A/N: I'd love to finish posting this story this weekend. The question is; can I?
Chapter 34: The Great Fall
Danny jumped when the trap door in the living room floor flew opened. They'd arrived in darkness to find the house empty and so they had hunkered down, split up by small rooms, and watched the jungle at all the windows in the hopes that they might catch Gladys off guard. They left the cabin in darkness to be deceptive, but no one noticed the trap door in the floor until it flew open and in shock Danny watched as Steve came into the room silently and Gladys McMahon popped out of the hole right in front of them.
"Drop the gun!" Danny ordered before Gladys saw him and the sound of his voice startled her.
"Daniel!" She gasped fearfully as the weapon fell from her hand and down into the tunnel.
"Hands where I can see them, Gladys!" Steve ordered, echoing Danny's tone, as he side stepped, closing in on the woman who had popped out of the rabbit hole.
She hesitated a second, wondering if she might bolt but instead she stepped backward and fell into the tunnel once more.
"No!" Danny yelled and both men rushed to the hole in the floor.
The drop wasn't far but Gladys hit the ground hard. She staggered, reached for her fallen weapon but missed it as she saw the other woman rushing forward for the same gun.
Scrambling to her feet Gladys bolted into the second section of the dark tunnel and before Steve and Danny could make it into the tunnel Doris was running after the fleeing fugitive.
The second section of the tunnel was much longer and much darker. The bulbs of light did not continue down this tunnel but it was clear to Doris that Gladys knew the tunnel well. She ran quickly, her feet tapping out her progress as Doris had to slow down to follow blindly.
Steve and Danny jumped into the tunnel after calling their team and soon Kono and Chin followed, leaving Lori and Lou to guard the cabin if Gladys happened to make it back there. Listening in the darkness they could hear the two woman before them, but they were already too far out of reach of the flashlight beams of the pursuing Five-O to be seen in the small space.
Gladys ran as fast as she could, her hands out before her to catch the wall she knew was coming. She knew the tunnel, used it often, but had missed the light switch in her hurry. She now ran blindly knowing that it wouldn't be long before the tunnel would end and the woman following her would catch up.
This woman sure didn't seem like any New Jersey house wife she'd ever met, but the McGarrett mother was dead, or so the story went. Was it possible that this woman was the McGarrett missing mother of so long ago? Gladys's mind raced as she fled along the long corridor, the pounding of footsteps behind her and deep in the tunnel an approaching light. She knew it wouldn't have taken the Five-Os long to get to their feet and down into the tunnel but she could still make it.
Finally the wall appeared in the darkness as the entrance to the tunnel was open to the light, even though it was dark in the jungle, the moonlight lit the way out. That wasn't a good sign, but she couldn't back track now. She threw herself at the ladder and climbed as fast as she could, hoping that once in the jungle she could find cover again.
Between the construction building and the main road was the exit to her tunnel system. Gladys burst out of the hole in the ground to see that men were patrolling the yard, and they were heavily armed, but she couldn't wait, she had to move. The other woman was right on her heals and she bolted into the near by jungle, through a break in the chain link fence she's made herself.
Wade Gutches ordered men to follow her but Doris was already after the woman.
"Don't shoot!" Steve yelled as he came out of the tunnel shortly after his mother and followed her into the jungle after Gladys. Danny followed as well, with Kono and Chin taking up the rear and followed Steve.
"Who the hell are you?" Gladys yelled over her shoulder as she crashed through the jungle running for escape but never shaking her pursuers.
"Your worst nightmare!" Doris growled as she made up the ground between them.
Skidding to a halt, Gladys threw herself on the ground. The jungle had opened up suddenly and a cliff appeared before she'd run in the wrong direction in her haste and now she was trapped and Doris was night behind her.
"Don't move!" Doris yelled her weapon drawn and aimed to kill. "This is the end of the line. You have no weapon and no where to go, and you don't want to go toe to toe with me."
"Who are you?" Gladys asked again as she slowly got to her feet and raised her hands. "You aren't Five-O. You aren't a New Jersey house wife. Who are you?"
"Doris McGarrett."
"She's dead." Gladys countered.
"She faked her death." Steve stated as he burst through the jungle.
"She's a ghost." Danny added as he followed Steve.
"That is impossible." Gladys hissed as she shook from head to toe.
"That's what you're supposed to think. You weren't counting on a woman rising from the dead to come after you. You weren't counting on me at the airport." Doris laughed and slowly edged her way closer to the fugitive.
"I looked you up. I knew you had to be someone to them but all accounts had Mommy Williams safe and sound in New Jersey and Mommy McGarrett buried six feet underground, exactly where Daniel should have stayed." Gladys said as she stepped backwards right up to the edge of the cliff.
"Don't move." Danny yelled as he too pushed forward, past Steve, and right on up to Doris. "This is it for you, Gladys. You're finished. Give up."
"Am I, Daniel? Maybe I'll be a ghost as well. You told me that the last time we met, face to face, that it was the end and look where that got you." Gladys said as she straightened up and lowered her hands. She laughed manically for a moment. "I'll always haunt you, Daniel. Just as my brother does. You'll never be rid of me or my legacy."
"I will, because you are not like your brothers. You are not that pure evil that he was. You did this for revenge because you just don't know how to exist without your brothers love and approval, and you're jealous that I was worthy of Daniel McMahon and you were not. You didn't prove yourself when he was alive, and he told you that all the time. You were his puppet, his pet and his research assistant. Nothing more. Never his equal. You aren't smart enough. You are a monster, to be sure, but you won't haunt me, not like your bother does and you know you will never live up to him."
"You know nothing about it, nothing about me or my brother!" Gladys growled.
"I know he looked for others with a beautiful mind like his and he never saw you or your boys in that way." Danny countered, inching ever closer, watching the woman's every movement.
"He would see me now. He would see all the people I've killed. More than he ever had and for better reasons. I'm worse than he is! So much worse and so much smarter! I should be looked upon as the McMahon who made history, not him!"
"You, no, you're not like Daniel. Daniel killed for a reason, though vile and horrific, he killed because he was seeking enlightenment and connection. A connection he never had, not even with his twin sister. If proof of equality was before him, if he saw the mind before him now, he would turn you away as fast as he could. You are a virus. You are sickness and despair. You ruin minds. You are not enlightened and you've never been that way. Daniel never killed out of revenge. He tested people, believed he was helping them to reach something greater. Daniel was not selfish and looking to be accepted, as you are. You are just a cold blooded killer looking for revenge and Daniel would be disgusted." Danny's words dripped out of his mouth with so much distain that it didn't even sound like Danny Williams speaking anymore, he was someone else. "You're a disgrace to your name, and will only ever be remembered as such!" he spat on the ground before her.
With the last jab, Gladys cracked. Screaming and cursing, she rushed at Danny and he fired. Three shots and still she came and then she faltered, stepped back and back again, staring at the blood glistening on her hands and then back at the man before her. Her face twisted into a sick grin and once more she stepped back. "Well, at least we'll have one thing in common with each other, Daniel. You've killed us both." Gladys McMahon stated and laughed once more as she stepped back one last time and fell off the edge of the cliff and down to the rocks below.