Dave broke the silence first. "Trevor, have you ever seen that light before?"
Trevor shook his head. "Never."
"But you have shot them before?"
"Yes. However that were the walkers. I've not seen a talker shot before."
Dave looked at Holden. "Is it okay if Holden fires a shot into Charlie? A shot right in the chest would be great."
Holden looked towards Trevor. Trevor nodded. Holden pointed his rifle at Charlie and fired a single round. A disc of light appeared around Charlie. After a few seconds the disc faded away."
Trevor was shocked. "That's a faint light. Maybe during the day it's hard to see."
Dave turned to Josh. "Can you get that digital camera that we grabbed before?"
Josh nodded and jogged over and into the hut.
"Did you see it?" asked Dave.
"It was hard to make out," responded Trevor.
"But did you see what made up the disc. It wasn't a solid disc."
Trevor frowned. "I was hoping that no one would say it out loud, but I get what you are trying to point out. There was writing on the disc."
"Yeah. I wouldn't say the writing was 'on' the disc. Instead I'd say that the disc was made up of letters of light."
Trevor gave Dave a terrified look. They had just stated something with terrible implications.
Josh came back with a camera which he handed to Dave.
Dave turned the camera on and fiddled with it a bit. "I wish that I had some time to play with this a bit first so let's just try it and see what we get. Holden. Could you take another shot at Charlie?"
Holden didn't make any gestures. He smoothly turned and aimed the rifle at Charlie's chest and fired. When the disc of light appeared Dave pointed the digital camera and took some photos. Dave lowered the camera and started playing with the camera's menu controls.
"It worked," said Dave. "I was worried the flash would go off and that the exposure wouldn't be enough, but I've actually got something."
Trevor leaned in for a look. "It's a bit grainy. How about we take another few shots?"
"It wouldn't hurt," said Dave.
Trevor turned to Holden and gestured for him to fire another shot. Holden aimed at Charlie's chest and pulled the trigger. A disc of light appeared. Dave snapped his camera a few frames.
"That's good," said Dave. "Could you try shooting Charlie in the leg?"
Holden aimed, fired and a new disc of light appeared around Charlie's knee. The previous disc hadn't faded, and so two discs we visible around Charlie's body. Dave took a photograph of the pair of light discs.
"That's impressive that we've gotten two discs in one frame," said Dave. "Let's wait a moment for the discs to fade. I don't want to lose Charlie just yet."
Trevor looked down at Charlie. "I have to admit that the idea that the dead have some self-healing function was bad, but the simultaneous presence of some weird looking magic circle of some sort just messes with me."
"'Magic circle'?" asked Dave. "Why did you come up with that?"
"I don't really believe in anything, so it's a bit unusual for me to say. I just can't think of any other way to describe it."
"To call it magic seems a bit much."
"Isn't the word magic what we use to describe what we don't understand?"
"Good enough for now, and it's not like I can come up with any better description. Hmm. Those discs have faded away. Time to fire another shot. How about right in the head?"
"On it," said Holden aiming at Charlie's head.
Holden's shot went straight into Charlie's forehead, and Charlie transformed into loose dust. Although Dave was surprised he still took a few photographs of the process. Gravity soon caused the dust of Charlie's former body to collect in a heap. The ropes that had be used to tie Charlie to the light pole fell to the ground. A faint breeze slowly eroded the dust pile. In a few seconds all that remained of Charlie were the ropes that had bound him.
"That was the damnest," said Trevor.
"So shots to the body and limbs do nothing," said Dave, "but a shot to the head is an instant kill."
"I wish that I knew this earlier," said Trevor.
"If it's true that is," said Dave. "It feels somehow right that a headshot is lethal, but so far all we have is this one data point. I wouldn't be confident in this observation until we get a lot more data points."
"Shouldn't be too hard gaining more data points," said Trevor grinning. "First things first. We need to have a good picture of the discs of light. Having a good image will let us study it at our leisure later."
Dave thumbed through the menu on the back of the camera and looked at the images that he had just taken. "I've got quite a few and considering how bad the lighting is I think that they turned out really well."
"So what are those discs?" asked Trevor.
"The discs are definitely made up of letters made of light," said Dave zooming in on one of his pictures. The image was terribly grainy, however it was clear enough to make out the fact that it was written in a Roman alphabet. "It's in Latin."
"Are you sure?" ask Trevor.
"Not really," said Dave. "I don't know the language but it looks like what I'd expect Latin to look like. And that raises the big question: who here knows Latin?"
There was a quiet while no one admitted to being a Latin scholar. Then Trevor spoke up: "Well, there's the priest."
"I've not heard of a priest," said Dave. "You have a priest at your camp?"
"No," said Trevor. "Not the priest that I'm thinking of. When you cross over the bridge and hug the river going west, you'll come across a small church on the river bank. There's a Catholic priest who works there."
"What do you mean works? What stops him from living in the camp?"
Holden interrupted. "He's a bit in the head."
