“I have tickets for the Mets tonight. Great seats for probably a terrible game. I'll be by at five.”

—Ken Cosgrove, Sterling Cooper, 1962

Yeah, it was pretty terrible at Shea Monday night. Lifetime game 409, regular and postseason combined, might have a hard time cracking my personal top 400 had August 2002 never occurred. Enduring Marquis' grand slam, the festival of futile relievers, wave upon wave of Cubbiephile inanity, the standing/sitting/standing/sitting Mets fan in front of me who bumped his head into mine as I bent down to retrieve my radio to monitor Beltran's well-being (ouch for all of us) and, yes, the Amazin' Luis Castillo — he's actually batting .249, or 249 points higher than I would have guessed — mixed to make the remainder of my planned septupleheader at Shea look about as sure a thing resultswise as AIG.

Speaking of which, Endy's fence has changed for the last week, and I don't think it was voluntary. Since October 19, 2006, we've all recognized the AIG slogan as iconic even if many of us didn't know anything else about the company until last week. Well, given that they needed a government bailout to avoid utter calamity, I suppose it wasn't surprising that when I peeked at left field as the first inning began, I noticed an alteration to the adscape. There are now two AIG logos where there was only one. The second one replaced the previously emblazoned, now inoperative motto:

THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE

One supposes that with all their other problems, AIG didn't need to be brought up on charges of untruth in advertising. (I wonder if the Feds will repossess our Endy bobbleheads.)

The Mets are still running first for the Wild Card. Do they have the strength to be there? Only because they are one length ahead of the Brewers, you'd have to say technically, yeah. You'd also have to ponder if the Brewers could possibly be any worse than they've already been of late, because we are going to need them to drown in their own suds if Monday's and Sunday's and Saturday's games are leading indicators of the Mets' abilities to avoid choking on their own final six-pack.

The National League has been mostly about streaks in 2008. There was a time when the Diamondbacks looked unbeatable. There was a time when the Dodgers looked as if they'd buried the Diamondbacks. Suddenly Arizona trails Los Angeles by only two games. The Phillies were 3½ behind us less than two weeks ago. We're 2½ behind them now. Neither the Mets nor Phillies figured as Wild Card possibilities in late August because there was no way Milwaukee could be caught. Now Milwaukee is trying to catch us. The Cubs have been the only block of granite in the N.L. this year — and, hey, what a great time to invite them over for a four-game set.

This could all be very bad news for the Mets or it could all be slightly less terrible than it looks now…which is about as optimistic as I'm willing to get after Monday night. Beltran lived, Johan's going and New York owes Chicago one where the date 9/23/08 is concerned. Clearly, signing Luis Castillo to a four-year deal should go down as Minaya's Boner, but we need to get past that. Just as the jobbed Giants hung in there a hundred years ago, the Mets will keep playing and all of us who bought tickets to every inch of Shea Stadium's final week will find, somehow, the strength to be there.

I've had the good fortune to be on hand for a remarkable run of classic games at Shea Stadium — I was in green or red seats for the Grand Slam single, for the 10-run inning, for Agbayani's home run, for Bobby Jones's one-hitter, for the NLCS clincher in '00, for the first home game after 9/11, for Pratt hitting one over the fence.

I've also been to some horrible, gut-wrenching nightmares at Shea. I saw Brian Jordan kill our unlikely 2001 pennant drive, saw Glavine beat Leiter by a 1-0 score in the playoffs, and I've seen Yankee fans woofing and displaying the Vertical Swastika more times than I care to count. Heck, just eight days ago I watched Greg Norton take Luis Ayala deep. But considering the circumstances, I may not ever have seen a game more grindingly awful than the opener of this, the last-ever regular-season Shea homestand. (And the jury's out on whether we'll need that second qualifier.)

First of all, every Cub fan in the New York area was apparently in attendance. That's fine. In fact, good for them: Tonight's game was a decent mathematical bet to be their clincher, and while the Cub faithful missed that, they had a chance to cheer on their victorious team and dream about what might come in October. But not blaming them isn't the same as wanting them there. And they were everywhere, on all sides of me and Greg, whooping for each Cub and waving at each other and taking celebratory pictures and yammering about Northwestern and the Illini while we downtrodden Met fans struggled to breathe with September cinderblocks on our chests. It was seriously just a few notches below a Subway Series game in terms of the percentage of enemy fans.

