Furry Freddy

Hi, I'm Donnie. I'm seventeen, and I'm a furry. Why? Cause the human world sucks.
I'm not one of those adorable ones who goes to conventions, acts like my favorite cartoon character, makes cute noises then goes home. I'm basically, a degenerate. I like being around degenerates, especially ones in fur suits. Now, before you ask multiple questions, take a moment to psychoanalyze me on you're armchair, I'll wait.	 
Ready? Okay.
 
My ilk don't have conventions, we get together, don't get me wrong but conventions aren't really our thing. I'd say the closest thing we have is; house warming parties, getting drunk off our asses, smoking dope, and waking up in a fur suit. Pretty much our typical lifestyle.	 
If this didn't get you to crave alcohol and weed, then you probably got something else planned for the weekend. If you are interested, send me a private message.
There's the background, let's get to the root of the problem. Last Halloween I got a text from my buddy about a meet-up at the hotel of one of our regulars. I was excited. This guy was a freak, he was independently wealthy, always has the best drugs and booze, and since he owned the whole apartment building, we could be as loud and disgusting as we wanted. I'm very loud, and I am profoundly disgusting.
During the party, I first heard the term "Furry Freddy". Gerry (who's dressed as a wolf) said it in response to something Mike (who's dressed as a rabbit) had said. When I think back to the conversation, I can't really recall what Mike said to prompt him, but Gerry had laughed and said, "Yeah, and I'm gonna let ol' Furry Freddy get me, too." Mike laughed back in response.	 
I didn't pay too much attention then, but after a couple of other references to "Furry Freddy", I started to get a little curious. It would always be a snide reference of some sort, like "Don't take too long in the toilet, Mike, Furry Freddy's probably watching you masturbate" or "Shower before the next shift, okay, Gerry? You're starting to smell like Furry Freddy" or even "Dude, the only guy interested in your story is Furry Freddy."	 
Mike and Gerry were having a smoke, and I walked up to join them. Everything was normal for the first bit. Gerry was telling a ribald joke, Mike was laughing and hocking spit between each puff, and both greeted me like always when I walked up to the smoking area.
 
"You're a bit late," said Gerry. "For a little bit I wondered if Furry Freddy got you," Mike snorted. 
 
"Dude, I hear you guys talk about Furry Freddy all the time," I said. "But you've never bothered to tell me who he is."
		 
Gerry cocked an eyebrow. "Really? I was pretty sure we told you on your first day."
 
"Nope. But you guys reference him enough. What's up with that?"
 
Mike smirked and said, "Ol' Furry Freddy, died in this very building. Gerry told me about him. I never met the guy, personally."	 
So. He was a real person. This was an interesting turn. Up until now he seemed like a story; an in-joke among the staff. I looked at Gerry and said, "Well?"
 
Gerry took a long puff on his smoke and smiled, looking a little abashed. "Coulda sworn I told you, but oh well. Freddy used to be a furry like us. He wasn't here all that long, but while he was here, he made an impression. He didn't talk much, or at least, not to other people. He would come in, staring at the floor, mumbling to himself. He took his lunch alone, didn't speak to anyone unless they spoke to him first, didn't seem to even realize others were around. You've worked with guys like that, right? Something's just a little off?"
 
"Sure," I said.	 
"Well, Freddy, it turns out, actually was a bit of a creep. He kept writing stuff down in a little notebook, and never would let the rest of us see it, but one day he accidentally dropped it while in the hotel basement. There was a woman who worked here then, her name was Margaret, I think, and she saw just a bit of what was in the notebook. It was enough to make her notify police about him."	 
I wasn't all that surprised, but I pretended to be. "Oh, really? What was in it?"
 
"Margaret wasn't allowed to talk about it, but boy did police tear him a new one. He got two years in prison, and when he came back, he was even worse than before. Now he would stare at people, hardly even blinking, until they looked at him and then he would look away. He did this to me, once, but I told him if I caught him looking at me like that again, we'd have it out in the parking lot.	 
But then the day came when a woman came shrieking out of the file room. Turned out that Freddy was in there, hiding behind the cabinets and staring at her. Her eye managed to accidentally land on him, and he hissed at her. Nobody saw that but her, but I never had any trouble believing her, and they did find Freddy in the copy room, still behind the cabinets. Needless to say, he was arrested on the spot, but he asked if he could go get some of his personal files out of the basement before he left."
 
"I think I know where this is going," I said.
 
"Yeah, probably," said Gerry. "They didn't really think about sending someone down with him. They just had a guard wait at the top of the stairs. I mean, you know there's only one flight of stairs going down there."	 
"And... don't tell me," I said. "They found him dead."	 
"Clichéd, isn't it?" said Gerry. "Yep. Hung himself in the basement. That part I can verify, because when they were carrying out his body, the sheet that was over it slipped a little, and I saw the ligature marks. That was the end of Furry Freddy, or so they say."	 
"Or so they say?" I mimicked, wiggling my eyebrows. "Don't tell me. Furry Freddy haunts the hotel basement to this very day?"
 
