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Sussex

 

[Colonel John H. Watson is of no more than medium height, and still carries traces of his Army past: his graying hair is cut short, and there are hints of a military bearing in his upright posture, although he walks with a slight limp. A patch conceals his right eye. He sits across from me, but more often gazes out the window. He speaks hesitantly, with long pauses between phrases.]

I’m … sorry. I can’t promise this will go well or easily. Before the – before this war, but after I came back from Afghanistan, I saw a therapist for a bit. I annoyed the hell out of her, because I’d arrange an appointment and then sit for an hour without speaking.

Take your time. The recorder’s digital, so it’s not as if we’re wasting tape.

[He gives a brief attempt at a smile. After a long moment, he begins again.]

The biggest – the first big mistake we made, he and I, was holing up in our flat rather than making a run for it. Our landlady was on holiday in Scotland – she’s still there, in fact. She helped to organize the defenses on the Antonine, did you know that? Now there’s someone you should talk to.

So we barricaded the doors and windows, and thought we could hold out until it was over. Before we knew it the streets were empty, and then overrun. And then empty again.

I remember hearing gunfire – small arms and heavy, both. From all over the city. Internet connections were sporadic at best, which annoyed Sherlock no end. That went on for days. We began to ran out of food – I raided the other flats, the empty ones, promising myself I’d pay for what I took when I got the chance. And then I crossed rooftops and raided other places.

You know, it’s odd – as rational and realistic as he always was, at first he couldn’t accept the reality of what was happening around us. Perhaps it was because of that. What was going on hardly seemed to have any basis in reality, you know? Finally I remember having to shout at him, that – this was like something he’d said to me once – that it was impossible for this to be a conventional disease of any sort, and that it was impossible for any living being to survive the sorts of injuries we’d seen these – things, walk away from. And that – and this was when I started shouting – that once you’d eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, even if it was fucking zombies, had to be the truth.

Sorry. I don’t normally swear often. Pardon me.

That’s okay.

Anyway. It didn’t take long to figure out that there was only one way to – what? I’ve always wondered. “Kill” isn’t exactly the right word, is it? That there was only one way to destroy these things, take them out. After we ran out of ammunition we used what we had on hand: I found a couple of crowbars, and somewhere Sherlock came up with an axe. Full-sized axe, not a hatchet. That was important, because I could never –

[He breaks off, is silent for a long time, begins again.]

I don’t even remember how long we’d been there when he got the text message. From his brother. Just as if things had been normal – “Coming over. – MH” Mycroft always hated texting, but wherever he was, a voice call must have been too risky.

Sherlock, of course, immediately texted back, “Careful of traffic. – SH” Then there was nothing, and an hour or so later he got, “Knock knock. – MH”

He was out in the street. Mycroft. We had to un-barricade a door to let him in. It was the only time I’d ever seen him looking less than absolutely, utterly immaculate and pristine: he had no jacket, no tie, and was carrying a tire iron in one hand. But, being Mycroft, he pulled it off as if he were wearing a bespoke suit. Carrying that tire iron like his umbrella.

When he came in, I remember noticing that he addressed me by my military rank, “Captain Watson”, which he'd never used before. He spoke to Sherlock as if they were the only two people in the room: “Do you have any small-arms ammunition left?”

“Afraid not,” Sherlock said politely. “We’ve been using what you see. No tea, either.”

It was a little mad, the whole scene. We sat, and made conversation. He told us about how Windsor Castle had been turned back into what it had always been, a fortress. How the same thing was being done at castles and fortified great houses all over Britain. He had us write things down, passwords and such, that would make it easier to get in. And then he sat back in his chair, looked at Sherlock, and said, “I have something to discuss with you.”

Sherlock said, “You’re infected.”

Of course he was right. I should have recognized the symptoms sooner – pallor, a mild sweat, joint pain, but he was only in the earliest stages. He can't have been attacked more than a few minutes before he sent that first text. But he drew his sleeve back, and we could see the wound. I don't think anything else is quite that color.

Sherlock was always pale, but he went white. I think even when he said it, he hadn't really believed it – not until he saw that wound. I took a step forward, but neither of them noticed. Mycroft took a Webley from his trouser pocket and put it on the table between them.

“Quite right,” he said, as matter-of-factly as someone might say it's raining, or turn up the television. “I don't want to risk further spread, but I can't be certain of doing sufficient damage with only one shot. So … may I trouble you?”

