i realize i already posted this in general, but what the hell ...
a couple months ago, i was looking for a way to fill my friday night. it was after 1:30 and everyone my age (i'm sixteen) had pretty much turned in.
i have a real love for the obscure.
sure, there's bunnyman bridge, but that just seemed too trite. and then i remembered occaquan, a sleepy little ghost town just this side of I-95. i live in reston. the destination was set. miles and i set out down fairco, got onto ox road, and chased it down to the occaquan exit. occaquan has this great rickety wooden bridge across a big river, and everything closes by 9pm. the place was deserted. miles and i enjoyed some time being the only living souls for ten miles, and after substantially freaking ourselves out with talk of axe-murderers and the like, we decided we'd had our fun.
it was on our journey home that we noticed the real treasure: the closed lorton penitentiary. we'd heard of it but never realized it actually existed, you know? and we wanted it! now, we aren't stupid. we knew we weren't gonna be able to get inside. but we wanted to case the grounds, stalk the perimeter, whatever we could get. we got more than we bargained for.
we turned down a little street that looked like it would take us closer, which i believe may have been HOOES ROAD (no joke.) we cruised around for awhile, and then we saw it: this charming, tiny little road snaking through the woods; a sharp jerk to the left and we were on it. we sailed pat a sign that said "road closed -- federal property." we hedged our bets that no one would care.
all of a sudden, the road in front of us is blocked. though it continues as far as we can see, when it hits a cross-road (furnace road) the next stretch is blocked by a big, intimidating red gate. "federal property -- no trespassing" signs cover the area. we are staring at this house, terrified, because there is just something WRONG with it. it is inside a fence, wrapped in barbed wire, and ominous. it is situated up on a small hill, set on a pretty good-sized lawn. i then realize one thing that's terribly strange:
there is a big, industrial streetlight, like the kind you see on highways, in the front lawn of this house. facing the front door. and it is off.
miles and i get out of his car. we get closer to the house, dipping under the first of the trespassing warnings. we hear the house literally groaning and shaking faintly. we would get closer, but we are way too freaked out by the idea of getting caught trespassing.
we end up driving around up and down furnace road for a little bit, and we find something else very queer. fifty or sixty feet down the road, there is a circle of these strange streetlights, each marked with trespassing signs. inside the circle, there is a cracked and broken sidewalk. there are smaller bits coming off the larger bits of the pavement under our feet. we realize in horror that this was a neighborhood. that's what the sidewalk was shaped like. we walk around, daring not traverse the thin line between flirting with and actually venturing into the forbidden woods.
several other peculiarities:
- i checked out the cached google satelite picture of this area, and none of the fences or signs blocking these places off appear in the pictures. these became federal property within the last year. also, several structures appear which are definitely no longer there.
- the road which connected us to furnace road the first time has two other abandoned, federal property houses. we got out and walked around outside them; there are cups and saucers and silverwear littered outside them. they are recently built but totally dilapidated. they are somewhat furnished on the inside -- we shone our flashlights in and caught FIVE OR SIX mirrors in each one. weird, huh?
- there is no mention of this property on the internet. it is not included in the map of the penitentiary grounds.
- on that weird little road we take to get to the house, there is is ALWAYS at least one animal carcass in the road, usually a deer, its body split open like it's been hit. yet there is no shattered glass, no indication that it collided with a car ... what else could possibly do that to an animal? very strange and very disturbing. the rotting corpses stay until the maggots devour them all; no crews clean them up. bones adorn the roadside endlessly.
miles and i have returned to this area fairly religiously, enamoured with our own mystery. strangest thing is, no one we've talked to who lives around there has ANY idea whats going on.
do any of you have anything even remotely related?
pictures:
(i suppose html img tags don't work in these forums ... lame)
google satelite image of the house -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thehouse.jpg
google satelite image of the other two houses -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/twomorehouses.jpg
picture i took of the house -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thathouse.jpg
and the streetlight -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/thecircle.jpg
and the gate -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/noway.jpg
and a close up of the house -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/smilebinge/fuckinghaunted.jpg
thanks for any help you can provide.