Demon Camp

by Jennifer Percy

  “Enough,” Katie said. “You need to work for a living. You need an income for your wife. Your plans are too grand. There are too many veterans to save and you can’t save all of them.” She sat bowed on the living room couch, Caleb across from her. She had her long hair wound neatly in the back. “You can’t be the savior of everybody, and, Caleb, you think you are the savior of everybody.”

  Caleb blamed the enemy for his ragged, strangled looks. Eyes swollen like a bird just hatched.

  Katie prayed to save him.

  The afternoon after he had the vision of the buffalo demon standing outside the trailer, Caleb went into the 160th offices at Hunter Army Airfield, hoping to talk to one of the commanders about the factory. One of the soldiers had an accidental discharge, and the guy Caleb was supposed to talk with, the commander, he couldn’t talk, because he was involved in all the legalities of the situation.

  Tim and Caleb had a meeting about what to do. Caleb owed twenty-eight grand in child support. Caleb borrowed money from willing banks but worries not much went to the children. Allyson, he’s convinced, wasted it on her implants and gun collection. Still loving Cole Boy.

  Caleb worked on the company with an Iraq vet named Roy, who went through deliverance but not with the Mathers. A different flavor, but the same thing. He went to jail for two years, lived in Statesboro, but sometimes Mexico. Caleb called him the other side of PTSD. A lot like Caleb but on the downside of everything. Living every day with it. Really down in the dumps. As far as seeing physical manifestations, Caleb doesn’t know.

  The minister blamed a new demon for Caleb’s failure to save all the veterans from killing themselves. He dragged Caleb to the trailer for another session. They sat him down on a folding chair. The minister saw the demon move. It moved just a little. Something superimposed over Caleb. The minister said, There you are. Caleb told the minister that his bladder was expanding and that he was going to urinate on the floor. The minister thought the demon wanted Caleb out of the room to save its own existence.

  The team found eighteen demons but these demons described one demon: the Ruling Level Demon of Antichrist. With an Antichrist the afflicted acts like a savior. It doesn’t want you to succeed but it makes you believe you can. It wants you to think you’re the savior of the world and burn out. In the end, you’re not the savior.

  The Antichrist leaped from Caleb’s heart. It tried to rip open the mouth of the minister’s son. The son couldn’t breathe. There came up among his hair a horn, a little one, and in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

  “Your idea of ministering to veterans,” Katie told Caleb, “was birthed under the influence of the Antichrist.”

  In the winter of 2009, after his plans to help veterans failed, Caleb looked for contracting work in Afghanistan. A helicopter transport company hired him as an aircrew trainer, and he spent his days, back in the heat, hauling cargo across the desert.

  But something was different. Flying over combat zones, he thought about Eden alone at home while he lay useless in the grave. He feared death. But death had never ever been a concern for Caleb, only an inevitability. He’d always had the sense he was drifting toward it. It was always around. If someone told him they were going on a suicide mission, Caleb would say, “Great, sign me up.” Since the day the chopper crashed, he’d always packed a little extra ammo, a little extra food. Every time he stepped on a chopper, he figured he was going to crash and die.

  Caleb called Katie from Afghanistan. “What’s happened to me?”

  “It’s fear, Caleb. It’s fear.”

  Afghanistan is where he hoped never to return. The open-air sewer at Kandahar Airfield shined like a coin.

  Six months passed and the saving feeling returned.

  First he decided to save his civilian crewmates, whom he feared would end up in the hands of the enemy, navigating blood-splattered terrain. What to do when the chopper goes down? What to do when the enemy arrives? As the flight crew trainer he offered to teach the civilian workers skills in survival, resistance, and escape. He organized a live-simulation training. Caleb remained vague in the pretraining brief.

  During midflight simulation Caleb’s voice cracked through the pilot’s radio: You’re burning. They were hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

  The workers fake-landed—they had never really taken off. They swarmed into the sun, arms waving. A few carried those who were labeled “injured.” The burned guy. The guy with a missing arm. The unconscious guy.

  The contractors carried the wounded over five hundred meters of plain earth. They gathered in a circle. They rested and thought it over, but they were wrong. Caleb hired a group of men from the Australian Air Force to kidnap them. The men appeared in the horizon’s sunlit crack. Faces covered and weapons raised. The guy with no arm wasn’t sure if this part was real or not.

  • • •

  Over time, Caleb started prayer groups in Afghanistan, men and women gathering at night, quiet explosions in the distance. Men hear things differently in the desert, they hear God differently. He began with the soldiers; the men he found stooped in the sand, the men whose wives had left them, the men who weren’t home to see their daughters born, the men with bleeding gums and broken toes. These guys were grabbing him and saying, “I need to get ahold of that too.” Probably four or five over there that were going to come back to Portal for deliverance. First Caleb would get to know the soldier, explore his wounds and secrets, and watch until he knew their demon. Then he’d bring him through deliverance.

  This is Caleb at his most converted. It is better, he thinks. Better to kill the demons before homecoming even begins.

