I am going to tell you the events of a night that happened TO ME. Not someone I know or the second cousin of someone my friends sister dated. It happened on Friday, April 13, 2001. All the events of this night are true. Unbelievably true, and have changed my outlook on the supernatural for always. This story is very long, but worth reading.
Long ago, I was hanging out with some close friends, trying to figure out what to do... it was Friday and just happened to be Friday the 13th. We ended up having an extremely memorable adventure, full of mystery, mayhem and idiosyncratic. What happened to us is odd, unbelievable, but truly did occur. Two friends and I decided to do something the weekend prior. We are all into the supernatural, and therefore decided to hold a séance on Friday the 13th. We had attempted these before, but while I was there, nothing really happened. There had always been someone else who insisted on being stupid, and ruining the whole ordeal. So, for this past Friday, we three decided to go solo, and see what we could discover by ourselves. If anyone knows Colorado Springs at all, they've probably heard of Manitou Springs. It's known as the City of Witches to nearly everyone who lives here, and it's very true. Well, my friends and I had originally planned on going to Manitou for Friday the 13th- but there are just way to many cops that roam there. So, instead, we went to Cripple Creek to check out some of the haunted places we had heard about. We hung around in the main town, next to all of the casinos and other gambling places- carefully examined both the Palace Hotel, and another (both very haunted) and got bored. There were just too many people there and we couldn't concentrate. I was freezing (I had on only a t-shirt and shorts) and the other two were cold as well. But, the sky was clear, there was a beautiful crescent moon- it was a beautiful night for a séance.
Well, we decided to go driving around in the residential areas. My friend "D" had done some reading on the place, and evidently on a street called "Carr Ave." there was a red brick house that was supposedly haunted. Well, I drove around the streets in vain- looking for "Carr Ave." I eventually came to a road that had some very creepy buildings on it- one was an ancient Fire Department. It looked like it had burned down many years ago. (Ironic, huh) It was completely open on the inside and out- the doors looked all torn up- and the ground looked un traversed for many years. I took a picture of the place- (as well as some other buildings which I'll talk about later) and we got spooked and left. Just beyond, further down the road, the light stopped illuminating the ground. It was pitch black, and my two friends began asking me to stop driving down it. I looked further down the road- and it was indeed pitch black...which was strange. It was as though no light ventured beyond a certain point in the land- a distinct line in the ground of light and dark. So, anyways- I turned the car around and continued on my way. What was odd, though, was that as soon as I left that area of town, I discovered Carr Ave. Or- rather, it discovered us. We were just riding along, discussing the feelings that each of us were having toward the town- when my eyes felt pulled toward the street sign. I had almost driven straight through it. I turned left- and saw a sign that said what was further down the road. Something about the Florissant Fossil Beds (another tourist attraction.) About 2 minutes later, we got bored with that direction. There was nothing there- so we started back. All the time, we were looking for a specific house.
A red brick one, next to something called a "lighthouse," though why a lighthouse would be in the middle of Colorado, I have no idea. It's a mountain state- full of mountains and long plains. No big bodies of water... But anyways...
So, I turned the car around. I passed the road that I had originally turned off of, and that's when the strange feelings began. I distinctly remember the feelings now- as though something was watching us travel- although at the time I blocked them out. D, B, and I were talking about all the creepy houses we were seeing. Most of them were abandoned and hadn't been lived in for a long time. We saw ancient barns that had been boarded up for a long time. We saw churches that had been turned into Casinos. We saw a lot of stuff that can't be quite explained. We also saw a lot of redbrick houses- and none of them was next to a "lighthouse." Well, I turned off of Carr, and went up a street... and turned right. Right away- we saw a house that we got some serious feelings from, so we got out and took a picture. (Right about now, I ought to mention something. D and B come from a large family. They are both gypsies, true ones-born and bred, and psychic stuff runs in their family. I have always had tendencies, but being around them must heighten it or make it stronger or something- because I, too, get unexplainable feelings.)
Well, after we took that picture, we turned back towards the car- and that's when we saw the "house." Upon laying eyes on it the first time, I knew that there was something very wrong about that building. It was infinitely scary, and one particular window on the DARK side of it was glowing. It was painted blood red, and the address of it was 238. I'll explain the significance of the address in due time... because none of us bothered to check it out the first time that we were there. All of us felt the "feeling" at the same time, and when we could finally talk we both began saying that it was definitely haunted. We went closer to it and the bad feeling kept getting worse. It was as though the house gave off some sort of energy that can't be explained- and for some reason we could feel it. Like I was saying, we went up to it and took a closer look. I just had to take a picture- I'm hoping that something turns up. I had D and B stand next to the white porch just to get an idea of the size of it (not too big) and after the picture was taken they both touched it. I have no idea why- but they did. D got a very pained expression on her face, and said that it was cold- and not a natural cold. She said that it felt like the cold off of dry ice, and it chilled her from head to toe. B said the same thing- and I was just too chicken to touch it myself.
