AUTHOR'S NOTE: Parents are advised that from this point onward, they may wish to screen content beforehand before allowing younger viewers to read.
It was the moment Adrian had hoped would never come again. Slowly he turned around to once again face the man who had thrown his whole world into chaos...who had arranged to have his wife abducted and killed to cover up his affair...who had locked the detective in a toxic waste disposal chamber to kill him...who had tried to throw his own son into a watery grave in an act of horrible revenge...and who worst of all had confessed to being part-albeit rather peripherally-in the plot to kill Trudy. It was as if he was in the middle of a bad dream. "Fifteen shots to the back," he mumbled softly in disbelief, "A hundred foot fall into the bay. NO MAN can survive that."
"Two words for you, Monk: bulletproof vest," Trevor told him smugly, "You think I was going up against a group of cops without some protection?"
"It was you," Natalie's voice was barely audible, "You shot my child..."
Trevor ignored her, his cold gaze directed directly at Adrian. "You do remember what your brother said on the bridge the last time we met, Monk?" he asked him.
"About how you took too long to kill us?" Adrian didn't like the way this was going.
"I don't make the same mistake twice," Trevor raised the rifle and fired. Five horrible jolts rocked Adrian's chest. He found himself spiraling to the floor with a loud thump. The world seemed to be blurring, but he still watched as his adversary picked off a fleeing Gregory with another blast. The sheriff landed with a thump next to Adrian, clearly not to get up again. "No, no, I'd put that down if I were you!" Trevor ordered Don, who was raising Gregory's gun at him. He threw open his coat to reveal he had also covered himself in dynamite. Don hastily lowered the gun. "So you think hanging around with Monk makes you a real lawman, huh?" their opponent taunted them.
"So what?" Don demanded.
"So what? So sorry, but that means you've been tainted by Sharona's poison. You can't be allowed to survive," Trevor fired again. "DOOOOONNN!" Charlie's scream echoed through the room at the sight of his brother falling. He rushed forward towards him, only to take a blast of his own and crumple into a heap. Trevor stared at his actions and abruptly let out a loud, humorless laugh that sent a chill down Adrian's spine. He then became aware of his wife's presence again. "Dear Sharona, do you want to play with me?" he asked her coldly. She made no attempt to run, which Adrian supposed was due to shock, given that she was used to the spineless, blathering Trevor she had dealt with in the past, not the gun-toting maniac before her now who from the look in his eye was clearly not all there. "Why don't we play a little game?" he continued, drawing an aluminum bat from under his coat, "Let's pretend it's the bottom of the ninth, and you're all they've got. Here's the pitch," he raised the bat high and brought it down hard, "Strike one, strike two, strike three, strike four, strike five...!"
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Natalie rushed him and seized the bat. In a flash Trevor spun her around and lifted her up over his head. "He's headed for home!" he shouted to no one in particular, "Here's the throw to the plate!" He flung her hard into the wall. "Out! And the crowd goes wild as he celebrates!"
He punctuated all this by leaping high in the air and landing hard on her ribs. Adrian grimaced from the natural effect of this. He knew he had to do something, anything, quickly. "Come on, Trevor, you know you don't want to do this!" he begged out loud, dragging himself across the floor towards the alarm button under the desk, "You're not really this person, I know it! Now please, put down the gun and explosives and tell us where Becky is!"
He reached for the button, but Trevor pulled him back and planted a foot on his chest. "No substitutions, Monk, like you said last time, it's just you and me," he told the detective firmly. His gaze fell back to his wife cowering on the floor. "Was that a tear? Are you crying? You can't cry, Sharona. There's no crying at Christmas. DO YOU KNOW THAT!?"
His hands shot forward and seized her throat. "It's all your fault, you know!" his voice grew much darker, "You brought it on everyone with your filthy crusade of hate against me!"
"Stop...please!" her face was turning blue already.
"Oh you want me to stop!?" he bellowed in carnal rage, "You sure as hell didn't stop! I've seen what you've put on the air about me! I saw that episode, and it was the biggest pack of lies I ever heard in my life!"
"But your uncle...Detroit..."
"That's not the point at all!" he roared, shaking her now as well, "You made a promise to me that we'd start over again, and you broke it the moment the words left your lips! You never had any intention of going with me; you just wanted to set me up so you could humiliate me and get your usual sick sense of satisfaction against me! And then on top of that, you have to go make me look like a monster to the whole country! Well, you and I know who the real monster is! And your time's come at last, I'm happy to say."
"What will Benjy say...!?" she was grasping at straws to save herself.
"Do you think I care anymore!?" he bellowed right in her face, "He can't think straight anymore anyway, not since you poisoned his mind with your lies! Now, thanks to you, I have to destroy him too! And then, I have to destroy everyone else you've poisoned for their own good. At least it'll be so much fun to tear you down just like you've tried to tear me down."