"He's not a danger," said Trevor worried that Dave would get the wrong impression. "He's just a little soft in the head. The funny thing is that I don't think that he lost his mind because of recent events. I get the feeling that he's always been a bit not there."
"You think he knows Latin," asked Dave.
"I've not been a part of any of his services," said Trevor, "but if he has any sort of traditional training as a Catholic priest then I'd expect that he's got some knowledge of Latin. At least if he isn't an expert he might at least confirm if this disc is written in Latin and maybe give some pointers on what we can do to translate the text."
"That's good enough for now," said Dave turning off the camera in order to save its batteries. "Can we make a detour tomorrow and give this priest a visit?"
"I was about to suggest it myself," said Trevor. "And on that note, maybe we should get some sleep. We're going to have a lot to do tomorrow."
"I'm on board with that," said Dave. "Let's help you get out some stretchers. It'll might be a bit rough sleeping without some cover but it's the best we can throw together right now."
"Don't worry about it, these uniforms are damn warm and we've got an emergency blanket in our day packs."
Dave nodded. "Okay then. Let's get ourselves to sleep as quickly as possible then."
* * *
Dave and Josh slept through the night as they were in the routine of doing. Trevor and Holden spent their night sleeping on some newly opened stretchers that were placed outside the hut. The hut was only a small one and there wasn't enough room to open up all the stretchers inside. Regardless, everyone had a decent sleep and they woke surprised by how refreshed they felt. Dave and Josh didn't need to prepare for a long journey and after a quick breakfast the four made their way down the southern road. Soon they reached the bridge and spent a moment resting.
Trevor gestured down the river. "You can see the church from here."
Dave shook his head. "Incredible. I should have noted it when I was here to get water."
"Me too," said Josh. "I guess I was focused on anything else."
"Well," said Trevor, "we'll be there soon, so let's give the priest a visit."
Dave looked back the way they had come. "This bothers me. How is it that the dead don't cross this river?"
Trevor shrugged. "I can't say that I ever thought of it."
Dave looked at Trevor. "And that's the sort of reaction that bothers me even more."
"There's a path that follows the river," said Trevor pointing up the river. "Let's get moving."
Dave looked at Josh and they nodded to each other. With Holden and Trevor in the lead, Dave and Josh followed up behind them.
As they crunched along the dirt path leading to the church, Dave noticed that the church was a very small one that probably only had token value. Due to its scenic position on the riverside Dave suspected that the church was probably mostly used for having small, open-air weddings. It was too cramped to contain a decent sized congregation.
They had reached the tiny fence surrounding the church when Trevor detoured towards the church's back. In the yard space between the church and the river was an old man with greyed hair wearing the familiar black clothing and white clerical collar of a priest. The priest was busily moving what appeared to be bottles of water around on a table.
"Hello, Father Stephen," called out Trevor.
The priest crossed himself and turned to Trevor. "Hello, my son. You have quite the crowd today."
"Just passing through," said Trevor. "You've met Holden before, but this is Dave and Josh. They are staying at the supermarket across the river." As Trevor spoke he pointed at Dave, Josh and the direction of the supermarket in turn.
The priest nodded in a friendly manner. "And a good day to you all. It must be dangerous living across the river."
Dave spoke up. "Actually we've managed to build up some walls using various abandoned vehicles. That seems to successful keep annoying guests away."
"It didn't stop us from visiting," joked Trevor.
"Compared to the usual," said Josh, "you are definitely not annoying."
Trevor nodded at Josh before turning back to the priest. "Like I said we're just passing by on our way back to base. I won't keep you from whatever you're doing."
The priest turned toward the table with the bottles of water on it. "You're referring to this?" gestured the priest.
"I don't mean to pry," said Trevor. "You don't have to say anything."
The priest seemed open enough. "Oh, I have nothing to hide. I was just blessing this water."
Trevor looked confused. "Are you expecting to hold a lot of services in the near future?"
"Nothing like that. I bless the water and pour it into the river."
Trevor turned to look back at Dave who shrugged back. "Sorry, I'm not following you."
"This church is upstream from the bridge. By pouring blessed water into the river it becomes a barrier to block evil."
"I'm really not following you at all," said Trevor rubbing the back of his head.
"Sorry to interrupt," said Dave, "but are you saying that by pouring holy water into the river that you're stopping the dead from crossing the bridge. Earlier we were discussing how it was odd that the dead didn't try crossing the bridge."
"I don't really like that term 'dead'," said the priest. "They are more precisely the fallen."
"Don't they need to die to become this 'fallen'?" asked Dave.
"Oh no," said the priest energetically. "Like any cult, it's strength derives from the beliefs of its participants. It's just that when you are being killed then it's much easier to believe in death."
Dave stopped speaking, the look of confusion clearly on his face.
Trevor frowned at Dave and turned back to the priest. "Anyway, we're not here purely to swap greetings. We had an ulterior purpose."
"Sounds ominous," chuckled the priest.
"Actually it's quite dull. Would you happen to know Latin?" asked Trevor.
