Camp damascus, p.9
Camp Damascus, page 9
My phone rings through the car stereo, prompting me to jump in alarm. I answer quickly, pressing a button on the dash.
“Hello?” I start, terrified of the tone that will soon announce itself on the other end of the line.
“Honey?” comes my father’s voice, not nearly as fuming as I expected. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I blurt, sweet relief overwhelming me. “I just had a … weird session with Dr. Smith today.”
Dad lets out a long sigh. “It’s alright, hon. I understand.”
My father keeps talking, but as he does the signal begins to crackle and cut out. I can tell he’s trying to be supportive, but the words are too choppy for me to understand.
“I think I’m losing you,” I explain. “Service is bad out here.”
There’s no response, just waves of static washing across my ear. I listen intently, struggling to make out my father’s voice through the fuzz, and gradually a faint vocal tone begins to rise above the din. It’s a peculiar and distant sound, tough to place with all this noise swirling around it, but gradually I begin to comprehend the unexpected wail.
It sounds like someone’s screaming, not in anger but blinding pain.
The more I listen, the louder this tortured choir grows, and soon a whole cascade of shrieking and groaning has overtaken the static hum coming from my car speakers. Suddenly, the dashboard lights of my car begin to flicker on and off wildly, and my headlights follow suit.
I hang up the phone and toss it onto my passenger seat, prompting an abrupt end to the chaos.
The car falls into silence once more, headlights holding steady as warm air billows across me.
Thump! Thump!
I jolt in shock as someone knocks hard against my driver’s side window.
The girl with dark hair stands stoically in this unlit parking lot, her eyes dry but puffy. She makes a cranking motion with her hand, a sign for me to roll down my window.
I follow her instructions, retracting the glass that separates us.
“I-I’m so sorry,” the young woman stammers, a desperate thing swimming in her large black sweater. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“What are you talking about?” I reply, confused.
“I shouldn’t even be doing this,” she mumbles, the words tumbling under her breath before she barrels onward in a state of panic. “Fuck!”
The girl shakes her head from side to side, abruptly shifting emotions.
“What’s wrong?” I beg. “Can I help you?”
“No!” she cries, suddenly finding her direction. “You can’t help me, Rose. That’s the point!”
My breath catches. She knows my name.
Gradually, her expression softens as a potent realization washes through her.
“They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” She finally sighs. “All to avoid this exact moment.”
“Whatever it is, looks like it didn’t work,” I retort. “We’re here.”
For the first time, the girl cracks a smile. Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure what I meant, but I’m glad she found the slightest kernel of joy in it. I find myself compelled to ask a question that seems ridiculous at this point, especially given the intimacy that we may have once shared.
“What’s your name?” I finally question.
The girl winces and places her hand over her mouth, acting as though this gesture might keep the pain at bay.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“What’s your name?” I repeat, desperately yearning for this connection that’s swiftly pulling away.
The stranger shakes her head. “I’m not gonna tell you my name,” she says, stepping back from the car. “That’s the point. Forget about me. Forget about all this and go back home.”
“I don’t understand!” I cry. “Why can’t you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Because the longer we stand here, the more I start to miss you, and the more I start to miss you, the more danger we’re both in,” she states with a cogent intensity. “Stop looking for answers. They’ve won. It’s over.”
“If you really knew me then you’d understand I can’t do that,” I reply.
“Understand this,” the girl continues. “If you approach me again, you might as well bring a gun and shoot me in the fucking head. There’s a mark on both of—”
Before she can finish, the girl erupts with a sudden cough. She staggers a bit, holding her throat, then coughs again with even more force. This time, whatever’s caught in her windpipe dislodges and spills from her lips, a handful of flies that immediately take off buzzing in every direction.
“Oh fuck,” the stranger gasps. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”
She turns and sprints back toward the park, disappearing into the darkness and leaving me to sit in a state of complete shock.
“I love you?” I repeat back to myself, these final three words the most unexpected part of our encounter.
I’m not sure how, but the longer I sit with it, the more it makes sense.
Eventually, I pull out onto the road, beginning the winding trek back through several pockets of tree-covered neighborhoods and the deep, dark woods. I’m a long way from home, all the way across town, and after the emotional roller coaster of this evening I’m exhausted.
Neverton transforms in these twilight hours, becoming a strangely lonely place. There are no other cars on this desolate stretch, just a single set of headlights slicing through the great, evergreen-covered abyss of Montana wilderness.
I gradually return to the radio, hoping to find a semblance of company and distract myself from the chaotic ruminations running wild in my head.
I’m trying not to think of those flies, the ones that blossomed deep within my body as a once-in-a-lifetime fluke that no longer seems so once-in-a-lifetime. I try not to consider what else I encountered that evening, especially since I’ve been recently convinced that my demon days are behind me.