"By killing her?" Natalie's voice was filled with terrible pain from what he'd done to her, "You thinking killing her's really going to make everything better!?"
Trevor let out another spine-chilling laugh. "You think I would feel killing her would bring any resolution?" he told her. He rounded on a quivering Sharona and whispered darkly, "No, just killing you wouldn't be enough anymore. You'll have to suffer like you've made me suffer. And suffer you most certainly will. Oh yes, tonight you're going to find out what always happens to filthy, degenerate, lowlife little (he called her something so horribly degrading that Adrian felt he needed to take a shower just hearing it) like you. And you're going to wish I had killed you right away. Tis the season to be afraid. Very, very afraid."
He picked her up and smashed her head into the desk hard enough that Adrian could feel the impact where he lay. Apparently convinced he'd caused his wife enough suffering for the moment, Trevor stormed over to Natalie and seized her cell phone from her purse. "Dial the others," he ordered, tossing it at her, "Tell them to meet us in five minutes."
"I'm begging you, please leave my daughter out of this!" she pleaded, "She's done nothing to hurt you!"
She received a sharp kick to the windpipe. "Hey I'm doing her a favor!" Trevor roared at her, "I'm going to let her be with dear daddy again! Now dial, damn it!"
Natalie reluctantly complied. Trevor hauled a dazed Adrian to his feet. "Unfortunately, you're not invited to this party, Monk," he told him curtly, "Just like old times, huh? So if we don't meet again, happy New Year."
And with that, he brought the rifle handle down hard on Adrian's skull, and everything blacked out.
When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a grassy field, and there was a bright glow everywhere. "No, no, not now!" he whimpered out loud, feeling for a pulse that didn't seem to be there.
"It's all right, Adrian," Trudy was standing behind him.
"No it's not!" he cried out loud, "I've got to do something, you've got to send me back, something, anything...!"
He put his face in his hands. "It's my fault, really," he lamented, "I spent all that time building him up as an animal, and now that I actually forgive him and see his good side, he's gone over the edge."
"Now you know you didn't cause this," Trudy put a hand on his shoulder, "He's chosen his own path. You have to concentrate on what you have to do to keep him from doing the things he wants, Adrian."
"I can't do anything dead!" he shrieked in frustration, plucking several flowers in a clump that were taller than the others, "If only there could be some way I could...can you get into his soul? If we can talk reason to his soul, maybe we'll..."
"We don't have that power Adrian," she shook her head, "But there's still much for you to do. Just remember there's always the bright side of the moon."
"Huh?" Adrian frowned.
"Find the bright side of the moon, Adrian. Adrian?" Trudy was growing more quizzical in expression, "Mr. Monk, are you there?" She reached forward and touched his chest, giving him a sharp shocking feeling...
And then he opened his eyes to find himself staring at the ceiling of an ambulance going very fast. "Clear!" shouted the paramedic holding a pair of defibrillators above him. The detective jerked upwards. "Please sir, stay calm, we're almost at the hospital," the paramedic tried to push him back down.
"How much time's gone by!?" Adrian asked desperately. There was another groan as a figure on the gurney next to him stirred: Charlie. "Don..." the mathematician moaned trying to rise up.
"Just relax, you two," recommended the officer in the front seat of the ambulance, "You should count yourselves lucky you weren't hurt more seriously."
"You've got to turn around now, we've got to go back," Adrian stammered, leaping to his feet again.
"No can do, you need surgery if you want to go back," the officer rebuffed him, "Now please relax, or..."
Adrian noticed the officer's gun hanging from its holster. Desperate times called for desperate measures. In a flash he grabbed it and aimed it at the driver's temple. "I SAID," he bellowed at the top of his lungs, "TURN THIS AMBULANCE AROUND RIGHT NOW!"
The driver slammed on the brakes. "He's crazy!" he yelped, diving out the door. The officer and paramedic did the same when Adrian pointed the gun at them. Adrian slumped into the passenger's seat; loss of blood from the shots had definitely weakened him. He flung the gun into the back of the ambulance, have no intention to further use it despite the circumstances. "Can you drive?" he asked Charlie.
"I think so," with a loud gasp of pain, Charlie slid into the driver's seat and reversed the ambulance. He looked very panicked. "Do you suppose he...?"
"There's no way of knowing," Adrian said solemnly. He glanced at the dashboard clock: 10:51. "We were out for over three hours; he could have done any number of things to them by now, even killed them if he was in a mad enough mood."
"I was going to reveal it was him before everything got out of hand," Charlie extended the code paper, "Turcotte and I figured it out."
