An adaptation by Nick Gustafson

Based on the screenplay by Bill Waddell and Nick Gustafson

"Gil!"

"Bert!"

The two foes, once friends saw each another at last, and engaged each other in brutal combat, the certain result of which; the end result; would be one or both of their deaths.

But Gil was prepared for that. Bert's killing spree had gone on long enough, even if deep down he knew that it had all been his fault, he knew that he had to end things here and now. All well and good he thought, except for the fact that Bert is the one who's armed with the metre stick.

Bert charged, but Gil deflected his attack with a kick to the jaw. Bert slashed back.

Soon Gil lay sprawled on the ground, and seconds later, Bert moved in for the kill.

Gil reached for the metre stick as Bert moved to strike; grabbing it, he jabbed it back into Bert. Bert staggered back. Dead.

"It's over."

Suddenly, Bert reached up once again, as if with his last measure of strength he intended to drag Gil down to the same fiery hell that was to be his destination. Gil fell, but just as quickly as it had returned, the life drained from Bert once again.

Gil whacked the corpse with the metre stick, and prodded it for good measure. In his exhaustion, "Die Stubbs!!" was all he could utter.

Bert lay dead, slain by our his former friend, Gil Williams. Gil tosses the metre stick to the ground aghast and disgusted. He walks away.

The lights in the factory slowly dim like the falling night; but as the last vestiges of illumination flicker into nothingness, the corpse begins to stir.

Chester Handover had hoped for a quiet shift at Burlington City Morgue. Chester was the weird sort, well, anyone who would want to spend all their time around dead bodies probably would be, but he was probably abnormally so. Likely it was a result of all those bad horror movies he used to watch as a kid. As he made his rounds of the modern forensic facility, he stopped to read the posted manifesto, or as it was more commonly referred to as the Reaper's hit list. Especially interesting today, aside from a rather comical car accident victim (morbid sense of humour too), was a really odd guy that his friend and colleague soon brought to his attention as he entered the vault.

"Hey, you here about this stiff; Goo-stuf-es-on huh?" Sam Godfried asked in his usual smirk tone. Sam was one years Chester's elder, and something of a contrast to his lanky build. "He got a B+ in OAC World Issues. Then he went fucking nuts!"

"Yeah." Chester replied, forcing the same wide smile his friend displayed. "Then they shipped him off to the mental home. Where he stayed until the Mike Harris-privatized Ontario Hydro caused the power outage and he escaped. Ha Ha!! What a loser!" For whatever reason his last statement hit a strange and ominous resonance in him, inexplicably, he was filled with dread.

"You know that will never happen again!" Sam laughed.

Chester instantly wished he had not said that.

Upon the instant, the vault lights began to flicker, and at last burnt out.

"What the fuck!?" Chester cried. Save for his scream, they were the last words he would ever speak.

Moments later, the lights return to normal and illuminate the vault, where lies two freshly slain bodies, soaked in crimson liquid. But upon the metal slab where lied the corpse of Bert Nicholson, nothing remained.

Upon the deep straining of ears, some short distance away, a raspy voice could be heard to utter, "I will find you Gil Williams....."

Early the next morning, further from the heart of downtown Burlington, in the quiet and picturesque community of Palmer, a man in white overcoat and oversized glasses could be spied upon the drive of 3096 Bentworth Drive. A house not greatly dissimilar to those surrounding it, save for the unusual nature of its exterior painting, which had been known to resemble those of Elm Street. This special building was, of course, the home of Gil Williams, that is before his own father had made life there unbearable, and his stranger obsessiveness had continued to drive a wedge between the two. As the mysterious stranger with the slight protrusion of a metre stick is behind his back approached the front door and knocked, the sound of Highland song and dance could be heard permeating through the walls.

"Aye.. Aye..Aye'll get it." The deeply accented voice of Jughead Williams bellowed down. "Hold on!"

"Hold on Jughead hold on." cackled his wife, Helga.

Jughead retorted to the point of anger, "Aye, it might be Gil, come back at last." There was an indescribable, and definitely unusual expression upon Jughead's face as he opened the door that hardly suited the return of a beloved child. It was more of a triumph than anything.

Before Jughead stood tall and twisted figure of a man. His face, wore a grin far bigger than the scotsman's, but it held within its visage, more insanity than anything else. Jughead spoke, "Aye, Gil. Ach, is that you?"

"Aye is that Gil Jughead?" Helga chimed

"..aye.. yes it is .." he laughed, evidently delighted at the idea." I'm Gil. Hullo Dad."

"You're grounded Gil, yuir in bed for 9:30 tonight ye bastard."