I remember that Sherlock swayed a little in his seat. “You want me to – ”

But Mycroft was as smooth as cream. “If it wouldn't be too inconvenient.”

I remember that polite little smile of his. Sherlock moved, as if he were going to get up, but he didn't. I think it was the only time I ever heard him stammer. “Mycroft – Mycroft, this I cannot – this, I – ”

And Mycroft shook his head, but he didn't stop smiling. “Oh, come, little brother. We both know you've been aching for a chance to blow my brains out since you were eight years old. Isn't this just the opportunity you've been waiting for?”

Sherlock just sat, looking as though he'd been struck ... and then Mycroft looked at me. I thought he'd forgotten I was there. His smile got a little broader, as if he were sharing some secret, and –

[Colonel Watson’s expression changes. He stares at the wall for a long time.]

That bastard.

[His entire body seems to contract, like a spring being compressed. His left hand spasms, and then clenches into a fist.]

That manipulative bastard. He knew. He knew, don’t you see? He could have asked me to step out for a moment, or could have just asked Sherlock to come into the next room with him. Or he could have just asked it of me, not of – that bastard, not of his brother! But he didn’t. He had to ask that of Sherlock, because he knew Sherlock wouldn't be able to do it. And he had to ask it in front of me, because he knew that – him hurting Sherlock in that way – was the only thing that could make me hate him enough to do it myself.

[He frowns slightly, not in anger now, but as if following a thought.]

What does it take, to do that? To destroy a friendship rather than risk destroying a friend? Not that Mycroft and I had ever been friends. But to think, “It’s better I make you hate me?”

I remember taking him – Mycroft – by the shoulder, sort of drawing him to his feet. Must have left bruises in his shoulder, but he didn't flinch. I think what I said was, “A word with you, sir?” Or perhaps it was, “A word in your ear, sir?” Very Army, you see. The only time I ever called Mycroft “sir”, the man who’d been the British Government.

I don’t think Sherlock noticed I’d picked up the pistol. Or maybe he did, he noticed most things. He sat and watched as I walked Mycroft out of the room.

[There is a very long pause. Colonel Watson is staring out the window. His shoulders are stiff.]

When I came back in, I didn’t look at him very much. I didn’t want to see that drained, shocked expression on his face. The same look he’d had since Mycroft had said he was infected. “Come on,” I said, “we’re leaving.” I gave him the axe, took the crowbars myself, and we walked out of two-two-one-B. We never went back. It's burned since then, of course. The War Fire – some call it the Third Great Fire – took out everything from Highgate to the Thames.

Where were you headed when you left?

Windsor Castle, of course. About forty kilometers by road, maybe a bit more. We weren’t carrying much – weapons, his computer and mine, what food we had left, my medical bag – so I figured we could do it in two days if luck was with us.

[His mouth twists as if he’s tasting something bitter.]

We’d been walking an hour or so before he said anything. All the time since – when we were preparing to leave, and as we walked, he hadn’t spoken a word to me. Not as if he were angry – he seemed, I don’t know, numb. As if the shock had wiped all his reactions blank for a bit. It was the only time in all the years I knew him that I took the initiative and he just followed: I said “Carry this” and he did, I said “Come with me” and he followed. The only time he ever, unquestioningly, did what I told him to. Except –

[Again there is a very long silence.]

Finally, after an hour or so, he said, very quietly, “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able.” That’s all he said, and I couldn’t think of any answer. Not the sort of thing a person says “You’re welcome” to, you know? And that was the only time we ever spoke of it.

I’m – sorry. Perhaps we could continue this tomorrow? I’m – not doing very well, I’m afraid.

You’re doing fine. I’d like to continue now, if it’s all right.

[He shifts slightly in his chair, takes out a hip flask, uncorks it, politely offers it to me. I shake my head. He shrugs and drinks from the flask as if it holds water.]

I didn’t drink much, before the war.

Well, we didn’t make it as far as I’d hoped that first day, but we found a place to hole up for the night – sleeping in shifts, as we had since things first went to hell – and got a dawn start the next morning. We hadn’t seen any of those – things the first day. Didn’t see any until nearly noon, but –

There was one, and then another, and then five at once. We could have outrun them easily, but then two more came from the other direction, so we were surrounded. We handled it as well as we could, back to back there in the middle of the street – he had the axe, I had a crowbar in each hand. We were nearly done with them – we were nearly done! I don’t know how many I’d taken out. He’d turned just a little to his right, swinging the axe one-handed, and the last one got – got to him, before I could reach. Seized his left arm –

[He stops.]