As the radio clicks on static fills my car, a station that had been perfectly clear during my trip to the park now drowned in chattering fuzz. It sounds a lot like what happened during the phone call with my dad—chaotic screaming hidden somewhere deep within the mysterious tangle of sound waves.
I shut the radio off, disappointed by my timing on this particularly desolate stretch of signal-free road.
According to the National Safety Council, the likelihood you’ll die in a car crash is 1 in 101.
Approaching a stop sign, I slow and pop on the blinker, making a gradual turn as my headlights sweep across the heavily forested scene.
The second my turn completes, however, I gasp and slam on the brakes.
Someone is standing in the middle of the road, a bizarre figure brilliantly lit by my headlights’ yellow glow. The shape is frozen in place, clad in familiar attire that makes my neck hair bristle.
They’re wearing the same red polo shirt that Pachid sports, and their hair is equally dark and stringy. They offer me the same crooked smile full of dirty broken teeth, and the same stark white eyes gaze at me from within their sunken sockets. They have long, spidery fingers that hang by their side, twitching restlessly.
This figure, however, is not Pachid. This is a man, just as thin-limbed but sporting a rotund belly that pushes out from the center of his lanky form. His hair is just as long, but it only sprouts from the rim of his head, leaving the top completely bald and sickly pale.
I’ve been struggling to understand what I saw that night, struggling to make sense of the evidence as it piled up before me. Everything seemed to point in such an obvious direction, yet I was still desperately hoping to avoid this crushing cosmic truth.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, shivering terribly as I stare at this bizarre and unholy sight, there’s no longer a doubt in my mind.
I’m looking at a demon.
5
MEMORY LANE
From this distance, I can barely make out what’s etched into the demon’s oval name tag. Squinting through the brilliant illumination of my headlights, however, the word becomes apparent.
It reads: RAMIEL.
As the pale man and I stare at each other, I find myself faced with an unexpected test. Beside me is the car’s automatic shifter, currently sitting in the drive position but tempting me with retreat in the form of a little glowing R.
When it comes to sin, Kingdom of the Pine teaches avoidance, to win the battle against temptation before it even begins. In the congregation, so much focus is placed on averting your eyes and shielding your heart that we rarely get around to discussing what happens once these forces have taken hold.
You conquer your metaphorical demons by restricting them from your life in the first place.
But what happens when a demon is standing right in front of you, watching over you with twitching fingers and sagging skin, his meandering teeth locked in the knowing smile of a hunter who has cornered their prey?
The church leaders would likely tell me to run, to cut off the infection and remove this demonic force from my life. Excommunication is a powerful tool within Kingdom of the Pine, and it works.
The thing is, I’m beginning to doubt these philosophies apply to me anymore.
In a sudden jerk of movement, the pale man goes from frozen to agitated. He marches directly toward my vehicle, prompting a surge of adrenaline to erupt through my veins.
“Oh shoot!” I blurt.
Instinct takes over, but I don’t reach for the shifter in retreat. Instead, I slam on the gas.
My vehicle rockets forward, roaring to life with a loud squeal that pierces the dark forest around us. The force pulls my head back against my seat, and as the demon looms larger and larger in my windshield I brace for impact.
When the pale man and my car meet I expect a loud crunch as he’s thrown over the hood, maybe the crack of a windshield or some shattering glass.
This doesn’t happen.
Instead, Ramiel’s body phases through my sedan, these two pieces of solid matter slipping through one another with ease. It happens so fast that I barely catch a glimpse of this bizarre, shimmering moment, the pale man’s torso whipping past me in sizzling blue.
I snap my head back to find he’s stopped in the road behind me, unharmed and standing as still as the night around him. My eyes go wide; I’m spellbound by the tangible magic I’ve just witnessed.
Abruptly, a violent rumble forces my attention back to the forward path. I instinctively slam on the brakes, but it’s already too late. The next thing I know I’m careening off the pavement and bouncing down a sharp incline, struggling to maintain control as a massive tree looms before me.
Then, darkness.
A vast endless nothing.
My senses numb, I have no choice but to drift in this immeasurable void. If I had lungs, I’d focus on my breathing, but right now there are no organs to pump and no air to inhale.
Maybe this is it, I consider, speculating on the bizarre state I’ve suddenly found myself in. Maybe this is all there is when you die, endless black nothing. Forever.
When heaven and hell are so deeply ingrained in your psyche, alternate versions of the afterlife don’t often worm their way in. Even considering other ideas in a simple thought experiment would be strictly prohibited by the church, but fortunately we live in a world without mind reading.
The possibility of something this vacant and lonesome has slipped into my quiet brain from time to time, a horrifying manifestation of death as a perpetual vacuum that we remain eternally aware of. It’s tough to wrap my mind around what endless eons would feel like as they float past, trapped forever while time stretches on and on in a haze.
There’s no logical reason for things to end like this, but I suppose there’s also no logical reason they wouldn’t.
At least eternal torment in hell gives you something to do.