Oh yeah, and then there was the game, with Jon Niese unfortunately unable to locate his pitches and Luis Castillo unfortunately able to locate his bat. Niese's youth gets him a pass, but why does Jerry Manuel continue to let Castillo near a baseball field? He may actually be the worst position player in the major leagues — a player so stupendously useless that he deserves a plaque in some kind of Anti-Hall of Fame, a Bizarro World Cooperstown in which embarrassed baseball officials pay you to numbly view exhibits about how a beautiful sport can be played so lifelessly. Castillo has little speed left and subpar range, but his skills in the field and on the basepaths shine compared to what he can do at the plate. This is a man closing in on 6,000 major-league at-bats and 20 sacrifice flies, and tonight was a showcase for his unique talents: In the third, with a runner on third and one out, he only escaped grounding into a double play because he tapped the ball so feebly. In the sixth, with runners on first and second and none out, he put enough wood behind a grounder to earn his GIDP, short-circuiting a Met rally. And he really shone in the ninth as the Mets' last hope, looking at two strikes from Kerry Wood and then offering the vaguest of waves at strike three, like a hospice patient shooing a fly. I'd already shredded my throat booing Luis, but I managed to croak in agony at Manuel in the ninth, pleading brokenly for him to send anybody else up to the plate. And I do mean anybody: The list of people I'd rather have seen begins with Argenis Reyes (who isn't any better and might actually be worse, but at least creates outs with some enthusiasm), includes all the Met pitchers, then expands to include Greg, myself, and the option of picking a member of the Pepsi Party Patrol at random and sending him or her up to the plate blindfolded with a rolled-up t-shirt for a bat.

Best of all? Luis Castillo is Met property for 1,102 more days. Thank you, Omar Minaya.

For much of the middle innings Greg and I could barely speak — we sat slumped in our chairs, watching terrible things happen on the field and the scoreboard. Wow, Aramis Ramirez almost hit one out. Look, the Braves are lifting their skirts for the Phillies again. Jeez, can't the Red Sox at least eliminate the Yankees? Nope, we couldn't even seek refuge in Schadenfreude. I would occasionally grunt or mutter a curse; now and then Greg would mumble unhappily or emit a low moan of vague torment.

There are six games left at Shea, and the Mets somehow still are in the lead for a playoff spot. But my goodness, it feels like there are 60 to go and the team's so hopelessly out of it that it's already held the fire sale. Despite what the papers tell you, this isn't a collapse, just a desperately flawed team trying to limp across the finish line with a suspect rotation and a truly ghastly bullpen. (After he was taken out, Luis Ayala trudged off the mound not to boos but to the ambient noise of utter indifference.) There's no shame in this September swoon — the Mets redeemed a dreadful year that looked lost with a summer revival. But that was a while ago now. I can imagine them bellyflopping into the playoffs ahead of the equally suspect, just as psychologically shot Brewers. (And then who knows?) But I find it easier — a lot easier — to imagine them coming up short again.

It won't hurt like last year did — with any luck, nothing in Met fandom will hurt quite like that for years and years. But it sure won't be much fun.

If you'd like to emulate a ball hit by Carlos Delgado and land over the fence at Shea Stadium, Matt Silverman's got your final chance. The co-author of Mets By The Numbers and author of 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die has organized a get-together of Mets fans in the Picnic Area for this Wednesday's evening's game against the Cubs. Its one final chance to see a game from where relatively few ever get to see one. Buffet and nonalcoholic beverages are included. A handful of tickets remain for this unique vantage point to one of the last games in Shea Stadium history, to say nothing of one of this season's most crucial. Plus I'll be there, but don't let that stop you. Ticket price is $70, which covers the game, all you can eat, all you can drink (beer is extra), the Picnic Area experience (heartily endorsed here) and a serious helping of committed, devoted Mets fans.

For more information, check out Met Silverman and, like the Mets this week, act now. E-mail Matt with any and all questions.

As late afternoon became early evening Sunday, I was bucking myself up for the challenge ahead, both the Mets' and mine. Theirs is the one that matters, winning enough games without losing so that they return to the playoffs and try to win a world championship. Mine is simply to show up and try not to be an impediment to their success.