"It's good to be home, Jughead." Bert smiled. It was of course precisely the reaction he had come to expect. "Listen.. do you know where I've been staying lately?

Jughead looked thoughtful. He gazed aimlessly for a moment. "Aye, Gil." he said finally with strange pride in his voice. "Aye've been crank-calling yuir mom for years now trying to find you. Aye always hang-up when ever some picks up the phone. Aye've had my friends at that the bank holding that dollar in yuir account but you've never gotten it out. Aye almost spent it once or twice."

"So you don't know where Gil Williams is living?" Bert said dejectedly.

"Eh, no, aye..."

Now Bert reflected for a short time."Well," he said. "..even though he'll probably thank me for this.." He quickly pulled out his metre stick and proceeded to hack Jughead and Helga to bits with both disdain and relish, much born of his own annoyance. Rod Stewart continued to play in the background.

In the end, there were few words Jughead could utter as his epitaph, "Eh, pardon..eh, pardon.. eh.. pardon, aye, ach ....." This was all he managed.

"I will find you Gil..."

A few minutes later, Bert Nicholson's way finds him at the SuperCentre Mall, or more precisely, since it was his desired goal anyway, Gil Williams's former place of occupation, the popular restaurant called Harvies. Yet despite his intentions, upon entered the packed establishment, it inescapably comes to Bert's attention that he is hungry, having had little to eat or drink since the workers at the privatized mental home had stopped feeding him.

A strangely happy and utterly annoying cashier popped up from behind the counter. "Yes, how can we help you sir?" He said, then added. "Hey, you look very familiar. Don't I --?"

"No. I'll have a junior burger." He calmly recited. "Just ketchup, please. I hate onions."

"Will there be anything further?"

"No." Bert responded. He then moved to the side and waited as a posse of teenage smokers from nearby M.M. Robinson High pushed their way into the line-up. Under other circumstances, Bert might have killed them for their vile habits and poor manners, but not today. For now he was one a mission. Thus he restrained himself, even as their noxious fumes reeked havoc upon his allergies.

Bert saw some fifteen minutes pass without further service. He spied the high school students already well into their quarter chicken dinners; the fact that he was still awaiting his junior burger deeply angered him. At last however, another employee arrived to fill his meagre order.

The teenaged garnished hardly regarded him as he began to grasp at the various condiments assembled before him.

"Just Ketchup please." Bert repeated.

The employee ignored him and proceeded to pile lettuce, pickles, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, and finally two heaping spoonfuls of onions upon the junior burger. Smiling all the while, like it was all one big joke.

Bert would teach him.

"No onions damn you!" Bert yelled hysterically. "I said no fucking onions!!"

"Whoaaaa! Pipe down... geek." The manager smirked. "You expect good service, pay good money."

All the employees began laughing.

Laughing at him.

Upon the instant, Bert snapped. Just in an identical manner of his fatal B+ in OAC Geography that had cost him so dearly.

They were laughing at him then too.

Again, he whipped out the metre stick and proceeds to slaughter the occupants of Harvies. "Where is Gil Williams!?" he screamed. "I hate onions! Where is he!? Where! Why! Where! Argh--!!

"Hey geek--" uttered one none-too-brilliant patron. "Aren't you Gil's friend?"

Bert paused in his wholesale slaughtering, as he gazed silently. "..I used to be..."

And he remembered....

Bert returned to the present and a desolated Harvies. Everyone is dead.

Bert wipes a tear from his eye.

He knew that he should not dwell so upon the past. Gil was always that engineer of his pain, and very shortly, it was to be within his means to redress his grievances upon him. Bert briskly walked into the empty office at Harvies, and after much hurried searching, he discovered numerous files on Gil Williams, containing every pertinent bit of information about him Bert viewed a computer close by and smiled

"I'll make Gil come to me. Ha Ha!" he laughed, as he walked out of the Harvies graveyard.

The wind blew through his hair as Gil sped towards to his lavish Lakeshore apartment in his expensive sportscar with the top down. Such luxuries would certainly be beyond his means, were it not that these things were the result of his sale of all Bert's comics to Spewn creator Rod McFarland. Shortly after Gil had handed off his keys to his valet, he engaged his private elevator to take him to his floor. But upon his door, Gil spies an eviction notice taped to his knocker written on Sunny Hills Mental Home stationary.

Gil cried in shock. "Who the fuck could be responsible for this?"

A deep voice, attached to a large and foreboding body soon threw Gil Williams out of the apartment on his ear with the cry of, "Try paying our rent sometime asshole!"

Gil subsequently has his car repossessed, and finds himself left with $5 to his name. In desperation, he uses $2 of this to board a GO bus for his mother's home on Courtland, and his cat Tigger.