"Well, that part's the silly part," said Gerry. "See, there was a rumor that he had stashed that notebook down the basement, and that was what he was going to get. But for some reason he decided to hang himself instead. And, just like any story, it's sorta grown since then. Now there's even a rhyme you're not supposed to say."
 
I started laughing. This was too much. Sure, all old buildings had legends, but this one was just gobbledy gook.
 
"A rhyme," I said. "Like what?"	 
"Well, let me see if I remember," said Gerry. "If you go in front of room 134, the room Freddy stays in, you're supposed to say:
 
Furry Freddy
	
Who died quite dreary	 
I'm coming down	 
So don't come near me. 
	
Kid's stuff, really, and I don't even remember who made it up."	 
"Somebody with a creative mind, I guess," I said. "But hey, don't tell me you never tried the rhyme."
 
At that, Gerry's face got a bit red and he seemed to choke a bit on his smoke. "Well, I..." he began. "Well, not... not really. I started to once, but... well, I don't like to play with stuff like that. Never did the Tails doll trick either. I been in that room lotsa times, and nothing ever happened, so why play around and invite something like that, right?"	 
Something felt cold on my neck. Up until that moment, it had all seemed like an amusing story. But Gerry's reaction was real. He believed in Furry Freddy. Believed enough to never test the legend, apparently.	 
We finished our smokes and went inside. When we went to room 342, where another section of where the party is held, Gerry started sitting on the couch and I realized that we were all three as quiet as the grave. We usually were still laughing and joking at this point. Gerry even stayed quiet when he started heading out for another smoke, not even saying a word. Mike must have noticed, because a few seconds later, he leapt up and followed him out for a smoke as well.		 
And I thought as I sipped on a cold can of Bud light: Furry Freddy. How silly. But somehow, the image of being watched through a crack in filing cabinets, of a crazy costumed teen hissing as I spot him, stayed with me. Furry Freddy, who died quite dreary. Don't fall asleep, or he'll kill you gleefully.	 
I wasn't helping myself by adding to the rhyme.	 
Mike came back a few moments later. I wasn't in a laughing mood yet, but he was. He usually was, actually.
 
"Well," he said. "Let's get down and dirty."	 
This surprised me, because Mike was never the guy to suggest we get up and 'get down and dirty', and he often sat on the couch while drinking his beer. This time he was eager to start partying.
 
"What's gotten into you?" I asked.	 
"Nothing," said Mike, but gave himself away a second later. "Hey, let's start with a ritual this time, okay?" Usually the ritual was last.
 
"Oh, for the love of..." I began. "You want to say the stupid rhyme, don't you?"
 
"No," he said, grinning again. We were almost to the basement door. "You're gonna say it."	 
"I am doing no such thing," I said. "I'm a grown ass young man."	 
"Yeah, okay," said Mike. "Who'da thought you were such a chicken?"
 
"You're not gonna get me into your little games by name-calling," I said. "What are you, twelve?"	 
"Well, listen, man," said Mike. "If you won't say it, I'm gonna say it. But then I'm not going in there, so it's up to you if you want to leave for the night."	 
I had just about had it with Mike's idiocy, when I realized we were standing in front of the door already. Mike then stood in front of the door and called clearly:	 
Furry Freddy 
 		
Who died quite dreary
 
I'm coming down	 
So don't come near me!	
He looked back at me with a mocking grin. "All yours," he said.
 
"Fuck you." I replied.	 
"So you're not going inside?" asked Mike "It's part of our deal, you know."
 
"You've done some pretty stupid shit every night that I've partied with you," I said. "So this one night, you'll forgive me if I party pooped on one of mine."
 
"I knew you were scared," said Mike. "You believe in the legend, don't you? You're practically shittin' in your drawers at the idea of ol' Furry Freddy coming for you."	 
But I wasn't listening. I headed back to room 342. Let Mike go inside by himself for the rest, if he was gonna be like that.	 
Oddly enough, he did. By the time I munched on a can of Pringles, he had done drank two bottles of beers; all, I noticed, except going inside room 134. He didn't even so much as crack the door the rest of the night.	 
Finally, he left the party, tossing a smirky "Don't let Furry Freddy get you!" over his shoulder before he left. I heard the front doors closing several minutes later.	 
And I was now alone in the never-ending party of furry costumed people.
 
