Camp Damascus(59)

The file suddenly glitches and freezes up, our recording interrupted by the power surge.

I stagger back, feeling the powerful urge to vomit as a wave of disgust and nausea washes over me.

“What the … heck are they doing to these people?” I sputter.

“It’s hell,” Saul offers flatly, staring at the frozen screen. He doesn’t need to elaborate any more than that.



* * *



I emerge from the hangar to find myself surrounded by the glorious Montana evening. A breathtaking sunset is already well into its nightly bloom, oranges giving way to deep indigos as the gloaming arrives. The vastness of this world is overwhelming, especially now that I have the freedom to explore it.

It’s a picturesque sight, almost enough to scrub the horrific visions of a literal hell from my mind.

Not quite, though.

I don’t look back as I make my way past abandoned vehicles and pristine, refurbished luxury cars, eventually arriving at the front door of Saul’s old farmhouse. He stayed in the garage to continue fine-tuning our gear.

The farmhouse door is freshly painted in a light, cheerful yellow, the first of many upgrades I’ve started making around here. Fixing the broken dining room window was another.

I know what it’s like to get lost in your own focus, so I don’t blame Saul for the way he’s let this place fall apart. Fortunately, there are two of us living here now.

The second the cozy indoor air hits me I feel a potent surge of relief.

I make my way over to the living room couch and collapse into it, immediately erupting in a fit of tears as I hold the pillow against my face and allow myself a moment to feel.

Once more, I bask in the memories of Willow in all her glory. We’re dancing in an apartment—her apartment—headphones on as she giggles at my awkward moves. She puts an arm around me to show me how it’s done, and in this gesture our eyes lock. We stare at each other, our loving gazes somehow permeating time and space as I watch from my cage of the present.

I’ve been here before, but it’s never been safe enough to let the mental tape play this far.

Our bodies have stopped swaying to the music as our lips curl up in slight, knowing smiles. A bizarre, beautiful standoff is humming with youthful energy between us, every micro-expression tempting the next.

I remember wanting to lean in so badly, but that craving was flanked by a sickening dread of what might happen if I did. Maybe I’d been reading this escalation all wrong, taking a close friendship and blowing it out of proportion in a deeply inappropriate way.

But even then I knew this wasn’t true. I was just making excuses at the edge of a high dive, terrified to jump.

She’s worth the leap, though.

I lean in and kiss Willow, sparks momentarily erupting across the cosmic space between now and then. Somehow I can feel her, the ghost of these memories still hiding within the cells of my body.

I hold this moment for as long as I possibly can, basking in an overwhelming sense of grand belonging that permeates everything. I can’t remember the last time I felt this safe, accepted by Willow without a shred of pretense.

Eventually, however, my recollection starts to fade. Our lips part as Willow drifts away, dissolving into the abyss from which she came.

The tears stop flowing and my body’s natural oxytocin gets to work, endorphins spilling across me from the magical depths of my brain. My heart slows to a reasonable pace and my breathing calms.

I’m just about to fall asleep right there on the couch when, suddenly, a blast of thundering sound prompts me to sit up in alarm.

I’m used to Saul playing his music in the hangar, and by now I’ve memorized most of these wild deathcore thrashers by heart. This, however, is something completely different.

I narrow my eyes and stand up, listening to the thumping beat that rattles through the entire farmhouse. It’s shockingly rhythmic and danceable, an upbeat, major-scale bassline weaving its way through the pattern.

This is pop music.

I approach the living room window, gazing out across the fleet of vehicles in the yard. Beyond them lies a small patch where the grass is slightly more maintained than the surrounding wilds. It’s just outside the hangar entrance.

By now the sky has darkened enough that I can barely make out the silhouette of Saul as he stands in the middle of this natural stage, completely motionless and staring off into space. He’s got something strapped to his back and holds what appears to be a small tool in his hand.

The music continues at full volume, rumbling across the dark forest around us with bubblegum tones. I was never allowed to listen to secular music at home, but I recognize this song as something I heard friends listen to on rare occasions.

It’s one of those tunes that seeped its way into the popular consciousness, unavoidable to even the congregation’s most overprotected children.

A boy band sings this one.

Johnny or Donnie or Joey or Justin or Nick or AJ or Howie, their names rolling through my mind like secular apostles.

Saul remains motionless for a while, listening to the thunderous pop jam as the darkness blooms around him. The stars are making their grand entrance, just barely twinkling across a glorious cosmic cascade.

But he’s not alone.

A second figure appears in the tall grass, stepping out and revealing their awkward, gangly shape. This is the tallest demon I’ve seen, a rail-thin humanoid with pale skin and long black hair. They’re sporting the same red polo as the others, and based on the proportions of their lanky frame I can only imagine how difficult sizing must’ve been.