Two days ago, I celebrated a significant milestone. I retired from the US Army as a paratrooper after 20 years of service. During that time, I was deployed to a combat zone 9 times and saw all manner of things that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Most of it was the usual stuff any veteran will talk about, which are the types of things I will indeed be telling my VA Psychiatrist for years to come. However, there is one thing I don’t think I could ever tell them about. They would either lock me up as a looney or report me to the government types who would take me out for knowing something I shouldn’t. The thing I can never tell them about is when I came face to face with the Djinn of Garmah.
I was a member of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Most of our battalion was based out of Anbar province in Garmah, just west of Fallujah. We were there to secure the area from Al-Queda’s influence and help establish local authorities who could stand up to the outside threat and create a stable government. Unlike many other places in the country, however, this area seemed willing and able to undertake the task.
My company was based out of an old compound just outside the city and worked closely with intelligence units to identify targets of interest for raids or capture. We would go out nightly and look for these high-ranking people of interest or facilities where supplies and munitions may be stored.
One day, the intel guys contacted us and told us they had a really hot tip, and something big was going on. They had a ton of chatter on the cell network between known Al-Quaeda shot callers about a farm compound on the city’s north side. They weren’t sure exactly what was there, but the number of times it was mentioned recently was significant, so they believed a large attack was being planned from that location, or a large cache of weapons or explosives was moved there. Because active satellite surveillance didn’t show a significant presence of people coming or going, they were leaning towards the belief that a large weapons cache was moved there.
Two platoons from my company were tasked to conduct a raid on the compound to find out more information. We received the intelligence packages, and our officers and senior NCOs planned the raid. My platoon would go into the compound while the other platoon sat in a support position to cover our approach and assault. The compound consisted of about 10 or so buildings, with some that were obviously covered shelters for animals or farm equipment and several that were quite large and could hold any sized array of combat strength the enemy could assemble.
The night of the attack came, and my squad assembled for our briefing. We would hit one of the more significant buildings on the compound and clear it when the platoon went in. After that, we did our rehearsals and rock drills (making little mock buildings out of rocks and stick figures), assembled up and did our final equipment checks. A few short hours later, we were being dropped off by our trucks about a mile from the target to walk the rest of the way in.
Everything was quiet as we approached the compound with the second platoon in their overwatch position. There were no people out, and no dogs were barking at us, which was pretty rare on these more rural farms where packs of them would roam. The only sound was the crunch of boots on the ground as we marched across the fields in our combat formation. We quickly made our way in the gate, and the different squads moved to their building targets. Our building had two entrances, so our squad leader sent my team to one door and took the other team to the first entrance.
We all waited until the platoon leader commanded us to hit all entrances simultaneously over the radio. Private First Class Mosely kicked in the door for my team, and I was the second person in. As soon as I entered the room, my head started spinning. Under the monochrome green glow of my night vision, I could see all sorts of body parts hanging around the room we entered. I stopped to gawk, but my team leader, Sergeant Simmons, pushed me from behind and cussed at me to clear my assigned sector of the room. I quickly moved further inside and looked around for any threats to avoid incurring the sergeant’s ire. As I moved around, I was slapped by the hands of dismembered arms hanging from the ceiling.
My head was spinning, and there were body parts everywhere I looked. Arms, legs, and torsos were hanging from the ceiling, and I saw a small stack of heads in the corner. Fresh blood dripped from some of the appendages, and the smell, I will never forget that smell of death. I ripped off my night vision and took a knee. Off to my left, I heard someone on my team heaving and knew I wasn’t the only one affected by all of this. I hadn’t been in the Army that long, and most of that was in a non-combat role in Germany. In the dim light in the room, I could see sergeant Simmons looking around as he said, “Whaaaaat the fuuuuck??” The moment of wonder and horror didn’t last long as the sergeant quickly gained his composure and got us all back in order, ready to keep clearing the building.
We again lined up on the only other door in the room, and Mosely again kicked the door. This room looked like it was part of a butcher shop or something. There were several tables in the room with racks of knives, cleavers, and sharpening steels hanging from each one. Through my night vision, I could see pools of black liquid coagulating on the tables, and the floor beneath them that I knew would be dark red blood under normal light. As the beam of my infrared laser crossed the room, I stopped at a lone figure standing in the corner at one of the tables with his back to us. The other four team members quickly noticed him, and all of our IR lasers converged on his back.
Specialist Ozlander began yelling at the figure, “Get on the ground, asshole!” The only response from the person was a slow, disturbing laugh as he lazily began to turn around. The male had his hands out to his side and held a large knife in his right hand. He had on a plastic apron covered in a slick liquid that appeared black under the green glow of my night vision, and as he turned, I could see he had been cutting up a human leg when we arrived. I was fixated on the leg when I heard one of my other team members gasp. Startled out of my trance, I looked at the face of the man and saw the reason. The face appeared primarily human, but the mouth was far too broad and overly large for a person. It was filled with large sharp teeth which extended above and below the mouth and reminded me of a shark. In place of normal human eyes, the creature had two small beady eyes without a defined pupil that glowed under the IR lights of our weapons.
