he was weird, for good reason of course, but it wasn't his fault. He had no friends when he was in school because he would always complain that his view of the blackboard was being compromised by a dead solider hobbling around in the front of the class. The only time the kids ever paid attention to him was when they wanted a good ghost story, when they wanted to know what and who he saw hanging around the classroom. When they were in middle school they all loved to hear about the gore, the more descriptive Sherlock could get about the people he's seen the better, and for a while he had some friends. Of course they weren't really his friends, and he found that out rather quickly, but it was just nice to have someone to sit next to. And then came high school, where everyone lost interest in the town psychopath and got interested in the opposite gender. Suddenly everyone got to dating, and they almost completely forgot about Sherlock's gift. That was a nice time of his life, very nice, because he never really got interested in the opposite gender. That's not to say he wasn't interested, however. And he was happy to say he wasn't alone. There had been a boy, a very important boy in Sherlock's life, at least for a time. When Sherlock was around the dead so much it was hard to grasp onto reality, onto actual human beings. Sherlock sometimes felt as though he were dead himself, sometimes he slipped away from his human life a little bit too far. There was only one thing that could bring him back, that could remind him who he was. Love. Well, not actual love, more of a physical love, it was rare that he ever felt any emotion towards the men he baited over the bar counter. But he needed them in a way they could never imagine, when he was with a man, when he was held in their arms in the darkness, suddenly he could only concentrate on one thing. The dead were meaningless, sometimes they even disappeared, and for the night Sherlock was completely human. It reminded him that he hadn't had the pleasure of dying yet; it reminded him that he was still very much alive. But he has been alone for quite some time now, trying to make his way through the world the best he could. He had moved from home to a small little town, one with the lowest crime rate he could find (so that he didn't have to see all that many murder victims) and settled down. He had an apartment with a lovely landlady, Mrs. Hudson, until she suffered a heart attack in her sleep. And then he found himself alone again, but not homeless. She had left him the house in her will, and ever since her death the two had been almost inseparable. It was a relationship Sherlock needed in such a horrible life, a mother who would never leave his side. Mrs. Hudson was someone who was always there for him, even if she still was on the other side of the veil.
"Do you feel something?" asked a small voice from the other side of the room. Sherlock took a deep breath, keeping his eyes closed, holding up his arms for silence.
"Yes." He muttered, taking a step towards what he could only assume was the closet door.
"What is it?" the woman asked again, her footsteps on the hardwood telling him that she wanted to get closer to see for herself.
"No, stay back!" Sherlock insisted, his eyes flinging open and turning towards the couple dramatically. They cowered away, the man comforting the woman with a strong, protective arm.
"What do you feel?" she wondered, tears forming in her eyes, as if she already knew.
"There is an energy, a friendly energy, that of an old woman..." Sherlock decided.
"Hey, watch who you're calling old Pip Squeak, age is experience!" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed from inside the closet, a frown on her wrinkled face.
"I'm not talking about you." Sherlock snapped, sneering at Mrs. Hudson.
"About who?" the woman asked nervously, as if worried her hired medium was going crazy. He was already crazy, of course, but for different reasons.
"nothing, just...an old spirit. Your...mother? A woman. A soft, gentle presence." Sherlock decided dramatically.
"Yes, yes my mother died in this very house!" the woman exclaimed. Her husband just sighed, as if he thought this was all just a big waste of time. It was of course, because Sherlock knew this woman's mother was unable to communicate anything important, being as though they had left her downstairs, rocking around in a corner and spitting up on herself.
"What would you like me to ask her?" Sherlock wondered.
"Ask her if there really is a hidden will, and if Jeffery isn't mention as much. He did nothing to take care of her, he shouldn't get half of her bank account!" the woman insisted. The man nodded, as if he could finally go along with this. Maybe he wanted to build a man cave, who knows? Selfish jerks.
"Alright, spirt, tell me...is there another will? Do you really care that much about Jeffery?" Sherlock wondered.
"At least Jeffery didn't hire a psychic out of greed. I think he should get all of it." Mrs. Hudson decided.
"Just...do your job." Sherlock hissed.
"I'm sorry?" the woman asked.
"Nothing, it is just me communicating across the veil." Sherlock said dramatically. He waved his hands around a little bit, his eyes half closed, and gave Mrs. Hudson the slightest nod. She sighed heavily, but flexed her fingers a little bit before heaving a couple of shoe boxes off of the shelf. They came crashing to the floor, making the couple jump even farther back into the corner.
"A spirit!" Sherlock exclaimed, rushing over to the closet to see the mess Mrs. Hudson had made. There was tissue paper, boxes, and fancy boots strewn along the floor, but the couple seemed to think this as a miracle and not a mess.
"She really is here!" the man exclaimed, looking at Sherlock in amazement. Sherlock just smiled, winking at him before going farther back into the closet, holding his hands up in the darkness as if trying to sense energy through his fingertips.
"Well of course Charlie, of course." The woman insisted, taking her husband's hand happily. That was what Sherlock was waiting for, the moment they believed that he wasn't lying. Then he could just end this whole thing, take his pay, and call it a day.
"She has disappeared." Sherlock muttered, dropping his hands and turning around, straight through Mrs. Hudson, to look at his audience. "That was her way of making herself visible, but she has vanished."
"She didn't say anything about the will?" the woman asked, sounding very obviously disappointed.
"Nothing." Sherlock said sadly, fixing his coat collar and pushing past the couple and back into the room.
"Now, that will be fifty dollars please, I take cash or credit." Sherlock added with a smile.