Darcey and Cobb were flabbergasted by my allegations, and for a long moment it took me to be convinced their fear was real. This was just another piece of the puzzle, I realized miserably.

"Put the gun down," Jacob said, cautiously approaching me. I hesitated and in that split second the younger man twisted my arm and took hold of the weapon. His grim expression made me think he was about to turn the pistol on me, yet instead he proceeded to take out the bullets and toss them aside.

"Now lets try this again, and be reasonable with each other," he remarked. I nodded, feeling foolish as I followed them both up to the loft apartment and showed them what I had found at the library.

"Well I'll be damned. A diary directly connected to this theater?" Darcey said as he examined the book.

"It can't be coincidence. Strange things have started happening the moment you wanted to reopen this theater," Jacob remarked as he crossed his arms and asked, "Now what's all this business about us being dead?"

I sat down and opened the diary to where I had bookmarked it, reading the passage word for word.

" Dear Diary, it pains me to write this; but an accident happened today during a filming. Roger Darcey, my theater manager and Jacob Cobb, the local maintenance man; were both killed in the blaze and theater 7 seems to be beyond repair. It may be that the more I try, the harder it will be to break this curse."

The two men scratched their heads as I passed the ledger to them and they both reviewed it. "We need to authenticate this somehow, get it to an antiques dealer and confirm the age. For all we know this could have been written yesterday and made to appear to be old," Roger pointed out. I felt red in the face, surprised I hadn't considered that. But it didn't quite answer all the questions.

"I believe Tom Randolph might have something to do with what happened here. While I was at the library doing some digging, he seemed curiously interested in my discovery. He also claimed a girl went missing here in the Mooncreek. But I've lived here all my life, and even though I was young at the time; I don't recall anything like that ever happening," I told them both.

"Randolph? I don't think I know him," Roger admitted.

Before I got a chance to answer that question, all of us heard the sound of the wide theater doors opening downstairs and froze in place.

Jacob raised a finger to his mouth to motion us to be quiet and we used the small vantage window from the office to get a look at the unexpected visitors.

It was a couple, a man and woman in their mid forties; both dressed like they were stepping out of the 1930s, with the gentleman wearing a black tailed tux and the lady wearing a flowing pompous gown. They were standing at the ticket counter, as if expecting to be served as customers. "Should we say something?" Roger asked.

"What would we say?" I muttered and added, "We're definitely no where near ready to open. Just send them away."

"No... no don't. There is something special about them," Jake told us. Roger and I gave him an odd look, but I shrugged and said, "I guess it couldn't hurt to see what they want. I'll take care of it."

"Maybe I should do it? Being the theater manager and all," Darcey joked.

I opened my mouth to object to that, but couldn't think of a solid reason not for him to play the role so I let him go downstairs as I listened from above.

"Good afternoon! Welcome to the Mooncreek! How may I be of service to you?" Darcey asked as he approached the couple.

The man smiled widely and bowed graciously before responding, "Yes, we have a reservation to see The Mooncreek Monster at 3:30 in theater 7, good sir."

That was definitely not what I expected but somehow Roger managed to think on his feet and answered, "Ah. Yes... of course. Please, follow me."

Jacob and I waited until he had led them to the west hallway and then ventured downstairs ourselves to follow. My mind was abuzz with questions as we kept a safe distance from the couple and then watched as they disappeared into theater 7. Just as they did, Roger gave us a shrug of confusion and whispered, "Is there any chance we can get a film running for them? I want to play this out."

I didn't have the heart to tell him no, because I realized that he wasn't aware of the issues I'd experienced with theater 7. So instead Jake and I climbed into the projector room and gave another attempt at fixing the scorched material. Except, that this time; when we stepped inside the room it appeared to be that the projector wasn't damaged at all. Nor was there evidence of a fire.

"Look here," Jake said excitedly as he held up the film reel already in place next to the equipment. The Mooncreek Monster

"This has to provide the answers that we're looking for," he said as he set it down and we watched the film begin to play out.

For a short second I saw splotches of gray and dark move across the screen, cascading into a psychedelic rainbow of bizarre colors that flashed by faster and faster. The colors made me feel a sharp headache and I closed my eyes shut, trying to push aside the pain.

When I opened them again; the screen had gone black and I frowned in disappointment.

"Another dead end," I sighed. Jacob however seemed to think otherwise as he checked his phone.

"How long does it feel like we've been in here to you?" he asked.

"A few minutes... why do you ask?"

"Because according to the time, we've been standing here staring at nothing for nearly three hours," he said showing it to me as well.

I looked toward the strange film itself, trying to find a logical explanation to this madness. "Roger... he must have seen something," I told Jacob as I raced past him to the auditorium.

Roger was still inside the theater, but he looked tired and worn out. Like he too had been standing on his feet for hours.

I reached out and grabbed his arm and he suddenly came to his senses.

