The Blockage

A short story

The toilet was blocked. Again.

They had gone out and left him to fix it. Again.

Jake fitted the familiar garb of rubber glove and black bin bag to his right arm, then stomped along the hall to get a flexible enough coat hanger.

At that moment the washing machine let out a mechanical wail of disrepair from the kitchen as spin mode kicked in and the floor of the weary tenement began to shake as if it would soon become detached from the very fabric of reality.

Old Mrs Wilkins, their landlady, who lived in the flat below, started banging a broom handle on her ceiling and yelling something unintelligible, but probably unpleasant.

Student living, Jake thought with a groan.

Heading into the bathroom, he knelt at the porcelain bowl of doom, took a deep breath, and lifted the lid.

The smell that assaulted his senses was so horrendous it was like it had spawned from the very depths of hell, and not just from the bowels of three twenty year old lads who consumed far too much beer, kebabs and Cheesy Pasta.

Man, this was going to be a rough one.

Jake supposed it was no surprise that the pipes in this old building were struggling, as the amount of rain that had been falling the last few weeks was ridiculous and must be backing everything up. The funny thing was, it wasn’t just Scotland, where wet weather was pretty much the norm twelve months of the year, but right across the world. And, if that wasn’t weird enough, there were the other stories too.

As the planet seemed to be drowning itself, he had watched stuff online about creatures spilling out from the sewers down in London. Some of them, like giant rats, were to be expected, but the other stories were clearly just crazy fake AI rubbish.

Breaking from his reverie about bizarre TikTok videos, he shook his head and focussed on the job at hand. Best to get this done so he could move on to something a whole lot more pleasant which, to be honest, would be anything really. Hopefully Sarah was coming over later and he didn’t want the flat, or indeed himself, to be honking of dung. With a final deep breath, he took tight hold of the clothes hanger and plunged it into the murky depths.

It only took a few moment to realise something was wrong.

There certainly seemed to be a blockage in the pipe, but it didn’t feel like what he was expecting. Instead it felt hard and almost rubbery. Surely some moron hadn’t bunged a tennis ball, or something like that, down there at the party they had the other night.

Jake realised two painful truths at the same time. Firstly, knowing the people in his university class, it was entirely possible that they would think it hilarious to do such a thing and, secondly, but much more horrifically, he was going to have to get his hand down there and remove the offending item.

A surge of bile rose up in his throat. Maybe he could phone a plumber instead? That made him almost laugh out loud. Where the hell would they get the money for that?

The washing machine began another round of thunderous complaining, accompanied by more yelling and thumping from below as Jake realised he had no choice.

Placing the hanger onto the tiled floor, which would definitely need scrubbed with bleach later on, he pulled the black bag tighter around his arm, flexed his fingers in the rubber glove and shoved his hand into the foul water before he could change his mind.

Luckily, it didn’t take long to find the problem.

However, instead of being round and ball like, it seemed thin and knobbly with what felt like suckers along the side? He gave it a hard pull but it was wedged in there. And, not only that, but it suddenly seemed like it was pulling back against him.

As the thought crossed his confused mind, and the first trickle of uncertainty danced up his spine, he went to remove his hand when something wrapped itself around his wrist and began pulling his arm back down the pipe.

With a scream of fright Jake felt himself being dragged forward, his face only inches from the foul water that was sloshing at the top of the bowl. What the hell?! he thought frantically. The pain in his arm was horrendous. It felt like the bones would snap at any time. Gritting his teeth and placing his feet on either side of the cistern, he used all his strength to propel himself backwards, ripping himself free from whatever was trying to drag him under, and spraying toilet water all over his face.

His back slammed into the door and he stared in horror as a large black tentacle burst out the bowl and began waving menacingly in the air as though searching for its prey. It must have been three foot long! Without a second thought he grabbed the coat hanger, which still had stained damp tendrils of toilet roll hanging from its frame, and began whacking at the monstrous invader with crazy, almost insane like rage.

It seemed, for a moment, that the ferocity of his attack may have surprised the creature as it began to shrink back down the pan, but then a bubbling, rumbling roar echoed up through the pipes and another two tentacles burst forth, shattering the porcelain bowl and sending a gout of water exploding toward the ceiling.

Oh well, at least I won’t be cleaning that again anytime soon, Jake thought hysterically. He let out a maniacal laugh as he watched the three whirling appendages close in on where he huddled against the far wall.

Suddenly the bathroom door banged open.

Staring in amazement through the spray, Jake saw Mrs Wilkins standing there in her dressing gown, head scarf over rollers in her blue hair and a sweeping brush grasped tightly in her arthritic hands.

“What in God’s name is all this nonsense?!” she yelled and then began thumping the brush down onto the tentacles whilst at the same time repeating like an insane mantra, “Away with you, ya bloody menace! Away with you! Away with you!”

Jake stared for a few more minutes as this ridiculous tableau played out and then got a hold of his senses.

Mrs Wilkins was doing a fine job but this was only ending one way. More tentacles were emerging out of the hole where the toilet had once been, and she was armed with a brush and he was armed with a coat hanger. They had to get out of there.

“Let’s go, Mrs Wilkins!” he yelled over the tumult.

His landlady seemed to be having a whale of a time, leathering the broom up and down but another roar echoed through the floor and this time Jake caught sight of a large yellow eye glaring up out the dark hole. It was time to go.

Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the old lady and shoved her out the bathroom and they both ran down the hall for the front door.

Jake could hear the tentacles thump and scrape off the walls as they dragged whatever was in the pipes out into the light. With every step he took, the fear of one of them wrapping around his ankles and dragging him back towards it’s hungry maw, made him move all the quicker.

Hauling open the large wooden tenement door, the two of them collapsed out into the close, and slammed it firmly shut behind them. Mrs Wilkins took a huge ring of keys from her dressing gown pocket and double locked it.

The sound of the flat being trashed as the tentacles flailed about looking for their lost supper was soon joined by screams and shouts coming from the other floors. Clearly there was more than one of these creatures on the prowl.

Jake shook his head. It was true. Everything he’d seen online was true. This was crazy.

As he sat down hard, gasping to get his breath back and preparing himself for whatever madness was coming next, he realised that he was being watched.

Mrs Wilkins was leaning on the bannister, still holding her sweeping brush that was dripping with tentacle slime, whilst glowering down at him with a face like thunder.

He opened his mouth to say something but then shut it again at the strength of her anger.

Waving her arms at the chaotic sounds coming from the surrounding building, she looked him in the eye and with exasperation bordering on utter incredulity asked quietly, “What the bloody hell have you boys been eating?!”

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