“That goes for all you good folk, get back to your homes, gather what weapons you can, and hold up until this chaos passes,” Holmes shouted out across the car, comforting the people when we both knew full well the grave situation everyone was in.
We packed our still hot barrelled weapons back into the canvas wrap from which they came. I pulled out two boxes of ammunition, .450 Adams and .455 Webley, from which we reloaded the four pistols we had. What became clear was that we needed to carry a good number of weapons to cycle through rather than reload, for these enemies rarely allowed reload times.
Looking back down the carriage we quickly realised that not one of the carriage’s passengers had left. Why would these people not want to leave a scene of such horror and violence?
“What are you still doing here?” I asked.
The carriage remained silent, most of the inhabitants not even lifting their eyes to gaze at us. Did they fear us or simply not want to walk among the dead and dying? Finally, a young woman walked a few paces closer and spoke up.
“We have no weapons, and god knows what other villains lay in the night, not one of us would choose to leave the safety of this carriage and your guns.”
It was indeed true, this was not a safe place, perhaps those were the only villains in the vicinity, but that was not a certainty. Just moments before we thought only of our mission to stop Moriarty and therefore our own preservation, and now the protection of these people was a new burden placed upon our shoulders.
Looking out from the windows across the platform we could see the wounded still laying in pain on the platform, some lying among the bodies of our fallen enemies. With self defence being the priority of the time, care of the wounded had not even crossed my mind, which made me shameful, for it is what should occur to me above all else as a man of medicine.
I put the Adams revolver back into its holster and headed out to attend to the casualties on the platform. The first victim I approached had been struck a number of times with a bloodied and black face, bitten on the side of the neck and losing a lot of blood. As I did the best I could with what limited supplies I carried, Holmes paced among the dead and wounded, clearly in deep thought, but not stopping to give any assistance despite the cries of agony.
After just a few moments of assisting this first victim, the strangest thing occurred. What was a lifeless body just seconds before, five feet from my position, twitched, and then began to arise. With the amount of blood loss I had witnessed, regaining consciousness suddenly was rather unlikely. The victim sat up, then tried to find placing of a hand and stumbled to their feet. Looking up, a shiver went down my body as the now familiar frenzied look stared at me, the look of a monster. The shock of what I had seen left me frozen and unable to respond in any way at all, a terrifying feeling when you face an attacker at this distance.
Bang, bang, bang, the shots rang out from Holmes’ Bulldog, he having come to the correct conclusion before I. The first round struck the man’s collarbone, second the neck, third, the brain; he tumbled to the ground, twitching on the platform deck until he finally went still. A matter of minutes before that was an innocent civilian attacked by these monsters, this minute we killed him; the horror hit home, the civilians had become the monsters.
Speaking purely as a doctor, there was only one explanation for this horrific situation, the monsters carried some form of disease that was carried over to their victims, from their contact of bodily fluids by the evidence we saw. This clearly had not been an issue the night before, as those enemies only targeted us, who remained unharmed, but now these creatures are attacking all in sight.
“I have seen enough,” exclaimed Holmes.
“England is no longer safe, and will not be until we either end Moriarty, or end his means of creating and controlling these beasts, which evidently resides in Switzerland.”
I agreed, but didn’t need to say anything for Holmes to know I was in agreement.
“The real question is, is Moriarty the head of the snake or merely the current agent of a larger agenda? With his intelligence, I cannot believe a man such as himself would be under the command of any being. We must head for Switzerland, letting him believe we know where and what he is practicing there, at which time, we will either discover his secret, or end him personally. One or other will likely save good England, but we may well need to achieve both to find the outcome we desire.”
What became clear to us was that those who were dead or dying across this platform were currently harmless, but they would soon become the enemy. As a doctor I could not bring myself to solve this problem in the only way that was both best for them and the populace at large, and yet, Holmes, ever the tactician, only saw friend or foe, knowing what had to be done. As I knelt beside the man who I was caring for, Holmes drew his bulldog, and proceededto put a bullet in all who were injured or lifeless and not already full of lead. After the second shot, screams rang out from those not already dead or unconscious, begging for mercy, cries that were not unfamiliar to me, and yet, had not been heard in a long time. When the fifth shot rang out, the great detective simply stood still, emptied the cases over the bodies of his gruesome victims, and reloaded, single rounds, casually, as the cries continued. Holmes was not a heartless man, only calculating, knowing exactly what had to be done. Having just occasionally seen a warm heart to my dear friend, I knew what agony he would be facing inside, and yet, strong enough to ignore it for the greater good.
Finally, the last scream was silenced as the twelfth shot rang out, only my patient surviving, staring at me with desperate eyes. I had dealt with horrible injuries many times, but never had to end life so suddenly and harshly, I could not withstand the torrid nature of what was to come, nor withstand the cries for help. Before the man could say a word I drew my Adams in quick order and without stopping or hesitating, nor waiting for a response, put the barrel to the side of the man’s head and pulled the trigger, it was an unpleasant sight, but the shortest path of resistance. Brain matter coated the hot barrel of my beloved service revolver, and I could think of nothing to do but wipe the barrel off in my victim’s jacket. Killing an enemy in war or a ruffian in self defence was a natural act that caused nothing more than sorrow, but having to euthanise what was a healthy man in your arms was something entirely different. Was this what Moriarty was making us, executioners of our own country folk?