We got out of there as fast as possible. But, the cold, dark, and distinctly evil feeling followed us for the rest of the night. We kept driving around for a while, looking for some more spooky things, and we were talking about the feelings that we had from the red house. It was about then, that we acknowledged the shared experiences and allowed ourselves to experience whatever we were meant to experience. We had our protectors with us (gargoyle statues) and I had my cross. But there was definitely a bad feeling that was with us. It was though whatever was at that house had taken up residence in my car and decided to visit us for the evening. I drove past an old church- and we discovered that even a church gave us no reassurance whatsoever. (We are all religious- D and I are Christian and B is Catholic.) It had big stained-glass windows that were very dark, and forbidding. I made some comment like it was because the whole town had been sacrilege- and we drove on. I ended up going in front of the church. There was an eerie statue standing in the main courtyard. Its arms were held toward the sky, as though pleading for help, and its eyes seemed to follow me. I was the only one who got out of the car that time, and just so that I could get a picture. While I was up there, I could distinctly hear some noises that were in the trees beyond the driveway. It sounded an awful lot like a bunch of whispers. I'm a huge skeptic and even I will admit that it wasn't "just the wind." Well, I got back in the car, and we drove off- and began talking again. We were all scared from what had happened, and wanted to just get settled somewhere for the evening. I drove out of town and stopped at the gas station to get something to drink. I had gotten a splitting headache in a matter of seconds while at the "house" and I needed to take some headache medicine. I mentioned that, and D told me that she also had a bad headache. We blamed it on the house, of course; why else would we both get a tension headache at the same time? Well- we used the toilet in the gas station, got some munchies, and began to drive around looking for a place to camp out for the night. I didn't know the laws of the area, and didn't know if it was legal to just camp out in the open, and so we went back to the gas station to ask for directions. The guy running the place told me that there was a canyon just past Victor (another small town close by) that we could camp in for the night. The road had been all washed away, and only 4x4 could go on it (I have one) and that was where we decided to camp. I drove to Victor (about 7 miles away) and the town was completely deserted. It was about 12:30am and usually there's at least a few people wandering around there- but nobody was out that night. I drove through, and kept going, but we never found the canyon. About 45 minutes later, we came to the other side of Gold Camp Rd- and I turned off onto it. It was the only familiar thing around. And, now for the history of Gold Camp.
In Colorado Springs, there is a winding road into the mountains, that a lot of strange things have been seen on. I have yet to find anything written about it, most of the stories are word of mouth- but I myself have seen some pretty strange stuff there. One story goes like this. Several years ago, a girl was raped and murdered near one of the tunnels on the road. (Just incase anyone's curious, it was the first one people go through.) Stories go, that if you stay too long in the tunnel, she will come after you and make you move. It's her resting place, and she doesn't want people bugging her. Another story (and this is where my experience comes in) is that in the second tunnel, a couple was killed in a car crash on their prom night. The tunnels are one car wide only, and evidently the guy and girl had been drinking. They were driving way too fast and crashed head on to another car coming through the other way. The story goes that every night at a particular time (I think it's like 1:03am) if you're in the tunnel and turn your lights off, you'll feel, hear, and see a car race by you. This particular thing I've never experienced- but here's what I did see. I was coming back from a crazy night of partying, and we were just about to go through the tunnel, but we saw headlights coming from the other way. We backed out of the tunnel and waited for the car to pass. Nothing happened. Another car pulled up behind us, started into the tunnel, backed out, and pulled off to the side behind us. Obviously, the driver had seen something as well. Well, about five minutes later, we decided that there was no car coming, so we went through- and sure enough- no one there. But, anyways- that's some background on Gold Camp Rd. It's very haunted, there are millions of stories about it from various people, and we were on the other side of it. It no longer went all the way to Colorado Springs- the third tunnel collapsed about 2 years ago, and that part of the road got closed off. Anyway-
I turned off onto Gold Camp, and right away we saw a car pulled off to the side of the road. It was just sitting there, with its lights on, and I waited for it to keep going. It never did, so I passed and kept going. After I went past, the car began to follow me. B was scaring D and I, by saying stuff like "I wonder if he was just waiting for someone to drive past, so that he could kill them. After all, it is Friday the 13th." And D kept backing her up. Needless to say, that feeling of uncertainty combined with the still scary feelings of the previous experiences, and we weren't feeling too jovial. After about 5 minutes of him tailgating me, I pulled off to the side of the road and waited for him to pass. He did, and a few minutes later, with him not returning, I turned around and headed back to a place that had intrigued me when we passed it before. It was a nice little clearing with a beautiful view of the stars. Being from the city, I rarely see all the glory of the night sky... and the shooting stars were everywhere that night. It was truly beautiful. D and B refused to get out of the car- they were still scared from earlier and I wanted to have the séance. So, I set up everything... the tarp, blanket, and candle. I finally convinced the others to get out of the car, and we all sat in a circle around the candle. It was pretty spooky in the woods, but I love nature and didn't let it bother me. But- D and B were very frightened, and we all kept hearing things out in the dark. I had my big flashlight with me, and D kept shining it in the woods- trying to see something. (In case anyone is curious, no we hadn't seen the Blair Witch before this happened.) I was so impatient to start the séance, that I neglected to draw the protective circle, and didn't feel like getting up again to do it. D said it would do to just imagine one, blue in color, and I was satisfied. BIG mistake.
