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Robert cursed to himself as he entered his tiny, two bedroom apartment. The sight that greeted him wasn't pleasant. A pile of dishes remained unwashed in the sink, the dreary white walls dulled from years of dust and grime. He threw his coat on the kitchen table he never used, he always ate in the living room, rendering the damn thing useless. On it were stacks of papers, a few dirty coffee cups, and old mail that he really should throw out in the trash. Robert knew that this place was a mess and could possibly even look decent with a good cleaning; but it has been long since Robert cared enough to do something about it.

He walked into the tiny living room and sat on his recliner, his body falling nicely into the groove that had developed from years of use. It wasn't that Robert was listless or lazy, more so depressed and regretful. Regret that he couldn't find a better job, regret he had to live in this crummy apartment. Robert lived alone and he rarely talked aloud because of it. Sometimes he did to abate the loneliness he often felt, or to fill the room with noise of some kind. He was about to turn on the television when he heard it again.

A loud running noise filled the apartment; _That damned toilet again. _Robert knew almost nothing about plumbing or how to fix much of anything. He worked at a local retail store, he had been there for almost 20 years and that thought always severely depressed him. He was a smart man, had gotten a Associates Degree in Criminal Justice. But while most of his classmates had gone on to get Bachelor's Degrees, he couldn't afford to stay in college. He quickly found out that he couldn't get any jobs in his field without a Bachelor's. So he had stayed at the retail job he had taken early in High School and has been there ever since.

Robert got up and walked down the hall, passed his bedroom, to the bathroom. The off-color toilet almost seemed to stair back at him. It happened almost like clockwork, every two hours the toilet would make a running noise on its own. He figured it was a malfunction or that something was broken but since he didn't know much about this sort of thing, there was little he could do. He knew he couldn't rely on his landlord. _That Bastard!_His landlord cared nothing about rent money, he refused to fix anything broken in any of the apartments, he didn't even have a janitor or technician that could fix things.

He lifted the lid of the toilet and saw a few bubble in the boil churning, they quickly stopped as he opened the lid. "Your mother!" He cursed at the infernal thing. He smiled, he knew it was pointless to curse at inanimate objects but it made him feel better. With nothing more he could, he closed the lid and walked back to the living room. Sure, he supposed if he really wanted to he could go to the local library, and look up on their computers how to fix it. Robert had never been really tech savvy and thought paying for internet services a waste of money.

Robert was awoken in the middle of the night. He sat up and winced, grabbing his stomach, which groaned loudly. He quickly swung his legs over the end of the bed, trying to recall what he might have eaten earlier to cause his stomach to hurt so much. He took a few deep breaths, hoping in some way that it would be enough to calm his stomach down. He looked up at his alarm clock, the glowing digital screen shown that it was two thirty in the morning. He groaned, both from the pain in his stomach and from the time, he hated being woken up. Usually he was a heavy sleeper and was surprised he hadn't slept right through this, but it wasn't going away. He stood up from the bed and slowly shuffled to the bathroom, he found that lately he was using any excuse he could to defecate elsewhere, trying to avoid his toilet to the best of his ability. Robert knew it was foolish and he had no reason to be scared, yet there was something ominous as he entered his bathroom.

The bathroom was bathed in darkness and he fumbled for the light switch, finally finding it. Light suddenly illuminated the room, blinding him momentarily. He squinted as best he could and lowered his pants, sitting on the infernal toilet. He slowly felt his eyelids start to drop as he sat there when he heard a strange plop sound. Normally that is nothing out of the ordinary about hearing such sounds in a bathroom, but Robert hadn't gone to the bathroom yet. His eyes grew wide and he was about to stand up when he started to go. No! No not now! Hold it in dammit! _But it was no use and he waited, started to sweat and hoping it was nothing. _Ya, that was it, I must still be half asleep, must have imagined it.

_ _ Yet suddenly again the whooshing toilet noise suddenly arose from the back of the toilet. Robert jumped from surprise and then chastised himself mentally for being so afraid. He then heard a straight gurgling noise, not coming from his gut, but the toilet beneath him. He could swear he had heard a splashing noise beneath him. Everything finally grew quiet as Robert sat there, breathing deeply. He then heard a guttural growl from beneath him and something reached up and touched him. He screamed and lept from the toilet, quickly wiping himself. Robert panted heavily and peered into the bowl, usually he tended to always flush after he was finished and never look back, but he wanted to see what had touched him. He peered into the murky water but strangely the water in the bowl was a solid black color, the oily surface almost shiny and was impossibly black.

