CHOOSE YOUR OWN MINDFUCK: A Night in Eighth Block Tower (A52)
Bedlam Bible fans! Explore the Eighth Block Tower! Choose your fate! Don't succumb to the huummmmmmmmm...
You’ve set your alarm for 2AM…
Your alarm goes off at 2AM and somehow (thankfully) you manage to turn it off and sneak away from the couch without waking Lynda.
Your tongue is thick and stuck to the roof of your mouth from how dry the air is inside her apartment. You need a drink, and fast. It can’t wait.
You walk to the kitchen and open the fridge and aren’t all that surprised to see it’s mostly empty. Only a few cans of ginger ale and a stack of about four or five thick sirloin steaks are inside. And cheese. There’s an entire drawer full of assorted cheeses. Breakfast of champions, you think, then close the refrigerator door.
All you want is water, and you were hoping you wouldn’t have to drink directly from the poison tap, but your mouth is so incredibly dry you can think of nothing else. Poison or not, you need water.
You reach over the sink to turn on the cold water, but before you’re able to reach it, you feel a set of claws digging deep into the flesh of your hand, then something bites the tip of your finger. The pressure of its teeth is enough to break the skin. You can't help but to utter a short yelp, though (fortunately) you’re able to keep your squealing at a level that isn’t loud enough to disturb Lynda.
You look down at your attacker, sitting in the bowl of the sink. It’s Baby, Lynda’s cat. The amount of trouble this creature has caused you in the last few hours is enough to justify a scolding, but being the animal lover you are, you’re not angry about the attack. It’s just a cat doing cat things, you think, then look for something to dress your wound, but you’re only able to find a slightly soiled napkin. It’ll have to do.
You wrap the dirty paper rag around your finger, then tiptoe through the heaping piles of trash on the floor, all the way to the front door. You exit Lynda’s apartment and silently hope you never find yourself back there again.
You walk to the end of the communal hallway, then down the stairwell, and not even a full flight down, you’re greeted by the most wonderful sight you’ve ever laid eyes upon. Your heartbeat quickens and your palms begin to sweat. It’s a miracle, no two ways about it. It’s as if all your prayers have been answered. You can hardly believe your luck.
Lying on the stairs now, directly at your feet, are two bodies—warm, but dead. They’re the bodies of your former accomplices: Leonard and Larry. It’s pretty obvious how they died, as blood continues to gush from their open wounds. Of course, you’re not positive what led to their demise, but you deduce that one or perhaps both of them got greedy and attempted to rob the other, right here on the stairwell. Leonard managed to land a bullet straight in the middle of Larry’s chest, and Larry—being the deadeye that he was—put a bullet in the small gap right between Leonard’s eyes. Neither stood a chance at surviving.
Scattered across the stairwell are hundreds of dollar bills, in various denominations, spattered with tiny dots of bright red blood. You remove the bag tucked under Leonard’s arm and begin tossing the loose bills into it, one by one, until it’s all accounted for. Once you have the cash packed away, you bolt towards the front entrance of the building, hoping not to be seen by any of the residents.
I’m home free, you think, just as you push open the busted glass doors of the front entrance.
But then you remember that you don’t have a way out… no plan, no getaway vehicle—not even a place to go. Besides, it’s much too late to catch a bus now anyway, you know that for a fact, because you arrived here on the final stop of the evening. You could call a cab, even if it’s just to get far enough away from the tower that you no longer hear its incessant humming—you certainly have enough money for that now—however, you don’t have a phone to call one up.
As you contemplate your next move, a car pulls up to the curb, abruptly, tires squealing upon arrival. Before the car even comes to a complete stop, the passenger-side door is thrown open and a young woman is violently thrown from the vehicle.
It speeds off and disappears into the night.
Without hesitation, you run over and help her to her feet.
“Holy shit, lady… are you okay?” you ask, but before she has a chance to answer, you yelp—so loud, it startles her. As it turns out, you mistakenly offered her your injured hand, and when she told hold of it, you nearly fell to your knees in pain.
“Are you okay?” she asks, managing a short laugh between sobs. You offer her your other hand and walk her to the sidewalk.
“Sorry about that,” you say, as the heat of embarrassment swells in your cheeks. “Recent injury. Cat bite, but man, it's throbbing like a knife wound.”
Smooth talking, dumbass, you think. The poor girl is probably frightened enough by the situation. It probably isn’t the right time to hint that you’re an ex-con who's only been out of the pen for a few hours. You quickly change the subject.
