the demon of wilderness creek

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The Demon of Wilderness Creek

For five Oklahoma teenagers, one night at a summer youth camp marks the beginning of terrifying conflict with an entity known only as Ara.
Nestled deep in the Arbucle mountains of Oklahoma, is the isolated retreat of Wilderness Creek. Known for its beautiful, lush scenery, Wilderness Creek is a densely wooded area veined by an inviting, boulder-strewn creek that provides the perfect setting for a youth camp. Every summer, kids from several Southern Baptist congregations gather at the campgrounds for fun, exercise, fellowship and spiritual instruction. For Ami and a few of her friends, however, the summer of 1995 would mark the beginning of a terrifying episode brought about by a mysterious encounter with a malevolent entity.

This was Ami's first summer at Wilderness Creek. She was there with several of her friends, all of them about 14 years old, including Sherry, Anne, Mandy and Byron. "Everything was great for a few days," says Ami, until it came time for the Wednesday night tabernacle. It was a warm June evening when the kids gathered as usual for the evening's hour of ministry and prayer. But there was, perhaps, one uninvited guest at the meeting.

Standing about 35 feet from the tabernacle was a boy no one had ever seen at the camp before. Byron was the first to notice him. The strange boy seemed to be about 17 or 18 years old and was dressed all in black. Byron pointed fearfully at the boy, who was then also seen by Ami, Anne, Mandy and Sherry. "He had black hair, and he was wearing black pants and a black sweater, which I thought was odd for summer," says Ami.

Upon seeing him, the youths immediately fell ill. Ami, Mandy and Byron had difficulty breathing. Sherry doubled over with stomach pain. And Anne's pains could have been a sign of something far worse. All of the youth leaders within five rows in all directions could see that something was seriously wrong with these kids. They rushed the five of them to the camp's infirmary. Even though he was at this point coughing up blood, Byron was told that he had asthmatic bronchitis. Bronchitis was also blamed for Ami and Mandy's breathing problems. Sherry told the staff that she was experiencing the worst stomach pain of her life. Anne had worse problems. For several days, Anne feared that she was pregnant and that her pains meant that she was having a miscarriage. While the other kids were treated at the infirmary, Anne was rushed out of Wilderness Creek to a nearby hospital.

Upon seeing him, the youths immediately fell ill. Ami, Mandy and Byron had difficulty breathing. Sherry doubled over with stomach pain. And Anne's pains could have been a sign of something far worse.
The five kids made no mention of the strange boy in black that they had seen near the tabernacle. And no one else, neither the other campers nor the adult leaders, seemed to have noticed him.

Byron was especially troubled by these strange events, as if he knew more than he was letting on. As soon as he was released from the infirmary, he ran off into the dark. When the other girls were given the okay to leave the infirmary, Ami and Sherry headed for their bunk house, but Mandy decided to go off and look for Byron. It was a short distance from the infirmary to their bunk house, Ami says. "It was impossible to get lost." But Ami and Sherry didn't get to the cabin right away. The two girls inexplicably wound up in the middle of the woods surrounding Wilderness Creek. "When we finally made it back," Ami says, "it was nearly an hour later, and to this day neither of us remember what happened. We separated, I think, but I don't remember anything specific until we came out [of the woods] just on the other side of the bunks."

By the time the two girls got back to their bunks, Anne had already been returned from the hospital, but was being kept in a separate room. Byron was there, looking pale and ill-at-ease. Sherry left the bunk house to go speak with one of the youth leaders. Ami sat beside Byron on the bunk and asked him why he looked like he had seen a ghost.

At first it was difficult for Byron to speak. The words seemed to catch in his throat. Slowly he began to tell Ami what he knew... about the boy in black.

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The boy in black was not a boy at all, Byron told her. The being they had seen, as if it were standing right there in front of them at tabernacle, he said, was a demon named Ara. Byron confided that he had been possessed by Ara at various times over the last few years. Ara would demand that Byron do certain things for him, and if he refused, the demon simply took control of Ara's body.

Ami sat in silent disbelief. Byron was certainly still suffering from the effects of his illness, she thought. Either that or he's just plain nuts. Being raised in a fundamentalist faith, Ami was taught that demons were real spiritual entities, but the idea that one could manifest itself and take control of a human being - one of her friends, no less - was inconceivable. Byron asked Ami not to reveal his secret to anyone else, and she agreed.

The remaining days at the camp seemed normal enough. As often happens when one has an extraordinary or unexplained experience, as time passes, one tends to look upon it as something unreal, or one tends to justify it somehow. For Ami, she rationalized the episode as a result of the summer heat and exhaustion. The alternative was just too fantastic. As the normality of the following days filled the kids' lives, the incident was practically forgotten.

