PAGE ONE:

PANEL ONE:

SPLASH PAGE right off the bat this time. It's an Italian church (as in, we're in Italy), and it's raining. If you don't want to do two splash pages per episode, you may want to do some "insert" shots with closeups on the building, or... something.

PRIEST (CAPTION): It's raining, isn't it? Of course it is.

PRIEST (CAPTION)(2): It always rains during a crisis of faith.

PAGE TWO: SIX PANELS

Tell me if this is crazy, but panel 6 is a medium-sized shock on this page. Since it's a left-hand page, the shock can't be all that immense, but I think panel 6 takes precedence.

PANEL ONE:

Tight on a COP, who is holding a gun pointed at the reader and is looking verrrry nervous. The COP is young - mid-twenties - and is blonde, blue-eyed, and vaguely Germanic (we'll get into that later).

COP: A crisis of faith, father?

PANEL TWO:

Reveal of FATHER GREGORIO PIERANTONI. He looks like a soulful computer science teacher: he's got a moustache, male-pattern baldness, glasses in a chain around his neck, and he's dressed in "priest clothes" - black slacks, black short-sleeved shirt, white collar. He's also got blood spattered all over him. He's ... well, he's NOT crazy, but he thinks God has abandoned us all on Earth and we're living the Apocalypse, so I don't know what facial expression is in order here. Profound despair, maybe.

PRIEST: He has abandoned us. God has forgotten us in our sinfulness and His wrath.

PANEL THREE:

The COP is still holding the gun on the PRIEST, but now the PRIEST is losing his temper.

COP: I don't...understand, father.

PRIEST: You don't...

PANEL FOUR:

The PRIEST gestures wildly, his eyes a little crazed, his glasses jogging on the end of his chain. We can see a bit more behind him, in the shadows...is that a body? Or a trick of the shadows? What has this priest done?

PRIEST: The DEAD ARE RISING! The RAPTURE has PASSED and those left are CONDEMNED! THE END IS COME!

PANEL FIVE:

The PRIEST is sagging into regretfullness again. I don't know if that sort of rapid facial shift is realistic or not, so you may want to "even out" his rampage a bit more in panels 3-5. We can see more of the body behind him.

PRIEST: It doesn't matter what we do any more. God has forsaken us.

PANEL SIX:

REVERSE of panel five: there's a BLUDGEONED BODY in the foreground, the mid-ground is the PRIEST's back, and the COP is further beyond him. The BODY has had its brains staved in with a CHALICE that still lies on the ground, clotted with blood and hair.

PRIEST: We are the damned.

PAGE THREE: FOUR PANELS

Style-wise, it might be neat to do four full-width panels stacked, but I don't know if that will work with the "on-screen" action.

PANEL ONE:

We're looking through a window of safety glass - that hatched tight wire - into an interview room where the PRIEST is sitting. We'll be pulling back over the next two panels, featuring two detectives named JIM and ROB, just because those are short names.

JIM (OFF): He killed the other priest?

ROB (OFF): We're still working on that. The other priest might've been a Returner.

PANEL TWO:

Further back from the window now, so we can see JIM and ROB standing on either side of it. JIM is smoking, ROB's drinking a coffee.

JIM: When do we find out?

ROB: The dead priest - Guliano - is on the slab right now. An hour, maybe.

JIM: Huh.

PANEL THREE:

Further back still, and a reveal that the COP (KARL) from the second page is standing by the door.

JIM: You can go now, Karl.

KARL: I think I'll --

JIM: Go. Now.

PANEL FOUR:

JIM and ROB keep looking in the window.

JIM: He seems a little messed up.

ROB: Everybody is these days. I just sent three men to stop a mob from burning Returners alive in Via Borgognona.

PAGE FOUR: SIX PANELS

PANEL ONE:

KARL enters some sort of break room.

PANEL TWO:

KARL sits down at the table. Some sort of CLOCK should be visible in the background. It's around 9 p.m.

PANEL THREE:

KARL is holding a rosary and has his head bowed in prayer. It's 9:30 p.m.

PANEL FOUR:

As PANEL THREE, but it is now 10:15 p.m.