  Caleb has a story about a thirty-five-year-old Afghan named Kaj, who circles an area near the compound day after day with a cart of goods to sell. Caleb wandered up to him and they got to talking. Caleb tried to negotiate with him, bribe him, see if he could make a deal so the Taliban would stop attacking the base. Kaj said he’d give Caleb what he wanted if he’d travel into to the mountains with him to help his father, a sick man with failing kidneys. The Taliban would never let his father leave the country to find medical care.

  Caleb followed Kaj into the mountains. The father was a small man, sleeping in a dark room. His eyes hardly open.

  “You don’t believe in my God,” Caleb said, but he spread his fingers flat over the man’s heart and prayed, anyway.

  • • •

  Back in Portal, the son of Jesus moves around like a moth, disappearing into dark corners, pulling quiet people from shadows. She’s in charge for the evening.

  She walks over to a leather chair and sits hunched with her glasses on her nose, yelling that it’s time to get started. No one listens. She waves the Bible.

  I ask the tan man what we’re doing. “The prophetic is like military intelligence,” he says. “You don’t want to fight the enemy without a little recon, do you?”

  “Can I go home?”

  “Go?” He shakes his head. “This is the best part.”

  Mary’s on the floor making prophetic wet strokes with her fingers on an empty canvas with blue and red paint. She shows me her red fingers. “I brought an extra canvas if anyone wants to try.” Vivian decides to try. She kneels beside Mary and forms her own image from drips.

  “Someone pray,” the son of Jesus says. Bobby lights candles with other candles.

  “Someone pray,” she says, louder this time. “All right, I’ll start, then. I’m being awed,” the son of Jesus cries. Yeah, yeah, she says, and then: yes, yes.

  I look at the tan man and mouth the words “I want to go.” He shakes his head.

  The son of Jesus throws her head back. Yes. Yes. Yes. She rises. Her head seizures. It looks as if she’s trying to shake ants out of her hair without using her arms. Her skin is blue near her wrists and near her face. She enters a fit, making quick, spastic movements like coughing. Everything is silent. There are only her words: yes, yes, yes, yes.

 
She walks in a circle, widening. Every few steps her head yanks to the floor as if being pulled by a string. She does it faster until she’s pecking at the carpet like a chicken. Yes. Yes. Yes. She enjoys it. Yes, God.

  The back door swings open and the air brings with it the smell of campfires burning somewhere far away. Two men step inside wearing big grins. They’re called “the boys.” The young-looking one with dark skin and wavy black hair comes to the center of the room and complains of nightmares.

  The professor’s wife points. “Bats flying around his head,” she says with a gasp, and covers her mouth. She ducks when one comes too close.

  With her eyes closed, her hands reaching, the son of Jesus feels for the invisible bats. “He isn’t delivered,” she says in a guttural voice, her mouth stretching.

  “Say it louder,” a voice commands.

  “He’s not delivered!”

  What?

  “He needs a really good dose of wine and oil. The blood and the oil just need to lather him up. I can’t explain it. I think it’s because there’s dormant healing in his hands. His hands are cold. Wounds in his hands.”

  He gives them his hands, pokes at Christ wounds. “I volunteer at an insane asylum,” he says. “They’re getting to me. They’re transferring. All day. I’m too weak. I see everything.”

  Everyone starts whispering, Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Father. No evil will become you. I’m on the couch, slowly making my way toward the door.

  They’re rubbing his hair, moving their hands down his body, lathering.

  “More, more,” he begs.

  “Your perfect love casts out fear.”

  Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. His face scrunches. The voices of the insane leave him, draining onto the floor. He falls, curling, and then rises slowly again. Thank you. Thank you. They send him to the back of the room. Four people surround him and whisper about deliverance, using their hands to point to us, the delivered, the way we’re all smiling. One by one.

  “Who’s next?” the son of Jesus says. She cranes her neck to look around the room.

  Vivian runs to the chair and sits with her back stiff and her arms dangling loose at her sides. Everyone surrounds her, touching her feet, or touching her hands, or touching her hair. Her stomach. She’s in the middle, showing us her neck.

  Come. Come. Come. Come. The son of Jesus turns her head back and forth. Deep laughter from all. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, yes, Jesus. Come. Come. Come.

  Mary on her knees, wet-faced and whispering. She curls into a ball.

  “Oh, Holy Spirit, yeah,” the son of Jesus says. “Oh, boy, he just came in the room and is just waiting to rain down on us. If you want it say yes.”

  Yes!

  “It’s just misting down. Do you see it?” She raises her hands above her head and feels for the Holy Spirit.

  Uh, wow.

  “I’m feeling a lot of fire too,” the son of Jesus says. “I think this means you must dance.”

  Vivian shakes her head. Her skin is covered in a thin wet film. “Not alone I won’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  “It doesn’t need to look good,” the son of Jesus says.

  “But I would want it to look good.”

  “I want to see what Christ is giving you. Just let him live through you. Let him show you how to dance.”

  The son of Jesus reaches into the woman’s chest and pulls out an invisible worm. She throws it on the ground.

