It's that time of year again, time for a spooky Halloween fic. I've gone with something a bit different this year and I hope you enjoy it.

This year's Halloween also sees me looking forward to seeing Letters Live again at the Albert Hall. I cannot wait, and I'm really excited to hear that Benedict is confirmed as attending. Whoop, whoop!

Chapter One

Molly stretched her arms and moved her head slowly from side to side trying to rid herself of the ache of being hunched over her desk for too long.

She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was almost time for her shift to finish and in her view, it couldn't come soon enough.

As she started to pack up her things she looked over at Sherlock; he'd been engrossed in his tests for the last hour. She let her eyes indulgently trace over his features for a moment. She didn't often let herself stare at him knowing, as she did, that he'd pick up on it, but with his eyes glued to his microscope it seemed safe enough. How wrong she was!

'Problem Molly?' He leant back with a slight smile and a raised eyebrow, and she knew she'd been busted. She hoped she wasn't blushing, but rather suspected that she was.

'No, no problem? I was just wondering how many more tests you have to do tonight. I'd offer to help, but my shift is finished and I'm exhausted.'

She saw his eyes flick to the clock and then back to her and he shrugged. 'I hadn't realised it was that late. Looks like we've hit the witching hour.'

Molly couldn't help but show her confusion. 'What?'

'It's midnight Molly, that means it's Halloween. Aren't these kinds of society-led celebrations the sort of thing you enjoy?'

At that she chuckled, enjoying his obvious disdain. 'Maybe I will tomorrow, but right now I just want to go to bed.' As soon as the words left her mouth she wondered if she'd phrased it wrong and she started to stumble over herself to correct it. 'My bed that is…alone…I didn't mean…'

Sherlock laughed. 'I know Molly, no need to explain. You really do need some sleep. Good night.'

He bent his head back to his microscope and made no further acknowledgment as she let out a slightly sad sounding. 'Good night, Sherlock.'

Slowly, she picked up her bag and coat and made her way out of the lab, completely unaware that the Consultant Detective was watching her as she left, a slight look of indecision on his face.

She waited until the door had closed before she sighed. Would she never get over her feelings for him? Even after all these years he made her heartbeat faster and her skin tingle. The nights she'd spent dreaming of him were too numerous to count and she wondered if he'd feature in her dreams tonight as well.

Just at that moment the lights in the corridor flickered and, for a split second, she felt as if she could see another corridor overlaid with her own. This one was darker, with strange looking gas lights on the wall. She blinked her eyes and looked around herself, seeing just the same walls and lights as normal; a noticeboard on her right filled with a couple of hospital standard posters, one reminding staff of dress code rules, and the other of the hospital's safeguarding leads. There was also a brightly coloured poster advertising a charity bring and buy sale which was a month out of date.

Molly wiped her face with her hand, maybe she was more tired than she'd realised.

By now she'd reached the lift that would take her up to the rest of the hospital. She hit the button and waited, hearing the mechanism groaning as the lift made its way down to her.

Once inside she pressed for the ground floor and then leant against the wall closing her eyes. She was glad that tonight had been her last shift. She had four rest days to look forward to and the way she felt right now she would be quite happy to just sleep through them all.

When the doors opened Molly stepped through them and was three paces into the new corridor before she realised that something was most definitely wrong. Instead of the bright lights and pale cream walls the lighting was dull and flickering, the walls a sludge brown colour, and just like the hallucination she'd had downstairs, instead of fluorescent lights there were strange, orange gas lamps on the walls, one every two or three metres with pools of darkness in between.

In a single moment Molly was wide awake, her heartbeat thrumming in her chest. She spun around but instead of a set of lift doors there was just a boarded-up section on a similarly dismal wall. This was not her hospital! She knew instinctively that this was something…other.

As she stood there, trying to take in a reality that her mind couldn't or wouldn't accept, her fear just escalated as she saw a figure starting to glide towards her. He was old, gaunt and his garments, which looked like those of an hospital orderly, were streaked with blood. In his arms was a metal bowl full of something which she couldn't quite see. It wasn't that which terrified her though, it was the fact that she could see right through him. She could see the wall, the lights; it was as if he was a…a…she didn't want to say the word, but it came unbidden anyway…a ghost.

She turned and ran to where she knew there was a stairway…at least there was in her own world. In her haste to turn she slipped and fell hitting her shoulder against the wall making her cry out in pain. As she did, she heard a responding shout from the man and heard the harsh, clanging of his basin crashing to the floor, blood and slithering intestines splattered in all directions including over her shoes. Molly scrambled to her feet, leaving her bag behind in her panic, heading towards what she hoped would be the stairwell. It felt as if her heart would burst with the stress and adrenaline.

Thankfully, the stairs were there, just as she'd hoped, and she pushed through the heavy wooden doors, running down them as fast as her legs would carry her. All she wanted was to get back to her own floor, her own world…to Sherlock.

As she reached the basement level which held the pathology labs, she forced herself to stop and listen, trying to hear if that awful, spectral figure had followed her, but there was nothing…no sounds of footsteps, nothing. Then it occurred to her - what if he'd make no noise? That had her exiting the stairwell and running towards the lab that she'd left only five minutes earlier; it felt more like a lifetime ago. As she ran, she couldn't help but notice that this corridor was the same as the one two floors up. She was running between pools of lights and areas of shade, where the darkness seemed to stretch and reach for her, feeding into her nightmare.