Wow was it familiar. It's just about what I was doing at this time a year ago. A year ago there was some slight relief (pun not intended, though it should have been) with the Mets winning three straight in Miami. It didn't fool many of us who were fast gaining our degrees in collapsology. Trouble was surely lurking and it hopped right out from behind the bushes the second the Mets' charter landed at LaGuardia for their final seven games. Me, I rendezvoused with the team for the final five, four of which were abysmal and we know how that ended.

So here I am and here we are and, a few key differentiating details aside, it's basically the same thing all over again. Sunday was fifty-one weeks since the worst day in the history of Shea Stadium settled in our hair and rushed up our nostrils. We went through all of that anguish and all of that angst and all of our recovery efforts and all the rationalization we could muster just so we could get right back where we started from: trying to make the playoffs, trying to not miss the playoffs, trying our darndest to be there as much and as best we can.

What's that saying about doing the same thing, expecting different results and the definition of insanity? Never mind that now. It's too late. It's been too late as long as I can remember. If I could just slip the bonds of fanhood without a second thought, don't you think I would have long ago? No, this is the life I, like you, have chosen. I have chosen a life that inflicted upon me insane amounts of unhappiness fifty-one weeks ago and I've gone through every motion possible just to arrive back at potentially the exact same precipice.

Except this time I'm determined to go the final seven games of the year, not just five (having already been to the previous eight which, virally speaking, literally sickened me). And if things go as wrong as they possibly can, it will turn a sweet-sorrow parting into the most bitter ballpark funeral I can imagine.

Hence, I'd appreciate it from my friends in Mets uniforms if they could build leads and hold them this week, if they could find a way to win far more than they lose and for their counterparts in management to not make me sorry I've been looking so forward for so long to so much.

Is it really so much to ask for?

As for the ancillary issues connected to the final seven regular-season lines of The Log:

1 win in the next 4 games clinches a winning record against the Cubs. (Current: 10-7)

2 wins in the final 3 games clinch a winning record against the Marlins. (Current: 16-16)

3 wins over the Marlins would make them the second-most oft-beaten opponent in Log history. (Braves: 20)

2 losses to the Marlins (shudder) would mean a losing record against every current divisional opponent. (Braves: 20-23; Phillies: 18-21; Nationals: 6-8)

4 wins are needed for the most in one season. (2001: 23)

6 wins in the final 7 games would put the final Log record at 40 above .500. (Currently: +35; Highest previously: +38 on 6/21/02 and 7/26/02)

2 Santana starts and 1 Pelfrey start would put 10 in The Log for 2008 for each of them, tying for the most by any one starter in any one year. (Leiter in 2001)

2 more games attended will bring the 2008 total to an all-time high of 39. (2001: 38)

4 more games attended will mean I've attended a majority of the home schedule in 2008.

5 more games attended will bring The Log's regular season total to 400 lifetime.

4 games attended against the Cubs will signify the only complete four-game series ever attended.

2 wins will clinch a .500 season. The Mets need more than that for their own survival, but if I were to finish 22-22, it would be quite familiar. My record was .500 in '83, '84, '86, '91, '92, '94, '95, '96, '03 and '04.

A win Friday would snap a Friday losing streak of five consecutive games dating back to 9/14/07, the first night of The Collapse. Friday is the only day of the week without a win recorded in The Log in 2008.

If I don't focus on the minutiae, the big picture might strangle me alive.

It occurs to me that with the last two losses in Atlanta, our record fell to 86-69, which was either intentional so as to inspire great championship luck or a subliminal way to sell remaining $869 seat inventory.

It's that time of year when baseball moves to the head of the line, shoving aside personal commitments and anything job-related that isn't truly extraordinary. (I've got one of those next week, which is hard to do when you don't actually have a job.) Eight games to go, every one of them freighted with potentially enormous significance. Are we in first place? Second? Is the margin small enough that the one could become the other again tonight? Did Coolstandings just add or subtract 30-odd percent to or from our postseason chances? What did the Brewers do? Are the Marlins close enough to worry about yet? What's our magic number, anyway? What's our other magic number? OK, what's their magic number?