  I’m sitting on the couch. Slowly, I inch my way to the door.

  Mary touches my back. “Are you okay?”

  “Who has music?” the son of Jesus cries. Ezra dashes out to his car and returns with a CD. He holds it in the air. “Irish war music!”

  We clap for Vivian in the thunderous Irish beat. Her arms move ribbonlike. She dances like an aerobics instructor, taking the left hand to her right foot, then the right hand to the left foot. Vivian spins. The son of Jesus taps her feet. The professor and his wife boogie in the corner. Bobby has a hula dance going on that makes the candlelight flicker.

  The son of Jesus starts laughing. She says, More. More. More. More. Each time she says it slower, lets the sounds come out piecemeal, chopped up by laughter. More, Lord! More!

  Vivian copies. The professor adds his own deep-throated “mores.”

  The son of Jesus begs and her laughter grows until she’s screeching. The whole room follows suit. The sounds are like those of unidentified tropical birds. Vivian collapses. Silence. Ezra is next.

  “I see warriors,” the professor says. He puts his hands on Ezra’s head, holding it firmly and gently as if it were an egg. Ezra’s eyes roll. “I see a tribe before they go to battle. They’re making noises with their instruments. There’s the very loud consuming sound of war. Here’s a new sword, Ezra. Put your hands out and go to battle.”

  Ezra parts his lips. He gazes at the sword and carefully retrieves it. He slices the air, cutting wide circles above his head. “War!” he cries. “War!”

  Ezra runs back to his seat, still pretending to hold the sword.

  Mary pushes me into the center of the room. “You go next.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Come on.”

  Everyone is nodding. She brings me to the chair and I’m surrounded on all sides. The son of Jesus sits next to me and puts her face close to mine. “How’s it going?” she asks through clenched teeth.

  She crosses and uncrosses her legs, piles both hands on her knee. Everyone is summoned. Faces come close and then move suddenly away.

  “You’re one of God’s favorite daughters,” she says.

  “It’s true,” they repeat. “You’re God’s favorite daughter.”

  God’s favorite.

  All mouths are moving. The tan man hums in the corner with his head down.

  “No, really,” the son of Jesus says. “You just don’t get it. You’re one of God’s favorites. Okay. She isn’t hearing us. The words are just bouncing off. I see a shield in front of you. Push that shield away.” I push the shield into the son of Jesus and she gets mad.

  “Oh, boy,” she says. “You’re having a hard time believing this, aren’t you. The rest of us should be jealous. He’s flipping nuts about you. He’ll be the absolute love of your life.”

  Love of your life, they repeat.

  “Oh, boy, oh, Lord. You’ll never believe this. Look who just walked in the door,” the son of Jesus says. “A pink mist. That means love is coming in the room. He wants to pour his love on you. Let him woo you. Jesus is going to be your greatest romance.”

  Your greatest romance.

  Everyone hums and closes their eyes while having their imagined love affairs.

  Noah touches my hand. He’s crouched on the floor, looking up at me. “I see you in a hospital bed, lying down, and there’s this golden liquid in one of those bags they put on the side. You know what God just told me? God told me you need a transfusion. I asked what kind. He said an identity transfusion. I really believe that God wants you to do a transfusion right now and that this gold liquid needs to pour in you and that you need to realize your identity.”

  Noah rolls over and disappears behind me.

  “Okay, listen,” the son of Jesus says. “You need to say ‘I am lovable.’ ”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Say it.”

  “I am lovable?”

  “You’re asking a question. Don’t ask a question, just say it.”

  “I am lovable.”

  “You’re asking a question.”

  “Say it.”

  “I am lovable.”

  “Say it. Again.”

  I say it again and again until I’m screaming it.

  “You’re still not saying it!”

  I’m crying and bent over and they’re all screaming at me to scream and so I just keep screaming. I hear breathing. I think I hear the bones in my neck crack. The son of Jesus is coming at me slow, wide, and ethereal in her dress.

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  Katie enters the room and recites the Bible in a whispery voice:

  “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first and that is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

  “You’re in the enemy’s camp now,” she says. “All alone.”

  PART V

  I AM THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

  April Somdahl’s trailer sits at the end of a wide dirt track near a patch of hundred-year-old North Carolina woods: a dark wall of yellow birch, flowering dogwood, witch hazel, wild strawberries, and the thick rise of spruce. Chickens nap in its shady border, burgundy heaps of damp feathers. A fence holds back the growth.

  April didn’t want to move to the trailer but her brother Brian returned from the war convinced that the Iraqis were going to invade America. He told April to move to the woods, to a place away from people, with enough land to grow vegetables and raise chickens. April didn’t think the Iraqis were going to invade America, but she loved her brother and so she bought the trailer, a place where she could take care of him until he’d recovered from the war. Three days after she bought the trailer, Brian shot himself. They found him facedown in the Cumberland Center Pavilion, head blown off, bleeding on the steps where he married his wife three years earlier.

  April says to get to the trailer you go past the hog farm, and past the dumpy trailer park, past the place where civilization ends, and then take a right at the balloon.