Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Got a Job at a Strange Motel. We Have a LIST OF RULES | Scary Stories

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

I almost quit.      Story from epicwizardcowboys Make sure to check out more of their work at u/epicwizardcowboys                          Original Post: Why I'll Never Return to Yosemite National Park : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I Got a Job at a Strange Motel.  We Have a LIST OF RULES       For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

The cozy comfort motel sits on a lonely highway in Louisiana. The two-story 50-room building was once a bright, friendly, red, a welcome site for tired travelers. But sometimes the motel isn't so safe and cozy. Sometimes it chooses to be something else. Following the rules is our only hope of avoiding such incidents. It's not much. Only the most desperate stay the night. They mostly come in the summer.

Our usual guests, our road trippers who forgot to book a stay at a nicer hotel, or people who overestimated how long they'd be able to stay awake. Nothing glamorous, but at least they had a place to sleep. I have worked at the cozy comfort for about two years as an apprentice handyman. As a high school graduate with no interest in college, seemed like a good gig at the time. I'd pick up a bunch of different skills, earn a living wage, and the best part, complementary housing. The handyman gets to live on site in case of emergencies. And as the handyman in training, I'd be bunking in the room next to his.

These were separate from the 50 guest rooms. They sat near the supply closets, and they sat. the main lobby. So on the first day, the handyman, Wayne, he gave me a set of rules. He was a quiet, older guy, but he had a wicked sense of humor once you got to know him. However, he gave me the printed list with the gravity of a priest at a funeral. Well, I'll explain while I show you the ropes. He told me. I thought he was joking at first. So I laughed. And he cut me off.

Now, Jack, you need to take this seriously. This can be a dangerous job. He said, yeah, I already know how not to screw around on a ladder. I answered back. It's not like that, Wayne said. And I stared at him, slightly confused. we started making our way through the rules. Rule one, remain polite to all guests.

Wayne explained to me that the front desk had a phone line that guests can dial from their rooms. They can call in any issues that would require a handyman's help, such as a shower with weak water pressure or a broken mini-fridge. The concierge would find us, and we would have to go help out. Some of the guests could be quite rude, apparently. Wayne had been here for almost three decades and some of the stories that were real doozies.

Apparently one time, a guy staying on his own had called the front desk ten times within the span of one hour, kept insisting that something was wrong with his mirror. So Wayne shows up to the room, expecting the mirror to be broken. But it was totally fine. The guy got mad, insisting it had to be broken. He said he saw another person in there. And that wasn't how Mears worked. Nobody else was in the room.

Wayne didn't see anything, obviously. And as he tried to leave, the guest attacked him, broke his nose and told him he couldn't leave. Security ended up throwing the guy out. You still had to be polite, though. matter what a guest might throw at you. A place to relax was one of the only things the cozy comfort had to offer, and you never knew what someone might be going through.

It's important to stay polite and calm at all times. Rule number two. Do not leave a mess after a job is done. Now this seems pretty obvious, but Wayne told me that I had to make sure I call one of our maids in after doing a repair in an area a guest might see. And I still had to do it, even if I cleaned up my supplies or anything that might get spilled on my own. Now, this seemed a bit of overkill to me, but he insisted every rule was there for a reason. Rule number three. Remove the box from the ice machine every night at 3 a.m. place it in the staff kitchen and return to your room.

failure to do so will result in immediate termination. There were also a few rules regarding tasks that needed to be completed every day. This was one of them. We had to make sure we were up at 3 a.m. every single night. To remove a blue cooler from the ice machine, if we were sick or not on site for any reason, we had to make sure that someone would be there to remove the cooler from the ice machine for us. So what's in the cooler anyways?

I asked Wayne. And he lifted an eyebrow and said, Well, I don't know. I've never opened it. Never asked. I mean, come on, it's kind of weird, right? I kept going. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Is someone's midnight ice cream really that important? It doesn't need to make sense. It's not your job to know what's in the cooler. It belongs to the owner. If you want this job, you won't open that cooler. Something about the way he looked at me when he said that. It made my skin crawl. His eyes were sad, cheeks saggy.