The platform was silent, but not the beautiful silence of watching the moon in the early hours of the morning in the country, this was the most unnatural silence, an area of such industrial development, technology and populace, silenced by our very guns, the thought made be slightly sick, and yet, thankful, that I was one of the few still standing.
“We must surely make the rest of the journey in England on foot,” exclaimed Holmes.
He was right, Moriarty had not known we would be here, but he had spread his net wide and snagged us anyway, we must abide by less predictable rules.
“We will walk the rest of the way, then take a private boat to Dieppe, public transport is now just too dangerous to us. Many lives will be lost in the coming days, but if we do not escape our homeland, a great many more again will be sacrificed.”
In hindsight, it is always so clear why Holmes is so great at what he does, but at the time, as was this time, he appeared a cold, hard and calculating man, yet, one of the few capable of getting the task done. Can a man be described as cold for saving the maximum lives possible long term? Holmes is a man who sees beyond what is in front of most of us and what is far beyond, I trusted him then because I always had, I am now only glad that I had the trust in him to do so.
We walked back to the carriage and to our table of equipment, our fellow occupants stunned and speechless stood and sat staring out at the carnage that lay before them. Most people would run from this situation, but running would involve stepping through lines of blood and bodies, and away from the only men here capable of defending them. We reloaded all of the weapons we had used in the battle
and tied up the roll bag ready to leave.
“Inform the driver that you are to return to Lewes and inform the authorities immediately of what you have witnessed,” said Holmes to young Winston.
As the boy hurried off, movement on the planes of our peripheral vision alerted us to the presence of someone or something maybe a hundred feet in the distance. Holmes peered out of the carriage door and squinted to make sense of what he saw, he spun around with the utmost urgency.
“Winston! Delay that order, inform him to take us to Eastbourne, and to be rather expedient.”
The boy nodded quickly, evidently understanding the urgency of our situation and ran with all effort down the corridor towards the engine. Standing with our weapons at the ready, Holmes would not let us fire unless they got upon us, for with what little ammunition we had, it could not be wasted if we could get away from this fight without firing a shot. I argued with him for a short while, as leaving these monsters alive and the country’s citizens at the mercy of them was a frightful thought, and yet, as Holmes quite bluntly explained at the time, our survival was more important than anything else at this stage. Without us, the ones with the information required to end this, the country may fall.
This explanation of events led us on to the next question, what was Moriarty’s aim in all this? The train lurched forward, as the horde was just thirty feet from us, still shambling forwards; it was a small consolation really.
“Moriarty must have truly gone mad.”
“It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”
I asked Holmes, what it was that he predicted was Moriarty’s ultimate intentions; his answer sent a shiver down my spine.
“A villain such as himself craves power. That could be control of the criminal underworld as he has so far gained, but could extend to genuine public power and credibility, which could lead to control, directly or indirectly of the country. As we two are theonly men who fully understand his position and intentions, but cannot prove as such, we are the same two who have a single chance at stopping such a villain.”
At this stage Moriarty was heading for what he evidently considered vital, Switzerland. Neither I nor Holmes could predict what that might be, but its very importance meant that further information was not essential at this moment in time. The monsters he had released were now creating more monsters, which would undoubtedly lead to a state of war in England before the weekend was over.
We now had no support, no allies, limited weapons and ammunition, and were merely gambling on a safe way to reach Europe, to pursue a villain’s lair that we did not know the exact location. It was a bleak situation, and yet, no other option presented itself. Both Holmes and I had friends on the Continent, but they were few are far between. Whether we could cross paths with them as much down to luck as anything else, but predominantly as to which direction we would be forced to take on this adventure.
We sat back and contemplated the day, for neither of us had ever experienced anything like it. Our work was that of working in fine details and delicate procedures and calculation, not the all out violence and combat seen by soldiers, and yet that is what we were forced to become, soldiers.
At this stage both Holmes and I knew well that we faced a major problem, beyond any adventure we had faced, either together or individually. The attack on the carriage at Newhaven was merely a small taste of what was to come. Had we known that fact at this time, I wonder if we would have had the will to go on, or the faith that we could complete our task.
Fatigue was already settingin, despite the short distance we had travelled and minor action we had faced. I am sad to say that I was not in the condition of fitness and strength that I kept during my army days. My body was already bruised from the scuffle the night before, and worn from the disrupted sleep.
“So these creatures can only be killed by a shot to the head or decapitation?” Holmes asked.
“It would appear so, but I believe that is a deception, resulting from some form of intoxication,” I replied.
“How so?”
