Hounds Experiments & Relationships (A BBC Sherlock Fan-fiction)

12. Not A Monster

With the pistol still in his hand, Henry is walking briskly across the moors towards the woods surrounding Dewer's Hollow, stopping momentarily to stare tearfully at the woods ahead of him, he continues onwards. Not long afterwards Sherlock pulls up where the woods begin and the trio get out and continue 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." He says, softly.

Squatting down, he brings up the pistol and opens his mouth as he aims the muzzle towards it.

"No, Henry, no! No!" Shouts Sherlock, scrambling down the slope. The trio shine their torches towards him, as 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!" He says.

"Easy, Henry. Easy. Just relax." Says John.

"I know what I am. I know what I tried to do!"

"Just put the gun down. It's okay."

"No, no, I know what I am!"

"Yes, I'm sure you do, Henry. It's all been explained to you, hasn't it – explained very carefully." Says Elisabeth.

"What?" Asks Henry.

"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." Says Elisabeth.

Sherlock begins to step closer to the young man.

"Remember now, Henry. You've got to remember what happened here when you were a little boy." Says Sherlock.

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.

"Oh Je... oh Jesus, I don't – I don't know any more!"

Sobbing, he bends forward and aims the muzzle into his mouth again.

"No, Henry! Henry, for God's sake!" Shouts John.

"Henry, remember. 'Liberty In.' Two words; two words a frightened little boy saw here twenty years ago." Says Sherlock

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."

Henry turns to look at him.

"A man."

Henry's eyes widen as the memories begin to come. In brief flashes he starts to relive the truth. As he has always remembered, his father is scrabbling at the ground trying to get away from his attacker, but now for the first time Henry can see that what is pulling him backwards across the earth is not a creature but a man wearing a dark leather old-fashioned gas mask. The glass of the two large eye pieces is tinted a dark red and in the limited light available the eye pieces seem to be glowing. Young Henry watches from partway up the slope, cringing and terrified as the attacker pummels at his father, half strangling him and then punching wildly at his face. Mr Knight manages to pull himself from under his assailant and starts to crawl away but the other man, growling fiercely, tugs him backwards and Henry's father loses his balance and falls forward. His head strikes a rock and he collapses to the ground unmoving. Breathing heavily through the gas mask, the other man pokes at him, realises that he isn't going to move again and gets to his feet. He looks down at the man he has just killed and young Henry sees the sweatshirt he is wearing, with its picture of a snarling wolf-like creature, the letters "H.O.U.N.D." underneath and "Liberty, In" below them. Young Henry's mind begins to mix everything up and, some hours later when he meets the old lady walking her dog, his new horror is complete and he screams in utter terror.
In the present he gapes at Sherlock as the truth reasserts itself in his mind.

"You couldn't cope. 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." Says Sherlock.

Quietly John steps forward, holding out his hand encouragingly towards Henry as Greg Lestrade arrives and calls out while he trots down the slope towards them.

"Sherlock!" He Says.

"Okay, it's okay, mate." Says John as he takes the pistol away from Henry's fingers and hands it to Elisabeth.

"But we saw it: the hound, last night. We s... we, we, we did, we saw ..." Says Henry, tearfully.

"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." Says Sherlock.

Henry stares at him in confusion. Sherlock returns his look sympathetically.

"But there never was any monster."

The hound has different ideas, however, and now its anguished howl rings out in the woods above them. Everyone's head snaps up and Elisabeth, John, and Greg aim their flashlights upwards to the top of the Hollow where a low shape can be seen slowly stalking along the rim and snarling.