I couldn't quite place the expression. on his face. Pity? Maybe. Fear? I didn't want to talk about the cooler anymore, so I dropped it. Rule number four. Flip the switch next to the breaker box every night at 8 a.m.

This was another rule that had bothered me. I had to be awake at 3 a.m. and then get back up at 5 a.m. to flip some switch? Apparently, if I didn't flip the switch, the power would short out. power would short out, but the switch didn't actually connect to anything I could see. If I wasn't getting free housing out of this, I probably would have walked away right then. But again, I needed the job, so I just kept my mouth shut. Rule number five, do not respond to room 119. Okay, now this one just seems rude, I told Wayne.

Nah, he replied. Nobody's ever in there. Owner keeps it empty in case he stops by. If you get a call to go to that room, ignore it. It's a prank caller or a mistake. Rule number six. Count the number of tools in your box after every task. And this was the rule that would save my life, according to Wayne.

Once upon a time, he'd been the apprentice handyman at the cozy comfort motel, too. The previous handyman was practically ancient by the time Wayne began training, and he started to get forgetful. Late in the evening, he was finishing up a repair to some of the roofing at the back of the building. A younger man would have been finished in half the time, but he was slowing down an old age, and stubborn enough that he refused to let Wayne give him a hand. He sent Wayne inside to man the phone and stayed out alone. It was late. He was tired. And when he finally finished, he dropped the tools off in the supply closet and immediately went to his room.

It gets creepy out by the highway at night. The cozy comfort isn't close to much. And back in the day, there wasn't so much as a gas station around. It got shockingly dark. You couldn't even see any stars. Looking out the windows gave Wayne a funny feeling. A little pit in his stomach. And something seemed off. He decided to count the old handyman's tools. And one was missing.

A hammer. The old man must have just left it on the roof. Probably forgot to count. Did leaving the house. hammer out there count as a mess. It wasn't sure. Even at the time, Wayne knew how important the rules were. He thought about going out to retrieve the missing tool himself to save the old man some

trouble. But it was so dark. It was like his legs locked up when he tried to move towards the exit, keeping him in place. Some instinct to stay safe in the light instead of going out into the night. So Wayne left it. The old man was already asleep. Wayne set his alarm for 3 a.m. and headed to bed himself.

Now, Wayne usually handled the early morning duties on his own to let the old man rest, but the man didn't get up for breakfast either. He tried knocking. No response. So he got a screwdriver and jiggled the lock. He was probably overrun. reacting, he reasoned. But the man was frail, and Wayne was worried, and it was immediately clear that he'd been murdered. Now, Wayne didn't describe this next part to me in detail,

but it was clear to me that whatever happened was graphic. Clean-up, he told me, took three months. One of those was just to get rid of the blood. The police determined that someone had stolen the hammer from the old man and had used it to beat him to death. Why didn't anyone hear, Wayne asked. Must have good soundproofing here, the police answered humorlessly. And this wasn't the strangest part, though. The strangest part was that a few days later, Wayne was finishing up a repair, and he counted all his tools. and the missing hammer.

It was back, clean, and like it was never lost. And alongside it was a little note. It simply read, Thank you. Honestly, I wasn't sure I believed him. But I got the point. The rules were important. The first year and a half of my job.

job. It was pretty uneventful. Even the mysterious cooler was just a regular cooler. It even felt empty every night. But I followed the rules. I didn't like every part of the job, but it helped me save up to get out of Louisiana one day. I certainly didn't plan on staying here for 30 years myself. And then about six months ago, things began to go terribly, terribly wrong. It started with a call. The concierge was taking a smoke break. I told them I'd keep an eye on the phones. It was the tail end of winter, so the lobby was basically dead anyways.