“These henchmen feel no pain, or emotions at all in fact. If they feel no pain then only a shot or strike that would quickly end a human’s life would stop them, and therefore, they appear near invincible, when in reality they would die in the same time and fashion as us.”
“Agreed, that appears to be the logical reason based upon what we have seen. But what of them infecting others? The previous creatures we faced appeared to be set on a clear task to harm us, as opposed to any other. Likewise, the first attack I faced by one of these ruffians was a targeted assault, not a random act of violence like we have seen here,” said Holmes.
I sat back and considered all of the facts, it was not an easy solution to find the answer to, nor one which was pleasant to think about.
“Then perhaps Moriarty controls those who he creates, whilst those infected by the original few become beasts without a master,” I finally said.
“But would Moriarty not risk himself in such an outbreak?”
“Possibly, in which case he must consider the situation rather desperate in order to have played such a risky hand,” I responded.
CHAPTER THREE
The train trundled along through the bleak night, the train’s lights casting long shadows down the already long faces of all onboard. Perhaps the only cheerful one among us was young Winston, standing tall and proud of his new found responsibility and clutching my rifle in glee. He was one of the few to show no fear, a trait of boyhood that had saved our lives.
We truly had no idea what to expect at Eastbourne Station, but it could clearly be no worse than Newhaven. Nobody had said a word since leaving the platform, perhaps not wanting to know what was likely to be the depressing answer to many potential questions. Holmes and I sat opposite each other around a table, weapons still laid out in front of us on the roll mat.
We had just thirty rounds of .455 left, twelve shotgun shells, fifteen 45-70 for the Marlin and a few Adams .450 in each of our pockets. The four .303 stripper clips had gone to Winston for the Metford he had so bravely and exquisitely made use of. Both of us sat looking at the shortage of ammunition, both knew that the figures were not in our favour. I rarely kept more than fifty bullets for any firearm, what man in peacetime needs anymore? We needed to re-supply, but Eastbourne was not a likely place to find such resources, we had to last until we got to the Continent.
A matter of minutes away from the platform, Holmes broke silenceto explain thedetails of the plan he had clearly devised silently in the last ten minutes. The intention was to procure a private boat at Eastbourne Dock and use it to sail to Dieppe. This would be a long and arduous manner of crossing the Channel, and yet, any better option would likely be made impossible by the new horde of enemies. This was a sound plan, but rather relied on a free and clear run from the platform, not that we had a choice in the matter. Some of the inhabitants of the train had clearly overhead our plan and one of the men stood up and spoke out.
“What of the rest of us?” he asked.
“What of it?” replied Holmes.
“You would leave us undefended in light of such an attack?” the man snarled.
“We are upon a mission of whom the entire country’s security and safety lies, your protection was merely a lucky by-product of our journey.”
“This is outrageous!”
“No, this is war, do your part and be silent, we will send the train in a safe direction, you may have to spend many hours aboard, but it will at least keep you from harm,” said Holmes.
“And who will protect us when we come to the next bloodied platform?” he demanded.
“I believe all of the attacks have been made at the few southern towns in order to stop us crossing the Channel, but you will have Winston to protect you.” Holmes replied. “You are leaving us with just one boy to defend us?” “He has proven to be more a man than yourself sir, now be silent and sit down!” Holmes ordered. The m
an was indignant and miserable, a sad excuse for an Englishman, but he was at least silenced. The platform was now in sight, a quiet sigh of relief echoed the train as all onboard could see the deserted and tranquil space.
This was our chance. I strapped my sword belt around my waist and slung the roll bag over my back, Marlin in hand and ready to go. Holmes stuffed his pockets with
the twelve shotgun shells; we were as ready as we ever could be. Holmes called Winston over.
“Get to the driver, tell him to continue to Hastings, then head north back to London. At Hastings, report to the local police exactly what you have seen and ask them to wire the information back to London immediately before you get on your way. It is a long way back, but you must not for any reason return west. You have done us all a good turn and service, keep that rifle handy, do my bidding, then return to your family and protect them well.”
“Thank you sir,” Winston shouted back as he ran eagerly forward towards the driver.
“Well, Watson, we seem to have fallen upon evil days,” said Holmes.
The carriage ground to a halt at the platform, still bare and lonely. We pulled the door open and edged out onto the platform, weapons at port, full well expecting a fight
on our hands. As Holmes quickly surveyed the location I turned and shut the carriage door behind us. It appeared that so far we had the clear run at things we needed and
had hoped for.
We moved quietly across the platform, despite the noise from the carriage we had just left, at each turn expecting to find trouble. The station was without doubt completely
empty, eerily so. It was time to move on, we walked beyond the stations limits as the locomotive behind us creaked and lurched forward into motion, heading to what was
hopefully the safety of Hastings.
We continued along the dark streets of Eastbourne, weapons at hand, emotions highly strung, we were anticipating disaster. We could just hear the unmistakable sound of steel upon steel ringing out without warning or provocation. These monsters did not use weapons. That was the sound of humans interacting in a way that only the living could.
Sherlock Holmes and the Zombie Problem.indb Page 4