Bad Book Review 03 (The Guardian, Chapter 03) · 8:30pm Jul 16th, 2019
In the previous chapter, we had the police get in a shoot out with a priest. Said priest had a machine gun and strapped dynamite to himself. After reaching the roof of the church, he blew himself up, taking out a helicopter that blew up as well in the process.
What's going to happen next? Read on to find out.
Chapter 3 opens with "an unusually dark cloud descended over downtown Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon." This "unusually dark cloud," is over a small section, and raining only on it. So, it's kind of like an isolated shower, but with something unexplained and supernatural about it, which I'm only assuming based off the type of story this is supposed to be.
Once more, we are in a church, which admittedly does make sense, also because of what this story is supposed to be include.
Now, we get this little sentence.
Two ethnic-looking women, their heads covered with long black crocheted veils, were kneeling in the pew, praying quietly.
I'm pointing this out because I have a problem with it. First, it is incredibly vague. Basically, it means that they aren't white. That leaves a large variety of possibilities, such as: latin american, middle eastern, and possibly even African. Second, it doesn't really matter. We don't get names or anything else about them, so even if we come across the again later in the story, we wouldn't realize it. They also don't do anything that is affected by their ethnicity. All they do is finish praying and leave.
The priest is left alone. A blond man dressed in black appears in the church and enters the confessional. The priest enters the other side not long after, but the mystery man doesn't start. The priest tries prompting him, and gets a response, but the man still doesn't confess.
Something wet starts dripping on the priest, which turns out to be blood. This begins to fill his side of the confessional, and frogs also appear.
The story then cuts to the outside of the church. Just in time to see the priest run out before collapsing on the steps and dying.
So, stepping back. In my previous post I mention a negotiator, which I accidentally put as Johnson, one of the other officers, when his name is Kirkland. I have corrected that. I bring this up because I only mentioned him since he did not do anything immediately relevant to the story. He just happened to arrive during the whole thing. However, he and Officer Max are a part of this chapter, with Kirkland being the one who is investigating what happened to the priest.
There is also mention of a nun, who was in the back and didn't see anything or anyone.
During their initial inspection of the scene, an officer calls Kirkland over to the confessional. One side of it is soaking wet, and there's no mention of blood, implying that it was now water.
As for the other side:
The lock looked like it had melted. There were burn marks all over the inside, but the room was still intact.
The nun talks to a man in black while the police investigate the burns. The wood is warm to the touch, indicating heat. It is also mentioned that there are frogs around the alter.
Shouting from outside gets everyone's attention. Going out, they find the nun at the bottom of the church, holding a lit candle in a glass container, and a can of gasoline.
As you can probably guess, she begins to pour the gasoline all over herself. Kirkland tries to sympathize with her and talk to her to keep her from going through with it, but fails. The nun sets herself on fire, and the fire department can't put her out, even with their hose.
The last thing mentioned is Kirkland seeing the man in black get into a car and drive off.
I will give Miss Price this. So far, it is strange enough to keep someone reading. There is a mystery as to why a priest would shoot up a church and then blow himself up, and then a nun would set herself on fire. Why would they do this? And how does the man in black tie into it?
Well, hopefully, we'll start getting some answers with the next chapter.
Until then.
Ink Hoof.
This reminds me a little of what I know Halloween III Season of the Witch to be about. Just based on the cold way they go at killing themselves. I didn't actually see that movie, but I watched a lot of spoilerly reviews on it so I feel I practically know the movie at this point. I watched a kill count, review, ending explained, it seems I know so much and that is what this reminds me of!