Samson: Judge of New York

SAMSON: JUDGE OF NEW YORK

("Screenplay" for a Comic that Never Saw the Light of Day)

Concept/Characters/Art by Jesus Marquez

Written/Characters by derrick Stahl

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     Shot of Gerry’s church, like the last remaining beacon of hope in a dying world. It’s sitting by itself in a beautiful lot, surrounded by grass with a little parking lot nearby. The double doors on the front invite you to enter the peace that it promises. A stone wall can be seen off in the distance, at the rear of the church’s property.

     The camera starts to move around the church, showing a small marquee sign by a quiet little street. “JESUS SAVES YOU MORE THAN CLIPPING COUPONS.” Most of the letters seem “off.” A few of the E’s are backward 3’s, there are 0’s standing in for O’s, and the multiple letters seem to be taken from a couple different fonts, as if the Gerry had to mix and match his “leftovers” just to spell something. The sign’s message hasn’t been changed for a while, allowing the wind to tilt a few of the letters. It’s still readable, though, and that’s good enough for James, Gerry’s son who’s in charge of the sign.

     And then the peace comes to a sudden halt, like the giant foot from Monty Python smashing down on a happy, singing canary. Static breaks through the air, and a woman’s voice soon follows. “This news just in … it seems as if the­--” A quiet moment; she’s holding back a sob. “I’m sorry, ladies and gen--this is just too terrible.” Calms herself. “It seems,” she repeats, “the virus we have been discussing all morning has finally broken free. I’m getting reports that all of New York city has been labeled as a quarantine zone.”

     And the church still stands, unchanged by the troubling news that’s floating through the airwaves. The back of someone’s head appears on the screen; they’re moving toward the church. You soon see that it’s a small group, made up of four people: Gerry, Pierre, Kizzie, and Anderson.

     “It’s just around the corner, everyone,” Gerry says, panicked and sweaty. For the time being he is leading this small ragtag band, momentarily taking the job away from Pierre. The group comes to a stone wall that’s positioned at the back of the church’s lot. A large iron gate, two doors rounded at the top, blocks their path. It’s rusted and looks impossible to open. Gerry’s eyes go wide. How could he have forgotten about the gate! “I’m sorry,” he stumbles. “I forgot this thing was closed last summer.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the path they had just traveled. He starts to look around at the group, fearing what he has to tell them next. “It’s pretty far to get around--”

     “I don’t think we have that much time,” Pierre butts in. He glances back into the woods behind them. “Those … those things were right on our tail.”

     Anderson makes his way to the front of the group, politely pushing past his friends to make room for his great size. “You’ve gotten us this far, Reverend,” he said, sizing up the gate. He grabs one of the doors at the seam, straining with all of his might to swing it open. “Shepherds can’t worry about little things like a gate,” he says through clenched teeth. His face is red, and veins stand out as he exerts all of his strength.

     “And it’s such a shock the door wasn’t already opened for God-boy,” Kizzie sneers, obviously scared, continually looking behind her back. She’s cradling her left hand, blood staining her shirt. “If God’s looking out for us like you said, wouldn’t He have put a little oil on the--”

     The gate scrapes open just enough for everyone to squeeze through. Anderson bends over, panting and rubbing his sore hands. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his red palms.

     Pierre returns to his rightful role. Stepping up, he places one hand on the opened gate, and waves everyone through with the other. “Come on, quick now.” He looks at each individual as they slip through the gate one-by-one. He looks back toward the woods. “I don’t think we’ll be safe for long. Let’s go,” continuing to wave everyone through … as if they had anywhere else to go.

     Anderson sucks it in, barely fitting his barreled chest through the opening. A small, square item in his breast pocket gets snagged by the door. With a grunt, that I’m sure Anderson would have rather been a curse, he reaches into his pocket and  pulls out a Zippo-like lighter. With the lighter in hand, he finishes squeezing through the gap. Surely anyone even a fraction larger than him would not be able to fit. Pierre is the last one. As he gets on the other side of the wall, he gathers everyone together and, as a group, rush toward the church.

    

     “Through the front door and down the steps,” Gerry instructs Pierre, winded by even this short sprint. He holds out his palm, halting Anderson, separating them from the other two. Catching his breath, the Reverend whispers, “I’m not exactly sure what you and Kizzie got yourselves into out there--” He pauses to look over at Kizzie’s destroyed left hand. “But take care of it outside. I don’t want that … evil inside the church.”

     He looks truly apologetic. “We don’t need the blood and mess inside either,” he says, more to himself, before joining Pierre inside.

     Anderson takes Kizzie to the side of the church, next to a pile of firewood and a large stump that was obviously used as a cutting block. “Let me see your hand,” Anderson says to the woman. Kizzie is hesitant for a moment, still cradling her injured appendage to her stomach, the blood stain on her shirt even larger now.

     Anderson waves his fingers, the “come on” signal. Slowly, tentatively, Kizzie holds her hand out for Anderson to see.

     And oh, goodness, is that thing nasty! [Is that what you wanted me to write? -d]

     “I think you know what needs to be done,” Anderson says. He reaches for the machete that Kizzie has hanging from a sheathe on her belt. She doesn’t stop him.

     Taking his lighter, Anderson starts to hold the open flame under the blade of the weapon, moving the fire back and forth on a six-inch section of the blade.

     “Will that really help any?” Kizzie asks, trying to get her mind off what’s about to happen.

