Jeepers Creepers 3; The Curse

Chapter 2

Half an hour later they pulled up in front of an old, partially burned church.

"So, this is where all those bodies were found twenty three years ago?" Maggie asked, a chill running down her spine as she looked up at the remains of the church and remembered the stories she had heard about the bodies that had been found in the basement.

"Yep, hundreds of bodies hung all over the walls of the basement, according to the reports," Rob replied.

"Well let's go see if the police missed any bodies," Maggie said as she started to walk towards the church.

"Are you crazy? People were murdered in there, it could be haunted, not to mention the whole place could fall on top of you," Rob said as he hesitantly followed her.

"It's survived twenty three years after being burned, if the whole place were going to come down I think it would have done that during a storm by now. Unless a board falls at just the right angle that the sharp end would hit us we should be fine. The main support beams don't look like they're burned or rotted too badly," Maggie told him after looking in one of the windows then she headed for the door, "And if there are ghosts maybe they would be willing to tell us whether they were murdered by that monster or a serial killer," Maggie added as she slowly pushed the front doors of the church open, ready to jump back at any second if anything started falling.

"See nothing to worry about," Maggie said testing the strength of the floor boards with one foot with each stepped farther into the church.

"Are you sure it's safe?" Rob asked, still standing outside the door.

"Its fine, now get in here and find something to make me believe that, that thing we saw was real and not just something that guy made," Maggie said.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming," Rob said slowly stepping into the church.

"I'm going to get some pictures up here, why don't you go see if you can find a way to get into the basement," Maggie suggested.

"Why do I have to do the scary job?" Rob complained.

"Because, you're the one who volunteered to research this thing without even asking me. I mean Champ and Yeren were still available to do reports on, but you had to volunteer to do the Creeper instead," Maggie replied.

"Well it's not my fault we got stuck as partners for this project," Rob shot back.

"Just go find a way into the basement," Maggie said before turning and ignoring Rob's complaining as she looked around the church and took a few pictures.

"Hay Maggie I think I found a way down," Rob said, having snuck back into the room before saying anything, startling Maggie and making her almost drop her camera.

"Well lets go have a look so we can get this report done with," Maggie said as she walked over to Rob and he led her to a door with a long set of stairs on the other side.

"Do we really have to go down there?" Rob asked nervously.

"What are you afraid the boogieman's going to get you or are you just afraid of the dark?" Maggie asked as she turned on her flashlight, brushed some cobwebs away and headed down the stairs.

As Maggie stepped off the bottom step she screamed and dropped her flashlight.

Rob screamed, then started franticly calling, "Maggie, Maggie? What happened? Where are you? Oh please don't be dead. Maggie!" he yelled franticly.

Finally unable to keep herself from laughing Maggie stepped into the beam of his flashlight. "You know you scream like a girl when you're scared," Maggie told him as she tried to stop laughing.

"That's not funny," Rob said as he slowly walked the rest of the way down the stairs.

"Maybe not to the person being scared, but I thought it was great," Maggie replied as she walked farther into the basement. A chill ran down her spine as she looked up at the domed ceiling and could see the faded markings from where the police had marked where each body had been before they had removed them.

After looking around for a while and not finding anything interesting Maggie left Rob to keep looking around the main room and she walked into a room that looked like it was actually under the church and not out in front of it like the other room was. The room had a wooden ceiling, walls, and floor and was as empty as the rest of the place had been. As she turned to leave her foot caught on a loose board and she fell, landing hard against the wall which caved in when she fell into it. As she started to get up she noticed it looked like there was an opening behind the wall. Kneeling in front of it she pulled a few of the loose boards away to reveal a large wooden crate hidden behind the wall.

"Hey, Rob I think I found something!" she called as she pulled the crate out.

"What is it? Did you find a body?" Rob asked as he ran into the room.

"No, it looks like a bunch of old newspaper clippings and church records," Maggie told him as she carefully flipped through the papers in the crate, "Look at this, the newspapers are from twenty three years ago and go clear back to the early eighteen hundreds," Maggie said as she dug deeper into the crate.

"Why don't we take them with us and look at them when we're safe at home? It's getting late and I don't want to be here when it gets dark out," Rob said.

"You are such a wimp," Maggie told him as she carefully put the papers back into the crate, "I found them so I'll take them home with me first. Plus I know more about handling antique paper than you do, I'll show you if I find anything interesting," Maggie told him as she picked up the crate and they headed back out to the truck.

"As long as we can get out of here, I don't care who gets to keep them," Rob replied.

After Rob had dropped Maggie off at her apartment and she had grabbed some dinner she started looking through the papers. Most of them were newspaper articles about people who had disappeared, a chill ran down her spine as she realized they had all disappeared in the same twenty three day period every twenty three years. The only ones that were different were the oldest few that told about twenty three people who had been hung after being accused of being witches and demons disguising themselves as humans. The youngest girl had only been two years old and the only members of the family to escape had been a man named William, a woman named Charity and her three children. As Maggie looked through the church records she found that they mentioned the hangings and twenty three murders that happened less than two weeks after the hangings.

Maggie jumped when the phone suddenly rang, "Hello," she said as she balanced the phone on her shoulder so she could check the paper she had been holding to make sure it hadn't torn when she jumped.

"Maggie, I think there's something in here with me," Rob whispered franticly from the other end.

"There's something with you where?" Maggie asked, still more concerned about the old papers than whatever nightmare had scared Rob enough for him to call her at one in the morning.

"I'm at the old church and I can hear something moving around," he whispered.

"What are you doing back at the church?" Maggie asked, finally giving him her full attention.

"When you yelled to me about that box you found I jumped and my cell phone fell out of my pocket, I meant to go back and get it but I forgot until after I had dropped you off. I came back just long enough to grab it but when I got in here I thought I heard something, I've been hiding from it ever since and just found my phone."

"Alright, just stay calm, I'm coming out there, have you called the police?" Maggie asked.

"No, I was too scared to think, I just hit redial on the phone," Rob told her.

"Okay, call the police, I'm on my way. Oh and stay hidden," Maggie told him.

"Why? I thought you didn't believe in the monster," Rob asked nervously.

"I don't know about the monster, but what I found in those papers makes me think there might be some truth to the stories, just call the police and stay quiet," Maggie told him then hung up, threw on her shoes, grabbed a hatchet and her keys and ran out to her car.