MONSTERS EAT ICE CREAM

DRAKE MILLSON, IN NEED OF AN EXORCIST

Drake Millson, my oldest friend and most popular guy at Westmen High, was possessed. I had no idea how it had happened within the few minutes we'd been apart, but here he was, stalking toward me.

I stumbled back, every muslce in my body screaming at me to run. But I can't, I can't just leave him - Drake let out a terrible shriek. An inhuman cry. Fierce and blood-thirsty.

But as I backed up, Baxter dashed forward. Faster than I would've expected and without a moment of hesitation he slammed into Drake, pinning him to the geound. He struggled, writhing for freedom, but Mr Baxter held him firmly down.

"We have to lock him up...in the library there's a study room..." Baxter panted, looking to me.

Numbly, I helped him drag a twitching, hissing Drake to the study room. There, Baxter bound the door shut with his built. I tried not to stare as his shirt lifted a little as he unbuckled and slid his belt out of the pant rings.

I shook my head, giving my leg a pinch. Now is really not the time to be drooling...especially over a teacher...

I needed Drake to be okay. In all the chaos, he was my rock nowadays. After losing...him...and with my mum breathing down my neck, Dad's never home, Drake's all I've got.

But what could've possessed him, at Westmen of all places? In all my time here, I'd never senses any presences, no ghosts, nothing. The only answer I could come to was that there was another force here at play. A creature with the ability to manipulate spirits.

Mr Baxter sighed, resting an arm against the glass.

"Why is he like this...I haven't seen a possesion like this in years..." He murmurred.

"You know?" I asked, startled. The last thing I expected was for Baxter to have any inkling of the Crooked World. And of the creatures within.

Baxter gave her an odd look.

"Oh I just mean, you're saying he's possessed? I didn't... I just didn't think it was possible," I lied, clutching my skirt. Drake snarled at us from his glass prison, upturning the table and the stacks of papers and books.


"You're just a kid. But I suppose you know now, the world's a whole lot more complicated than you could have ever thought." Baxter shrugged, his eyes low and somewhere far away. 

I couldn't really expect him to try and introduce the idea of the Crooked World to a 18 year old. But how could he guess that this world was mine. But this world was truly mine, and I needed to use that knowledge to save my best friend. The fluttering of my heart told me just how much he really meant to me. How much I needed Drake to be okay. 

Mr Baxter tensed the muscles in his arms, the vein in his neck straining as Drake's shrieks grew louder. I needed to find something...It had been a long time since I had fed on Drake's nightmares. When someone is being haunted or followed by a Presence, it would soak itself in their nightmares. It would also sour my feast. But the last time I had fed on Drake, his nightmares had been of his brother, just as they always were. No ghosts. 

 The sound of plastic crinkling behind me made me jump, making me spin around to face Brunwitz as she popped what looked like a near handful of pills. She gave me a nasty look, and shuffled away. Looks like someone's stressed...

Wait. 

Spirit Hags...soul thieves...they steal souls and force them to obey their will...but the Hags suffer when they project the souls they've stolen, especially when they use the soul to control another...

I looked behind me, quickly realising Brunwitz was gone. But just where she'd been standing, there was dots of black. The same darkness that was pouring from Drake's mouth. Shit. 

Heart racing, I crept to the corner of the hall and crouched against the corner. Peeking out, there she was. Hunched over one of the bubblers, she coughed and hacked up more and more of the black tar. A terrible retching, a growl rumbling from the belly of a creature. Not a fifty some year old woman. 

And slowly, her head twisting in a way it shouldn't, the old woman's head turned and glared at me, her mouth agape. Fear thrumming in my fingers I stumbled back behind the corner and curled into a ball. My breathing became rapid, sweat clamming my palms. 

Shit shit shit. I need to change. I need to change...I don't know if that'll save me I...

My panic was interrupted by the sound of soft footfalls. The dress shoes, belonging to Mr Baxter, walked past me, casually. I looked to him, confused as to what he could do against a Spirit Hag. But the look he gave me, soft and hard at once calmed me. It assured me, oddly enough. But not as much as the thunderous growl that erupted from him as he turned that corner, the Spirit Hag in his sights.