Last night was the final regular-season Saturday-night game to come at the same time as our regular Saturday-night babysitter, so Emily and I didn't even discuss what the plan was — we didn't need to. We decided to walk over the bridge and go to Mark Joseph Steakhouse, where back in July we'd found good eats, bar seats right by the TV and a companionable bartender whose public loyalties were whatever his customers espoused (only sensible) but whose semi-private loyalties were orange and blue. Second verse, same as the first — we even got our same seats, and Jared remembered us and tended to our food-and-drink needs and our worries over Pedro, the bullpen and the lineup with equal aplomb.

The only problem? Well, as with last time, it was that pesky score. 3-0 when we arrived a bit late, prompting a round of Pedro-related angst. Greg's covered the gist of that, and at Mark Joseph we traced much the same trajectory, from melancholy declarations that it's Jon Niese's turn (and discussions of whether Brandon Knight would be a better choice) to stubborn urging to slow hope to jubilation over Pedro's Mister Koo-like double to grumbling over the blown call at second. The saving grace was that it was largely a private war — a White Sox fan would stop by for updates on his own postseason quest, but other than that the bar was Mets country. The ultimate proof of that? In the middle innings the inevitable Yankee fan made an unasked-for appearance, woofing his support for the Braves. That ruffled not a feather on any of the rest of us — if anything, it brought mild, amused disbelief. You're a Yankee fan rooting against the Mets in enemy-of-my-enemy fashion? Has your season really dwindled to notions of such little consequence? Oh, that's right — it has. The unwelcome noise went quiet and then went away entirely, as the Yankees themselves soon will.

The Mets are trying to avoid the same fate, and so what they did against the Braves mattered quite a bit, and ended poorly, with Nick Evans striking out as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Before that, seeing our bartender friend and the dour score, Emily joked that we'd been a bit worried about coming, given what happened last time. Which prompted Jared to smile but also to raise an eyebrow — perhaps thinking that his record is pretty damn good, except when these two idiots from Brooklyn plop down at his bar.

“You should come when Santana's pitching,” he said.

Addendum: A friend of Faith and Fear is looking to sell tickets for Tuesday's and Thursday's games. Two for each game, field boxes (117F), $59 each. Can be fetched in Brooklyn or Times Square. If you're interested, drop us a line and we'll broker a meeting. First come first served and all that.

The occasional Quadruple-A desperation callup notwithstanding, no Met starter is more difficult to watch than Pedro Martinez. That's less a reflection of his mediocre output in 2008 than it is how much emotion he elicits from me every time I see him.

His first innings have been killers. If Pelfrey or Ollie were having them, you'd figure it was just one of those nights and the guy would have to work out of it. If it were Johan, you'd adjust your set because not since the weirdo Seattle game with the Felix Hernandez grand slam has he had any significant early problems of which to speak. If it were Maine, you'd be thrilled he was back. But it's been Pedro stepping on the mound and stepping into trouble as almost a matter of course this season. And it breaks my heart every time out.

It breaks my heart because it no longer surprises me that Pedro's in deep almost immediately, if not sooner. Saturday night's three-run first in Atlanta was numbingly normal for he who was an ace among aces for most of his career, some of it here. Other pitchers have bad first innings and I worry about the game. Pedro has a bad first inning and I worry about the game, the rotation, the season, his career and the common mortality we are all leasing on this planet.

What makes his lousy first innings (21 runs in 19 starts with a .361 batting average against) and his generally dissatisfactory outings particularly painful is that I can see him knowing what's not working. He's too smart for his own good. All pitchers, I suppose, are more clued in than we would guess. They all have an idea of what they want to do but they just can't do it sometimes. Pedro can outthink any batter. He just can't outpitch that many anymore. It's tough to absorb. It doesn't necessarily all go to hell on him at once either. He struggles and he struggles and there's always one too many batters in an inning. By the time he solves in practice what he's figured out in theory, it's 3-0 in the first.

Then, sometimes, somehow he turns it on. Not vintage Pedro, but close enough for 2008. Pedro can keep you in the game. Not as a rule, but he did Saturday. When Jerry sent him up to bat for himself in the fifth, I was a little surprised and moderately annoyed. First and second, two out, no offensive prospects otherwise, and we're not taking our best shot? Then again, one more inning of a settled-in Pedro versus the mysteries of the Met bullpen after a roll of the dice on Marlon Anderson? Either way, I wasn't thrilled. Then Pedro swings and belts a double that scores two runs — even Schneider from first.

