Blood and Ice Cream

By Gail Fulkerson

Frank liked nothing more than biting the ends off of ice cream cones so he could watch the little ones get covered in melted ice cream as it dripped and ran from the bottom of the cone. He’d snicker as the kid he was watching got stickier; more than once he laughed out loud, a dead giveaway, because daemon laughter is grating and discordant to human ears.

Then he’d have to run away and hide so he wouldn’t be caught. With summer winding down and ice cream sales flagging, Frank had to find another way to amuse himself. He scoured the city looking for anything that would grab his attention for more than a few seconds. After his exhaustive search, he found what he was looking for, a slaughterhouse just outside the city limits. Frank looked the place over and decided this would be his haunt for the foreseeable future. It had everything he insisted upon: seclusion, few employees, and copious amounts of blood and guts. He settled in and waited for the place to open for business the next morning.

Oh, it was glorious, a daemon’s dream come true. Plenty of dark recesses where he could lurk unnoticed as he watched animal after animal meet their death at the hands of a butcher wielding a machete, which he used to slit the animals’ throats. Blood poured and pooled on the floor. Frank even observed their souls leaving their bodies, mostly before the killing blade slashed open their throats.

Every once in a while, Frank would lick blood off the killing floor. It tasted like honey that evil bees had collected from vats of acid, with a soupçon of cement and bleach, but since he was trying to slim down, he limited the number of times a week he did that to three. A daemon had to watch its figure, because overweight daemons were good for one thing only; using their heft to smother a person as they slept. Frank had been enjoying his newfound home for some months before he began noticing the telltale signs that another daemon had found his gem of a residence and was attempting to put down roots. Had this interloper not known that a daemon already lived here? Frank’s scent and his daily urination around the building marked this place as Frank The Daemon’s digs; what the actual f**k was this upstart daemon playing at? Frank didn’t have long to wait to get his answer.

It was a Sunday, and the slaughterhouse was closed. Frank heard a scraping and rustling noise in a far corner of the building and went to investigate. Wedged behind a wooden crate and the wall, a slight, emaciated daemon looked back at Frank, imploring him to have mercy.Frank let his good arm drop. He was going to slash the bejesus out of this kid, until he heard him pleading for his life. Not one to shy away from a daemon in need, Frank told the kid he could stay, then took him on a tour of the abattoir to familiarize himself with his surroundings. There was something familiar about this daemon that Frank wasn’t able to put his finger on, but something the kid said and how he said it, put Frank in mind of his best friend, Larry.

“Larry, is that you?” Frank asked, incredulous.

“Yep, it’s me, Frank! How the hell have you been?” Larry replied, as he wrapped his arms

around him and hugged him until some of Frank’s ribs cracked.

“I see your arm has grown back. How does it feel?” Larry asked.

“I’ve been exercising it since it grew back last year. It feels like I never lost my arm at all,” stated Frank. “Anyways, how ‘bout we go back down to the killing floor and have ourselves a pint or two of blood and some guts? I’m starving, and I’m sure you are too, Larry.”

The two of them raced each other down a steep flight of stairs to the floor. Larry won, partly because he was skinnier than Frank, but mostly by flinging himself off the top landing, cracking his head on the cement floor.

“Dammit! I hate when that happens. Now I’ll have another injury to heal from,” Larry lamented. “I just healed a skull fracture last week.”

The two friends ate and drank and reminisced, until they were sated, then ate and drank some more. No daemon has ever stopped eating and drinking until they vomit, the sign of a great and horrifying dining experience.

Wiping a smear of bloodied liver off his bottom lip, Frank said he still felt a bit peckish, so he suggested the two of them head downtown for an ice cream cone. Larry agreed, so off they went.

“Isn’t ice cream the best dessert to end a fantastic meal, Larry?” Frank asked his best pal.

“Make sure you get a cone without the bottom bitten off,” he cautioned his best friend.

“Sure thing,” intoned Larry. To the ice cream vendor, he asked for chocolate ice cream, with a sprinkle of kidney stones on top.