Robert trembled and reached a hand out shakily to flush the toilet, moving slowly as to not attract the attention of whatever may be down there. He flushed the toilet and lept back, shutting off the light quickly and bolting back to his bedroom. He sat on his bed, lights on and panted heavily. He doubted he would get any sleep that night. From the bathroom came and slow and deep sound that sounded like a haughty laugh. It was laughing at him, it was alive! He shivered as the maniacal laughter continued, seeming to fill the room with a presence, as if something was watching him; mocking him. He slept with the lights on that night, the first time he did so since he was four.

"Well? What's wrong with it?" Robert asked the obese plumber, who looked rather cramped in his tiny bathroom. It was eleven in the morning and first thing that morning Robert and broken down and called the cheapest plumber he could. The man was a grotesque stereotype of plumbers, the kind you'd be more apt to see in a Saturday morning cartoon show than in real life. He must have weighed 500lbs and Robert was impressed he had made it up the stairs to his apartment at all. The man, _Fred _wore overalls, and had a few wrenches sticking out of his pockets as well as a soiled handkerchief that was sticking out of his back pocket. He wore his black hair slicked back and it seemed he hadn't shaved in what looked like weeks.

_ Put a mustache and a hat on him and he'd look like a grotesque caricature of Mario_ Robert thought to himself. The man also emitted a terrible smelling odor than reminded Robert of raw sewage. He also didn't talk much, he noted. In fact Robert tried to remember if this Fred had said a single word apart from grunts of acknowledgment Robert watched Fred lift the lid to the back of the toilet up and immediately plunged his hand into the water, fishing around with it without looking. Robert winced and Fred saw this, smiling a grotesque smile at him. There was something horribly wrong with that face, with that smile. It almost seemed like he had too many teeth and yet not enough at the same time. Fred fished around with his arm some more, swishing it around in the tank, not taking any effort to look into it Robert noticed.

Fred smiled again as it seemed he found something, God that stench was horrible! _Robert shuddered as he almost gagged on it and wasn't sure if it was coming from the man or the toilet. Fred pulled his arm out of the rancid water and smiled, holding out to Robert what he found. Robert recoiled in terror, what he held was a decaying carcass of what looked to be a long dead cat. Robert gagged again and his eye bulged as he ran to the kitchen sink and vomited From behind him he heard a low guttural laugh coming from the obese man and Robert's eyes jerked open. It was the same laugh as last night! _How could that be?! Was it really him from outside my apartment last night? No, I'm on the fifth floor.. The mocking laughter continued and slowly began to fade.

Robert wiped the excess vomit from the corners of his mouth and returned to the bathroom but the man was gone. _Had he left while I was in the kitchen? _No, he would have had to have come into the kitchen to leave the apartment. Robert searched his entire apartment in search for the obese man, but he left no sign he was ever there, save for a linger odor. Robert came back into the bathroom and saw the cat carcase, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and he heard that laughter again...

Hours passed and Robert was laying in bed, not quite asleep yet not entirely away. He lay on his side, and saw through his thin curtain the silhouette of a tree moving in the wind. The weather was getting colder, days seemed shorter. Suddenly there was a loud Whooooooosh sound, and Robert jumped about a foot off the bed. "Goddammit!" He got up, even as he did, knowing that there wasn't much he could do to fix it. His pace slowed however as he realized how dark it was, he tried to raise his hand in front of his face but couldn't see it. It never got this dark before.. He thought to himself. He put his hands on the hallway wall and walked slowly along it.

This time however the noise didn't let up and was getting even louder, hurting his ears. He listened and he could swear he heard hushed voices that seemed to come from his bathroom. Immediately Robert broke into a cold sweat, he was the only one in the house. _Could it be the neighbors? _He thought, then quickly dismissed it. His neighbor was a elderly women who went to bed early. He walked for much longer than it should have taken to reach his bathroom. He could barely make out the voices and only caught fragments of words that didn't make sense. "Slime....Plate....Puss.." Robert stopped hesitantly, should he continue? Maybe he should lock himself back in his room and call the police? He shook his head, no that wouldn't work, he didn't have a lock on his bedroom door and his cell was downstairs.

