IOU

John walked in to 221 Baker Street after a long day at the clinic. Halloween always proved to be a day that resulted in an exorbitant amount of idiotic injuries and allergic reactions. Sherlock would be appalled by the mere thought of it all.

John shook his head to clear his thoughts. Sherlock was gone, and he had come to terms with that… For the most part, at least.

He made his way up the stairs and to the door of his flat and was surprised to see a pumpkin to the right of the entryway. The doctor quirked his head in confusion and took a step closer to it.

The phrase “IOU” was illuminating from the lit pumpkin.

“What in the hell?” John muttered as he moved to examine the pumpkin a bit closer.

He crouched down and ran a finger across the edges of the letters. The pumpkin had yet to even begin to rot, and John could easily tell from the incisions that the letters had been carved out by an incredibly sharp knife with a short blade. An army knife, most likely. He lifted up the stem and examined the candle. Barely any wax had accumulated at the base of the candle.

“This was all done very recently, then,” John said to himself. “But by whom?”

He replaced the stem cap on the pumpkin, stood up, and took a slow step back from it.

“I see you like my gift, John,” a voice said from the top of the darkened staircase.

John quickly reached for where he used to hold his gun in the back of his jeans, but there was nothing there. He backed up against the door to his flat and looked in the direction that the voice was coming from.

The sound of a heavy footstep mixed with the creaking of a step let John know that the intruder was on the 6th step that led upstairs.

“You don’t know how long I have waited for this moment, John,” the man said. John could hear the smile in his voice.

“Who are you?” John asked, pushing himself a bit harder against the door behind him.

The man laughed, taking another excruciatingly slow step down the stairs as he did so.

“I’m the man that you knew would be coming after you… Eventually.” The man cleared his throat and took another step. “I’m the reason that you sleep with your army-issued Browning L9A1 on your bedside table.”

John felt his heart beat even harder every time he heard the man take another step closer. Step 4, now. Closer, but not close enough.

John focused on the man’s voice once more.

“Your best friend killed mine, John.” Another step. “My soulmate.”

John’s eyes widened in realization.

“We were so meant for each other, he and I,” the voice said. “But he seemed to believe that there was someone out there… Someone else who was even more perfect for him than I was.” John heard him take another step. “One Sherlock Holmes. The idiot in the deerstalker.”

John clinched his fist and felt his nails digging into the skin of his palm.

“What have I got to do with any of this?” John asked through gritted teeth. His heart was pounding in his ears at this point, and he was seeing red.

The man laughed. “What haven’t you got to do with this? I owe you this. I owe you the pain that your bloody boyfriend made me feel when he killed Jim Moriarty. You deserve this, and so much more.”

John heard the slide of something against fabric and the quick cock of a hand gun. He had no time to react before he heard the gunshot.

But there was no pain.

There was a thud, and the man fell with his face against the floor, blood streaming steadily from his right temple.

The light from the pumpkin illuminated the face of the man. John crouched down and shakily reached down to the man’s wrist and felt for a pulse. There was none. John fell back to sit against the door and ran a hand over his face.

When John looked up, there was a silhouette of a man coming up the stairs from the entrance of 221 Baker Street. A tall man with dark, curly hair and the pallor of a ghost.

‘It must be a ghost…’ John thought. ‘It must be a ghost.’

AN: There is a possibility that I will continue this, but I am not entirely certain yet. I will mark it as “in progress” until I decide.