Pedro's two-bagger was one of those moments, albeit writ small, along the lines of the Endy catch when you can't believe the Mets won't somehow grab the unlikely momentum onto which they've latched and turn it into something great. Pedro goes out and fuels your hope even more by snagging an Omar Infante liner and turning it into a DP. Damn the Mets for continuing to not touch Campillo. Damn Bill Hohn for a horrible, lazy, out-of-position blown call on what should have been a caught stealing on Brandon Jones in the bottom of the sixth, thereby setting up a Brave insurance run. (Granted, Gary Darling helped the Mets earlier with an out at first they didn't quite deserve, but C.B. Bucknor called out a clearly safe Jorge Cantu in Miami at home; when did Major League umpires turn into the kind of useless bystanders who populate the Shea Stadium Ushers Union?)

There were collateral benefits to Pedro's losing start. By going six after that typically dismal first, he didn't tax the bullpen, admirably effective in its two innings of fort-holding. By throwing 116 pitches, he reminds you that he is, unlike too many on this club, healthy. By not crumbling after Josh Anderson's RBI single made it 4-2 and retiring the dangerous Martin Prado, he left on a modest high note. And by answering everybody thoughtfully and honestly afterwards, he was a professional. Use me any way you want, he said: I'll pitch middle relief, I just want to help this team win. Pedro clearly wasn't kidding himself, so he didn't try to kid anybody else that everything's fine.

It's not. But it's not all for naught, I don't think. Watching the first, on the heels of his last start in Washington and the one before that against Philly, I was bouncing him from Thursday's turn. It's not my decision to make, but now I'd put him out there again. The entire season could be on the line. Unless you've got the Pedro Martinez of nine or six or three years ago warming up under the stands, I don't see any better options.

You know when I had an inkling the Mets might be all right? When I saw a matter-of-fact reference in a wire-service story somewhere the other day to the “fading” New York Mets. It brought me back to the third week of the 1986 season when I saw the exact same descriptor used for a team that had started 2-3 and wasn't yet on a tear.

Fading? The Mets at their lowest point lately had lost three in a row, four out of five. They had sunk a half-game out of first place, plummeting all the way into the Wild Card lead. It wasn't a positive trend, but it didn't remove them from the picture.

All of us together panicking about precedent and doom? That's fine. We're fans. Objective accounts adjusting the exposure on the Mets' image so we can't see they were still perfectly viable with a dozen games remaining? That was the overreaction.

It's three full days later and the Mets are in first place again. The unbeatable Phillies did lose a game. The Mets have won three in a row. Milwaukee…they've got problems. Florida…they've got clock issues (though that shouldn't stop them from enjoying a big ol' last hurrah today and tomorrow before checking out next weekend). Most importantly, the Mets are clutching their fate in their own two hands, steadyish or not. It wasn't the prettiest of wins in Atlanta Friday night, but all we need to know is it was a win, nobody got hurt as far as we could tell, the bullpen was more help than hindrance and Daniel Murphy is alive, well and hitting.

Lots more baseball to go. A fade is just an out-of-date hairstyle.

These days, it counts as a minor miracle when our bullpen only allows five baserunners in two innings, as happened tonight with Joe Smith, Scott Schoeneweis and Pedro Feliciano backing up Johan Santana, who maintained his dignity even when Kevin Burkhardt asked if he could watch once he came out of the game. (I would have forked over a fair amount of money to hear him say something like “Well Kevin, I'll tell you what I'm going to do — I'm going to stand next to the relievers' lockers with a pair of hedge clippers, a lighter and a gas can, and if they blow this one, we'll see how they like flying to Atlanta with nothing to wear but still-smoking rags.”) No closer? That's the least of our problems — plenty of nights we don't have a reliever who can reliably get anybody out at all.

On Wednesday night at Nats Park my friend Cooper was agitating to get going when Aaron Heilman entered a 9-5 game. He considered that safe; I stared at him in dismay. “This,” I told him, “is the equivalent of the point in the slasher movie where the co-ed realizes they forgot the puppy AND GOES BACK IN THE HOUSE.” Sure enough, Heilman promptly gave up a ringing double and a sharp single, leaving me to bay at our distant, dismal reliever in drunken fury while Cooper stared at me in disbelief. Was I a prophet? Nope, just a Met fan.