It was hard to see how the place stayed in business sometimes. So I picked up the phone, expecting to hear some rambling about how the water in the sink isn't hot enough. And at first, it didn't seem like anyone was there. Hello? I said. No response. I almost hung up until I heard a faint, hitched, breathing sound. Like someone trying to cry without making a noise. I need help. A woman's voice whispered. Okay, ma'am, I'm happy to help. What room are you in? 119. She told me

Well, shoot I'm sorry, ma'am I'm not permitted to work in that room Have a nice day I said I need help, Jack She said I was starting to get irritated

But I tried to keep my cool I knew that a prank caller probably thought being this creepy was funny but she took it too far by using my real name. Jack! She said again, and I decided the best course of action would be to just hang up. Later that night, after I went back to bed, after dropping off the cooler with Wayne,

there was a knock on my door. It was a concierge. She was clearly tired, but had the bad luck of being assigned the night shift at the front desk. There's someone asking for you on the phone. She told me. Grumbling to myself, I walked over to pick up the line. Hello, and it was that damn woman again.

Okay, this is not funny. I snapped. Look on the door. She whispered. And then the line went dead, not like it was hung up, more like it was cut. And my skin prickled. I told the woman at the front desk that one of the guests had a clogged toilet and I'd be back later.

I didn't wake Wayne up. I knew he wouldn't be happy with me messing around with room 119. So to access the rooms, I had to leave through the front door and travel up a short ramp outside. Each room door opened to a small fenced sidewalk overlooking the parking lot. enough. But the closer I got to room 119, the more exposed I felt. It was like I was being watched. My fingers brushed the door handle. Everything seemed fine, and I cursed myself for letting a prank caller get me all worked up over nothing. Until I noticed something along the crack

in the bottom of the door, a shadow passing along it. like someone was in there. With a bang, the door swung open. It knocked into me with enough force that I flipped back over the railing and under the hood of a car parked on the other side. The car alarm started going off, and to this day, I'd swear on my mother's grave that I could hear a woman laughing. The security guard came rushing out with Wayne hot on his heels.

Someone was in there. I choked out as the guard helped me to my feet. Nobody's there, he told me, grim. And I was shaken. But aside for some bruises, I physically was okay. Wayne, on the other hand, looked furious. It's not just. just about the phone. He hissed at me. It's about the room you responded.

Over the next few weeks, things around the cozy comfort became even harder to explain. I was jumpy, shaken. I even considered quitting. But where would I go? I still hadn't saved up enough to buy a place to live, I was still paying off my mother's medical debt. And I wouldn't make money like this anywhere else. And so I stayed, even when I felt eyes on me while I sat alone in my room, even when shadows played by the window like someone was outside, even when I was on the second floor. Once, I swore the shower turned on by itself. And then And a few nights ago, I was getting the cooler out of the ice machine. Wayne was with me.

That's the only way I know that I wasn't going crazy. Because he saw it too. The ice machine was on the first floor in a hall near the restrooms at the back of the lobby. My point is, it's a dead end. There isn't a way in or out someone wouldn't be able to see. Now everything that day had been normal. I'd even started to relax after the incident with Room 119. Wayne and I were even joking around a little. That is until we got closer to the machine and realized it smelled awful like someone had frozen a bunch of ponded sludge

and leftovers and left it to get freezer burned. I'd spent the past year and a half dealing with all sorts of sewage on the job, but I still felt myself gagging. Eyes watering at the stench wane opened the hatch to the ice machine. And everything inside looked normal. The cooler was there too, tucked into the ice like normal. When he picked it up, it was clear that whatever was inside was the cause of the issue. A hairline crack at the base of the cooler dripped a black chunky fluid onto the ice. It was warm enough that the ice was melting, spreading the

fluid out, an caustic, watery mess. It spattered the substance onto the floor after he lifted it out of the ice machine. But whatever inside was heavy enough, that he had to set it on the ground and stretch his back. I don't know how to he wasn't gagging after being so close to the thing. Maybe we should get some gloves, Wayne, I said. He was going to say something, but was interrupted by the sound of the plastic of the cooler splitting apart at the seams. The black fluid was coating the floor at this point. So much of it was spilling out, like hot, rancid, oil. I was certain it wouldn't have all been able to fit inside, And then the cooler cracked like an egg, and impossibly, fingers appeared at the cracks.