I got it, of course. Bludgeoned it with the crowbar. But it was too late. I remember him looking at the blood dripping from his hand, and his face went absolutely grey, and then he looked at me. And in a barely audible voice he said – running it together, you know, almost like one word – “Oh please John I’m so sorry please – ”

[His voice begins to shake. He swallows hard, then continues:]

We’d hardly spoken aloud since we’d left Baker Street – only in whispers. Not to attract the – things. But I snatched the axe out of his hand and I – I shouted at him, screamed, “Lie down!” And he did, there on the street. Unhesitating. And I shouted “Shut your eyes!” and he did. But he’d – seen. Oh, God. He – he saw me, standing over him with an axe in my hands, and there – there was absolutely no fear –

[He turns in his seat, looks out the window, away from me. His face is working slightly.]

I put my foot on his injured hand. My whole weight. He cried out. I could feel the – the bones of his hand breaking, through the sole of my shoe. I … lifted the axe.

I’d never imagined hearing him scream, the way he did. Never imagined he could. Sherlock? Screaming? [A forced laugh] Sherlock screaming. Vertical horizon. You know?

[He breathes in, then blows out hard, composing himself.]

I saw the spurting from the brachial artery, and realized I hadn’t thought it through – but if I had stopped to think, it would probably have been too late. That was what they used to do in the States, in the early days of the atomic weapons program: if even the smallest fleck of plutonium got into a tiny cut, standard procedure said, immediate high amputation.

Before the Crisis, he used to affect this preposterous long coat. Long, always worn open, the better to stream behind him in the wind. Dramatic. He’d given that up – tight clothes are safer – but he was still wearing this scarf of his. I snatched it from around his neck and twisted it around – around the stump. Tied a stick into the knot and then twisted that, hard, hard enough that the artery finally stopped spurting.

He’d still lost a horrendous amount of blood – I was covered in it, and so was he. He’d stopped screaming, but he was obviously going into hypovolemic shock: pallor, thready pulse, clammy skin. And not a damn thing I could do about it. Only improvise a bandage over the wound, get him onto his feet, and get us the hell away from there. I left everything except my medical bag, one water bottle, and the axe. I got his – his good arm around my shoulders, put my arm around his waist, and we walked.

I have only fragmentary memories of the next several days. We holed up in defensible spots at night – rooftops or even in trees would have been safer, but I couldn’t get him up onto a rooftop or up a tree – and walked by day. I raided every pharmacy we passed.

For what?

Anything, almost. I kept forcing sweets and water down him – cajoling and ordering, sometimes in the same breath. Trying to keep his strength up. And a bottle of daily vitamins – women’s vitamins, with the iron supplement. He was confused a lot of the time, from the shock, and I’m not certain how rational I was myself. I think I fed him half that bottle of thirty in five days. So, sweets, bottled water, bandages, vitamins, painkillers, antibiotics, caffeine tablets. Oh, and cigarettes – I shouldn’t have let him smoke, but I did. And Dexedrine, of course. Or any reasonable substitute. Quite a lot of that.

Dexedrine?

Oh, not for him. Not much, anyway. But I had to keep watch at night, and after the first night I realized the caffeine tablets weren’t doing the trick. Even so, there was one night I never sat down for fear of falling asleep. I remember standing there, clutching a wall – I can’t even remember where we were – and the axe, just weeping with utter exhaustion and the desire to sleep. Looking down at him, where he lay at my feet, and hating him for being able to sleep. They used to use lack of sleep as a torture, did you know that? Effective, I can assure you.

[He chuckles mirthlessly.]

Here, this should give you some idea of my level of mental functioning: even as I was breaking up bars of chocolate and persuading Sherlock to eat them, it never occurred to me to eat something myself. I lived for that five days on water, caffeine, and speed.

But I think the worst was the day after – we met them. I managed to light a small fire.

[Another long pause]

Why was that bad?

He was hardly able to stand, but he was lucid. I had to tell him what I was going to do. Ask it of him, actually: I should cauterize the wound, is that all right? Will you let me?

What did he say?

His – his breathing grew just a little uneven. He looked down at his arm, and then up at me. God, he was so pale. And he said, “I probably won't be able to hold still. And I expect you'll need a gag.”

