CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (A49)

Bedlam Bible fans! Explore the Eighth Block Tower! Choose your fate! New posts every Tuesday and Friday. September '23 through December '23. Don't succumb to the huummmmmmmmm...

You’ve decided to help Lynda…

“What does your cat look like?” you ask, and immediately her eyes light up with excitement.

“So, you’ll help me find her?” she asks, then grabs you by the forearm and jerks you forward. You pry her hands off of you, gently, although you make it clear you don’t want to be touched—especially by her. She doesn’t smell… clean.

“Alright, don’t push it,” you say. “I’ve got some things I need to do, so let’s not waste any time, okay? So, what does she look like?”

“Okay, okay…,” she says, then pauses for a full minute to think of how to describe it. You’re getting annoyed. She seems to have the mentality of an eight-year-old, despite appearing to be in her early thirties.

“This is your cat, right?” you finally ask, not entirely convinced there’s even a cat to look for at all.

She laughs. “Yes, of course it’s my cat, silly,” she says, not picking up on the subtle hints of your sour mood. “Why else would I be looking for it?”

“Are you looking for it?” you ask, allowing your temper to get the best of you. “Cause it looks to me like you’re just standing here.”

The smile slides off her face. She finally realizes you don’t find her playfulness charming in the slightest. She stares at you and her eyelids begin to twitch as her eyes nervously roll back and forth in their sockets. “I just remembered the message I have for you,” she says, monotonously. Her eyes are flickering like a broken robot.

“Oh yeah, what is it?” you ask, genuinely curious of what it could be.

“Fuck you!” she shouts, then leans forward and spits in your face. She’s panting dramatically, as if the action took every last ounce of energy she had left.

You wipe the mucus from your cheek with the sleeve of your shirt, all while making a great effort to push your anger into a place deep within you, somewhere far from the surface. It’s a trick you perfected in prison, and likely the only reason you made parole.

“Alright. I’m done here,” you say, amazed at the calmness of your demeanor, despite the circumstances. Maybe there really is something to this prison thing, you think. Maybe I have been ‘reformed,’ as they say. You’d always thought that was just a bunch of bullshit.

You walk away. Lynda clings to your arm again, but this time she’s not so easy to shake off.

“Let go, lady, before I—,” you start to say, but stop yourself. No use in making threats. It’ll only elevate the tension between the two of you, and nothing productive could come of that. Although, it appears you’ve already said too much. She’s livid.

“Or you’ll what? Hit me? You wanna hit me, motherfucker? Fucking do it already! Show me you’re a big man! Show me you’re a man and hit me, motherfucker!” Her fingernails dig deep into the flesh of your arm, bringing blood to the surface. You try to pull away from her, but the more you struggle, the deeper her claws dig in.

“I want my fucking cat back!” she shouts. Even her breath reeks of cat food. “She’s three feet long! Dark gray! Has a huge fucking head with a huge fucking mouth! Razor-sharp, translucent teeth! Scaly and full of worms!” she shouts, but you have no idea what she’s going on about.

You finally manage to wriggle free from her grasp. Your arm is seeping a decent amount of blood through the claw marks she just gave you, but nothing serious enough to worry about—other than a little scarring, that is.

“Full of worms? What the hell are you even talking about?” you shout, still examining your wounds. This is definitely gonna get infected, you think.

She looks up at you with those big green eyes of hers, smiles like a lunatic, then says, just above a whisper, “Baby.”

“Baby nothing!” you shout, taking several steps away from her. “Don’t you be calling me baby! I’m not your baby.”

She laughs, then leans down to kiss your wounds. You pull away again.

“I wasn’t calling you ‘baby,’” she says, smiling in that awkward, fake way children do in their school pictures. “That’s the name of my cat, silly. I was just answering your question from before. That’s what Baby looks like.”

You’re totally confused. What she just described sounds nothing remotely similar to any of the cats you’ve seen in your lifetime—domesticated or wild. You can’t help but to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“You’re insane,” you say. “What the fuck am I doing even talking to you anyway? It’s just a waste of my damn time.”

You turn to walk away, but as soon as you do, you hear caterwauling coming from somewhere behind you.

“Baby!” Lynda shouts, then bounces up and down in place, clapping. “Please, please, please… she’s stuck inside the vent!  Help me get her out of there!”

The vent? You’re confused. To you, the sound seemed to be coming from her apartment, not the vent.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? Please just help me this one time and I’ll never bother you ever again. I promise!” she pleads.

Damn right you won’t be bothering me again, whether I help you with your cat or not, you think. You throw up your hands and wave her off, then start to walk away, but something prevents you from doing it. The cat. You’ve always had a soft spot for animals. It’s not the cat’s fault its owner is a fucking psycho. If it really is in some kind of trouble, knowing you left it there to die would eat away at your conscience forever. You know you have to do something.

You turn towards her. “Fine. I’ll do it. But not for you… for the cat.”

She’s so happy she foolishly tries to grab your hand to either shake it or kiss it or some other weird, inappropriate gesture, but before she has the chance, you pull away and wave your hands before her face.

“Man, knock it off with that shit,” you say. “Once I get this cat for you, that’s it. I never want to see you again.”

“Deal,” she says, then throws her hand out as if she wants to shake yours. You just stare her down. Eventually, she lowers her hand.

“She’s in the vent,” she repeats, then points to an opening in the wall about eight feet from her doorway. There’s no way the sound came from there, you think. It’s too far away. You’re almost certain of this. In fact, you’d be willing to bet your last fifty bucks that the cat is somewhere inside Lynda’s apartment.

But then again, maybe she’s right. She’s standing next to the doorway, after all. If the sound had come from there, surely she would’ve realized.

Where will you look?

— To check the vent, click here.
— To check Lynda’s apartment, click here.