We all stood with our weapons pointed at this monstrous creature in stunned silence until it took one step toward us. I don’t know who was the first to shoot it, but we all eventually began firing our rifles at the beast. The force of the bullets pushed the thing backward until it hit the table it was standing at, and then he began to pitch forward. Through my night vision, I watched as a dust cloud in the perfect shape of a man came off the back of the creature just before he pitched forward onto the ground. The person-shaped cloud sparkled slightly and hung in the air for a moment before dissipating.
The room stood silent for a moment until I was suddenly blinded by a wash of light coming through my night vision. I quickly flipped it up and found Ozlander had turned on his helmet-mounted light bathing the room. We all stood in place and looked around. Blood was everywhere. Pools of blood coagulated under all of the tables where tabletops could no longer hold it in place. Lines of blood splatter covered the walls and ceiling every few yards. I stood stunned, turning and looking at the room as Mosley walked over to the creature lying on the ground.
With his rifle pointed at the thing, he kicked it over. We all watched as the body rolled over, and we were looking at the seemingly ordinary face of an Arab man wearing a butcher’s apron. There was no evidence of the creature we saw moments ago. “No, no, no,” Mosely said as he poked the body with his feet a couple more times. “What the fuck is this? What did we just see?”
Sergeant Simmons quickly tried to gain control of the situation and said, “Maybe he was wearing a mask that fell off?” offering us some rational explanation for what we saw. We all looked at each other, and Private Park began walking around the room, taking in the carnage, hoping to find some evidence to explain this. While I stood in place and looked around, I swear I felt a rush of air slip past me as though someone was walking through the room.
We kept muttering to each other, offering a half-hearted hypothesis on what this place was when I heard a gurgling noise off to my left. I turned to look and saw Park standing on the other side of the room. He stood with his arms hanging straight down by his side, his head slack and tilted to the side. His face, though, was the same one we had just seen on the dead guy.
“Knock it the fuck off, Park!” Sergeant Simmons yelled as Park stood there, staring at us and gurgling. I could tell, though, this wasn’t a mask or some prank. Those tiny eyes had a spark of life to them; whatever this thing was, it was watching and examining us. Sergeant Simmons began walking towards Park, still yelling at him. “I will smoke the shit out of you if you don’t take that thing off!” As Sergeant Simmons got within 6 feet of Park, he cocked his head up and opened his mouth, letting out this loud screeching growl at Sergeant Simmons. Park lashed his arm out, striking the unsuspecting sergeant in the chest and flinging him across the room like a rag doll.
Ozlander, Mosley, and I began yelling as we raised our rifles at Park. The creature looked at us and let out his screeching growl in our direction again. We all stood in stalemate until the thing that was Park turned to the wall next to him and began climbing straight up it on all fours. When he got to the ceiling, he continued right onto it, looking at us upside down.
I stood staring, my body refusing to move, as I was shoved from behind by Ozlander screaming, “Move you fucksticks!” as he pushed Mosley and me towards the door we had used to initially enter the room. We all hustled our way through, and Ozlander slammed it shut behind us. Ozlander aimed his rifle at the door as Mosley crumpled to the ground under the hanging limbs. I think Mosley was talking, but I couldn’t be sure since I walked over to a wall and unceremoniously began throwing up.
Ozlander stood, unmoving, with his rifle pointed at the door. I stood up, wiping the puke from my mouth. My stomach still felt queasy, and my brain couldn’t compute what I had seen. “What the fuck was that?” I finally screamed at Ozlander. Mosely was still sitting on the ground sobbing. I looked to Ozlander for some guidance, some information on what the hell was going on. He had been in the Army for a few years and had one deployment to Iraq under his belt. He was going to be a sergeant soon and was the only one of us who didn’t seem on the verge of losing it.
Ozlander called out to me and told me to watch the door. So I took up a position where he had been and kept my rifle trained on the door as he had. I felt like my legs would give out at any second, but I didn’t want that thing coming through the door at us.
I heard Ozlander giving Mosely water from a canteen and getting him to stand up. After a few minutes, he got Mosely back up and standing behind me and was somewhat coherent again. Ozlander stood next to us and said, “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but we need to go in there and get Sergeant Simmons and Park.” I nodded in agreement, even though I was terrified of going back in there. “On the count of three, go ahead and kick the door and we will clear the room again and get a medic for the sergeant.” He said before slowly counting to three.