A woman's fingers, helping to tear the cooler apart. They stretched out, and fingers followed by arm, then followed by a woman's head with long hair dripping with a dark fluid. The arms groped wildly around, reaching for purchase, and scraping the cooler along the ground. Oh, no, we have to get it to the kitchen. Wayne said. We what? I replied. A little too loud.

The hands found traction on the ground then, and the cooler began to scuttle like a spider. Get the pool net. Wayne told me, we have to catch it. And then one of the hands grabbed at his ankle, and he slipped falling into the black slime on the ground. He tried to move away, but whatever it was must have been incredibly slippery.

Any attempt of his to get up was interrupted as he slid back onto the ground. The thing in the cooler jumped back and forth from hand, hand in some sort of sick little dance. Another crack in the cooler, and it revealed an eye, a pale, cloudy eye, locked onto Wayne with the intensity of a wild animal. I scrambled to find the pool net as Wayne fought against whatever the hell was in the cooler. It had both arms around one of his legs, and it was pulling itself closer.

to him by the second. As I grew more desperate, I noticed that his foot was actually beginning to disappear into the cooler itself. His mouth was open in a scream, but all I could hear was this static, like a radio tune to the wrong station. It was so loud, combined with the smell of the oil. My senses were so overwhelmed. I just wanted to sit down and scream.

But I didn't. I found the pool net, and I used the handle to beat the creature's hands. I was smacking it as hard as I could, and Wayne twisted free with a kick and used the ice machine itself to haul himself free. I managed to catch the creature as it scuttled, and I flung it through the swinging doors to the kitchen like a hockey puck. The static faded. I was panting hard and coated in stinking slime and my own fear-tainted sweat.

Wayne was clearly rattled too, probably even more than I was. What now? I asked him. Okay, well, let's get someone to help us clean up, and then we'll go back to our rooms. He said. The next morning. The hallway looked like nothing had happened. Despite our best efforts, the black oil had stained the floor, a purple-red where we tried

to get it up. But now it was sparkling clean. Well, as clean as anything else is at the cozy comfort at least. I would have thought I dreamed it. If until the following night, instead of a blue cooler waiting for us in the ice machine, It was red. And sure, it wasn't leaking noxious oil, but it was clear enough that something tangible had happened. Something real.

I couldn't stand it. I decided I'd just leave. And I would not come back. No two weeks notice, no forwarding address, nothing. I would just use my savings to drive back to my dad's place. Wayne wouldn't even try to stop me. And I'd gotten about three hours into my drive. When I had to stop for gas, a man had pulled up at the pump across from me.

At first, I only noticed him because of the car he was driving. It was a mint green, 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood. Perfect condition. It was actually my dream car. So the driver stepped out of the vehicle and closed the door behind the car. behind him with the lazy movement of a sleeping lion. And something told me this man was dangerous, and the way he was staring me down only reinforced that thought.

The man walked over to where I was parked and arrested against the hood of my car. Wasn't much older than me, late 20s at most, but he was dressed like he walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting. You gotta go back, Jack. He told me. I clenched my jaw. The man smirked. And then he pulled the carton of filterless cigarettes out of his pocket.

He lit a smoke in the middle of a gas station. And wordlessly, he offered me one. Now, I don't smoke, but I didn't want to risk refusing, so I took one. and I held it loosely in my hand while he smoked. Your resignation has been declined. Owner wants you back, he winked at me and flick the cigarette, still lit out of the ground. And then he got back in his car and just drove away.

I looked at the cigarette in my hand. I thought about what I'd seen earlier. I thought about Wayne. And the story of the murdered man, there wasn't any leaving, was there? I filled up my car, and I headed back to the cozy comfort motel. I wanted to ask Wayne if he'd ever broken the rules, but when my car pulled into the lot of the motel, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get the chance. The air felt like it was a crackling ozone during a thunderstorm.

