A Clue In Red
"Sherlock Holmes. My name is Sherlock Holmes."
"You know mine." A hood let itself fall, "Sweet, innocent Molly Hooper." "Why?" Sherlock's hands remained placed inside his pockets. "You needed waking up Sherlock. I simply found the perfect way of doing it!"
Chapter 1
*3 months previously*
"So. This isn't a normal suicide then, Sherlock?" "It looks like a normal suicide if you ask me!" John stood next to the head of the corpse. The body lay in the middle of a bakery, head to toe soaked in blood. The hair left on the girl's head was matted and torn. Her body was limp and frail, tangled in a strange pattern upon the wooden floor. Her right hand was missing its wedding finger, and her left; the middle. Fresh blood lay in a puddle around her hands, as if they were swimming in their own insides. "No." Sherlock's voice was low. No sign of emotion. But nobody standing around the body was surprised. Each pair of eyes stared upon the tall and mysterious figure pacing around the room.
"Maybe it was our favourite psychopath? Maybe he has something to tell us?" Anderson lent against the wall, his arms folded and his tone questioning. Sherlock's long and bony fingers placed themselves inside the girl's mouth to open it slightly. Something rather large and red crawled creepily out of the dead and weak girl's mouth.
"Is that... Is that a spider?" Lestrade's hand was placed over his mouth, shocked and disbelieving the animal that had just crawled out of a place where nobody had expected it. The red figure slunk around in plain sight, every eye watching its long and piercing legs crawl down the body of the 'victim'. Grabbing Anderson's hat, John lept upon the spider trapping it. Sherlock, facing towards the broken door, remarked a small snigger. He could see John's leap through the reflection on the cracked window. "Good catch." Sherlock smirked, hoping that nobody could catch the glimpse of his true emotions. John, however, knew exactly how his best friend ticked. His smile reflected the humour that John found inside of his colleague. "Let's return to the lab. Well. The flat. We need to check out that spider. Come along John." Sherlock stormed out of the room, his coat flying behind him. It was almost as if it was trying to keep up with its owner.
(Back at 221B)
In the kitchen, the kettle had boiled. John marched towards the fridge. He yanked open the door, not concentrating on what he was doing. His head turned towards the contents of the fridge. The door immediately shut. "Oh. Bloody hell." John re-opened the fridge, trying to convince himself of what he had just seen inside his own place of food. "There's... Sherlock. There is another bloody head in our "His name is Timothy. He was annoying me in the cupboard." The crinkling newspaper that Sherlock was studying was now being slammed upon his well-worn table. "So now I've decided to measure how much saliva is made after death." John simply grabbed the milk and shut the door of the fridge before his eyes started to see other strange experiments that were mysteriously placed there.
"How's the spider going?" John asked, trying to change the conversation to something more pressing than what he had just seen. "Do you want the simple answer? It'll help your small and barely used brain to come to terms to my level. But maybe two or three floors below." John's facial expression changed to one of disgust. He couldn't believe that his so-called friend and flat mate had just told him that he was an extremely dumb human being.
"Oh. Don't be offended. You're just like everyone else. Any way. The spider. This spider only had 5 legs remaining on its body. Over the past few weeks I have been finding bodies. It started 4 weeks ago on the 24th of August. There was a young man... (A flash-back starts) I found him underneath the bridge. His hands were missing the middle finger on his right hand, and his wedding finger on his left. He had no face." "What?" John's voice questioned.
"His face had been torn off. There was nothing left. Simply bone. However, it was neat. Blade seemed professional. So. The killer had to be someone that was skilled in using knives. He had a spider with all 8 of its legs still remaining upon its body. The Homeless Network kept finding new bodies. Each time I was alerted about a new body; the spider had one less leg." "Wait. So it was... Counting down?" John couldn't believe the words that were leaving Sherlock's mouth. His hands were now placed upon his forehead. "It hasn't stopped. It's still counting. Someone is killing people and leaving them for me to find... AH! It's a message! Someone is leaving a message. But what are they counting down to?" Sherlock had jumped out of his crouching position in his chair and already grabbed his coat and scarf. His flat mate had no clue what thoughts were running through his 'superior' mind, but he followed without asking questions.