"Not only do I know Latin, but I was rather famous for how fluent I was. I use to be able to spin all number of humorous ditties back in the day when I was a young student."
"That's good to know," said Trevor who turned to Dave.
When Trevor had redirected the conversation, Dave had pulled out a digital camera from his day pack and had turned it on.
Dave leaned on the church fence and turned the back of the camera to the priest. "Could you confirm if this is actually Latin?"
The jovial priest leaned forward to look at an enlarged section of the disc of light. The priest suddenly turned pale. "Yes. Ah. Yes. That is Latin."
"Do you want me to zoom into a different part of the text?" asked Dave confused by the priest's reaction.
"No, that's perfectly fine," said the priest backing away from the fence. "Can I ask where you got that picture?"
Dave turned the camera around to look at the image. "We took this last night. Whenever we shot and injured one of the dead a disc of light would appear. This light would appear while the dead was healing itself. It's not all that bright and we suspect that it might appear during the day but is just too faint to be clearly seen."
"Yes. Yes," said the priest continuing to back away from the fence.
There was an awkward pause before Dave tried speaking again. "Can you tell us what it means? It seems to have left an impression on you. Are you familiar with the text."
"The text? Oh, no. There's no text."
"I don't know Latin but it looks to be structured like a valid text."
"No. No. It's not text at all. It's just a lot of random words. Completely meaningless."
With this the priest turned and staggered towards the church. The priest wrenched open a door and almost fell through. The priest turned and slammed the door shut. From within the church came sounds of talking.
"Who's he talking to?" asked Dave.
Holden spoke up, "I often come here to keep an eye out for the old guy, but I've only ever seen him alone. I'd be surprised if there was someone else here. It's kind of weird but I think that he's just talking out loud to himself."
Dave looked down at his camera and turned the power off. "So does anyone have any ideas?"
"About what?" asked Trevor.
"The way the priest just acted," said Dave. "I'm so confused that I can't even make up my mind as to whether I should follow the priest into the church. He didn't invite us along, and you guys seem confused as well. I guessing that we all had expectations about what should have happened and not one of those expectations were met. The priest at first agreed that the text was Latin but at the end he seemed to be denying it. Do we try to confront the priest and force him to admit that it's Latin. I'm not really comfortable with that. Also, I think that there's something really important in the priest's reaction that I'm missing."
From within the church there was a muffled wooden clattering.
"Sounds like he knocked over a chair," suggested Josh.
"Well, he's not talking any more," said Trevor.
"Could it be that he could actually read the text that made up that disc?" asked Dave.
Trevor looked at Dave. "Why wouldn't he tell us? I'm not a Catholic, but I've known Father Stephen for some time. Even from before all this shit happened. He's a good man. He's not some career priest. He really cares about people, even those who aren't a part of his flock."
Dave pointed to the bottles of water. "So what was it with all those bottles? Do you believe what he said?"
Trevor rubbed his chin for a moment. "I don't think it's a matter of reality. Father Stephen is a good man, but he's just a priest. Maybe this is all that he could come up with for helping everyone. It's not like he's a doctor or someone with practical skills. He's a priest so his work is more - how do you say it? - more spiritual? I just think that all the events of the last few weeks has overwhelmed his worldview and this ritual is something familiar to him that lets him feel like he's actually doing something useful with his life."
Dave looked up at the sky. "I can relate to that. I was once a moron doing my time in a pointless office job. All this crap just showed how pointless my life had
been so I've been trying to find ways to turn that all around. I'm not saying that I have all the answers, however I can relate to the Father's desire to be useful to people."
Trevor nodded before turning to look at the church. "He's certainly quiet in there. Has anyone heard anything from him recently?"
For a moment no one spoke up, before Holden spoke up. "Shit. I'm getting worried about the geezer. What if he fell over and brained himself?"
Trevor climbed over the church fence. "I feel weird not having permission, but we better check on him."
The others climbed over the fence as Josh joked: "It would be even weirder if we walk into the church and find him having a wank."
"Fuck," said Trevor not appreciating the humour.
Reluctantly, the group slowly walked to the door that the priest had earlier gone through. Trevor looked around the group to see if there were any protests. Not seeing any, he reached forward and opened the door.
The insides of the church was just as small as expected. It was basically a single room. Most of the space was a handful of pews with a tiny altar at the front. Between the pews and the alter was a tipped over wooden chair, which was the likely source of the noise that they heard earlier. It was the mostly like source because above the chair was the priest, hanging from the church rafters by a rope around his neck.
"Oh fuck," said Trevor. "Fuck. Fuck. Holden, cut him down."
Holden dashed forward, straightened up the chair which he stood on to get some height. He took out a small pocket knife and began cutting at the rope about the priest's neck. Everyone else had rushed forward and were ready to catch the priest when he came free. After they lowered the priest to the floor, Holden massaged the priest's neck in an attempt to restart the priest's breathing. Trevor checked the priest's pulse by holding the priest's wrist. Dave knelt over the priest's mouth and listened carefully.
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