It is suddenly cold as Gil disembarks from his bus a good block away from his mother's apartment. After missing the elevator, he is considerably exhausted after a long climb of eight flights of stairs. He nearly collapses as he approaches his mother's door, but too his horror, he sees yet another paper attached to her door.

"Oh damn. Not again." Gil tears at the paper, and reads it slowly.

I'm out getting groceries. I'll be back soon. Oh yes, that nice fellow Bert was around looking for you.
(signed)
Gil's Mom.

As Gil enters the apartment, he is led into a false sense of security by the pleasant sound of his cat's greeting, "Meow!" Gil shuts the door behind him and only narrowly avoids being impaled by a jagged metre stick. He soon sees the cause of the near accident. Bert, miraculously alive is before him, and he had Tigger's fragile neck in his hand.

"Hey Avogadro, what the hell are you doing with my cat?"

"Tigger will die Gil." Bert taunted, his voice filled with laughter. "Just like Jughead killed Sparky. I'll make you feel pain before I finally kill you."

Bert holds the cat firmly and jumps through the adjacent window. In that self-same instant, Tigger bites into Bert, giving him a scar running the length of his face. He screams a barely human cry.

"Arghh! You fucking stupid cat!!" The sound trails off.

Gil regards the ground below. Save for some shards of broken glass and a few shreds of ripped clothing. Nothing remained of Bert or Tigger.

Little wind catches that maple leap flag hung outside of Lester B. Pearson High School. It is late in the evening, thus no classes are being conducted within its classrooms. There is no cleaning staff, after drastic cuts to the education system. Yet there is life in this building. A clandestine reunion of sorts, for assembled here are the survivors of the 1997 OAC World Issues course, one forever hallowed and despised in the memories of Shelia Christian, Grant Adams and Moore Mathieu. All that remained of a class of thirty.

They were called here scant hours ago, and told to meet in the room of Mr. Hentersun, where only weeks earlier, student Spencer Jones had been killed by the murderous substitute Mr. Stubbs (who was in actually Bert Nicholson). Gil Williams is the last to arrive.

"So Gil, just what was so important that you had to drag us all back here?" Shelia's voice speaks of weariness, and her hair is reflective of her frantic state. "I don't like this place."

"Yeah," added Moore. "I haven't been back here since that last day of high school, and I never wanted to come back."

"You mean after what we did no Sputni-- I mean Bert." Grant offered.

"Shuttup!!" Moore snorted. "We did what we had to. That pompous jerk deserved what he got. It's not like its our fault that he just snapped eight years ago. It's not our fault that they locked him away."

"And we certainly didn't privatize the mental home workers that beat the crap out of him."

"No, Shelia. We are not responsible at all." Gil said finally. "But Bert is alive and on the loose. We've got to stop him, and kill him!!

"But where is he?" Grant interjected.

"How can we ever find him?"

Gil smiled with abject certainty. "I have a feeling I know."

While Gil hurried planned, Bert had returned to his usual base of operations, the abandoned factory, and was himself occupied with setting up streamers attired with his party hat, while Chris DeBurgh played.

"'I'm not crying, not cryiiiiiing...'" mimicked Bert. "Hey Tigger, when do you think Gil will arrive?"

"Hissss!!" responded the cat.

"Well little Kitty," mused it's time to see whether you really do have nine lives, I'm setting up this timer and when it reaches zero. Well you can fill in the rest."

Bert walked away, laughing hysterically.

Bert soon stole a GO bus and proclaimed, "I'm going to the school!" which was soon followed by, "I will hit that rodent!"

Which was done.

"Look a hitchhiker, I'll hit him too."

Bert does this as well, delighting in the significantly louder scream of the hitchhiker.

He smiled. "Ah, finally. It's great to be back in business again."

Back in the classroom, Gil and his former classmates were deep into planning strategy against Bert. So deep was their concentration in fact, that the sound of Bert's forced entry into the school went virtually unheard.

Again, the loud ruckus of Bert breaking doors.

"Did anyone else hear anything?" asked Gil.

"Yeah, it must be that guy Bert." Grant replied.

As if upon cue, Bert bursts into the room.

"Hey Bert where's the Coke?" Gil and Grant uttered in unison, deeply perplexing their companions, while enraging Bert.

Bert flew at the gathering with astounding speed, and impaled Moore with the metre stick before he or his friends could act. Laughing, he once again began to hum his favourite song. The remainder of the gathering scrambled out of the room, and Gil just narrowly missed being pierced.

As his prey runs through the deserted school, Bert follows them, slowly walking.