'Sherlock!'

She called out his name as she pushed open the lab doors, but instead of the familiar, white, lab cluttered with tables and equipment, Sherlock's tests, and her files, it was freezing cold and there were rows and rows of plain metal bed frames. Every one seemed to be filled with a body and covered by a white sheet.

For a moment Molly stood in utter despair, feeling tears threatening to fall. She'd placed all her hope on finding Sherlock in this room. He would have kept her sane. He would have known what was happening to her. Maybe it was all a hallucination, she could only wish that it was.

She took a deep shuddering breath and walked over to the nearest bed. Slowly, she pulled down the sheet. Under was the body of a forty something female, though given the state of the flesh on her skull Molly couldn't be one hundred percent sure of either of those descriptors. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen anything quite like this, and for a moment professional curiosity overtook her fear. The skin on the face looked as if it had come loose from the muscles and bones giving the woman a melted look. It was coupled with blood streaked from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Molly moved over to the next bed. This time it was a male, older from the white of his hair, but the skin on his face and body was the same. The same in the third bed and the fourth. Slowly, she retraced her steps, recovering the bodies with the sheets laid over them. She was very aware and nervous that if there was some kind of infection here, she might be susceptible to it.

Her mind was racing with too many thoughts, all vying with each other and rendering her immobile. She had no idea what had happened or what she should do next. She was still wishing that Sherlock was here with her, taking control and that had her wondering if, maybe, there was a Sherlock in whatever world this was that she suddenly found herself in.

She needed to get to Baker St. Having a plan of action at least gave her something else to concentrate on, and she nodded her head decisively before turning and pushing her way back out of this makeshift morgue and all it's dead.

Just as it had been upstairs, the space where the lift normally was was covered in boards, blocking off the opening. Molly peered through the cracks trying to see if the lift was actually there (not that she wanted to use it), but the lighting was too bad in that area, and she couldn't make anything out.

She went up the stairs in a stealthier manner than she'd come down them; listening out for any sounds as she went, but the hospital was preternaturally silent. Barts was never this quiet. There were always people moving about, the noise of trolleys and equipment being wheeled around, even the patients chatting, or crying. But she could hear nothing.

She made it back up to the ground floor level, where she'd seen the ghost. Slowly, she pushed the door open, just enough that she could put her eye to it and see the corridor. It was empty, silent; any trace of the blood and guts was gone. Surely it had been too fast to clean up…or maybe it had never been there in the first place.

For the first time Molly wondered if maybe it was her, maybe in her real life she'd hit her head, or had had some kind of accident. Maybe this was all a dream…no, not a dream, a nightmare. If that was the case, then she just wished she could wake up.

She even bit her lip and looked down at her arm, before pinching the skin; she winced as she did, and muted any noise, the pain certainly felt real enough. Did that mean it wasn't a dream?

As quietly as she could, she pushed open the door. There, on the floor to the left of her was her handbag, just where she'd dropped it. She made her way over, suddenly remembering her phone. Quickly, she picked it up and rooted around inside, pulling out the familiar object. As she touched the screen it sprang to life and the utter normality of seeing Toby's picture on her Home Screen seemed jarring in such an alien environment.

Even as the phone recognised her face and opened, she could see that not only did she not have any data coverage, but there was no Wi-Fi where she was either. That in itself was unusual, she always had staff access to the hospital's Wi-Fi. It was important that staff were connected in case they had to be called to an emergency. Not that Molly ever got called to any, no one ever had urgent need of a pathologist…well, other than Sherlock.

That had her refocusing back on her mission; to leave the hospital and head to Baker St.

As quietly as she could she made her way down the corridor towards the front of the hospital. It wasn't long however before she saw another figure. This time it was a younger man, pushing a cart of medical equipment. Just like last time she could see right through him. Molly cringed against the wall, her heart back to beating ten to the dozen, her hands clutching her bag in front of her as if it might protect her in some way. But the figure didn't stop, didn't slow down, didn't even seem to see her. Instead, he passed by and even as she watched he faded away to nothing. Molly realised though that as he'd passed her, she could hear his footsteps and the wheels of the cart on the soft, grey linoleum.

This happened three times more as she made her way to the entrance, twice they were dressed as nurses and one time as just a normal member of the public though they were pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Each time Molly would stop and press herself against the wall and each time they would cross her path or pass her by without any sign of noticing her. By the third time Molly found herself almost getting used to it.

The main lobby of the hospital felt different though. Here there were more figures, coming and going, fading into and out of existence. There was the eerie whisper of voices, footsteps, the muffled banging of doors.

Molly felt her fear levels spiking all over again and instead of striding across the hallway as she normally would she skirted her way around the outside edge, avoiding these strange half-lives as much as she could.

It was a relief to finally reach the doorway but as she tried to step out into the dark night, she found her progress impeded. She pressed against what should have been an open doorway, what looked like nothing…just the outside world, but try as she might, she couldn't seem to leave. It seemed as if an invisible force field was keeping her inside.

In her frustration she yelled and banged her fists against the barrier and once again she could feel tears and desperation and fear starting to overwhelm her. She almost slid to the floor to give into her despair, but that was when she heard his voice.

'Molly?'

She spun around and there he was, less than five feet away from her and looking as real as he ever did; it was Sherlock.

So, Molly isn't alone in this strange world she finds herself in. I'd love to know your thoughts so far xxx