We joined hands and began the chanting, but not one minute into it, I felt a presence, B looked up suddenly, and D grabbed the flashlight. She shined it around the trees again, and I distinctly heard the sound of something clinking. It sounded like a chain, or a wind chime- something that was very faint and defiantly there. None of us mentioned it at the time, but later we all agreed that we had heard something, and were to scared to admit it. D shined the light in the area of the forest that it was coming from and whispered, "What the hell is that?" B looked where she was shining, and saw whatever it was too, but I was not sitting in the right spot- so I didn't see anything. They pointed to it, and at the same time said that they were seeing glowing green eyes... shining out from the trees. Whatever it was, was very big, because the eyes were spread apart, like they were on a large head. They were almond shaped, and glowing like a TIMEX watch would, or something else of the sort. I felt something getting closer to us, and D looked at me. There was pure fear in her eyes, and she stopped shining the flashlight. I still hadn't seen whatever, so I moved slightly and D shined the flashlights in the trees again. Whatever was there was gone- and we were very freaked out. We grabbed everything, got back in the car, and I raced back to Cripple Creek. We got there in about half the time, and the entire time back, we were all near tears. We were talking about the feelings that everyone had experienced, finishing each other's sentences, and agreeing with it all. They couldn't believe that I couldn’t see whatever, but in all honesty, I'm glad that I didn't. We decided that ever since seeing the red house, we had had a creepy feeling that we kept ignoring. We all had the feeling that we shouldn't have been in the woods like that, we had the feeling that we weren't meant to see that house, and we knew that whatever was at that house the first time was still with us. I stated that I had neglected to draw a circle of protection. That was another bad move, because the circle keeps all evil out. We needed to go back to the red house, and bless it- and hopefully whatever it was would stay where it belonged. It was obviously evil- the evil feeling was very evident- and we were about scared to tears. We had opened something that we couldn't close, and we needed to fix it before going back home. We surely didn't want to bring whatever it was back with us.
We went back to Cripple Creek. It was near 2 in the morning, and everything was beginning to close down, but we needed some salt. We were going to bless that house- and needed to get some salt before everything was closed. We must have been a strange sight. Just by pure coincidence, we were all wearing black (I had on a black t-shirt and pants), D was wearing a long velvet black cloak to keep warm , and B had on a black coat and black pants, and we were wandering around asking people for salt. I can laugh now, that I'm reminded of it, but we did eventually get some salt. We went back to my car, put salt all around it on the inside, and put some water in it and sprinkled it on ourselves. I said a short prayer to keep us safe, and almost instantly we felt better. But, we weren't done yet.
We went back to the house. As we got closer, we all got a very cold feeling that wouldn't go away, and we also got the uncontrollable shivers. We got to the house, and that's when the address comes up. As soon as I pulled up, D said, "Look the address is 2-3-8 which adds up to a 13 which reduces to a 4 and that's the absolute worst number that you can ever imagine." We looked at each other, and none of us wanted to get out... but we had to. We went up to the front porch. The incredibly white porch and glowing window and bad address, with our salt water... we went up to that horrible porch. D went first. She sprinkled water on it, and on the door saying, "In the name of God, I bless this house. God bless this house and keep us safe." She did it 2 or 3 times and then B did it. While they were blessing the house, I took a good look around. There were two doors that led up from the front porch, and both of them led into the same room. One looked as though it had been torn off of its hinges, and was all boarded up, and the one closest to us (the one we were sprinkling) was very white, and seemed as though it was glowing. Then it was my turn. I sprinkled the house and said the words.. and that's when D took a better look at the address of the house. The 3 had come unpeeled, and you couldn't tell that it was a 3, until you lifted it up and put it against the house. There is no explanation as to how D knew that it was a three- but we didn't need any. We were off the front walk way and into my car before we could count to three- and all of us were extremely out of breath. I was emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted and so were my friends.
We didn't sleep in Cripple Creek that night- we went to a friend's house, they got blasted- I got stoned- and we all felt as though a load had been lifted off our chests and was allowing us to breath again. We told our friends what had happened to us, but they didn't believe us. We had expected that. But, I have the pictures, and they can be seen below, and in the "Photos" area. You, the reader, can choose to believe or not believe this experience- but I will swear on my life that it did happen- and all I can do is give some words of warning. Should you ever go to Cripple Creek- and if you go just past a street called Carr Ave. at the intersection of I think Second Street, and should you see a blood red house with a white porch and the address of 238- DON'T go near it. On your life, do not go near it.
If you have any comments- don't hesitate to e-mail me. I wanna hear if you don't believe me, or if you do believe me- and why. This whole thing really did happen.
