The Fundigo (idea)

About, roughly five years ago, a man of about seventy and his five-year-old grandson were returning from a camping trip. (We'll call the man Rob and the grandson Dafego for the purpose ofd making the story easier to follow, though I do not know their real names.) Their car was beginning to run out of gas, and Dafego was complaining about it getting late and having to go to the bathroom badly. They quickly found a rest stop near an old but lovely hotel and decided to spend the night there. The place was a bit run-down, but Rob found it reminded him of days gone by. So they asked the innkeeper for a room, and were led up to one on the hotel's third floor that overlooked a long sidewalk leading into a range of mountains that seemed to go on forever on both sides of the sidewalk. It was close to Pennsyltuckian Country and the Appalachian Mountains after all, far away from the hick-lands of the South.

Rob and Dafego spent the night unpacking some of their belongings, the ones that the bear and the squeegee didn't eat on the camping trip. It was tedious for Dafego. Dafego just wanted to either be with friends, with the other kids at camp, or to be chased by the bear and squeegee again. Pennsyltucky was fun, but its old hotels weren't. Also, Rob kept zoning out, and he was running out of Garlique and Levitra, so he began to fear he'd have a heart attack out in this hotel in the near-wilderness. Rob fell asleep at 9:00 at night, but Dafego wasn't tired at all, just bored.

Dafego made his way out of the hotel, down the two flights of stairs to the back door, the hall and stairs deserted. He looked around him for the door that lead out to the cool-looking mountains and the cool-looking sidewalk leading to who knows where, and found it, heading out unwatched. He wanted either a friend, anothervrestless kid at the hotel, or the bear and squeegee. He wanted to catch up to the squeegee on the sidewalk leading into the mountains. He wanted to hunt for it. So he sang, marching down the sidewalk:

Dafego passed right through what appeared to be a man of about forty. The man held a bound book to his chest and had a very large backpack on his back. Dafego didn't deven bother looking at ihm, but the man looked at Dafego, his eyes narrowed.

The man of about forty with the book and the very large backpack appeared again in front of Dafego. Again, Dafego passed through him without taking a good look.

Evn though that part of the song didn't make much sense, you have to remember Dafego was only five years old and a bit silly, as most five-year-olds are. It was also just a song one of the older kids at camp taught him. The man of about forty with the book and the very large backpack re-appeared fifty more feet in front of Dafego, and Dafego passed through him again.

Dafego, not having brought any food with him, stopped momentarily to look for something to eat. He couldn't find anything to eat, but he was getting awfully hungry. He looked back to the hotel, seeing it in the distance just barely. Then a man's voice called out, chilling his bones,

But Rob was all the way sleeping back at the hotel! Squeegees didn't talk, and it wasn't Rob's voice. It did sound like it was coming from the distance, though. "I'm Dafego!" Defago yelled out.

"Rob WHAT?!?" Dafego yelled. "I'm Dafego!"

Dafego wasn't sure whether to go to or form the voice. The voice was approaching him -- the hotel behind him, perhaps? -- and it was calling his grandfather's name. It also didn't correct itself when Dafego corrected it. Oh well, Rob is a common name. Dafego kept walking into the mountains, singing as loudly as he could.

He gulped. Now his stomach was nearly empty, still without food. Dafego looked around now, saw a bench, and ran up to it, gazing around at his surroundings in the moonlight. It was about 10:30 at night by now, and Rob was most likely still asleep.

Dafego felt what he thought was evil around him as the wind rushed by. No bears and no squeegees were around. Quietly, Dafego muttered to himself most of the rest of the song. "What's that? It's a cave, a deep dark cave. Can't go over it, can't go around it...Going on a squeegee hunt, and I'm gonna catch one." Dafego yawned, but the tormenting voice didn't.

Dafego felt like sometihng grabbed him. it yanked him off of the bench and forced him onto the sidewalk. The mysterious force had grabbed Dafego and dragged him at shoe-burning speeds down the sidewalk, deep into the mountains. The rough cement quickly wore out Dafego's shoes, leaving black sole marks behind! Then dafego had no shoes left, and his feet were all scratched up. He couldn't stand the pain and cried out using the only words he could tihnk of at the moment:

It acutally wasn't the squeegee, but it was some strange force! Having the song in his mind caused Dafego to yell out the name of the woodland creature he had so much fun with at camp, the one him and the bear played with so happily! Eventually, the top of Dafego's head was all that was left of ihm, and he was dropped.

Rob woke up at 5:46 in the morning the next day. He could not find his grandson anywhere, and still worried about his cholestrol and Defago's grandmother Louise back home with the liver problems. He walked out of the hotel the best he could, thinking about where Dafego could be. Maybe the sidewalk leading out into the mountains, he thought. After all, back when I was his age, I'd have wandered there too, just not at night when the bears would get me. Dafego wasn't scared of bears, after all. He'd played with themat camp, along with the squeegee. Rob was unaware of the voice calling his name in the middle of the night and threatening him.

Down the sidewalk Rob went, and he eventually met up with a man who looked to be about forty, and carried a bound book and a very large backpack. The man looked straight at Rob's eyes and soon Rob was being flown down the sidewalk at shoe-burning speeds, though this time Rob crashed into a tree and his shoe soles were the only part of him burnt off.

Without his grandson, Rob ended up drinking the rest of his days and, while drunk in the middle of the night, forced the rest of his family onto the sidewalk to be taken away by the Fundigo. Needless to say, Rob was fundigoed, too.