- [closing narration]
- Narrator: We know that a dream can be real, but who ever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone's feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in this country, in this world, or do you live, instead, - in The Twilight Zone?
- Adam Grant: Well, Jiggs, don't you think that all of this is just a little bit too much the way it should be?
- Jiggs: I don't get you.
- Adam Grant: Well, I mean it's so pat. I got tried and sentenced the same day. It doesn't work like that! But you see, that's the way that I saw it in my mind, and so that's the way it is! Or you take this place here, you and Coley and his harmonica, or Phillips and his mother.
- [laughs]
- Adam Grant: It's like a movie. Real death houses aren't like that, but you see I've never been in a real death house, so that's - that's my impression of it!
- Jiggs: Oh, man, you're really clipped. I don't know what you're talking about.
- Carol Ritchie: [in the Ritchies' home] Well, the Brothers Grimm, as I live.
- Henry Ritchie: What're you doing up?
- Carol Ritchie: I'm not up. I'm down. Just like you and your funny friend here. Have they...?
- Paul Carson: Fifteen more minutes. That's another thing. Why does this always happen around midnight?
- Henry Ritchie: Because that's when it happens!
- Paul Carson: Yeah, but why?
- Henry Ritchie: You tell me why!
- Paul Carson: According to Grant, he doesn't know anything about these matters except what he sees in the movies, and in the movies it always happens at midnight.
- Henry Ritchie: Because movies are technically accurate.
- Paul Carson: Yeah, that's strange, too, when you come to think of it.
- Judge: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?
- Jury Foreman: We have, your Honor.
- Judge: And what is the verdict?
- Jury Foreman: Your Honor, we find the defendant, Adam Grant, guilty of murder in the first degree.
- Judge: The defendant will rise.
- [Adam remains seated]
- Judge: The defendant will rise!
- Attorney: [putting his hand on his shoulder] Adam
- Judge: [Adam rises] Adam Grant, you have been tried by a jury of your peers and found guilty. Do you have anything you wish to say before sentence is passed?
- Judge: [Adam remains silent] Very well. It is the sentence of this court, that for the brutal and despicable crime of murder in the first degree, you shall be put to death by means of electrocution.
- Adam Grant: [starts to laugh hysterically]
- Adam Grant: [slamming his hand on the table] NO! Not again! I won't die again!
- [lunging at the judge]
- Adam Grant: You can't make me die again!
- [opening narration]
- Narrator: Adam Grant, a nondescript kind of man, found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Like every other criminal caught in the wheels of justice, he's scared, right down to the marrow of his bones. But it isn't prison that scares him, the long, silent nights of waiting, the slow walk to the little room, or even death itself. It's something else that holds Adam Grant in the hot, sweaty grip of fear, something worse than any punishment this world has to offer, something found only in - The Twilight Zone.
- Adam Grant: I'll tell you what it's like. You walk out of your cell, pass two gray doors. Seventy-eight steps to the final door, it's painted green. There's a guard that opens the door for you, and you go into a room. It's tan, it's all tan. There's nothing in it except one chair. It's like a chair you used to sit in when you were a kid. It's hard and solid. They strap your arms and legs, then they attach the electrodes. It's funny, they always feel cold to the touch at first. Then they drop the mask. It's musty. It smells like an old sofa. And then you wait, every muscle tense, straining. Any second, any second then you can almost hear it. They pull the switch...