“I suppose I wasn't thinking. Anyway, what in Sam Hell was that all about? That was one doozy of a fall.”
Doozy. Good one, you think.
“That's a lot of blood,” she says, her eyes locked on your injured hand. “You said it's a cat bite? What kind of cat, a leopard?”
It isn't until she says this that you realize just how bad the injury really is—your hand is leaking a steady stream of blood.
“Wait—was it a tower cat?” she asks.
“A what now?” You've never heard those two words used so closely together before.
She points to the apartment building behind you. “In case you weren’t aware, that there is the infamous Eighth Block Tower. If you got bit by an animal—or, hell, even a human—living in that building, then you better get to a doctor quick or else you’re likely gonna lose that finger. Maybe the entire hand.”
The more she talks, the more you suspect she's intoxicated. You hope this is just a drunken rant, something largely exaggerated, but after taking a quick peek under the blood-soaked, dirty napkin wrapped around around your finger, you worry she's telling the truth.
It's bad. You definitely need immediate medical attention.
“Is there a hospital nearby? I don't have a vehicle, so driving isn't really an option.”
She points across the street. “There’s a 24 hour clinic a few blocks that way. Can't miss it. They have the only streetlights in the entire Southside.”
You nod, thank her for her help, then ask, “Are you going to be okay?”
“Me? Oh yeah, no worries. I'll be fine,” she says. “Just another date from hell. He was a loser anyway. His loss.”
“Are you sure? You're not too banged up from that fall? Maybe you should come to the clinic with me.”
“Really, I'm fine,” she says, waving you off. “This happens so often, I should start wearing knee pads.”
She laughs. You don't. Its an odd statement, but you don't have time to think about what it might mean. You've already wasted so much time as it is. It may already be too late.
You nod, thank her for her help, then jog your ass to the clinic.
You read the letters painted on the glass doors of the front entrance. It reads: COWBELL CLINIC—House of Midian. The glass doors slide open and you step inside.
Inside, you see many bodies, in various stages of decay, all staring back at you from the waiting area. You check in at the front desk, then take a seat amongst the living dead. The room is cold and reeks of death. At first, you think it’s just the others in the room, but after a while, you even smell it on yourself.
Thankfully, death does not claim you today.
Instead, you sit inside its stench and wait patiently for your name to be called, watching back-to-back episodes of The Price Is Right, unable to think of anything other than how much Drew Carey had aged since you last saw him on television. He seems ancient now, but then you realize you’re right on his heels.
Every now and then, a nurse walks into the waiting room, rattling a cowbell to get everyone’s attention. Every time, she shouts out the name of some lucky bastard and they creep toward her. After what feels like many days passes, your name is finally called and you’re summoned into a smaller room containing only an elevated, padded chair that folds down into a bed. There’s thin, waxy sanitary paper running along the length of it. A nurse instructs you to strip naked and cover yourself with a cheaply made hospital gown, then take a seat. She shuts the door before you have a chance to ask her how long the doctor will be. You sigh and take a seat on the noisy wax paper. It’s impossible to get comfortable.
You wait another half hour or so before the doctor finally makes his way in, as if the entire process is meticulously engineered to bring patients to their absolute wits end, only to have the doctor walk in just seconds before they effectively lose their minds.
He isn’t wearing traditional medical professional attire, so you’re not even positive it’s the doctor at first. It isn’t until you’re able to read the name tag pinned to the left side of his chest that you realize it’s him. It reads: Dr. Midian, the same name written on the clinic’s front entrance. He’s wearing a pink tracksuit with black trim, made with some sort of shiny, metallic-looking material that really dazzles under the fluorescent office lighting. On his feet he wears all white clamshell tennis shoes that are so bright and perfect they surely have never seen the outside this office. His clothes don’t seem to match his face and body. You’re not an ageist, but you silently judge him for his choice of attire. It’s pretty uncommon to see a man in his late eighties in such flamboyant clothing. His black, thick-rimmed eyeglasses magnify his beady eyes so much they fill the frames edge-to-edge. It’s trippy to watch him blink. On rare occasions, you’re able to look away, and when you do, you can't help but to stare at his sunken mouth. You’re not certain, but it seems the doctor has forgotten to insert the top section of his dentures this morning, as the only teeth visible are the ones lining his bottom gum line, and they’re all immaculate and pearly white. Because of this, his face appears collapsed in the middle, and his voice comes out muffled and weak.
He sits down on a short leather rolling stool and says, “Hello there.” His eyes fixate on loose pages stacked inside a thin manilla folder. “What seems to be the problem?”
