I’m standing in darkness and the voice of God is screaming at me, “Who are you people!? Who are you people!? Who let you in!?” And I’m trying to understand why God is saying this, why he would scream such horrible words at me. Expectations versus reality and in the immortal darkness of that tiny room, all that came to me filled my head while I closed my eyes and wished for it to end. I clenched my eyes shut and stars were born in my head. It was possible to see the stars if you just squeeze your eyelids tight enough.
I can barely see but suddenly a light turns on and God screams, “Choke on poison, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“God,” I said, “You have to mix the ammonia and the bleach together to create a poisonous gas. They won’t just react sitting next to each other.” The light shining in the room revealed an old mop bucket filled with bleach and a bucket of ammonia by its side.
“Chemical Warfare!” God cried, and he hung up his microphone.
Darkness continued fighting me every step of the way and even though there was light, I moved closer to the buckets in awkward, shambling steps. I assumed there must be a doorway somewhere–at least aside from the front door–and found myself standing in the darkness, and then walking into the light, and then walking to the far side of the dark again with my hands out like a big, dumb baby.
Finally, I hit a door knob with my hand and ran my shoulder into it. It was locked. I tried ramming it again, and found it somehow was even more locked. I knew that couldn’t be true, but I continued ramming my shoulder into it until my body was worn out. Standing back, I thought about in what ways I could ram a door down with a mop filled with bleach and a bucket of chlorine, but nothing came to mind.
The door clicked, suddenly, and I heard padded feet run away from the door.
“Come and get me, ya bastard!” Hertz yelled.
I sighed. The element of surprise was lost, and I decided I was going to have to kill the poor eccentric. I pulled the blackjack out of my pocket (one of Zee’s underseat surprises), and walked through the door with utmost confidence. Dr. Samuel Hertz’s living room lay in complete darkness. The shock of breaking a window to get in and being reduced to a lightless tomb was enough to make me sure I was dead and speaking to the disembodied voice of The Trinity. In reality, it was Dr. Samuel Hertz over a microphone, screaming and wearing hazmat suit I assumed, and watching me with a video camera from a safe room.
The eccentric proved to be strange.
Zee told me to find a way to break in that wouldn’t draw attention. Apparently my creativity has seen better days, as I ran right for Dr. Hertz’s window and lobbed myself through.
Now, standing in the darkness, holding a weapon in my hand, I looked for the weirdo in the darkness. Suddenly, I thought of the film Silence of the Lambs and realized he had the drop on me. I felt a hand grab me and he flung me as hard and as far as he could. I did a terrific front flip and landed on a hardwood coffee table. I definitely landed on a glass ashtray that was filled with candy.
“Dr. Hertz, it’s Neil Forbes,” I said.
His response was a full-throated, “Arghhhhh,” as he pulled me upright and flung me again. He was much stronger than I had anticipated. I crashed into his fireplace and bent the grill, impaling my back with a poker. While in pain, I reached back and pulled it out in front of me and gave it a swing. Sure as sure can be, Hertz caught it and wrenched it from my hand before bending my arm the wrong way and judo tossing me up and over again. This time I hit the couch and bounced up. I landed on my feet and we both stared at each other. As I laughed at the stupidity of it, Hertz gave a perfectly placed 90-degree sidekick that sent me flying onto the hardwood between the kitchen and the living room.
Bleeding, I was hurt pretty bad.
Dr. Hertz walked over to me meaning to stomp on my neck. I’m not sure how I knew, but I just figured it was going to happen. As he got close, I took that blackjack and hit him as hard as I could across his knee and he bent down to grab the sore spot out of reflex and I brought that bad boy up which crunched his nose in a spectacular way and blew blood all across his face. He toppled backward and I jumped up, desperate to do him in, but sympathetic that he was only wearing his underpants and a pair of slippers.
I stood over him and he seemed to whimper. I hesitated. He swung his legs to the side with amazing speed and I jumped into the air, lucky enough to miss his leg sweep. I fell perfectly back to the floor, and we were both shocked at my dexterity. This time we both laughed. Then we stopped and there was dull silence. Him there with a bloody nose and me above him with … too many cuts and bruises to count.
“Wait, you’re Neil Forbes? The guy who wrote Strike Out Number One? Why the hell did you break into my house?”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt kind of sad. I didn’t really want to kill him. I guess it probably never would have come to that; but, I couldn’t help but feel the despondency of attempted murder. Dr. Hertz’s reaction wasn’t as explosive as I thought it was going to be, so I kind of just stood there awkwardly.
“That was quite a fight you put up,” Dr. Hertz said. “Let me get some clothes, and maybe we can clean this right up.”