I pushed my way back through the door, followed by Mosely and Ozlander. I drove into the corner of the room like I was trained and began scanning the room. The creature and Sergeant Simmons weren’t in here anymore. We walked around the room for a short second, looking for any sign of their whereabouts. Mosely pointed to an area on the dirty concrete floor that looked like something had been dragged. Something approximately the size of a person. The trail went across the room into another doorway in the back corner.
Ozlander pointed to the door, and we again stacked up, ready to continue our search. On the count of three, we again went through a doorway deeper into this hellscape.
Inside this room was a bunch of random furniture, most of which was knocked over or broken. The walls were covered in strange symbols in neat rows up and down the walls written in blood. In the middle of the room, the floor was crumbled away, and some kind of pit lay beneath it, and I couldn’t see the bottom. I could hear a wet chomping noise from the far side of the room. We all moved across the room in that direction, shining our lights in the direction of the sound obscured by an overturned table. As we got close enough, we could see the creature, dressed in Army fatigues, bent over Sergeant Simmons’ body. Blood and gore covered his arms up to the elbows, and his face was buried in Simmons’ torso, eating his organs.
I looked to my right, and I could actually see Mosely’s sanity break. He was looking at something that used to be his best friend eating the pancreas of the guy who used to be someone he looked up to and tried to emulate. His face contorted as he let a pained scream escape his throat. He wasn’t saying anything, just letting out a primal rage pent up inside of him. He leveled his rifle at the creature and began walking towards it as he kept shooting it repeatedly.
I watched as the bullets struck the creature. It was hit all over, every round finding its target as fired by a trained killer shooting from 10 yards away. Finally, the thing fell backward, and I again saw the sparkling dust cloud rise from Park’s body. Park’s face again looked normal except in the areas where Mosely’s bullets had ruined it. Mosely kept moving forward, his rifle now silent as he had run out of ammunition. However, he kept trying to pull the trigger, trying to shoot the source of his pain.
As Mosely stood over Park’s body, the small sparkling dust cloud that had been hovering above the ground like dust motes in the light formed into a dagger and streaked towards Mosely’s chest. Mosely’s arms went slack, and he turned around, his face marked with the creature’s small beady eyes and sizeable predatory mouth.
I immediately began backing away with my rifle pointed at the thing as I moved closer to Ozlander. I could see he still had his rifle leveled at Mosely. All three of us stood in silence in the grotesque scene for a short moment.
“What the fuck are you?” Ozlander said, breaking the silence. The creature cocked his head to the side, like a dog looking at someone talking to it. I stood there shaking, trying my best to keep it together as the creature decided to break his silence.
In a gravely voice I can only describe as corpse-like, it said, “I am the djinn of this land.” Ozlander, showing the first signs that he was losing his cool, yelled, “What the fuck does that mean?” The corpse-like voice again returned and said, “The other ones tried to summon me. They woke me from my slumber. They thought they could control me by invoking the name of their god and prophet, but I am older than both. They thought they could order me to kill their enemies for them, but I kill who I want and feast on those I conquer. I am beholden to no human.”
My head was spinning, and my knees didn’t feel like they could support my weight any longer. I started to take one step backward, then two, when Ozlander said, “Fuck this!” and fired his rifle at the thing. Then, in a blur of motion, I watched the creature in Mosely’s body sidestep the shot and close the distance between him and Ozlander at an inhuman speed. I released my bladder into my pants as I turned and began running to the door.
As I got to the threshold of the door we entered the room through, I looked back and saw the thing tearing Ozlander in half with his bare hands as he looked right at me with those horrifying eyes. I don’t remember telling my body to do it, but I found myself throwing a frag grenade at the feet of the creature as I shut the door and booked it back through the rooms we came through until I was back outside.
When I got out into the cool air, I found the platoon leader and platoon sergeant standing outside with two other squad leaders, waiting for all the teams to check in and report what they found. I came sprinting out of the building in their direction, tripping as I went. I was so focused on getting away from the building I clawed my way on my hands and knees towards them.
They later told me that I tried to claw my way up my platoon sergeant’s leg, yelling a bunch of gibberish. Of course, I didn’t hear them asking what happened, and kept yelling things they couldn’t understand.
The official story about what happened was that we found a facility used by Al-Quaeda to torture innocent victims who wouldn’t support their efforts against the US. While attacking the facility, one of the terrorists detonated a suicide bomb, killing almost an entire fire team.
Shortly thereafter, US Military forces pulled out from the area, turning the region over to Iraqi Army forces. The official history fails to mention that most of the Iraqis in the area also fled, and the Iraqi Army wouldn’t go within a mile of the old farmhouse.
It was determined that I had mild PTSD from the blast and seeing my team killed, so I was given a light-duty job assisting the supply sergeant for the rest of the deployment. I never mentioned what it was that really happened in that god-forsaken house until now.