The bat was at full backswing when I locked on to it with both hands and heaved with all my strength. He was off balance in that position and the bat should have come away, but instead, he gave a tug that sent me flying against the front fender of the truck and brought me face-to-face with the mad batter.

“Man, what the hell’s the matter with you?” I yelled, in an attempt to change his focus and stave off another swing at my truck. He paused a second, dropping the bat to his side as he peered at me, and now I had a good look at him.

A mountain of flesh, he was six and a half feet tall and weighed at least three hundred pounds. In spite of the chill, he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with torn-off sleeves. His head was shaved bald, which accentuated the small ears that stood straight out to the sides. But it was his eyes that grabbed and held my attention: They were the dead eyes of a psychotic—utterly devoid of intellect or compassion—and I knew for a fact I was dealing with a madman. There was that, and his following words.

“That thing there is Satan’s fiery chariot,” he pronounced in a squeaky falsetto voice, pointing the bat at my truck. Then as he looked at me, a spark of recognition came into his eyes—that, and a new sense of mission. “And you are the devil’s own driver,” he hissed, taking a mighty swing at my head.

I bent low to the right as I leaped backward and felt the bat go sizzling past my ear. He missed my head, but his follow-through caught the windshield again, the blow sending a network of cracks ripping across the glass.

I danced hastily backward as the giant came at me again with the quickness of a cat. When he cocked the bat for another whack, I feinted to my left and dodged right, just barely avoiding a stroke aimed at my midsection.

“Look, partner,” I said as I tried to reason with him. “You don’t need to do this. I think you’ve got the wrong truck here, and you surely have the wrong man. If anybody loves Jesus, it’s sure as hell me.”

“Spawn of Lucifer,” he hissed as he fired an overhand blow that whipped just in front of my face with the blinding speed of a samurai’s sword.

Sandy came running outside, screaming at the man, “Stop it, Leon! Stop it! You’re gonna kill him!”

She must have tried to jump on his back, because I saw him give his shoulders a quick shrug. Sandy sailed through the air and hit the pavement behind him. He came on again, his eyes now lit with a maniacal glee.