Most years there are ghost tours of the downtown area of my city of Colorado Springs like many other cities across the country. The stories told on these tours are sometimes true…and sometimes not. It’s up to the listener to decide. This, is a similar kind of story. Mind you steps when the veil is thin, you never know what trouble might blow in on the wind.

The public story of the Cascade Park Apartments is fairly well known. You can read it on the plaque in front of the building. But it isn’t the whole story. Benjamin Lefkowsky, who bought the house in 1922, was an avid follower of Aleister Crowley, infamous occultist, called “the wickedest man in the world” by the British press and self-proclaimed “beast 666”. Lefkowsky practiced the dark arts he learned from Crowley in his basement and other places around town and he had grand plans to make expansions to the building to accommodate his growing following.

Lefkowsky and his wife had just finished a Halloween Black Mass in the woods near their house. Upon returning home they found their twin daughters, Zorya and Morana, missing from their beds, favorite dolls and robes still there. All that was left of their nanny was a smeared trail of blood leading out the back door. Two tiny sets of red footprints trailed from there, around the corner of the house, and down the street before fading away to nothing. Official word said the girls ran away when their nanny fell victim to a hungry bear who broke into the kitchen for a snack. The unofficial word was lefkowsky’s otherworldly minions had escaped their bonds and exacted their infernal vengeance. Either way, no trace of the girls or their nanny was ever found.

Mrs. Lefkowsky, overcome by grief, committed suicide. The last known whereabouts of Benjamin Lefkowsky was Ridge Home State Hospital where he was placed in solitary confinement due to his effect on other patients who claimed that Lefkowsky got inside their heads, making them do bad things. Lefkowsky disappeared from his locked room two years later.

Today strange whispering and weird chanting can still be heard in the basement of the Cascade Apartments. Lights randomly blink on and off. Footsteps and children’s laughter are heard in the halls. Sometimes a weeping woman is seen moving down the building’s grand staircase. And residents, neighbors, and visitors have reported intense feelings of being watched in many areas of the building and the surrounding grounds where dark figures have been reported lurking at all hours only to disappear from plain sight when you look directly at them.

Disclaimer: Okay, before anyone gets their knickers in a bunch, this is totally a work of fiction, but it was fun, wasn’t it?