It was a cold and calm winter night with snow falling outside. Sherlock Holmes, a genius and arguably the best detective in the world, was engrossed in his studies, while Dr. Watson, an ex-Army doctor who fought for England in Afghanistan and is Sherlock's best and possibly only friend, was busy writing a blog about their most recent case.
Sherlock suddenly stands up and walks to the window and removes the curtain to see outside and asks Watson, "Have you talked with Mrs. Hudson lately?".
(Mrs. Hudson is the landlord of Sherlock and John's flat, she is a sweet, caring old lady who sometimes provide Sherlock and John with supper.)
"No, she hasn't talked to me since I had published my latest blog.", Watson replied.
Sherlock glances towards Watson and replies, "How did you manage to offend her? What did you write?".
"Well, nothing.", Watson responded.
"What do you mean by nothing? As in you didn't mention her once in your blog?", Sherlock questioned.
"Umm yes!", Watson exclaimed with visible shame on his face.
Sherlock laughed and said, "Oh, dear Watson you should be much more careful when it comes to her, because she is perfectly capable of starving us to death."
"Fair enough, I guess. But why do you suddenly enquire about Mrs. Hudson?", asked John.
"Because Watson, I too haven't talked to her in a while and now I am hungry. Do you think she'll provide us with supper?", he asked while glancing at Watson with a wicked smirk on his face.
Watson laughs and exclaims, "Think not!".
Sherlock, still smiling, reaches out to pick up his violin, he was just about to start playing it when all of a sudden, forceful knocking at the door disrupted him. Watson, curious, rose from his chair and opened the door to reveal a man in his late 50s, visibly shaken with fear. The man, dressed in respectable attire, seemed to hail from a decent family.
Watson, attempting to soothe the distressed visitor, inquired, "What is your name, sir? What do you do?" The man stammered, "M-m-my name is Arthur Winterbottom and I work in security.," clearly rattled by some unseen terror. Watson attempts to calm him down and sets up a chair across from Sherlock and gets him seated.
"So, you work in security? What do you do exactly?", asked Watson.
"Umm, I work at a firm that provide security systems to houses, I overlook a team of IT professionals, responsible for the maintenance of the software our system uses.", replied Arthur.
"Oh! So, before you started working in security, did you worked as an IT professional?", asked Watson.
"No!", replied Arthur and continues, "I did my Masters in Computers and after that I was recruited in the army and have spent much of my life in it."
"In the army you say? Did you fight in the war in Afghanistan?", Watson asked curiously.
"Yes, Mr. Watson I was in the war, I fought in it, I was in The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. What about you Mr. Watson, you fought too, right?", diligently asked Arthur.
"Yes, I was a part of that war but not as a soldier rather as a surgeon. How could you tell that I was in the war? Is it that obvious?", said Watson.
"You too have seen things that you can't forget, those sorts of things don't leave you mind and it starts to show on one's face, like it's visible on mine, like it's visible on yours.", Arthur replied.
While they were engaged in conversation, Sherlock sat silently, observing Arthur and listening to the conversation.
Watson gave Arthur a smile trying to show him his support and then asked, "Alright, Mr. Winterbottom why don't you tell us what has got you so scared?"
Before Arthur could speak, Sherlock jumped in and began to deduce, "Your physique, it's too good for your age, so you're actively exercising multiple times a week and your shoes they're new but worn off from bottom meaning you often go for long runs that suggests your stamina is quite good but still when you came to our door you were struggling to catch your breath meaning your adrenaline was high or in other words you were scared. Now there aren't many situations involving people that can scare a man this much especially someone like you who has been in the army for as long as you have and even if you were, you are smart enough to know in a situation like that I would not prove to be of much help and you would have gone to the police instead. So, this was something different! What did you see? Did you see a ghost, Sherlock asked with a wicked smile on his face".
"A ghost?" Watson responded, a hint of skepticism coloring his smile, assuming Sherlock had made a joke. Sherlock replied immediately, "Yes Watson, a ghost or an illusion of a ghost at least!". Arthur was left in a state of awe upon hearing how Sherlock had described everything with so much accuracy. He took a pause and said, "No! A ghost, I saw an actual ghost and not any illusion of any sort!". "Well, why don't you tell us what you saw?", Watson asked politely.
"So, I usually complete my work by 6 and take leave from the office by 6:30, but a couple we provide our home security system to had complained that there system had malfunctioned and the security code for their home had somehow changed, so me and my team got caught up in it."