A car peeled out of the parking lot. And behind it, another family was throwing their luggage into a trunk of a sedan. They were red, sweaty, and their eyes were rolling in fear. A woman held a crying baby. What's going on? I asked. The damn handy man's going crazy. Nobody's got self-service to call the police.

He cut the... The man didn't get a chance to continue. The disembodied radiostatic returned, louder than ever. This time accompanied by a piercing tea kettle whistle that forced everyone to their knees. The man ground his teeth and got his family into the car. He then crawled into the passenger seat and escaped the motel parking lot, blood dripping from his ears. The static subsided, but my heartbeat felt loud enough that it didn't matter.

He'd said something about the handyman. Something must have happened to wane. Doors to guest rooms were swinging open and closed, giving me fleeting glimpses within. A sigil was driest. was drawn on the wall of one room. Another, it looked like it was entirely converted into opaque, white plastic. One had a couple inside, who looked like they were in the midst of arguing, and when I looked again, they were just holding each other and sobbing. Black oil running down their faces. Room 119 stayed closed, and some of them.

Somehow that felt worse. Sinister. I heard a woman's voice in my ear yell my name, and I turned, and nobody was there. I rushed to the lobby. The concierge was dead. So was the security guard. They'd been laying out on the front desk, arms tied behind their back. Their eyes closed and facing up like they were asleep.

There weren't even any marks on them, no sign of a struggle. It was like someone just tied them up and they'd just chosen to die. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, and the ice machine shook against the ground. It was rattling so hard that the floor was shaking. And then I heard Wayne yelling from the electrical rum. Give her back, he said. almost childlike. God, give her back.

I swung the door open, and I saw him taking an axe to the electrical panel. He turned to face me, eyes red and wide. I forgot to flip the switch this morning. I put a hand on his shoulder. And for a minute, I was afraid he'd take the axe to me. But instead, he let me pull him away and outside. He dropped the axe, and a skittering hand flashed out of the dark and pulled it into some impossible corner. And we ran.

We made it to the relative safety of the parking lot, where Wayne filled me in. So years ago, before the death of the old handyman, before he started working at the cozy comfort. His daughter had been hired as a maid here. She'd been uncomfortable with some of the rules, no going into rooms after certain times, rules about little trinkets under the mattresses, and food at the edge of the woods around the motel. And then one day, she never came home. Police classified her as a runaway. Didn't even bother to look for her. And Wayne took a job at the cozy comfort himself, hoping to find some answers. Thirty years later, and nothing.

Everyone had their own rules, little rituals they needed to complete. The owner was more of a mystery than a man, but Wayne was sure of one thing. Something evil lived in the cozy comfort motel. and someone liked it that way. He was shaken after the thing in the cooler lunged at him because it had his daughter's eyes. I couldn't think about anything else. I couldn't.

And then when you left, I got distracted and I forgot to follow the rules. He said, and everything just went to hell. I don't know what the hell we're supposed to do. I have an idea, I said. You see, I brought a little something extra with me back from the gas station. Gallons and gallons of gas.

As handyman and handyman's apprentice, Wayne and I have a key to every room, and we worked quickly, coding the motel in my net worth and gasoline. Door 19 wouldn't budge, but I put as much as I could in the threshold. I even tried to splash as much as I could under the door. And when every jug was empty, Wayne and I stepped back. I lit the cigarette the man had given me earlier, and I flicked it into the gas puddles. We watched the cozy comfort burn to a crisp. We've been on the road for a few days now.

Not sure if anyone has reported on the fire. Our phones won't get much of a signal, and every station on the radio, it's nothing but dead air. I was okay with it, though. We were free of that God-forsaken place. That was... Until earlier today. We were driving up the interstate when we passed a billboard next to the road.

And this is what it said. Cozy Comfort Motel? Franchise Opportunities Available? New locations opening soon.