You tell him you were recently bit by a cat, but one that leaks electric venom… or something to that effect. You hope he knows what you mean and what to do about it. You don't have time to explain.
“Hmmm,” he says, flipping through the papers. “Does it hurt when you urinate?”
“I’m not sure,” you say. “I haven’t urinated since it happened. I’m actually a bit dehydrated, come to think of it. Do you think I could get some water?”
“Some what?” he asks, as if he’s never heard the word before. He lifts the glasses off his nose and places them on top of his head. His beady eyes cross as he looks around the room. He spots the used needle container hanging on the back wall, all decorated in hazmat stickers, and says to it, “Nurse Debbie, get this man a glass of water, please.”
You realize immediately you won’t be getting any water.
The doctor is silent for a moment, then he lowers the glasses back over his eyes and looks down at the stack of papers again. He removes a ballpoint pen from his tracksuit pocket and scribbles a few words on one of the pages. It’s almost too messy to read, but you’re fairly certain he wrote, “add water surcharge to bill.”
After a couple minutes of flipping through the pages in your file, he speaks again. “Does it hurt when you urinate?”
“Would you like to see the bite?” you ask, hoping it’ll help speed the appointment along.
The doctor nods. “Yes, I suppose I would. Now, don’t be embarrassed, I see penises all day, every day. I’ve seen every size and shape. Nothing to be ashamed about.”
You don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. You unwrap your finger and show him your wound.
“My, that’s a thin one,” he says. You assume he thinks it’s your penis. “Normal though. Perfectly normal.”
“No, it’s not normal,” you say. “There are several puncture wounds and it's bleeding profusely. I was hoping you’d clean it up and prescribe something to prevent infection.”
“Are any of your co-workers experiencing any similar symptoms that you know of?” he asked.
At first, you’re annoyed, thinking he isn’t listening to you, but then you’re horrified. “Wait, do you think I’m contagious? What the hell did that cat give me?”
The doctor nods his head. “Most definitely. Fungal infections are highly contagious.”
“Fungal infection? You think this is a fungal infection?”
“Most definitely.”
He removes a small notepad from his tracksuit pocket and scribbles on it. Once he finishes writing, he tears off the first page and hands it over to you. It’s a prescription for a single tube of clotrimazole antifungal cream.
“Rub a bit of that on the affected areas and your little condition should clear up in a few days,” he says.
“Are you sure?” you ask, having a hard time believing this will help in any way whatsoever.
“I’ve been in this business a long time, son,” he says. “Haven’t been wrong once.”
He rolls his stool closer to you, leans down and removes a cardboard box from underneath the padded chair you’re sitting on. He places it on the floor, then leans down to remove the shoes from his feet, tossing them both into the waste bin. He opens the cardboard box and removes a second pair of shoes, identical to the first pair, then places them on his feet. He stands up and starts to walk out the room.
“Wait, so that’s it?” you ask.
“That’s it, kid,” he says. “I have to see at least five of you fuckers an hour if I want to stay ahead on my yacht payment, so I gotta get going. Take that paper to the front desk and they’ll swap it out for you. Good luck with… your stuff.”
He walks out of the room.
You go up to the front desk and hand the prescription to the woman sitting there. Without even looking at what the doctor had written, she tosses the paper into the wastebin and places a tube of Dr. Midian brand clotrimazole antifungal cream on the desktop. Behind the desk is a stockpile of the stuff, stacked in neat rows inside open-faced cabinets. There doesn’t seem to be any other kind of medication, only boxes of the same antifungal cream. The woman goes back to work, tapping on her keyboard. You stand there awkwardly for a minute or so before finally speaking up.
“So… is that all?” you ask.
“Yes, that’s all,” the woman says, not lifting her eyes from the computer screen.
“Do I owe you anything?”
“We’ll send you a bill,” she says, still tapping away.
“Alrighty,” you say, unsure of how they have access to your address information. You don’t even have an address! Not my problem, you think, then pick up the tube of cream and leave.
As you exit the building, you’re startled by a loud rattle, the sound of the cowbell herding in the next patient for slaughter.
Within ten days, the infection at the tip of your finger spreads down to your knuckle, despite using the anti-fungal cream exactly as directed. You make an appointment to see a real doctor, and the real doctor is alarmed to see your finger in such terrible condition. She orders an emergency surgery for later that same afternoon.
You leave the hospital a few days later, a finger short, but with enough cash to pay all your medical bills and still have enough left to buy a gently-used car.
You’re excited to see what the future brings.
THE END