Inside the apartment, Sherlock was having some issue with the situation. He'd never liked the man living across the street, and he had good reason to. He was a compulsive liar, cheat, and gambler. There had even been signs of him abusing the young girl and her mother living in the flat with him.

However, he couldn't worry about that now. The man was advancing on him, with an unnatural gait that made him confused. There was a stiffness about the limbs, like he was a marionette being shuffled along in his direction. The woman appeared in the doorway, and immediately picked the nearest thing up and threw it at him. Sherlock narrowly avoided the flying lamp, and it crashed through the window behind him and onto the street. Suddenly, he heard John's worried voice calling his name out and he sped into action.

Ducking under the man's outstretched arms and dashing past the angry wife, he sped out the door. Inside the apartment, the woman took a sip of water to calm her nerves from the fight with her husband and the unexpected intruder. The glass tumbled to the floor and shattered.

Standing on the street outside, Sherlock waited as John ran over.

"Sherlock! What were you doing in there?" John panted, breathless from sprinting over.

"I was merely seeing if the child was okay. The father and mother assaulted me, and I got out of there with haste. I'm fine, John."

John scowled at Sherlock, but felt relieved that no harm had come to him.

"Well, then what's happening with the rest of the street? It's all dead silent."

"Yes, that is strange."

Doors began to open, and people started to walk out. Instead of walking to their cars, every body on the street turned to face the sound of their conversation and began to slowly shift towards it.

"John?"

"Yes?"

"Back to the flat?"

"Yep."

They began to sprint back to the flat, hurriedly shutting the door and locking themselves in.

"This is just a bit too weird for me. Why is everyone acting so strange? And isn't it a weekday? Shouldn't they be at work or something?" John was talking frantically, pacing around the room and watching a crowd gather around their front door.

"Sherlock, maybe they're fans. Put on your hat and lean your head out the window, see if they react."

Sherlock reluctantly put on the hat, and shot a look at John, who made a 'go on' gesture. He opened the window and looked out, striking a pose for added effect. While there had been some motion and noise in the crowd, grunts and groans and shifting around, when Sherlock appeared, the noise went dead. There was no sound, no movement, just twenty pairs of fixated, dilated eyes on Sherlock. Removing his head from the window quickly, he closed it and shut the curtains.

"They're not fans. One of them would have fainted by now."

John scoffed.

"As if."

They pondered the reasons for a growing crowd to be converging at their flat, John coming up with nothing and Sherlock dismissing options as more and more unlikely and ludicrous. A sharp and drawn out scream broke the silence.

"Mrs. Hudson!"