The cafetorium was dark and rank smelling as Grant moved slowly through the room, hoping to reach the door. So consumed in reaching the door that he consciously ignored the errie rattling above him for as long as he was able. Soon it increased in pitch, and was followed by a voice.

"Hey, Hutch. Remember to clean your plate, or no desert for you!!" Bert yells as he causes dozens of trays, plates, knives and forks to rain down on Grant, impaling him unnumbered times.

"Yarghhhhh---!!!" Grant cried with finality.

Just for good measure, Bert smashed glasses down as well onto his former friend's broken frame.

Shelia quickly became separated from her companions, and soon found herself in the schools tech. wing. She walked down the hall, crying her friends' names to no avail. Without warning she found herself backed into a motionless human form upon the ground, surrounded by a pool of crimson liquid. She nearly tripped upon the fresh corpses of numerous students.

"Hey, Gil. This isn't funny. Quit it, huh?" she paused, absorbing the seemingly endless cascading of her echo in the dead silent hallway. "You aren't scaring me Gil. Just because there really is a homicidal psychopath wandering around, doesn't mean you can trick me!!"

Bert suddenly popped up in front of her, bloody metre stick in hand, "You're right, good job. You deserve a B+, even if I didn't!!!"

Stricken with panic, Shelia uttered, "We didn't mean for you to get that mark, just because we made Gil annoy-- oops!!"

"Whaaaat?! It's all your fault!!" Bert screamed. "That my run of straight As ended!! And I was just going to kill you because you were in my class!!" Despite the genuine hurt he felt, Bert still managed to laugh psychotically.

Shelia ran, and Bert followed close behind, deeking through the labyrinthine halls of Pearson High School. Finally, her effort led her to the kitchen of the school cafeteria. Bert failed to dodge Shelia as she connected with a violent kick to his jaw, but he slashed back, metre stick in hand. Shelia grasped a nearby ketchup bottle and smashed it over Bert's head. He abruptly fell down the caf steps.

Shelia, unwisely, ran and sought cover behind the serving area. Even trying her utmost to remain calm, she is nonetheless aghast to feel a sticky red dripping onto her forehead, and to look up to find the remains of Grant processed through the frozen yogurt maker.

"Ahhh!! Grant's bloody remains in the yogurt maker!!!

"At least we know what tomorrow's caf special will be." she quipped. Feeling safe.

The feeling is all too fleeting.

"I never eat the caf food," Bert stated. "It's bad for your health." With that, Bert yanks upon a fair portion of Shelia's frazzled hair and plunges her head into the deep fryer.

"Ahh!! My head's been stuck in the deep fryer!! Blaughhhhh -----!!!" she uttered redundantly.

Gil Williams, alone, and fearing for his companions safety, found his way to his English teacher Mr. Hentersun's office. He entered, at first hoping to locate something that might be used as a weapon against his adversary.

"Well, I should probably look for something I can use against Bert, but while I'm here I'm going to steal the answers to this week's test on Brave New World. After all, I've got to get out of high school soon, my gas station job is no longer fulfilling...."

In the midst of his search, Gil viewed the silhouette of a figure approaching the door. Gil had prepared to strike, when the figure was revealed by his flashlight to be junior by-law enforcer Jeb Craigton, and his partner Jason Telquist.

"Hey, Hey, Hey Gil," the power-mad officer said. "What the hell are you doing here? You're trespassing."

Gil hesitated slightly before revealing the truth to Craigton. "Listen man, there's this psychopath here. You remember Bert Nicholson, we tormented him back at Sauble Beach and at school..."

"Well, that's no excuse. Book him Jason."

Gil was agast. "You can't do this. He'll kill again if I don't stop him."

Telquist gave Gil a sharp shot to the ribcage, "Shut the hell up Williams. We know that you were also responsible for the death of Jughead Williams earlier today. We have a signed affidavit from one P. McCracken saying you intended to kill him."

Gil sighed with his defeat. "Fine. Have it your way. If Bert kills again, it's not my fault."

An hour later, Gil had found himself locked away in a containment cell awaiting his preliminary hearing on murder charges relating not only to the deaths of Jughead and Helga, but also those of Shelia, Grant, Moore, the hitchhiker and a small rodent. In some manner he was glad. He was locked away where Bert could not get him. He would not have to chase Bert anymore.

Officer Craigton soon returned to the cell and opened it, "Okay, Gil you're free to go."

"What? How's that?"

"There's no room." he replied frankly. "We have the choice of keeping a jaywalker or you. I stand by my decision. Bless Mike Harris for making our streets safer."

Gil then slugs officer Jeb, and steals his gun. Gil Williams, accused murderer walks out of the police station unnoticed by all. He settles himself upon a park bench to decide upon his next move.

