"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.
"I can't hear anything," said Dave.
"There's no pulse either," said Trevor.
The priest stared up at them with blank, glassy eyes.
"Fuck," said Holden.
"What made him do this?" asked Josh.
Dave placed a hand over his eyes. "He read something in the disc of light."
"Are you serious?" asked Trevor. "Are you seriously saying that if you can read the text on the disc of light then you'll kill yourself?"
Dave looked at Trevor and then everyone else in the group. "I don't have any other explanation. We need to find someone else who can read Latin."
Trevor shook