So we did. Found some rope, and a spade to use for a cautery, and while it heated I tied him to a fence – Jesus, he told me how to tie the knots. Breakaway knots, solid from inside, but I could loosen them by pulling the free end. And I put the gauze into his mouth, and he only closed his eyes and nodded.

And it turned out, all that preparation was hardly necessary after all. He had so little strength I could have restrained him with one hand, even if he hadn't fainted. God. Like practicing medicine in the bloody twelfth century. And I bandaged it as well as I could, and untied him, and waited until he stopped being sick and could stand. And then we walked on. He was shaking in every muscle, but we walked.

Five days. If there's a hell … [He does not finish the sentence]

Then, our last night on the road, something happened. I don’t know – perhaps I just hit the wall. We’d found a spot in the wreckage of a burned-out house – not really defensible enough, but I thought I’d be able to hear anything approaching. I got Sherlock to lie down. I’d taken a pill only an hour or so before, but I sat down beside him, and – click. Consciousness just … switched off.

The next thing I knew, I was hearing noise, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. I woke up in absolute horror, certain that we were being attacked. We were, but there was only one of the – things. Sherlock was standing across the room, where the doorway had been, and as I watched, he swung the axe and took off the top half of its head.

He almost went down himself, then. He was still terribly weak, and also not used to – After losing an arm, people almost have to learn to walk all over again. Learn to do everything, with one side five kilos lighter. But he’d done it. With me out of commission, literally lying down on the job, he’d done what I should have been doing. Ill and weak and one-handed, he’d taken the thing out.

He looked at me, and I remember that we said in perfect chorus, as if it were a cheap comedy, “Are you all right?” He staggered to where I was slumped in a corner. He put the axe down in front of us, where either of us could reach it easily, and sat down next to me. And then – Imagine how primitive people felt at night, cave dwellers. Huddling together in the darkness, afraid of noises in the night. The only comfort being a weapon, and the knowledge that there was someone else at hand, another of your own kind.

But you did make it through the night.

We did. We made it through the night.

How?

[The question is impossible. He eyes me, and then speaks pleasantly:]

That … is none of your damned business, Mr. Brooks. And you may put that on the record.

You’re absolutely right. I apologize – please, forget I asked that. So, the next morning …?

The next morning, we got on our way at first light. And by noon, we’d reached the castle.

I gave the words Mycroft had given us, but they weren’t really necessary. We were placed in standard precautionary quarantine – I don’t know why one week is standard, since the incubation period is twenty-four hours. But we got through it, and through the whole time that followed. Through the War. Which has its own set of stories, as you can imagine [he indicates the eyepatch]. And now, here we are.

[He gestures around the house’s single large room. There are comfortable seats, a fireplace, a low broad window that looks out onto an autumn-gold garden. One wall is dominated by a long table of chemical and other scientific apparatus; the rest seem to be built of books. There’s one narrow bed in the far corner. John Watson looks at me again. He is smiling, almost snarling, in triumph.]

Here we are. We – got – through. He and I, we walked into Windsor Castle, under our own power. And – I did it. The only case of survival – God help me, I had to do it, and it worked. The only survivor.

[A new voice speaks from the door:]

SH: Not the only one. The first, though, I’ll give you that. Oh, am I interrupting something?

[The newcomer is tall and thin, almost gaunt, and has one of the few heads of long hair I’ve seen in the past twenty years. It was once dark, I know, but now it falls in thick grey-shot curls almost to his shoulders, making him look a bit like portraits I’ve seen of the young Isaac Newton. He wears no coat, although the day is cool, and the left sleeve of his shirt is pinned up in the old-fashioned manner.]

JW: As a matter of fact, you are, Sherlock, not that you’ve ever let that bother you.

SH: If you want privacy, John, you should try going someplace private.

JW: I thought I had. As in, “private residence”? Max Brooks, Sherlock Holmes.

[I rise, and we shake hands]

How do you do?

SH: Howjado. Is “Postwar Commission” really appropriate? I mean, it’s hardly as if the enemy have been overcome once and for all.

[His tone is dismissive; not rudely so, but as if he’s so busy with something he can’t be bothered with such trivia as politeness. He sits down on the high stool at the chemical bench, dividing his attention between a Bunsen burner, a very recent model laptop computer, and a microscope that may date from the 1940s. I had not mentioned I was with the Postwar Commission, nor had Colonel Watson.]

