Camp Damascus(29)

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.