     Anderson shrugs his massive shoulders. “It’s what they do in the movies,” he admits. “A good swab of alcohol would help sterilize this thing better, but …” He glances up from his work. “… we don’t really have a ton of options here.”

     Kizzie glancing around nervously. “Don’t they have alcohol in the church?” she asks. “The, uh … last commandment supper thing they do.”

     Anderson smiles. “Communion?” he corrects. “It’s called grape juice, sweetheart.”

     He flips closed the lid to his lighter, placing it in one of his pant pockets. Taking off his shirt (hence why he didn’t put the lighter back in his breast pocket), Anderson rips off a strip of cloth and ties it around Kizzie’s arm, right above the elbow. “That’s the best tourniquet I can come up with at the moment.” He sets the remainder of his tattered shirt aside to use later as a bandage. “Now when we’re done, and I know it will be difficult, I need you to hold still as best you can. There are four things I need to clamp shut, two of which are arteries. If you move, they may recede too far, and I won’t be able to get to them.”

      “And how do you know all this?” she asks, once again holding her injured hand close to herself.

     Anderson shrugs again. “I guess serving as a medic in the war was good for something.” He raises the machete. “Are you ready?”

     “… no.”

     Shaking his head, Anderson reaches for Kizzie’s arm, grabbing her at the wrist. “That’s not quite the answer I was looking for.” He holds her arm down on the wooden stump, readying the blade.

     “This will hurt like hell,” he tells her.

     “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t believe in hell then, huh?”

     Twitch of the head. “This may have you changing your mind.”

     And the blade comes down! Thok! Right through the arm and into the wood beneath. The blade is ringing, stuck into the cutting block, with Kizzie on one side, and Anderson (with an extra hand) on the other.

     Kizzie flops to the ground. Anderson quickly works on her arm and bandages it, picks her up, and carries her back to the front of the church.

     Standing inside, Gerry and Pierre were witnesses to the most blood curdling scream the church had ever heard. What they didn’t know was that Kizzie had screamed as the blade was coming down, for she blacked out the moment her hand was gone.

     And the peace of the church’s interior is destroyed as Anderson (carrying Kizzie) bursts through the doors, joining the other two ravaged “warriors,” and together they stumble down to the basement. The basement looks much older than it should, as if it had been pulled out of the middle-ages. It is dark and filled with weird, shifting shadows. No one notices the faint light sources, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the whole dungen-esk basement was lit by open candles.

 

     There’s a painting of Paul and Silas in a jail cell, chained up by their hands and feet. They both look happy, their heads back, and are obviously singing their lungs out. Gerry reaches for the painting, touches one the chains by Paul’s feet, and then quickly retreats. The wall opens back, revealing a man-sized tunnel or “hallway.” The group squeezes down the walkway, coming to a different room.

     It’s large enough to fit them all, but it wouldn’t be comfortable for long periods of time. The left and right walls are hidden behind bookshelves, there is a round table in the center of the room, a large rug on the floor, and a small couch resting against the front wall, next to the door.

     There are three men waiting for them in the room. Li is sitting in a wooden chair against the back wall, his arms and ankles crossed, as if he had been stretching out for a nap. DD is sitting at the far side of the table, facing the door. A few piles of books and papers cover the table’s surface. There is a single lamp sitting on the middle of the table, and surprisingly it lights the room quite well … considering its size, that is. James is sitting in a chair that is pulled back from the table a little, and is leaning forward, his elbows propped on his knees. He would be able to see what DD is working on if he sat up a little, but he doesn’t seems to be that interested anyway.

     Anderson lays Kizzie on the couch, grabbing the attention of all three men inside the room. Li is the first to stand. “What happened?” he bursts out.

     “You didn’t come back with any food?” James chimes in.

     Li steps toward the front of the room. “No, to Kizzie! Is she all right?”

     James looks over with a puzzled look, as if just now realizing the woman was injured.

     “One of the things!” Pierre spits.

     “They bit her!” Gerry finishes.

     DD lowers his glasses. “What! How long ago? Do you get rid if the--”

     Li: “Is she going to be okay?”

     Anderson (to DD): “I took care of the infection.”

     Li: “What happened to her hand?”

     James: “So we still don’t have any food?”

     Li (to James): “Shut up!”

     Gerry: “Everyone, please! Let’s give her some rest.” He looks over at Anderson. “We can answer questions later.”

     Static and a woman’s voice fill the air once again. “… I repeat, the whole state of New York has been completely closed off. Apparently the virus has spread more than we initially thought. The bridges and highways are down …” A TV can be seen on one of the shelves against the right wall. The reporter shakes herself, trying to calm down. A few tears can be seen slipping down her cheeks. “It’s not clear if the downed bridges are from terrorist attacks, but it--” She slides a few papers across her desk as a tiny square image appears in the top right corner of the TV screen. It’s too small to correctly see what it’s a video of, though. “I’ve never seen anything this bad,” the reporter cries. “It may go against what we’re allowed to say on the air, but may God save--” The word “MUTE” flashes on the bottom of the screen above a volume bar.

     DD is holding a tiny remote in his right hand, pointing it across his body at the TV. He looks up at the group who is standing at the doorway. He singles out Gerry. “I hope you don’t mind, Reverend, but I rummaged through a few of the books you have down here.” He holds up an old, dusty, damaged, soft covered, black book. It seems to be a Bible, but one could not be so sure. “And I think I have a plan …”