Sorry I’ve taken so long to update; things have been… not so good.
Let me start by saying, yes, this story involves an inordinate amount of literal shit. I get why that’s funny to some people. But this whole business basically ruined my life.
Also, thanks for the interest and questions. Shoutout to my fellow IBS crew.
To answer a couple of things: no, I never did check the ceiling panels or vents, but I don’t think it would’ve made much difference. You’ll see why.
And to clarify: no, I never thought that actual children’s TV character Mr Blobby was lurking outside my toilet stall. I might be a little crazy, but I’m not that crazy. Not yet anyway. I suppose that’s just the shape my fear took. I read the name in the graffiti and my brain filled in the blanks with something that scared the everloving shit out of me (no pun intended) when I was little.
And to the person who basically said being embarrassed about taking a dump in a busy bathroom was better than being alone with… whatever it is - you’re absolutely right. And that’s exactly what I did: I went to other bathrooms. In fact, I stopped going into that particular building entirely.
That’s actually when things got really weird.
To pick up after where I left off: pretty soon after I heard that insane giggling, I basically convinced myself I’d just had a panic attack. That the graffiti triggered some childhood memory of Mr Blobby and I overreacted, and either had some kind of auditory hallucination or just heard laughter from the corridor. It was a pretty stressful time; I was struggling to keep up with the workload and I was under a bit of pressure in a few of my classes. So yeah, I just sort of packed it away as anxiety-related and moved on. I still didn’t go back into that bathroom though.
About a week later, I popped into a bathroom at the back of the library building – quiet, but not deserted. I’d been going in there pretty regularly and I was usually alone for at least most of the time I was doing my thing, but people were never far away. I remember the whole bathroom was tiled in this sort of sickly green, and the fluorescent lights were buzzy and harsh. It also wasn’t as clean as my previous bathroom, and there were often wads of toilet paper on the floor, maybe water, maybe piss splashed here and there, eau de bleach and shit in the air. The graffiti was a bit more up to date – I even recognised some of the names of the honoured few who’d been immortalised on the door and walls inside my preferred stall at the end of the row. There was an ongoing debate along the right wall:
“Gina L____ gives good head!”
Retort: “she aight”
A third contributor: “Chloe H____ is better”
The clincher: “yeh but does she put a finger up the bum?”
And so on. Aren’t students charming?
Also, sidebar: I’ve never understood the impulse that clearly afflicts so many people to treat a public bathroom like one big… well, toilet. You pissing on the floor and throwing wet wads of paper next to your toilet at home, too? Anyway.
So I was reading this charming little story, wondering which of my esteemed classmates possessed the eponymous finger, and who the bum. And as I reached for the toilet paper and ripped off a length, I saw the writing revealed beneath. In familiar green marker, all caps.
“KNOCK KNOCK”
I froze for a second with the toilet paper balled up in my hand, and after a beat, sure enough: knock knock. Two loud taps on the door of my stall.
I started sweating and I couldn’t move. I was trying to be reasonable, tried convincing myself it was just some impatient dude who for some reason wanted this exact stall, even though the stall next to me was free… I was pretty sure all three other stalls were free, in fact. I hadn’t heard anyone come in or out. I never really know what to say when someone knocks on the door of a loo I’m occupying. I tried to sound normal, but I sounded loud and shaky: “I’m… someone’s in here”.
I was still holding the toilet paper wadded up in my hand, hadn’t moved. I listened, trying to control my breathing, telling myself I was being a stupid twat, to calm down.
I didn’t hear anything else, and after a while my motor skills returned. I went to wipe, and again, even louder: KNOCK KNOCK. I think I jumped almost clean off the seat.
“Fuckin, someone’s in here! Fuck off!” I shouted.
I sat frozen again, pulse racing. There wasn’t a gap under the door, like in some public bathrooms, but there was a slim gap along the left side of the door, the hinge side. The light coming through the gap was blotted out suddenly, a figure pressed up against it. I couldn’t make out any details, the gap was too narrow, just a dark shadow, but I could hear wet, mucousy breathing, and I knew it was looking at me.