It was dark outside. It was illumanesent inside. Outside I heard wind howling. Within the building, nothing but music, laughing and dancing.	 
I realized I was holding my breath. Stupid of me. Well, I decided enough was enough. I was no child, to believe such silly stories. It was time to man up and do the ritual.	 
I grabbed my flashlight, and headed for the hotel basement.
 
The basement door stood closed, it's presence looming in my mind. Time to get it over with. opened the doors and immediately flicked on the light switch.
 
 The basement was a fairly large room, but smaller in floor space than the above-ground floors. A bank of twelve lights for the entire room were spread out over the ceiling, none of them all that powerful. The basement was a dark room at the best of times. Think the level of lighting in a sub-ground bar at night.
 
The stairs were steep, and they went down surprisingly far. There were stacks of shelves down here that stood anywhere from five feet to fifteen, and the ceiling extended a good ten feet above them. I was pretty far underground.	
Furry Freddy, who died quite dreary.
 
There were twenty rows. From each one, the one next to it was only visible through tiny spaces between stacked boxes of files.
 
I was mid-way through the third row when I saw something on one of the shelves. Who knows how many times I'd walked past it and never noticed.
 
It was a small, leather-bound journal. The kind a teenager might keep.
 
Before I knew what I was doing, I was pulling it down and looking through it. In a scrawling hand, multiple pages were filled with entries. All the ink used was black. As I read them, I realized that if I saw this from a furry, my next call would be to the police.	 
-Sally Hills bumped into me coming out of the ladies room and didn't say "excuse me".	 
A cartoon of a woman's head was drawn crudely next to it. Dots of red were underneath it, and I realized they were meant to represent dripping blood. Her eyes were angry spirals of red.	 
-Patrick Benson took my parking space today. He didn't even apologize. 	
A crude figure of a man with a red, leaking hole in his chest. 
		
-Nathan Brown grabbed a handful of forks for everyone to eat a piece of Todd's birthday cake, but there wasn't a fork left over for me. I was forced to use my hands like an animal. 	
He'd underlined that last part, and a photo was drawn of a man on all fours. A talk balloon above his head read "arf arf". 	 
Page after page of tiny, petty grievances. He never said in words what he wanted to do in retaliation, but the drawings implied enough.	 
I began to notice a stink in the air. No, not a stink. A fetid stench. It was like someone had let off ten stink bombs right next to me.
 
The air had grown still, and I heard something in the silence. A schlep that sounded wet and rubbery. I shown my flashlight down the row and saw movement in the row next to mine.	 
My blood froze, and I struggled to breathe. The figure continued to walk slowly, inexorably down the row. Within a few short minutes it would round the corner and I would be face to face with it.	 
It turned to look in my direction and my flashlight beam caught it. A man in a Sphinx Cat costume covered in filth glared back at me. The mask's eyes burned through me. A hissing sound rent through the mask, and then through the air. 
 		
My feet came unglued from their spot and I bolted down the row at top speed. The thing was barely moving, apparently expecting me to remain frozen in fear. I made it to the steps and locked the dooronce I had ascended.
 
I spent the rest of the party with all the lights on around the hotel room, wide awake and watching every corner for movement. I was still like that when Lester (who was dressed as a gorrila) came and I let him in. My hand was still shaking as I sat there like a scared little kid.
 
As I was gathering my emotions and preparing to leave, eager to get home, Gerry came into the hotel. It wasn't like him to come in before his shift started.	 
"Hey," I said. "What's up?"	 
His eyes got large when he looked at my face. "Aw, geez," he said. "Listen man, I... I owe you an apology."
"For what?" I asked. 
		
"Well, when we told you the story of Furry Freddy, you looked a little spooked and Mike... well, Mike came out and asked me if he'd help me pull a joke on you. It seemed harmless enough so I agreed." 
	 
"Wait," I said. "This whole thing's been a joke?" I thought of the thing in the row next to me, of the journal that must have been planted for me to find, of the stench of something long dead.	 
"Not all of it," he said. "But if you heard anything weird last night, someone trying to get in at the back, or something, that was just us. We thought it would be fun to give you a little scare."	 
"Heard?" I exclaimed. "I didn't just hear you idiots, I saw you! What did you do, rig up some kind of Halloween prop? Let off some stink bombs? That wasn't funny. I've never been so scared in my life!"	
"What?" Gerry seemed very confused. "We planned to come in through the back while you were on your rounds and scare you, but there's something wrong with the lock on the back door. We couldn't get it open. We never got in the hotel once Mike left. I just... felt bad and wanted to apologize." 	
 
As he said this, I was now in absolute shock. I felt as if I was in some sort of horror film...	
"... If that wasn't you, or Mike in that costume... Then... Then, who did I saw...?"
We both eyed each other with a look of terror, and drove home. Never. saying. A word.
Category:Ghosts
Category:Longpasta
Category:Psychopasta