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