I didn’t know what to do. It’s embarrassing, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, I was terrified. I saw movement, and then a shadow spread out in front of my feet. I was so focused on the figure pressed up against the gap, it took me a second to realise what that meant, that something above me must be casting that shadow. I jerked my head up, and just caught a blurry glance of something pink pulling back from the over the top of the stall door. I remember thinking, how tall would someone have to be to see over the top of a stall like that?
I might have been actually shaking by this point. The toilet paper had become a sweaty wad in my hand, squeezed into the shape of my fingers. I closed my eyes and tried to block everything out, and when I opened them, the shadow was gone.
I sat there for a long time, until I could move, breathe. After I wiped and flushed, I waited again, straining to hear any signs of movement. Nothing. When I left my stall, everything looked normal, there was no sign of anyone or anything out of the ordinary. I jumped as the door from the library slammed open, but it was just some guy urgently making his way to the urinals.
After that, I avoided using any particular stall in any particular bathroom too often. I’d pick one at random, hoping that if someone was following me, trying to mess with me, this would throw them off being able to plan anything. I’d check for that green marker before settling in, and I didn’t see it for a while. Until about a month later.
The term had ended and I had planned to go visit my dad. It was about a two-hour drive, which I never really minded. I loaded up all my CDs on the front seat, within easy reach – kids today really don’t know how good they’ve got it – and set off.
I’d had a lot of stuff to get through that day and I ended up leaving just as the sun was going down. About an hour in it was full dark, and I felt the familiar gurgles in my stomach. I pulled into a service area that had a little restaurant and shop, and a small bathroom round the side. The front of the building was well lit and friendly enough, but I noticed mine was the only car there.
I followed the signs to the bathroom in the back, which was about as unpleasant as the loos at any rest stop, but I was used to shitty bathrooms and I didn’t have much choice. The bathroom had two stalls, a single urinal, and a small sink, all grimy and stained. The room was dimly lit by a flickering bulb, and smelled strongly of ammonia, that special blend of piss and bleach. Grim. At least no one would bother me.
I took the stall on the end, furthest from the door, and settled in. Waves of cramps were making me feel faint and hot, and I was leaning with my elbows on my knees, cradling my head, waiting to be done. When I looked up at the stall door, I turned cold. In the flickering lights, bigger than ever before, was the familiar green writing:
“BLOBBY FOUND YOU!”
I could feel my heart pumping big, hollow thwacks, then stopping for what felt like too long in between beats. I looked around wildly, and saw the walls of the stall were covered in it:
YOU CAN’T HIDE
BLOBBY SEES YOU
BLOBBY LOVES YOU
BLOBBY WILL LICK YOUR DEAD EYEBALLS
Instead of freezing this time, I pulled up my jeans, didn’t give a shit about wiping, and grabbed at the lock. As I did, something started banging against the door, shaking it on its hinges. I could see the flimsy lock straining. Whoever was banging started screaming in this insane voice that sounded high and low-pitched at the same time, like a whole chorus of people screaming with one throat.
I flung myself back against the toilet, shivering and watching the door shudder with the blows. I could barely think with that screaming and the banging, it was drowning out everything except my fear.
Suddenly the noise stopped. I held my breath and waited. The lights flickered and buzzed, flickered and buzzed, and then, they went out. I stood pressed awkwardly against the toilet, as far back from the door as possible.
From the dark silence, I heard a noise, something slithering and straining, and it sounded very close. The lights flickered back on for a second, and I saw something huge, something pink, forcing its way through the gap under the stall door. The light only lasted a second.
There was a gap along the bottom of the wall on my left, which opened into the other stall. My throat unlocked and I hitched in a big breath and dropped to the floor. I scurried on my belly, through the filth and piss and God knows what else, and squirmed through the gap, scraping my hip and back badly. I kept expecting that thing to grab me, pull me screaming back into the stall.
I got to my feet and slammed out of there, through the stall, out the door. I didn’t look back. I raced to my car, covered in filth and I drove full speed back home.
Since that day, which was almost 20 years ago, I stopped using public bathrooms completely. If I have to go out, I take enough Imodium to block me up for three days, and I never go far from my flat. I dropped out of uni. These days I work from home doing data capturing. I don’t see anyone or do anything. I’m trapped.
The reason I’m telling you this is because a few days ago I was in my tiny bathroom, taking a shit, staring at my phone. I happened to look up, and in the top right corner of my door, right near the hinge:
BLOBBY IS HERE