Adrian looked over the message, which decoded read: ADRIAN MONK, TREVOR FLEMING IS ALIVE AND WANTS TO KILL YOU. I SAW HIM CONSPIRING WITH SHERIFF GREGORY IN THE NATIONAL CEMETERY. PLEASE TAKE WHATEVER PRECAUTIONS YOU NEED TO PREVENT A TRAGEDY. "It all makes sense now," the detective whispered softly, "He must have been listening in on Sharona's phone calls all that time since he crawled out of the bay. Since he think's Benjy's a robot in his mother's hands, Becky would naturally be the first strike against her. So he drove into Summit and kidnapped her after the Harveys took her father. I had a little trouble putting the order together, but the Harveys came first and took John, leaving the mess behind. Becky came home, found the mess, and Trevor jumped her, then shot the highway patrol officer on his escape. Lord known what he's done to her since then. Meanwhile, that's how Phil Seiderbaum knew to mail the code to the motel, he figured my father would forward it right to me."
"Yeah, it all makes sense," Charlie mumbled. He looked lost in another world. "Can't let Don down, we just can't."
"Well, if we don't know anything about how...Tape," Adrian had noticed one in a plastic bag nearby. He dug it out (wishing he had wipes to use on it) and hit play, not entirely sure he wanted to hear what was on it. "Good evening, Monk," came Trevor's icy voice from the other end, sounding if possible even more deranged than before, "If you're listening to this, I should have put more bullets into you. Too bad. But no matter, everyone else is here with me now, and we're having so much fun, aren't we?"
The most horrible scream imaginable cut through the air. Adrian turned his head away; he didn't want to know what had been going on at the time or who it was being done to. "Stop it!" Don's voice came in over the tape, "Or I'll...!"
He let out a cry of his own. "Much better," Trevor stated next, "I should probably exterminate them all now, Monk," he continued, "But because I'm a nice guy, I'm going to give you a sporting chance. If you can find them all by midnight., they can live. Otherwise, you'll have more burdens on your soul knowing you let more people die you could have saved. The wounded general can tell you where to look first, but that's all the help you get. Better hurry, you wouldn't want to miss the party. It's a real killer."
He let out another cold laugh, which was followed by more terrible screaming as the tape clicked to an end. Adrian glanced at the dashboard clock; three more agonizing minutes had elapsed towards doomsday. The road sign they were passing told him they were thirty-one miles from Gettysburg. He shook his head sadly. "None of it makes any sense," he admitted, "Why he would go so insane? He'd done what he'd set out to do; he'd gotten his family back. Why would he just turn on them like he has now that he got them back?"
"That's one area I can't help you, Monk," Charlie retched again, swerving over into the other lane. "'The wounded general will tell you where to look first.' I think I know it, where...?"
"It's equestrian statue code," Adrian snapped his fingers, "The number of the horse's legs on the pedestal is supposed to tell the rider's fate: all four legs on means he survived, one leg off means he was wounded, two legs off means he was killed. Well, it's just an urban legend, really, but all the equestrian statues here fit the code. And there's only one wounded general statue..."
"Winfield Scott Hancock on Baltimore Pike," Charlie realized it as well. He gunned the engine. "But not, not too fast!" Adrian gripped the door handle.
"I know how you feel, honestly, Monk, but I can't lose my brother," Charlie gave him a firm look, "Don's always been there to stand up for me, now it's time I repay the favor for him and..."
Just then his cell phone rang. "Charlie, please tell me what the hell's going on!" his father's voice echoed in from the other end.
"You're all right, Dad?" his son asked him.
"Unless you mean freezing my rear off standing in a deserted street with a foot of snow coming, of course I'm all right," the city planner said, "I've been worried sick about you guys; I went the bathroom, and when I came out everyone had left. I asked..."
"It's, it's a long story, Mr. Eppes," Adrian fiddled with the ambulance's heater, "Basically, Don's in trouble with everyone else, you probably won't see him again in one piece if we fail."
Charlie gave him a strained look. "Just get to a safe location, Dad," he instructed Alan, "Then lock the doors and call the state police and National Guard. And pray for us."
He hung up before his father could answer to any of it. He flipped the code paper over and began writing trigonomical equations on it. "Please, please, please watch the road!" Adrian screamed at him.
"Sorry, sorry," the mathematician finished writing and looked straight ahead into the blinding snowstorm, which seemed to be gaining speed, "Since he thankfully didn't get my father, that means we've got an hour and three minutes to save the lives of ten people, including my brother and Becky. Now, we know the starting point is here," keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he drew a rough diagram of the battlefield and town, and drew a large circle at the site of Hancock's statue, "I'm assuming he's going to divide his prisoners up evenly and then arrange them, whether consciously or not, in a geometric pattern, with Hancock's statue as a prime end site equilateral to the others."
"Why?" Adrian was confused.
"All human minds aim for peace and harmony, Monk, not just your own," Charlie told him.
"But this isn't a normal mind we're dealing with," Adrian lamented, "How do you rationalize with a person who is genuinely insane? None of what he does could fit into any mathematical pattern you can come up with."
"Well it's the chance we've got to take," Charlie mumbled grimly, gunning the ambulance harder still, "Otherwise every else we care for won't live to see the light of day."