I beg your pardon, sir?

SH: Not “sir,” please. I finally had to write a very personal letter asking that I not be put up for any more knighthoods. [He rotates on the stool to face me] Your accent says you’re from New York, and you look bleary. Jet lag, obviously. But your watch isn’t on New York time – it’s eight hours ahead. You’re an experienced traveler, wearing comfortable clothing and slip-on shoes, all well worn, but your jacket’s new. The buttons have a logo on them – you bought it in South Africa, very recently. But you’ve come from farther than that. Eight time zones away, East – could be Beijing, could be Manila, but there are traces in your accent, your vowels, that suggest you’ve recently been talking with Australians – I’d say Canberra.

At least four continents, in a few weeks or less. You’re conducting a recorded interview on a state-of-the-art digital recorder-transcriber. State of the art, but very well worn – the color’s rubbing off at the corners, it’s seen a lot of use in a little time – and it has the UN’s insignia on it. And the notebook in your pocket has UNPWC on the cover. Conclusion: you’re with the UN’s possibly overoptimistically titled Postwar Commission, interviewing people who took, as John did, crucial roles in the struggle against the LD.

[He turns back to his work. I realize I’m staring, and turn to Colonel Watson.]

JW: No, you don’t get used to it. Ever.

SH: And as I was saying, there have been at least two other survivors. Very few, not many people are able to act truly decisively in a crisis. Did you know that Solanum is mutating? Trivial, almost imperceptible changes in the progress of the condition, but it is mutating.

[Colonel Watson is on his feet, moving with no trace of a limp. He joins Mr. Holmes at the bench, looking over his shoulder at the computer.]

JW: Does that … mean something? Signify something?

SH: Of course it does! And don’t try and tell me that “a difference that makes no difference is no difference.” Every difference makes a difference, simply by virtue of being a difference! For one thing, we might be able to trigger mutations, and in time to control them. And for another – if I can trace the pattern, the spread of the different strains, I might be able to trace it back. All the way back, to the beginning.

[I clear my throat]

Er, Mr. Holmes, I interviewed Kwang Jingshu, and it’s pretty well established that he’d identified Patient Zero.

[Still absorbed in his work, Mr. Holmes spares me the briefest withering glance]

SH: Even in the States, Mr. Brooks, I thought it was also pretty well established that a number line stretches in both directions from the zero point. What do you get if you subtract two from one? Solanum did not magically, spontaneously appear by special creation in Patient Zero – or if it did, I will kill God myself, but I doubt it. It started somewhere. It came from somewhere. And learning its beginnings may be the key to putting an end to it. Hold still, hold still.

[A large bee has flown in through the open window. It circles us for a few moments and then lands on my shoulder. I stand, frozen, afraid to move, as it crawls up onto my neck.]

Just stand very still. She’s not alarmed. Allergic?

No. Not that I know of.

[On the table, with my teacup and Colonel Watson’s mug, are half a dozen tiny jars of honey, each a different color, and each with a hand-written label: “Clover”, “Sage”, “Rose garden”, “High summer”, “Orchard”, “Rosemary”. Mr. Holmes crosses to the table and dips a finger in one of them, and then approaches me. His speech, which had been crisp and sharp and incredibly rapid, is now low and crooning:]

Right here. Yes, here, come here to me. You don’t want to be inside. Out in the sun, that’s where you want to be.

[He puts his hand close to my face. I feel the tickle as the bee creeps across my jawline, and then it stops. Mr. Holmes steps away from me, with the bee crawling across his hand. He looks at it intently as he crosses to the window.]

JW: He talks to them, and sometimes I could swear they understand him.

SH: Who, the sisters? Of course they don’t, not as individuals – it's the tone they react to. I could be reciting the periodic table. It's not magic, John.

JW: From the man who goes out and collects honey without a shirt –

SH: I like them on me.

JW: Exactly! You encourage them! [to me:] And he never gets stung! What am I supposed to think it is? Pheromones?

SH: That is infinitely more likely than the notion I have some sort of psionic link to them, or whatever it is you're thinking. There you go. Outside, where the sun is.

[He raises his hand. The bee crawls across his fingers, taking a final taste; then it lifts away and hums off towards the row of hives at the garden’s far end. Sherlock Holmes stands in the sun, licking the remaining honey off his fingers, and watches it go.]