The Witch on the Pass

About 10 years ago, my son (who was 5 at the time) and I were living in a small house in a rural town in Colorado. There was a winding mountain pass that went from my town in one valley to another small town (where I worked, and my son attended kindergarten) on the other side of the mountain. Every morning, we would pile into my little old pickup truck and go through the mountain pass. About three quarters of the way through the pass, there was a dirt road that turned off and disappeared into the trees. I never thought anything of it. There was no sign. No mailbox. No indication that anyone ever regularly drove that dirt road.

One morning, though, as we approached that dirt road, I saw… I don’t know, someone? It’s hard to say that it was a person. It was a shape that appeared to be roughly the dimensions of a person, but a person completely covered in blankets or something. I still can’t make sense of what I saw. I kind of slowed when I saw it, more out of habit as deer and sometimes free-roaming sheep and cows will step onto the road. As we drew near, I could see that the figure appeared to be pointing at me, and it turned to watch us as we drove past.

I was really freaked out, but I wasn’t sure why. My son, thankfully, didn’t see it, so I let it go. At work that day, I couldn’t shake the unease from the experience, and I told a coworker about what had happened. He nodded slowly but didn’t seem terribly surprised. When I was done, he said, “sounds like you saw The Witch.” I laughed at him because I thought he was trying to be funny, but his words also made me feel sick with fright. He then went on to tell me that there’s a little house at the end of that dirt road and that when he was a kid, all kinds of stories went around about the witch that lived in that house and how she kidnapped kids. I really laughed at that because it was so ridiculous, and an obvious story made up by children.

After work, I picked up my son from the babysitter’s house and we headed towards the mountain pass to go home. Being that it was November, it was already getting dark, so I wanted to hurry and get through the pass as quickly as possible. I had kind of forgotten about what happened earlier that day until I saw the dirt road. I immediately got goosebumps, but I was relieved to see there was no one or nothing standing there.

A mile or so down the road, though, my son asked me, “mom, who’s that?” I asked who he meant, and he pointed at the sideview mirror. I turned my head to look in the bed of the truck, and there she was. Sitting in the bed of my truck with her back pressed to the wheel well. She was bundled up in blankets, but her face was uncovered. I really couldn’t see any features of her face because it was too dark, but I could tell she was looking at me. I looked forward again, trying to get control of my heartrate and wondering what to do. Did I just keep driving and deal with it at home? Should I stop and see if she needed help? But how did she get in there in the first place? How did I even know it was a “she”?

I adjusted the rearview mirror to see the shape again, but she was gone. While I never saw her again, I couldn’t help but feel sick every time I drove past the dirt road. I had such a hard time driving the mountain pass after that night that I decided we would move into the town I worked in, so I didn’t have to make the drive anymore. A couple years ago there was a fire on that mountain near the dirt road. I talked a friend into driving up there with me (in the daylight, of course). Down the little dirt road, everything was black and burnt. At the end of the road, there was an old stone foundation of what looked to be a very small house that had obviously burnt down. At the foot of the stairs leading up to where the front door would have been, there was an old blanket, just lying there. It could have been completely unrelated, but that didn't stop me from running back to the car in absolute panic.