Camp Damascus(83)
I wave my hands in Pastor Bend’s face, struggling to interrupt his religious diatribe. “Run for the woods or stay by the fires!” I shout. “They hate the fire!”
It’s only now that I realize how little Kingdom of the Pine understands about the very power they’ve harnessed.
Pastor Bend continues bellowing his prayer, a metaphorical fire in his eyes while a literal blaze looms orange and magnificent behind him. “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!”
I suddenly notice a gun gripped tight in Pastor Bend’s left hand, a crucifix on one side and the threat of violence on the other. He’s not just hoping to remove demonic influence from our bodies, he plans to remove the bodies as well.
It’s too late for us.
“Wait,” I blurt, throwing my hands up.
The pastor lifts his hand in a sudden jerk, ready to fire a bullet right between my eyes.
Before he gets the chance, however, a long-fingered appendage whips through the darkness and grabs Pastor Bend by the skull. He cries out in shock, struggling to fire his weapon at the creature behind him, but a swift snap of the wrist renders Pastor Bend utterly helpless. He drops the gun.
The demon behind Pete Bend slams something into his upper back with a quick and powerful movement, immediately prompting the pastor’s eyes to go wide and a spurt of deep crimson to eject from his lips. There’s a hollow thump to accompany this movement, then a strange tearing sound as the demon pulls swiftly upward.
The whole thing happens so fast it’s difficult to fully grasp, my mind reeling at the creature’s brutal efficiency. It’s using a tool of some kind, a metal scooping device attached to a handle and an oblong glass tube.
In a matter of seconds, Pastor Bend’s eyes pull back into his head, the wet spheres yanked through the rear of his skull along with the man’s brain and spinal column. He doesn’t even have time to cry out in shock, emitting nothing more than a faint gurgle as his body collapses to the ground.
Meanwhile, the demon shuts the bizarre, tubelike device with an audible click, sealing it tight. Light blue liquid blasts into the glass cylinder with a powerful, hissing injection, filling the container and completely submerging this precise selection of Pastor Bend’s nervous system. His eyes bob and slide against the side of the glass, staring back at me as the demon abruptly turns and hauls them away.
There are no eyelids left to narrow or widen, but I get the distinct impression Pastor Bend is keenly aware of what’s happening, still sensing the blue liquid as it sloshes around his brand-new form.
A jagged, glowing rip in time and space appears before the demon, opening wide as the creature slips through, then swiftly closing behind.
Aside from the mangled shell of a body that lies before us, there’s no trace they were ever here at all.
Keep moving.
Once again, we turn and dash away from the raucous bedlam, weaving through plumes of flame that rise higher and higher as they spread into the forest. I lead our trio along the edge of the towering blazes, slinking close to the heat in an effort to keep the demons at bay, but the farther we travel, the more I realize these efforts are meaningless.
As my analytical mind continues to churn, the truth gradually becomes apparent. The creatures aren’t after us.
As we finally reach the edge of the clearing, I slow my retreat and turn back to the chaos.
“What are you doing?” Saul cries out, anxious to push onward. “We gotta go!”
My eyes dart from one macabre scene to the next, the pattern I’ve been sensing now fully revealed in all its diabolical glory.
Across the clearing my gaze locks with a crowd of other campers, tired and scared but completely unharmed as they watch the chaos unfold. I recognize each and every one of them as captives from below, along with the boy from the archery range.
We’re all here, and not a scratch on us.
Meanwhile, screams of horror continue ringing out through the night, camp counselors receiving judgment from the very creatures they hired to do the judging.
Religious lore of all stripes teaches of entities who act as enforcers, and if you believe in these creatures then the truth of their verdicts often comes as a package deal. If angels and demons exist, their motivations might as well fit the profile we’ve laid out for them.
Now, however, I know the truth.
Whatever these beings are, whether spiritually manifested or defined by the same science that governs the rest of us, it’s clear their moral scale is not perfectly calibrated with the church’s.
Certainly not as much as the congregation would have me believe.
I have no doubt the culture of these monsters revolves around pain, punishment, and judgment, but once the church’s shackles fall away, they answer to an even higher cosmic assessment of right and wrong.
What that is, I’m not sure, but it certainly doesn’t have a problem with gay people.
Forcing bigoted views on others and ramming them through a destructive system of conversion therapy, however, appears to be a massive ethical transgression.
I watch as the boy from the range starts gathering his fellow campers, calling out to them in a fervent, triumphant tone. The others are nodding along, raising their voices to join him, and although the cacophony of grinding thrash metal and breaking bones is too much to hear exactly what they’re saying, I think I get the point.