PANEL FIVE:

As PANEL THREE, but it is now 10:50 p.m. and a voice is coming from off.

ROB (OFF): Karl?

PANEL SIX:

ROB is standing in the breakroom door as KARL looks back at him.

ROB: Turns out the dead guy was a Returner. Died of a stroke sometime early this morning.

PAGE FIVE:

PANEL ONE:

ROB is still in the door.

ROB: We can hold the priest for desecrating a corpse, but there's no point. We need someone to take him home.

PANEL TWO:

KARL keeps praying.

PANEL THREE:

ROB: Everybody is out or occupied. People are burning houses now, to "stop the infection." All Rome's a madhouse.

PANEL FOUR:

KARL is still praying, but looking up now. Whatever faith he needed, he has found...somehow.

ROB (OFF): We need you, Karl.

KARL: I know.

PANEL FIVE:

KARL looks somehow more serene.

PANEL SIX:

The PRIEST is in the back seat of the car, the COP is in the front.

PRIEST: They say one person in twelve comes back now. The risen dead.

KARL: Don't speak.

PAGE SIX:

PANEL ONE:

A panel of silence as the two ride on.

PANEL TWO:

KARL looks back slightly as they drive.

KARL: You're wrong.

PRIEST: What?

PANEL THREE:

KARL: When I was eight - when I still lived in Germany with my father - I had a dog. I loved that dog like my brother, maybe more. One day, it didn't come home.

PANEL FOUR:

KARL: After four days, in my small way, I questioned God.

PANEL FIVE:

KARL: On the seventh day, I realized there was no God, because God would never have taken my dog away.

PANEL SIX:

KARL smiles as he glances back at the PRIEST.

KARL: And on the eighth day, my father bought me a new dog.

PAGE SEVEN

PANEL ONE:

The PRIEST is confused and getting very agitated (again).

PRIEST: Have you gone MAD? This isn't about a dog - why are we stopping?

PANEL TWO:

KARL is leaning back over the seat, his gun pointed in the PRIEST's face.

KARL: If you're right... if God's rapture is past... then it won't matter if I kill you.

PANEL THREE:

The PRIEST is obviously uncomfortable. KARL cocks the hammer.

KARL: God didn't take my dog away, Father.

PANEL FOUR:

The PRIEST is a little defiant.

PRIEST: How can you ignore what's happening?

KARL: God just wanted to see what I'd do without him.

PANEL FIVE:

The PRIEST and KARL stare down as KARL uncocks the gun.

KARL: My family is dead. My last relatives - two cousins - killed each other last week in Germany. Because they were Returned.

PANEL SIX:

Close on KARL, who is peaceful, yet determined.

KARL: I won't have that mean nothing. I can't. God hasn't abandoned us, Father.

PANEL SEVEN:

The PRIEST is standing outside on the curb, in the rain.

KARL (CAPTION): He's giving us harder choices.

PAGE EIGHT:

PANEL ONE:

The PRIEST sits in the confessional. SUSAN (a name of convenience) speaks OFF-PANEL.

SUSAN: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

PRIEST: State your sins before our Lord Jesus Christ.

PANEL TWO:

We can see through the confession grille that SUSAN is obviously a RETURNER. She's missing an eye and has a horrible wound in her cheek.

SUSAN: I was... in an accident... and...

PRIEST: Yes?

PANEL THREE:

SUSAN is weeping in her side of the confessional. She should look pathetic more than horrible - believably a lost and mutilated soul, not a zombie.

SUSAN: ...I don't think I'm a person any more...

PRIEST (OFF): And you have turned your back on God?

PANEL FOUR:

SUSAN: God forgive me. What have I become?

PRIEST: I do not know, my child.

PANEL FIVE:

The PRIEST has left his confessional and is standing outside SUSAN'S half of the booth.

PRIEST: Pray with me.

PANEL SIX:

The PRIEST and SUSAN pray before the GIANT CROSS at the front of the chuch

PANEL SEVEN:

JESUS on the cross, eyes turned to heaven, face anguished, blood from the thorns on his brow.

PANEL EIGHT:

BLACK PANEL.