096- Present Tense -2

Tired of the everyday routine, ever dream of a life of romantic adventure, want to get away from it all? We offer you escape! Escape, designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.

Tonight, we escape into the mind of a man who has been sentenced to die. A man who attempts to refuse the bitter fate society has imposed upon him. As James Poe tells it in his seething tale of violent death, present tense, starring Vincent Price.

Through the dim pain the cold dark land wields away, and the hills beyond below the stars of black and sharp, dead hills, dark sky.

Cold steel below my feet, cold as the face of the officer at my side, cold as the cuffs which link my arm to his, which join us on this journey to the prison, where I die.

Want a cigarette? No. Come on, take one. No, I don't use them. Oh. Has this happened to you before? What? Being handcuffed to a murderer. Has it happened to you before? Sure, plenty time. To an axe murderer?

Yeah, there's nothing special, brother. That's a guy's axe there. Well, I've lots of them. I could have escaped after it happened, but I didn't. Now it's too late. Late. Late ever too late. Never too late.

Too late. Escape. Escape. If the train were to be wrecked, if the detective were to be killed, late, late, the sweet escape, the light escape, the crash escape. The darkness, where am I? The cars must have gone down the kully, no lights and those people in pain.

This thing fastened to my wrist, went halfway through the glass of the door. Keep back, keep back from his blood. I don't seem to be hurt. No broken bones. The snake. Now the key in his pocket, his bloody pocket, and the cups are off.