Instead, I sense Eisheth rushing past me with a babbling squeal. A gun blast erupts from behind us, joining the chorus of wild bangs that ring out through the clearing as my eyes pop open.
It’s complete chaos. Demons gallop through the darkness, propelling themselves forward on their hands and feet like wild animals, then launching through the air to tackle their fleeing prey. Campers scatter, some tripping and tumbling while others scramble to aid their helpless friends. Truck lights flicker erratically while more gunshots crackle and pop, counselors and security guards firing desperately at their targets to watch as the bullets phase right through them. Meanwhile, a vicious assault of pummeling Christian deathcore washes over the scene in a hellish soundtrack that, honestly, couldn’t be more fitting.
Willow tugs my arm, yanking me from my trance.
“Run!” she screams.
The three of us take off across the clearing, weaving through this unbridled landscape of violent pandemonium. My eyes dart from one brutal scene to the next, struggling to chart the safest course of escape.
A dropped handgun catches my eye. I rush to grab it, scooping up the weapon before realizing I have no idea what I’m doing. These bullets will do nothing but pass through our demonic adversaries, causing as much physical harm as my speeding car did.
But the web of potential outcomes isn’t finished just yet.
I suddenly remember Saul’s flamethrower, the backpack that housed this contraption now lying several yards behind us.
“Wait!” I cry out, slowing Willow and Saul.
I raise the gun, gazing down the barrel and noting that the pressurized tank of Saul’s device rests halfway exposed from its bag. I also note that, unlike in the movies, a bullet striking any pressurized tank and causing an explosion is almost impossible.
I take my chances, shooting once, twice, three times; then finally unloading on my target in frustration. The bullets either ping off the tank or disappear into the dirt around it. As the chaos blooms and my clip empties, I readjust for one final shot. It would take a genuine miracle to accomplish the feat I have in mind, but I suppose stranger things have happened this evening.
Steady. Hold your arm straight. Don’t breathe when you fire.
I pull the trigger one last time.
Nothing. My bullet thumps awkwardly into the grass, a dull ending to my very bad idea.
I lower my gun and drop it to the ground in defeat, but as I do this a figure steps up next to me. It’s Willow. She grips a rifle in her hands, her eyes trained diligently on the tank. She presses the gun’s butt tight against her shoulder, perfectly fixed as her one open eye peers steadfastly down the rifle’s sight.
She pulls the trigger.
A billowing plume of flame erupts before us, so sudden and brilliant that I can’t help gasping aloud and shielding my eyes. The wave of fire reaches some three stories high, swiftly igniting two of the nearby cabins and scattering globs of liquid flame across the field.
Willow offers little more than a smirking shrug, but the moment of victory is short-lived as a shrieking demonic man rears up behind her. Willow swivels and fires another shot, but her bullet passes right through the creature’s body with a turquoise crackle.
The demon grabs the rifle with his long pale fingers and tears it from Willow’s hands, tossing it over his shoulder and letting loose another wild screech.
I pull Willow back, not wasting another second in this pandemonium.
“This way!” I shout, taking the lead and altering course.
We take off sprinting in another direction, bobbing and weaving as a strange new sound fills the air, a flourish of hollow snaps and cracks.
It takes a moment, but when I finally chart the source of these noises I’m appalled to the core. The demons are neglecting to kill their prey outright, as their motivations are much more thorough than some instinctual creature hunting for food. Instead, it appears they’re methodically breaking the bones of their victims, sometimes snapping the neck and other times destroying all four limbs in a complete set.
Meanwhile, those caught by the demons continue screaming in pain, confused why their body no longer obeys any desperate commands.
The demons roughly drag their victims across the ground or hoist them over their shoulders, then manifest a blue, glowing tear in the air before stepping through to the other side.
They’re keeping them alive on purpose.
“Out Satan!” screams a belligerent and wide-eyed Pastor Bend, rushing up to us with a crucifix thrust forward. “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray!”
He’s doing his best to exorcise our demons, but the demons were never ours to begin with. We didn’t summon them. We didn’t nourish them. We didn’t throw collars around their necks and train them.
The victims of Camp Damascus were minding our own business when these forces of darkness were thrust upon us and given a name, an act perpetrated by the congregation itself.
Yet, despite all this, I’m still compelled to help him.
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.