Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Sell Houses. The Last One Had a Strange LIST OF RULES | Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

It wasn't empty.      Story from madmagazines Make sure to check out more of their work at u/madmagazines                        Original Post: in 2001, my Family dIscovered the body of aN unidentified man in our home : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link:I Sell Houses. The Last One Had a Strange 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 day, 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!

A few years ago, the real estate company I work for decided to buy an unused piece of land out by the highway. They planned on building a set of these mini mansions. It ended up being a complete disaster. They decided to make all the houses a bright, pearly white with the doors and windows charcoal black. They ended up looking like a tooth with cavities. The houses stuck up next to each other in these awkward angles, so the entire place

looked like this bizarre modern art showcasing dental neglect. The Starlight Estate was so strange, ugly, and unpleasant that few people wanted to live there, but if you could look past it, the houses themselves were steel. They each had four bedrooms and three bathrooms, and inside they were glossy and sleek. We managed to sell some of them, mostly to landlords, but never to the super rich family market we wanted to tap into. House number eight was the only house that had never sold. In the seven years since it was built, not one person had even redded it. Every attempt to sell it had been unsuccessful. We joke that maybe it was built on ancient burial grounds or that somebody had cast a spell on it. Selling house number eight became like a white whale. My coworker Andrew had been the last one,

wanted to try and flip it. Andrew was known as a realtor who could sell absolutely anything. Although his sales rates were depressingly high, I couldn't understand why he was so popular. Andrew was an older man, but he'd pumped his face full of Botox to look like he was stoned his 30s. He wore too much hair gel and reeked of cologne. I always thought he came off as very slimy. He approached selling number eight with a lot of enthusiasm. He came down to the office after a few days and boasted he already had a buyer lined up. Next thing we heard, the buyer had dropped his offer with no reason why. Andrew took it badly. I'm not sure why he took it so hard, but he quit the company after nearly 20 years of being our number one seller. Still, I was happy about it, because now I

could finally get some recognition. My sales rate went up considerably. And eventually, I was asked to sell number eight. I felt fairly optimistic, but it had been almost a year since Andrew's attempt. So I thought that it might need a cleanup. They do send cleaners to work on vacant properties, but eight had been empty for so long, I don't think they always bothered. I hadn't actually been to the Starlight estates in a long time.

I was sort of hoping it would look better than I remember. Frankly, it looked worse. It still looked like a dried-out gray mouth full of rotted teeth, but the really disturbing part was how empty it was. I expected there to be music playing from inside somebody's house or friendly neighbors mowing their yards. I expected to see children playing. But I saw nothing. There wasn't a human being in sight anywhere. It was a early afternoon in late July, so it was unnatural for it to be this empty. When I parked my car in front of number eight and turned the radio off, I was struck by the complete silence. It was a summer's day, but I couldn't hear the sound of sprinklers or lawnmowers.

I couldn't hear the slightest hum of movement from anywhere. I stared at the houses across the empty tarmac road. I couldn't see into any windows as all the curtains were closed. All the driveways were empty. I hadn't actually seen a single car parked anywhere in the estate. The driveways were left exactly as we built them. Just smooth gray cement with patches of synthetic grass. If there were any occupants, they certainly hadn't added personal touches.

I shuddered as I unlocked the door. I didn't know how anyone could stand to live here. The eerie feeling didn't go away once I was inside the house. Every home on Starlight was painted in only black, white, and gray. The lack of color was strangely oppressive as if I'd stepped into an old black and white movie. There wasn't a lot of furniture, only a sofa and some tables. Bland paintings hung on the walls. The kitchen was a similar gray with dark counters.

At least the coffee machine was still there. As I started to make myself a coffee, I heard a floorboard creek behind me. It had been so quiet that this single creek sounded like an explosion. I turned around to see the closed kitchen door. There was another creek. Something was in the other room, and it was moving. Now I'd heard horror stories about realtors coming into houses to find somebody living there. I considered what I might have to do if there was an intruder.

Three knocks rang out from the other side of the door. Maybe it was just someone else from the company, I thought. We all had keys for the estate. Hello? I called out. A folded piece of paper drifted out from under the door, and I heard footsteps moving away. I got down to examine the paper. It was a note written for me. This is what it said. Dear Doug, I didn't mean you any harm. I hope I didn't scare you. But I'd like you to know the rules of staying safe in number eight.

Number one, don't lock the door from the inside or you will never be able to get out again. You might not believe me, but I cannot stress this enough. Do not lock the door. from the inside. Number two, there is a TV in the second floor bedroom. Please have this on at all times. You can turn the volume off if you want, but make sure there is always something on screen. 3.

If you're walking down the stairs and there's an intruder walking up, stand your ground and let them look at you. They will then leave you alone. Number four, do not leave mere... or photographs of people in the house. Number five, keep the shutters down over all windows. And number six, do not keep any glass in the house. Now, this was really strange.

I suppose maybe one of my colleagues was playing a joke on me, since I was the one selling the cursed home. That was the only thing that really made sense, I guess. I couldn't really imagine that a stranger would go to so much trouble. All the same, I couldn't stop looking at the list of rules. Something told me I had to follow them, even though they seemed so absurd. I felt like something bad would happen if I broke the rules.