He wished he had a weapon handy, he had a baseball bat that he kept for possible intruders but again it was downstairs and he couldn't locate the light switch. Though he should have came to it by now, it seemed as though he were walking four hours. He gasped suddenly as a iridescent green glow suddenly appeared up ahead, coming from the bathroom. He stopped in his tracks, and heard a faint bubbling sound as well as the loud Whooshing sound. _What the fuck is going on?! _He felt like he was in The Twilight Zone, a show he remember fondly watching as a kid. He didn't know why but he felt a ominous presence and knew he wasn't alone. His breathing grew heavy, and to him it felt as though the air got heavier. The air felt thick and exerted upon him immense pressure. Still he felt compelled to move forward, to see for himself what was in there.

He suddenly held his ears as a high pitched whine, like the sound when a television is first turned on, suddenly blared in his head. He wasn't sure if it was just all in his head or if others would have heard it had there been others. He finally came to the bathroom door, pressing his back tight against the wall. His hands were clammy and he felt sweat beads forming on his head. He felt almost like gagging, the smell was horrendous. He didn't know how he hadn't smelled it before but now a putrid aroma filled the air. A fog like substance was oozing out from the bathroom, back-lit by the green light. The whispers he had heard earlier were gone now. A eerie silence suddenly loomed over everything as all the noises suddenly stopped, save for a few gurgling sounds, almost as if whatever was in there knew he was close. He summoned what little courage he had and jumped into the door frame.

What he saw was something out of a twisted nightmare. The room was filled with a almost blinding green glow. The toilet was oozing out of the bowl a nautious, thick, black substance that was oozing onto the floor and spreading out. It reminded Robert of The Blob, that cheesy 1980s movie. He knew it was crazy but it almost looked like the toilet had a face, formed from hard water stains, and the face was twisted into a maniacal grin and was looking directly at him. He gagged at the smell and saw the black ooze creep toward him slowly, he stepped back. He didn't know how he knew but he instinctively knew that one touch meant certain death. There emitted from the toilet a loud roar that made Robert's ears ring and the pressure in the air increased ten-fold. It felt like he was surrounded by a heavy blanket and impeded by it.

Suddenly he saw movement, in the overflowing bowl bubbles formed and he saw a hand reach out from the toilet. Robert cried out and fell against the opened bathroom door as a rotting hand reached out. Most of it's flesh was gone or melted and what little flesh there was was hanging off the bones. Robert spit up a little and slid down to his ass, unable to stand, paralyzed in fear. More and more the armed emerged from the ooze, as he saw a shoulder and a skull raise up. The skull glared at Robert and shrieked a high pitch sound that curdled Roberts blood. He slowly scooted back away from the door into the hall as the body slowly lifted itself out of the toilet. He saw it's skeletal foot rise up and it planted it on the floor, the ooze coming up to it's ankle.

"Fuck this!" Robert shouted, but all that came out was a gurgled reply. The ooze was still coming out of the toilet, more and more of it flowing onto the floor and towards Robert. Robert tried to stand up, but his legs felt like jelly, almost as if they were paralyzed. He crawled down the hall, pulling himself along with his arms. Robert was not the most athletic man, and had even started to grow a beer belly, but adrenaline was pumping in his veins. He crawled down the hallway and though it was dark, the green glow coming from the bathroom helped illuminate some of it. He could barely make out the bedroom door up ahead and he tried to increase his speed. The further he got away from the bathroom, the less thick the air became, the overwhelming heavy pressure abating the further he got.

Robert chanced a glimpse behind him and he saw the corpse exit the bathroom door, flesh falling off of him in globs. The black ooze spilled into the hall, and seemed to be increasing in size and speed. The corpse, for lack of a better term, pointed a skeletal finger at him and shrieked in a awful high pitched sound. The sound reminded him of another old horror movie, one he had seen years ago titled 'The attack of the Pod People'. He remembered that terrifying sound one of the pod people made when they realized the main character wasn't one of them. He tried again to stand and his feet and succeeded this time, he shakily stood up and ran to his room. He got in and quickly slammed the door, pushing his body against it.

Inwardly he cursed at himself, he should of ran out of the apartment, to the steps. But his passage to the door was beyond the bathroom and he was trapped. He realized it was still pitch black in his room and he fumbled for the light switch. Robert quickly pushed his bed and dresser against the door in the hope to barricade himself in. He looked around for anything that can be used as a weapon. But since he couldn't find anything, he ran to the window, looking down to the ground. The ground that was five stories down. How he wished he lived on the ground floor of his apartment complex! He spun around as a heavy thud pounded on the door. The creature screamed again as the ooze slowly spread under the door and into the room. He opened the window and screamed for help as panic set in.

