"What Minxie is talking about happened just two days ago, right by this highway. An abandoned church that had been there for a hundred years mysteriously caught fire."
"After the flames died down, cops found hundreds of corpses inside. They were hung like decorations on the walls of the basement."
"The scene was so gruesome, some officers vomited."
"Exactly!"
Minxie snapped her fingers, pleased with her boyfriend's corroboration.
She lowered her voice, pretending to be mysterious: "Apparently, those bodies underwent special preservation treatment. All their internal organs were hollowed out."
"And the most outrageous part, there was one corpse whose skin hadn't decayed, yet the coroner determined its time of death dated back to the last century!"
"A corpse from the last century? Hollowed out?"
Patty, who had been looking out the window, turned her head, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
Having grown up trailing Dante, she had seen plenty of demons and possessed a keen sensitivity toward supernatural things.
"Really? A corpse from the last century could still be preserved?"
Brad, seeing that Patty was drawn to his words, immediately replied: "Of course it's real! My uncle's son works at the state police department, he said it himself..."
"Everyone! Look at that!"
Scott, upset that the spotlight wasn't on him, suddenly pointed beside the road and shouted loudly, forcibly interrupting the discussion.
Patty followed his pointing finger and saw a silver sedan crookedly crashed into a tree trunk on the roadside.
"A car accident?"
Brad pressed the brakes, and the RV slowly pulled over to the side.
Out of curiosity, and to check for any injured, the five of them got out and slowly approached the wrecked car.
It was a private vehicle. Aside from some leaves on the hood and the dent from the crash, there wasn't much dust buildup.
It was clear the accident hadn't happened long ago; it might even have occurred today.
Through the shattered window glass, Patty saw the car keys hadn't been pulled out, and on the passenger seat was a cup of coffee, most of it spilled.
Everything seemed normal, except the people were missing.
"Hey! Anyone there?"
Scott slapped the car window.
"Don't shout, there's nobody."
Kevin adjusted his glasses, trembling as he pointed at the car roof: "You... you look up there."
They looked up and gasped.
Right above the driver's seat of this car, a huge hole had been torn open.
The edges of the breach on the roof were dented inward, like something had dropped from the sky and violently pierced through the metal roof.
Then, like grabbing a doll, it snatched the driver straight out of the car.
"Take a look at this."
Patty's voice drew everyone's attention.
She pointed at the car's rear bumper, which was clearly deformed. "There are obvious impact marks here."
"Come on, anyone can tell this was a car accident."
Scott shrugged and said.
As Patty stared at the impact marks, a line Sephirot once said unconsciously surfaced in her mind.
Never hang yourself on just one tree.
She had never quite understood what that meant before, but now...
Maybe she had grasped it?
Patty stood up, observing the crushed weeds beneath the car, tracing the trail backward all the way to the road, where she found a long, curved skid mark extending from the distant highway right to this spot.
So the meaning of that saying was to not just focus on the outcome; the process is also important?!
She turned and addressed the group gathered around the car:
"Look at these skid marks along the way. This crash wasn't an accident, it was deliberate."
Patty's expression grew serious. "Someone drove a vehicle, rammed it from behind and forcefully pushed this car forward, causing it to lose control and crash into this tree all along the way."
"And then, the unconscious driver was snatched right from the roof of the car by something."
As she spoke, she suddenly glanced toward the nearby forest, a sense of being watched by a predator making her hairs stand on end.
This feeling wasn't unfamiliar to her.
Back when she served as a shield for heirs of wealthy families, whenever demons or assassins targeted her, she would experience this exact sensation.
"We need to get out of here right away."
Patty looked at Kevin, who was still stunned, her expression calm: "Kevin, your radio station is going to come into play now."
"I need you to keep trying to call the police, reach the outside world, tell them what's happened here."
Whether there were actual demons or a criminal gang, the situation was too dangerous for them, a group of students.
They had to leave immediately.
After hearing Patty's analysis, Minxie and Brad exchanged glances, seeing fear in each other's eyes, and nodded in agreement.
"Wait, wait!"
Scott jumped forward, spreading his hands dramatically as if he had heard some joke:
"How could that be? Patty, have you watched too many horror movies?"
"In America, vast lands with sparse population, where would so many psycho killers come from? This is just a regular car accident."
"Maybe the driver has already been rescued, just the car hasn't been moved yet."
Patty didn't argue back, not even bothering to say another word to him, simply turned and walked toward the RV.
Sephirot said, don't argue with someone whose cerebellum is underdeveloped and cerebrum totally undeveloped, because he'll drag your intelligence down to his level and then defeat you with his extensive experience.
Kevin looked at Scott's skeptical face, then at Patty already walking away. As the most unnoticed edge person in the group, he didn't want to offend either side.
But driven by fear of the unknown danger, he gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and quickly followed Patty, not daring to look at the others.
"Hey, Scott..."
Minxie, seeing this, softly advised, "Though what you say makes sense, this might just be an accident, but this place really is creepy, and there's no signal either. For safety's sake, let's just keep moving, no need to waste time here."
Though she felt Patty was right inside, to preserve this financial backer's face, she had to play the mediator role.
"Yeah, yeah, reaching the camp early means we can still have a barbecue."
Brad nodded along beside her.
"Tch, a bunch of cowards."
Seeing no one supported him, Scott could only secretly curse under his breath.
He felt his authority challenged, yet couldn't openly erupt, so he sulked with a dark face, kicked the car beside him viciously, and reluctantly returned to the vehicle.
The engine roared, the RV shuddered and started moving slowly again.
But unlike the earlier atmosphere of blasting music and cheerful laughter, now even with music playing, the carriage felt somewhat heavy, everyone preoccupied with their worries.
Patty sat by the window, fingers tapping rapidly on her phone screen.
[Lowell: Sephirot.]
[Lowell: We've run into trouble. There's a car crash here, I feel something's off.]
[Location sent]
On the screen, the sent message showed a spinning circle for a while, then a red exclamation mark appeared behind the message.
[Failed to send.]
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — CROSSOVER GUIDE
The notes below are here to help readers unfamiliar with these universes follow along more easily.
LORE
The House of Pain — The church fire and the hundreds of preserved bodies discovered in its basement are a direct reference to a canonical location from the first Jeepers Creepers film. In that film, the Creeper uses the basement of an abandoned church in Poho County as its lair, a place a psychic character calls the "House of Pain." Darry, one of the main protagonists, falls into it and finds hundreds of corpses sewn to the walls and ceiling, some preserved for over two hundred years. At the end of the film, the Creeper burns the church down to destroy the evidence after being discovered. The news report in this chapter describing the fire, the preserved bodies with hollowed organs, and a corpse dating back to the previous century is a direct adaptation of that canonical event, placing this story's timeline shortly after the events of the first film.
The Creeper's truck — The car crash Patty examines is consistent with a known hunting method used by the Creeper in the films: it drives a large, heavily modified truck at high speed, using a reinforced front bumper to ram other vehicles off the road, then swoops down from above to snatch victims through the roof. The hole torn through the car's roof from above, combined with the rear impact marks, confirms this is the Creeper's work rather than an ordinary accident. Patty correctly reads the sequence of events even without knowing what she is dealing with.