It's a useful comparison, though — if you want to properly prepare yourself for the late innings of a 2008 Met game, cue up some wretched early-1980s slasher movies, the ones starring nubile co-eds in their underwear at night and the dullard cops sent to rescue them, with the whole crew picked off one by one by a masked killer with something extremely sharp in one gloved hand. The rhythms and themes are pretty much the same: That first hitter to reach against that first bad Met reliever is the rustle of leaves somewhere in the woods behind the laughing girl drinking beer at the campfire, a sound barely noticed and quickly dismissed by everybody except the agitated audience. And so it goes until REEEEEE!!!!! REEEEEE!!!!!! REEEEEEE!!!!! THE TYING RUN IS ON THIRD AND IT'S A 2-0 COUNT!!!! AND THE BLOODY KNIFE IS FILLING THE SCREEN!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Will at least one co-ed stagger off to safety? Or is this one of those nihilistic movies where the killer winds up triumphant? Let's meet our cast:

Carlos Muniz — Didn't really have any lines, killed off before anybody was on their guard. When the credits roll, sole identification will be under the group heading OTHER SORORITY SISTERS. (See also: Jorge Sosa, Matt Wise, Tony Armas Jr.)

Eddie Kunz — Hot pledge with just a couple of scenes, struck down in some particularly cruel, messily ironic way that's played for laughs. And we thought that one had potential.

Bobby Parnell — Has somehow made it to the final reel despite having had only one line and never being identified by name. If you've seen any of the other movies in this series, you already know this won't end well.

Duaner Sanchez — Ever notice how slasher movies are motivated by a pitiless medieval morality? How the girls who do drugs, get drunk, or have sex are fated to vanish in a river of blood, with the virtuous wallflower the only one who'll limp her way to the sequel? Well, Duaner's the slutty blonde who was mean to the girls who were scared to smoke pot, and then wobbled off early for a shower. OH GOD, A MACHETE!!! I totally saw that one coming, you guys.

Scott Schoeneweis — Has some brains, gives you hope by knowing enough not to get stoned in the woods or to sneak off and make out with the hot counselor from the camp across the lake. But inevitably slips in the wet grass and then scrabbles helplessly in a vain effort to get up as the escaped lunatic fires up the chainsaw. Oogh. That was gross.

Al Reyes — Cut from the movie. I hear the ironic death scene will be on the DVD.

Ricardo Rincon — Not a co-ed (would you want to see a co-ed who looked like Rincon?), but the veteran cop who appears to have restored order. (Often played by Joe Don Baker or one of those nameless, ubiquitous character actors.) Currently walking confidently over to open the closet doors to show the terrified girls that everything is fine now. But the old guy is never the male lead, so — OH MY GOD! DID YOU SEE THAT? THE CHAINSAW CAME RIGHT THROUGH THE LOUVERS!!!!

Aaron Heilman — Will this particularly hapless co-ed be decapitated by a windowpane? Hanged from a showerhead? Run into the clothesline and wind up in pieces in the old well? Judging from the way it's been going, it could be all three.

Pedro Feliciano — Wow, with a pitchfork? Ehhh. That one was too klutzy to put much faith in anyway.

Billy Wagner — The chaperone whose unexpected ambush made you think that jeez, maybe none of these girls will get out of the house alive.

Joe Smith — Such courage! Such spunk! Such basic decency! OH NO! THE MENTALLY DISTURBED LITTLE BROTHER IS LEFT-HANDED!!!!!

Brian Stokes — The handsome young police officer who took that staticky yell for help seriously, drove out to the lake, coolly fired a slug from his .38 right through the hockey mask and then even found a blanket to wrap around the shivering survivor. And now he's comforting her — everything is going to be fine! BUT WAIT! SOMETHING IS MOVING BEHIND HIM! AND HE DOESN'T KNOW!! OFFICER STOKES!!!! TURN AROUND!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!

Luis Ayala — Escaped the ax by leaping through the upstairs window. Now hopping on one good leg down the driveway. But wait! There's the killer, shambling slowly but relentlessly in pursuit! HE'S STILL ALIVE! AND HE'S GAINING!!!

Oh my God you guys, I'm so freaked out. I can't look anymore, not even through my fingers. Somebody tell me how it ends.