He felt the room grow cold as the pounded turned to a smashing sound. The creature, and the ooze he figured, were slamming their body weight against the door. The bed and dresser move a few inches away with each slam. For a decaying corpse it sounded really solid and there was a sickening splat sound with each slam. He watched the ooze as it spread over the bed and dresser, he stared in shock as they both started disintegrating and decaying as the ooze touched it. He looked back out the window. "At this height, I'd be dead for sure if I jumped, dead or paralyzed."

With the dresser and bed mostly gone now, swallowed up by the ooze, the door slammed open. Robert turned suddenly and saw the shambling creature stagger forward to him. It was breathing heavily and through garbled words spoke his name. Robert's blood ran cold. _How does it know my name? _He thought, and almost gagged on the stench, it reeked of death and decay. He suddenly felt a drop in temperature, and the heavy pressure was back, enveloping him like a blanket. He sluggishly backed up against the farthest wall as he breathed heavily. It was so cold that Robert could see his breath, his heart felt like it would explode. The viscous black ooze advanced toward him, it's surface gleamed almost like oil and seemed impossibly black. But the corpse was ahead of the ooze and was eight feet away and closing fast.

Robert wept like a baby, knowing there was no escape. He did something he hadn't done since he was a kid, he prayed. His mother used to force him to go to church and bible study all the time. And he went reluctantly. Because of that, Robert never really believed and after he had moved out never attended mass. But now he dropped to his knees and prayed, asking for forgiveness. The corpse stopped in front of him and crouched down so it's rotting face was in front of his. It smiled at him with a impossibly big smile that looked twisted and demonic. Robert looked at it through tear filled eyes as it spoke. "It's time, Robbie..." It spoke in long and garbled words and reach out a hand for Roberts face. Robert tensed up and breathed his last breath, his scream permeated the still, night air.

The sun shown bright the next day, birds were chirping and multicolored leaves blew in the wind. Sam, a police officer, sipped his hot coffee as he entered the apartment complex and was led up the stairs by another officer. "It's the damnedest thing!" The other officer said. "The neighbors said they heard screaming from the apartment last night, but the place..well you'll see.." Sam thought twice about drinking his coffee, he never really had a strong stomach, that's why he liked road patrol. No dead bodies there, just punks speeding. "What was the poor sod's name?" Sam asked. They had both reached another platform and climbed yet another set of stairs, making their way to the fifth floor. "A Robert Marcus, a nobody, has no living relatives, no one to miss him." The other officer replied, but Sam stopped cold. Robert Marcus?! Could he be the same guy he went to college with? He and Robert had both gone to the same college, went to the same classes. They weren't exactly friend but more of acquaintances, they both knew each others names, and sometimes chatted before the class would begin. Sam wondered if this was that same man.

They both reached the fifth floor and Sam could already hear the flash of a camera, crime scene investigators were already there, dusting for prints, photographing evidence, etc. "So..what is the cause of death?" Sam asked as he finished his coffee and crinkled his paper cup, tossing it on the ground. "Hell if I know." The other officer said and opened the door, motioning him in. "You'll see.." Sam entered the apartment, not really knowing what to expect. Inside, it was like Sam stepped into one of those road side ghost towns you seen in the south west. Walls were corroded and had many holes in them. Wood looked worn and weather stripped (Which was insane, they were indoors! He thought.). The tile floors were full of grime and a carpet of dust. It looked like this place hadn't been lived in for years and was at the mercy of the elements, yet it was indoors in a apartment complex. Sam stared with his jaw open, he couldn't believe it.

The tiles creaked as they entered, around them were the investigators, wearing white, dusting for prints and taking evidence. Sam looked to his right and saw through a hole in the wall a dilapidated and cracked toilet. There was a metal skeleton of a bed from and recliner, and there seemed to be a lot of moisture as well. Drops were falling from the ceiling, yet the drops were black and looked thicker than water. "Somebody get a sample of that!" He shouted and one of the investigators gathers some in a container using a stick. He walked to what looked like it had at one time been a bedroom. "Where's the body?" Sam asked. The other office merely shrugged. "No body, no signs of struggle either. From what we could tell. How could someone live like this? This place looks like it's been abandoned for years!"

Sam knelt down in the corner of the room, investigating a dried black blotch on the floor. He pulled out his pen and scraped it, it seemed to shrivel up a little as he did. He looked up at the wall and seen a burn outline of what looked almost like a body that was crouching on his knees. A outline burned into the faded white walls. He reached out and touched some of the black outline and smelled it; ash. Sam sighed and stood up. _This was going to be a long night _he thought, turning back, he gave one more glance at the burned outline on the wall. The last remnant of a mister Robert Marcus.