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KAPOOR: Against what? We don’t know what’s out there.

HARDCASTLE: Did you want to stop and find out?

NOVAK: Will you two please stop sniping at each other?

Novak sits on one of the more solid pews, her leg stretched out in front of her. Sophia sits, knees to her chest, on the floor next to her.

CARREAU: Let me look at that leg.

He steps over and carefully rolls up Novak’s pants leg. She hisses, and he winces in sympathy.

CARREAU: We need to clean this and get it bandaged.

A muffled shriek sounds outside, but it seems to be coming from a distance.

BAKER: Those things aren’t human. Are they?

KAPOOR: The people on the beach seemed human enough.

HARDCASTLE: But those other things in the mist... They didn’t move right.

KAPOOR: What were they? Were they people?

SOPHIA: Not yet.

Everyone looks at her.

NOVAK: Sophie? Why did you say that? Did you see something?

Sophia buries her head in her arms, overwhelmed by the scrutiny. Hardcastle is peering out through a crack between the door and the crooked frame.

HARDCASTLE: Where’s the camera?

BAKER: It’s over here.

HARDCASTLE: Bring it here, will you?

She complies, and he mutters as he gets it lined up with the crack in the door. He zooms in on a distant splotch, brings it into focus.

HARDCASTLE: What the...

Three of the humanoid figures are walking in the middle distance, one after the other, single file. They move with an unnatural gait, sinking deeply as if their legs can’t quite support them, their bodies sagging with each step before whipping upright again.

Above them, like tongues of white flame, countless birds wheel in the sky. As the procession moves out of view, Hardcastle backs away from the door.

HARDCASTLE: Where did those things come from?

NOVAK: I don’t think they came from anywhere. We’re the ones that came from somewhere else.

HARDCASTLE: What are you talking about?

NOVAK: This isn’t the church. Not the same church, at least. Unless that was always there.

She points upward. Hardcastle lets out a whistle, then fiddles with the camera, switching the view back to normal. He points the camera upward as the others make sounds of astonishment.

The beam of the camera’s light is not strong enough to illuminate more than a small patch of the ceiling at a time, but that is enough to make it clear that Joy is correct. The ramshackle appearance of the room gives way at the ceiling, which is domed and covered in a massive mural. Around the edges the figures are like those outside—gangly, walking crookedly, their eyes and mouths empty orifices that seem to blaze with light.

Within are a series of images separated by patterns like thorns and vines.