"They came inside and took their seats, then they stared up there at the screen; like they saw something. But instead all we saw was a nothingness. The kind that can eat up inside. I was staring too. Just standing here, like I am now; just staring into the void. What in God's name just happened?" he said his voice dry and cracked.

I had no easy answer for him. And the couple that had come into the theater had also just as mysteriously vanished. Had they ever been there at all? Jake came into the theater next, eager to see if Roger recalled any of the film; but I just shook my head muttering, "Its no use."

It was at this point I felt that it was time to give up this work once and for all. Every avenue we were exploring was amounting to more and more mystery being unfolded about this place. The Mooncreek was no longer a friendly memory. It was a menace to me and to any part of my childhood that still clung to it being a happy and pleasant establishment. I was starting to wonder if anything I remembered before had been real, given all that I had learned so far. Was the Mooncreek that I loved just a facade? Had the place I loved ever even existed at all?

I told Jacob and Roger the same once we grabbed a bite to eat and reconvened in the loft, the two of them devouring every legible entry in Saunders' diary to discover what other details they could find.

"You're giving up now, when we might be closer than ever to finding the truth! We have the film; the monster movie. We can gather all of this evidence and send it in to be properly examined. We can find the truth!" Jake said indignantly.

"Don't you see? This theater... it's not just a building. It has a life of its own; and it is not going to let us simply uncover the secrets it has worked hard to bury. Every effort we have made to progress further, the Mooncreek has pushed back on us. I guarantee if you go now back to theater 7, the film will not even be there. Or even if it is, it will be useless to us," I growled.

Jake slammed the diary closed and stood up defiantly. He walked out of the loft and I watched out of the corner of my eye as he walked below us toward the theater.

It didn't take him long to return with a sour look on his face, but he still hadn't lost his determination.

"We're going back to that tunnel and blasting the vault open tonight. No more excuses. No more delays," he declared.

Roger rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I don't know man... maybe he's right. Maybe it's time to walk away from all of this while we still have a chance? What if all this stuff we been seeing about our own demise is like, a premonition or something?"

"I don't buy it. I have memories. I had a life before I stepped into this theater. I was a good son, I made good grades. No stupid theater or anything else in this world is going to tell me that those memories were fake!!" Jacob declared defiantly.

I shook my head, trying to reason with him.

"Then that's what you should return to. I'm ready to tell Randolph we can tear this place down. Maybe if we do that, we can break whatever spell that it's cast on us," I said.

Roger and I argued like this for another good hour, hoping to talk some sense into hi. But instead it seemed that eventually his determination was rubbing off on us.

"We can't walk away from something like this. Because if we do... if we do, it'll haunt us the rest of our days," Roger finally admitted.

I knew they were right. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine as my resolve to fight the inevitable faded and Jacob and Darcey started packing supplies.

A half hour later, we were descending that fateful stairwell again. There was no idle conversation or delay to be made this time around. Instead our march was purposeful. We made it to the vault door in only about fifteen more minutes.

That was when Jacob had an idea and set up a tripod that he brought along.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"It watches us... so why not give it a taste of its own medicine?" He countered with a grim smirk as he finished setting it up.

Meanwhile Roger was examining the edges of the door, trying to determine just how thick it might be. He was leaning toward the left side, his ear against the metal.

That was when all of us heard something off in the distant darkness from where we had come.

"What was that?" Roger asked fearfully.

I took out a flashlight and peered down the hall, trying to get a glimpse of whatever it might be. It sounded almost like a whistle. Or a churning noise. It was extremely far off, likely near the stairwell.

"No need to wonder, let's go see," Jacob resolved as he got up on his feet and we began to gingerly walk down the hall. We huddled together, like frightened school kids; listening as the moaning voice faded in and out and yet we never were able to determine where it might be coming from.

"This doesn't feel right," Jacob said.

"Brilliant deduction there Sherlock," Roger said dryly.

"No guys, seriously. We should have already been at the stairwell by now," he remarked.

"Are you sure? I thought it was a little farther?" I muttered as I hurried up and looked about the hall.

"I'm sure it's just a little farther. We probably just got a bit disoriented down here," I suggested. The three of us walked for another good half hour, with still no sign of the stairs. "What the hell?" Roger growled. Jacob wasn't so easily frustrated though, so instead he performed an experiment and used a black marker to draw on the ground. We started back the way to the vault. And made it there in five minutes with marks on the ground.

However following the trail back where he had begin making the marks took a good forty five minutes.

"What the hell is happening," Roger said desperate for answers.

I heard that same moaning and strange noise off in the distance.

"The Mooncreek doesn't want us to leave," I said anxiously.

The three of us tried again to move toward the way we had come, with no stairwell in sight though we have now resolved to saving our resources and coming up with a better plan.

Jacob's phone seems to be the only thing with a strong enough signal, so i've updated this as far as I can until some miracle happens. Until then, I believe we may be trapped inside the Mooncreek.

I only hope that we are down here alone.