They both looked at the Ami standing in the doorway. Suddenly, her cousin grabbed Ami by the neck - and broke it, smiling gleefully.
A few months later, Ami was home. The summer season was winding down and she was spending time with her cousin before school started again. While idly enjoying each other's company in Ami's bedroom, her cousin looked out the window and said she saw someone in her backyard. Ami immediately thought of Byron. She hadn't seen him since camp, but he had phoned her recently and said he would be coming over. That was probably him in the backyard fooling around. Playfully, Ami pretended not to hear her cousin. But before the game could continue, Ami heard a voice.

It spoke to her as if it were standing right next to her. Ami was so shocked and frightened by this disembodied voice that she was thrown into a kind of confused delirium. In that wild moment of unreality, Ami believed that she was pregnant and that this voice was going to kill her baby. Then, almost as quickly as it struck her, the dread feeling faded, and Ami awoke to the reality that this threat was an impossibility. She was, after all, still a virgin.

Ami explained what had just occurred to her cousin. The girls, like many young teens, were fascinated by witchcraft and the idea that a kind of magic or control over one's surroundings and circumstances was a real possibility. Together they decided to perform a "seeing ritual" to see if they could discover the root cause of these bizarre experiences. A seeing ritual, Ami had read, was a ritual that reveals "the truth to the mind of the caster. Whatever is hidden, whether a lie or someone in the shadows, the truth will be shone."

The ritual had effects far more intense than either girl expected, however. They both fell into a state of unconsciousness - or superconsciousness - and shared a dreamlike vision. "We saw Ara, dressed the same as he was at Wilderness Creek, standing in the middle of a fork in a road," Ami recalls. "On one side - I don't remember which - was a path that looked rather inviting. It was lit and looked like a spring day. On the other side, the trees were twisted and it was night. You could hear the noises of life on the dark side, but on the light side it was eerily quiet. Without opening his mouth, Ara told us that we could choose either path, and he would let us walk without coming near us.

"Neither of us knew what to do, and then it changed. We were no longer together. In my vision, since I can't remember hers, was that I was walking down [the hall of my home] and then into my room." Standing in the doorway of her room, in this vision, Ami saw her cousin and herself sitting together on her bed, as they likely were in reality. They both looked at the Ami standing in the doorway. Suddenly, her cousin grabbed Ami by the neck - and broke it, smiling gleefully.

At that instant, both girls awoke from their trances, feeling frightened and confused. They compared the experiences of their visions and it was then that her cousin knew, without being told, what had happened at Wilderness Creek. Overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment, the cousins were nearly startled out of their wits when the doorbell rang. It was Byron.

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Byron was with his friend, Brandy, and Ami invited them in. She told him that they had another experience with Ara. "I know," Byron said. Ara had been tormenting him, Byron told them, urging Byron to sexually attack the girls because he wanted the purity of virgins. Byron said he resisted Ara and refused to do his bidding. Brandy then mentioned that she had heard that a demon called an incubus could, in fact, rape a person without the aid of a human body. Ami had never heard of an incubus and didn't believe Brady's incredible claim.

As Byron approached Ami, she handed him a Bible. Byron screamed and dropped the book to the floor, crying that it had burned his hands.
At that point, Byron lay on the floor and called Ara into him. But Ami was getting fed up with all this bizarre nonsense, suspecting that Byron was just playing with their minds. As Byron approached Ami, she handed him a Bible. Byron screamed and dropped the book to the floor, crying that it had burned his hands. Ami was now becoming irritated by Byron's act... until she looked at her Bible, which bore the marks of Byron's handprints. They remained on the cover, Ami says, for several days, and then disappeared.

Over the next week, Ami continued to experience some strange phenomena. Once while playing with a Ouija board, all it would spell out was: ARA. And when asked what it wanted, the pointer would move clearly toward Ami. She also saw some mild hallucinations while falling asleep and had some wicked dreams, but they all soon passed.

Ami has not seen Byron since that last meeting at her house. "The last I heard, about two days before all of it stopped [for me] was that he was going to go through some kind of white magic ritual and have the demons cast out," she says.

As for Ami, she has turned her back on all aspects of the occult. "I don't believe in witchcraft anymore," she says. "I am a Christian now. I believe that my turning to God at that time saved me. I am guessing that unless Byron has gotten saved in the last 4-1/2 years, Ara is still with him."

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"Ami," the young woman who related this story to me, swears that it is all true. Names of persons and places have been changed to protect their identities.