The second I think this, I feel the first hint of a growing warmth below me. Orange light dances across the black abyss, accompanied by the pop and crackle of licking flames.
I’m growing hotter, quickly regretting just how flippant I was with my existential observations.
But death hasn’t come knocking just yet.
My eyes flutter open, pain surging through my body as I witness the dancing blaze that has made its way across my passenger seat. Smoke is filling the vehicle, but before I can open the door and crawl out I notice something even more dangerous watching from the dark forest nearby.
Ramiel is standing there with his bulbous belly and bald, wrinkly head. He’s wearing that familiar, unsettling smile, the light of swiftly growing flames dancing across his awkward visage. His pure white eyes gaze straight ahead, watching me through the glass of the passenger-side window as he waits some forty feet away.
I can’t just sit here and burn.
Drawing on centuries of demonic lore, I reach out and snatch the little metal crucifix hanging from my rearview mirror, gripping the beaded rope tight in my hand. I push open the driver’s side door.
Battling through the aches and pains that overwhelm my broken form, I make a first attempt to escape the burning vehicle. I clench my teeth as a mighty sting erupts through my left leg, the appendage badly twisted after the front of my car crumpled inward.
The strain is too much. I fall back into my seat, tears welling up in my eyes.
“Son of a gun!” I cry out, the rarely used words sizzling against my lips.
I glance over to see the pale man still standing, still watching. Making a run for it was likely never an option.
Still, I can’t just succumb to the fire.
One in 101, I remind myself.
I take a deep breath, bracing for the pain and trying again. This time I’m ready for the discomfort, and by some miracle I manage to pull myself up. I balance against the side of the car and thrust my cross toward the demon, crying out with a fitting prayer.
“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle!” I shriek through the billowing smoke. “Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls! Amen!”
The second I finish my diatribe the demon rushes toward me, propelled swiftly through the forest in the exact opposite direction I was hoping for. It didn’t work.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” I gush, fear erupting through me as I instinctively duck back into the blazing car.
It’s a strange move, but with no other safer haven this is the only option I’ve got. If I limp into the woods I’m a goner, and as far as I know any fate delivered by a demon is much, much worse than burning alive.
I’ll be burning even longer if I go with him.
Sweat pours from my body as I stall in the driver’s seat, accepting my fate and praying with all my might.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” I repeat over and over again.
From the corner of my eye, I expect to see Ramiel gazing into my vehicle, his face pressed against the cracking glass as he watches the life gradually melt from my body.
But the demon is nowhere to be found.
Confused, I look out and discover the pale, pudgy creature has retreated slightly, returning to his former position some forty feet away from my burning car.
“Wait, what?” I allow my analytical mind a welcome return to the captain’s chair.
The demon’s behavior is odd, but an idea is emerging. This creature certainly didn’t mind the crucifix in my hand, nor the holy words spilling from my throat, but when I got back into the car he retreated.
Thinking fast, I move to climb from my car again, watching the pale man closely from the corner of my eye. I can barely see him through the smoke now, but I can make out his silhouette stepping closer with every inch I slip from my vehicle.
When I drop back into the driver’s seat, the demon retreats.
I’ve managed to formulate one or two theories, but I’m not thrilled about any particular hypothesis. Nothing about this makes complete sense.
Why would a demon from the pits of hell avoid, of all things, fire?
I’ve only got one shot at this, I realize, coughing loudly as smoke completely fills the vehicle. On one hand, I’ve had years of coaching through my faith, Christian lore offering a time-honored process of facing down demons with a cross in your palm and the holy spirit in your heart. On the other hand, a crazy—but seemingly evidence-based—idea is brewing.
I spring into action, holding my breath as I reach into the car’s backseat and gather as much junk as I can. There are a few jackets strewn about, as well as an assortment of books and various clutter that any high school senior has. I push through the painful ache that surges through my body, then drop my trash next to the open driver’s side door with a thud.
At the same time, I slip from my vehicle, tumbling to the ground and setting my gaze across the forest. I focus on the demon’s bare feet.
The pale man instantly marches toward my car, and as he approaches I slowly crawl even further under the broiling machine. It’s only now I realize just how burned my skin has gotten; the whole right side of my body is throbbing like I’ve caught the worst sunburn of my life.
Fortunately, the more adrenaline surges through my veins, the more this searing pain becomes a dull ache, unpleasant but manageable. My leg is still mangled and my joints are stiff, but this is no time to nurse my wounds.
It’s time to act.
Ramiel continues his approach, gradually slowing as he makes his way around the blaze. My eyes are glued to every movement, and I react accordingly to avoid detection.
Soon enough, I’m creeping out from under my flaming vehicle and slinking into the woods, hobbling slightly but refraining from the painful yelps that beg to escape from within me.
The demon rounds my car and stands before the mysterious heap that rests outside my door. It’s difficult to see, the fire providing a shield of visual disorientation and prompting the pale man to keep a slight distance.