"Hey Gil, you want a ride man?" a voice says.

G, Gil recognizes from school. He was one of Spencer's friends.

G's van is rancid smelling and Gil is utterly disgusted by it. Thus Gil accepts.

Inside G's van, Gil watching the Burlington scenery pass by. Shopping malls everywhere he notes. Or housing developments. Or more useless highways. And nary a tree to be found.

After a while, G breaks the deafening silence, " So you're still after him, right man?

"Huh?"

"Mr. Stubbs."

"How'd you know?" Gil asked, confused.

"I saw your agenda on the blackboard." G said matter-of-factly. "It said you'd be here at 10:00."

"Where will I be at 11:00?"

"Well, if I remember correctly man..... umm .... dead I think."

"I see."

G recounts vaguely encountering Gil's agenda earlier that day. However given his enormously short, TV induced attention span, he falls asleep while reading. He falls into the board, partially erasing the most important parts of the plan.

GIL'S AGENDA- Jan. 10
8:00 Go to school
9:00 Get arrested
10:00 Get out of jail, Go after Stubbs
11:00 Bert dead

Gil thought for a short while before responding to G's odd pronouncement, "Well, if I'm really fucking doomed like that damned script says I fucking shit am, then I'm going to take Bert out with me!! To the factory!!" Gil was not certain why he felt that so many profanities were need in a single sentence but used them all any way, and didn't question why.

"Why the factory?" G questioned.

"Shut up and drive." Gil said, filled with determination. "Bert is such a one-dimensional character. He's always there."

Bert, unfortunately, was elsewhere. The police station.

He entered the station, and soon saw Craigton at the front desk.

"Deja vu!! Don't I know you??" he asked insipidly.

"No--" Bert sighed. "Oh what the hell! Yes you do know me. I'm Bert Nicholson and I'm going to kill you."

Craigton smiled ruefully, "Do you remember Sauble Beach? You're such a nerd."

Bert happily killed Craigton without any further comment, and proceeded to hack a female officer to pieces as well. Satisfied that Gil had departed from the station, Bert was about to leave, until he was confronted by Officer Telquist who had entered a classic Kung Fu defensive stance.

Bert shrugged it off. "I don't believe in that fairy stuff."

For the next minute or so, Jason proceeded to kick, punch, chop and generally beat up Bert, but soon, after falling to the ground Bert grasped a stapler and fired it at Jason. While Jason was reeling, Bert located his metre stick, and impaled Jason as well.

"I am Bert." he said smugly. "I have killed you."

Scott Mathews was making his way home that evening from his job at the bottle cap factory, and instead of opting for public transit, he decided that he would hitchhike his way home. Bert in his bus spotted Scott near the curb of Upper Middle Road, and decides to hit him as well. After all he decided, people didn't really need a reason to kill people did they?

"Arghh!" Scott cried.

Gil and G burst into Bert's abandoned factory once again. Instantly, Gil has located his cat, and has liberated him. The counter reads 00:05:00, underscoring the fact that the novel is nearly over. Reluctantly, Gil hands Tigger over to G's grimy hands.

"Hey G-- go put my cat in the van." Gil said. "Don't worry its safe. I have the weapon, and Stubbs is out there. It's safe."

More than slightly apprehensive at the bequest, G scoops up the felius and makes a hasty retreat, "Okay. C'mon cat..."

Absolute silence reigns for a long while after G and Tigger had left. Gil, for his part, strangely yearns for his final confrontation with Bert. After a short while longer, the factory doors burst open, and in the distance, some sort of climatic music starts to play.

"Bert!!"

"Gil!!"

The two combatants, evenly matched, once more begin to grapple with each other. Gil knocks Bert's metre stick away. Their battle was too fierce for words, neither opponent gave quarter to the other, and neither received. And yet, as they fought. The insane rage of Bert rose like a crushing tsunami wave; soon Bert had a definite upper hand.

Bert struck Gil hard. He collapsed to the floor as if no longer able to support the bulk of his frame. Bert stabbed at the body, then danced around it. he should not have stopped, save for the fact that he noted the timer.

It read 00:00:15.

Bert makes a hasty retreat, leaving Gil's unconscious body behind.

He just escapes the bomb blast that ravages the ancient structure of the Acme Chemicals Company Warehouse.

"I get an A+ for effort!" Bert screams ecstatically. "Yeah A+, A+, A+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So utter is Bert's joy of victory that he does not hear the sound of G's van's engine start. Nor does Bert hear it drive towards.

Bert finally screams as he is cut down and toppled by the massive vehicle. Bert dies. Right?