I worked for the Northshore Citizen newspaper in Bothell around the time that I was a senior in high school. We had a lot of ads to insert into the newspaper that night, so I didn’t get done with work until like 2:30 in the morning. Myself and another kid both lived near Woodinville, & I mentioned that by the time we each got home & got to bed it’d probably be like 3:30 in the morning. So, why not find something to do & stay up all night? There was no Denny’s in Woodinville back then, only Good Time Charlie’s & we were too young to get in there. So we decided to drive his Mom’s newly restored VW bug out to Maltby Graveyard. Along the way we were talking about checking out the “13 Steps” we had heard about, and other macho tough high-school dude stuff that we’d do when we got there.

We did get there and started up the dirt road in the VW. At that time there was no barrier across the road and you could drive right up. The night that we were there, there was graffiti on the guard rails, some of with “666″ and Satanic symbols along with a couple of old cars that had run off the road & into the woods. We got to the top and the headlights lit up the grave markers. There were no lights up there & with all the trees it made it very dark. Well, all the macho **** stopped right then. We both jus sat in the car, motor and headlights on, not saying anything and amazed at how eerie & spooky this place really was. Finally one of us mentioned getting out, so we shut the motor off and got out of the car with the headlights still on. Neither of us got farther away than 10 feet from the car, but we were starting to feel a little more comfortable.

After being out of the car for a couple of minutes two lights came on from across the graveyard shining in our direction. At first I thought they were strong flood type flashlights and that we were going to be busted. Then the lights started moving…bouncing up and down. I shouted out “hey that car is driving across the BAD_WORD graves!!!” We both bolted to the inside of the car and he tried to start it. The car wouldln’t start and I figured he had panicked & flooded it. As my head bolted back and forth from watching the lights bounce in unison toward us and watching his foot on the pedal I yelled for him to hold the pedal to the floor & start it. He yelled back at me to quit yelling at him. Finally I screamed at him, “hold the BAD_WORD pedal to the floor or we’re done!” He pushed it down & finally got the car started. He floored it and spun the car around toward the entrance/exit, and I turned around to see where the “car” was behind us. As we turned a corner and started down the dirt road I turned around and didn’t see any lights. I looked forward and said, “whatever you do, don’t wreck”, at which he invited me to shut the hell up. I turned back around to my absolute horror, and I mean that literally, the two headlights were almost on our rear bumper. I yelled for him to floor it. It is amazing that at that speed, we were able to stay on that dirt road and not wind up like one of the other cars that had run off the road and perhaps into a tree. The headlights then fell back 20 or 30 feet, and then again were right up on our bumper. I can tell you, being as honest as I can possibly be, that I’ve been in some scary situstions in my life, but I have NEVER been as outright frightened in my entire life as I was at that moment.

With the headlights pulling close and then laying back a couple of times we finally made it to the paved road. The guy driving didn’t even look or slow down. He hit the road at probably 50 mph and just kept going. I turned around again and I told him that the lights were gone. He responded with, “they could still be back there”, to which I agreed. We made it to Snohomish-Woodinville Rd. where there were a few streetlights and I informed him that no one was following us as we headed toward Woodinville. He was still driving around 50mph and it had just rained some. Back then there was a very sharp hairpin on that road, which I had warned him about 3 times. Without listening he tried to take the corner & we shot off the road and dropped about 15 feet into a cow pasture. We tore through 3 barbed wire fences, and I had a wood fence post that came through the windshield shortly after I had ducked. The VW finally came to rest near a house in which all the lights went on and a call went out to the police. I really would like to know who that was that came tearing through the middle of the BAD_WORD graveyard after us that night. I also wonder what ever happened to that other kid I went up there with that night

Thanks.

As mentioned, I played there as a kid weekly long before there where any houses there. We saw several idiots up there cutting up cats and even goats.

The Doolittles used to own a farm right across the street from the cemetery. They had a ton of dogs and one really big dog was once hit by a car on Paradise Lake Road and some idiot dragged the body up to the cemetery and put it over a gravestone. After that we used to hear much more barking in the woods and we never would see the dog, the thought back then was that the ghost of the dog was still haunting the area.

As for the 13 steps, they were real! It has been 20 years since I have been back to the cemetery so I have no idea what they look like now, but at the time the steps were covered with moss and you could walk down them, but could not get enough traction to easily walk back up them. That is where the name originally came from.

The snow thing happened to us as well. I can’t remember the month, but it was way too late for snow and we were riding our bikes to the cemetery and one we got to the open field it snowed for a few minutes. This was witness by myself and 4 other friends. Of course nobody believed us when we got back home, but it did happen.

There also used to be a iron gate and some decorative iron fencing around the cemetery which I understand is mostly gone now. It is a shame that this place was not kept in its original shape because of idiotic vandals. One year someone actually dug up a grave and dropped it into a neighbors of ours back yard. The police came and patrolled the area much more for the next couple of months and that was it. At the time, the local police where from Redmond.

Anyone else remember Honda hill which was also near the cemetery?

grow up some will ya!