"We quickly, opened our database and made a query to look for the new passcode, we found it and informed the couple about the same. But this kind of thing had never happened before, so my boss insisted that before we leave the office we must find out what caused this malfunction, so we started to look for potential errors in our code. It was around 7:30 PM, when we were finally able to pinpoint the issue that caused the passcode to reset itself, and by 8 we had fixed the issue. And that's when we left the office."
As we were walking one of my co workers said, "In the past 10 years, I have never seen a storm this bad."
"By the looks of the sky, it seems this storm would only get worse.", another co worker added.
They kept talking but I zoned out, I became too focused on the beauty of the nature, the trees they were were painted with snow, the leaves were providing them with a beautiful texture, even the grass beneath are feet was no longer green, the snow had painted it white. Wind was blowing so fast and cold that it was sending shivers down our spine. We then reached the main road and parted ways.
"Now, I live about 15 Kms away from the office so I tried booking a cab but, in this weather, no one would take me so I decided I would walk till the highway, hoping I would be able to find a cab there or I would be able to hitch hike. But to my surprise the highway was nearly empty, there were not many cars on my side of the road, just 2 or 3 I could see about 500 metres away from me."
"Boring!", yelled Sherlock. "Just skip to the part where you met this ghost.", Sherlock added.
"Yes, of course!", said Arthur, he continues, "After walking for about 30-40 minutes, finally a car stopped, driving it was a man of my age and I was able to get a lift till Oxford Street, after that I had to walk for about 4 Kms more. So, I reach there say my thanks to Mr. Cambell and we part ways. The road was completely empty, there was just me and the darkness walking down the road hand in hand with loneliness. I walked down the street for about 10 more minutes barely covering any distance and the snow fall had already increased 10 folds, nothing was visible, street lights were no longer functional, and I was left wondering when will I reach my home if at all."
"I walked for about 200 metres more when I reached a crossroad, I was supposed to go straight down the road and then take a right but all of a sudden I felt a rush, it felt as if something had passed through my body, the unknown entity, it felt like touched my internal organs. It was at this point, I felt true fear. I have been shot twice, once in the leg and once in my right shoulder, but never was I so afraid. I am not a religious man Mr. Holmes, I don't think there exists a god or devil, I am much like you, a true believer of science."
He pauses for a while trying to remember the details of the incident. It was clear from the expressions on his face that he was absolutely terrified to narrate his story any further. Watson notices his face and asks him, "Before we continue any further, would you like a drink Arthur?" to which Arthur replies, "Oh no Mr. Watson, we all would require two for this part of the story!".
John takes out three glasses and pours a drink for everyone. Arthur drinks his in one sip, and asks Watson to pour him another.
That drink calmed him down a little and he continued with his story, "By this point, all I could feel was fear but at the same time I was drawn towards this supernatural force. I swear on the grave of me mother, that as it passed through my body, I heard a whisper telling me to follow it. I was panic-stricken and paralyzed with fear, as I was trying to make sense of what I had just experienced, I heard a scream coming from the direction in which that entity had went. All my instincts were telling me to run in the opposite direction but I just couldn't, it was as if that I no longer exercised any control over my decisions and my body, and I began walking towards the direction of that scream."
He pauses to finish his second drink and continues, "Slowly my walking turned into running and I was running as fast as I could towards this deathly force. I ran and ran and ran but couldn't see anything out of ordinary but the sound of scream grew louder and louder then I finally saw a light, a bright light, brighter than any light human could produce, I was left completely blinded. I soon realized that this entity was the source of this scream, to guard myself against it, I hid behind a dumpster. I peeked after a little while and was surprised at what I saw, the light was no longer blinding me and the scream had also stopped, I saw a woman like entity with light blue colored skin and pale white eyes with no eye balls and she was wearing a black dress like the one ladies wear to a funeral. The ice around her was no longer solid, most of it had melted away possibly because of the light she was emitting. She was standing still in a peculiar fashion, not moving any part of her body, her eyes seemed fixated on the stop sign on other side of the road."
"Then, out of nowhere, there appeared a car coming towards her at the highest possible speed, for the life of me I couldn't understand why the person behind the wheel was driving as fast as they were in this weather. As I was wondering, it seemed the driver had all of a sudden lost control of the car and collided with the stop sign, that the entity was fixated upon, the car was completely ruined with fire coming from the engine, and the man driving it was much likely dead. Curiously, the stop sign appeared to have not taken any damage, none at all, it was as if the car didn’t collide with the stop sign but with an invisible wall that stood erect in front of the stop sign. I focus my attention towards that entity again, this time it wasn’t standing still anymore.”
Arthur's hands begun to shake, Watson notices this and without saying anything pours him another drink, "Thanks, Mr. Watson", said Arthur.
To be continued