The shutters were already down. We always keep them down, unless there's a showing. I didn't plan on bringing any mirrors, photographs, or glass into the house, so that wasn't a problem. I thought about locking the door. Maybe I should have. But the thought of being trapped in here made me nauseous, so I wasn't willing to risk it. All the starlight houses had a small TV in one of the bedrooms so we could play something during open houses. I was set on turning it off no matter what that piece of paper said.

It seemed like a complete waste of electricity keeping it on. When I went up to the second floor bedroom, the TV wasn't playing the news or any boring daytime TV. Instead, grainy CCTV footage was displayed on screen. It showed the kitchen with the words, room two printed along the edge of the picture. There was a tiny feed beneath it, showing every other room in the house, including the bedroom I was standing in. I picked up the remote and flicked through the different rooms. I thought about the list of rules and realized that I could probably find out who left it if I rewound the footage.

I clicked on the living room and pressed rewind. I watched myself walk backwards through the living room, and then it was empty. I began to rewind further when I saw someone. A strange man had made his way through the living room after I'd gone into the kitchen. I couldn't make out much of his face as the camera was pointed towards the top of his head. I could only tell it was a man and that his hair was a light color, maybe gray. I was sure he wasn't anybody I worked with. The man lumbered along slowly with his arms hanging by his sides.

I moved a little closer to the monitor and squinned. His feet weren't pointing in the right direction. I realized that he was literally lumbering to the kitchen door backwards. When he reached the door, he took the note from his pocket, laid it on the floor, and pushed it under the door with the back of his heel. Then he lumbered out of the living room, disappearing into the hallway. I wondered how this man could. got into the house. And if this guy was a stranger, how the hell would he know my name? I needed

to check the footage to see if the guy was still inside. I clicked on the hallway where the front door was, and no amount of rewinding showed him leaving. My heart sank a little, realizing this stranger was still in the house. I checked the footage of every room in the house, but I couldn't see him. He had to still be here hiding away in some secret corner. I took a photo of him on the monitor and texted it to my boss. John can be really funny about calling the cops on a property. If any of us finds something vaguely illegal and we dare to bring it up, he'll lecture us about how dangerous it is to have police cars swarming around a house you're trying to sell. I tried my best to explain the situation to John and waited for a response.

John replied fairly quickly. Eh, come man, I'm sure it doesn't mean any harm, he said. You should go to the neighbors and ask if they've lost anyone. They might know what to do, you know. There's a family living at number four. Ask them. I went downstairs and left the house, walking into the strange, silent world outside. I could see number four across the street.

The house was so cold and devoid of personality, it would be a stretch to imagine anyone living there. All the same. I went out and knocked on the door, and as expected, I didn't get any response. I felt for the keys in my pockets. I had keys for houses one through ten. If there really was a family living here, they would have changed a lot. but I decided to try my key. When I turned the key, the door unlocked, it swung open and I started to cough as a cloud of dust came out of it. I'd always been told that number four was occupied, but this place looked completely abandoned.

Inside the house was pitch black, and none of the lights would come on. I turned the flashlight on my phone towards the light switch and saw that cobwebs had grown all over the walls. And then something scuttled past my feet. A roach or bigger. As I walked further in, I noticed that there were some personal touches. There were photos along the staircase. Family photos.

One of the photos showed a young man on his graduation day. Another photo showed a couple on their wedding day. Both of them with their hair done up in outrageous 1980 styles. That was when I started to get this bad feeling. The house had been occupied, but not anymore. I got to the top of the stairs and I felt like my foot hit something hard. It was like a rock. I held my phone up to see.

It was a life-sized stone statue. of a woman. Her features were delicately carved. Each line on her face was perfectly defined. She looked exactly like a real woman. But her mouth hung open, and her stone eyes held a strange terror. The sculptor had carved a dozen little stone teeth inside her mouth and somehow carved paper-fin lashes around her eyes. I'd only ever seen statues like this in museums, wearing long gowns, so it was a little jarring to see that this statue wore a cropped t-shirt with a Hollister logo carved on the front and a pair of jeans. I called out to anyone who might be in the house. I was getting increasingly nervous being in here. I felt like I might find something.

I'd never be able to unsee when nobody answered. I told myself I'd call the police when I got back and I'd asked them to do a welfare check on number four. If there were any bodies in there, I wasn't the one who was going to find him. I texted John and told him there was nobody home. He didn't seem very keen on helping me any more than he already had. Come on, the guy's probably homeless. If you find him, just give him some money and send him on his way.

It's not a police situation until he gets aggressive. I suppose I had no other choice, but to just find this guy and ask him to leave. I had pepper spray with me in case I needed it. Maybe John was right. Maybe he didn't mean any harm. I went back into house number eight, and I felt positively relieved. It felt welcoming after house number four. For a second, I sat down on the gray leather couch, and I closed my eyes.

It was so comfortable, I just started to drift off. I only shut my eyes for a second, but I suddenly found myself jolted back to reality with a dried layer of drool on my chin. I shook myself awake and checked my phone. It was full of messages from John asking if the intruder had left yet and angry with me for not replying. I looked at the time. I had slept for five hours, and it was eight o'clock at night. I'm only supposed to work until six. I was an absolute idiot.

Obviously, the intruder couldn't have met me any harm. I was asleep. Completely vulnerable for five hours. And I hadn't been robbed, attacked, or killed. There was no reason to stay in this house any longer. I was going home. The front door was locked. I tried the door a few times, but it wouldn't open.

I absolutely knew that I hadn't locked it. I checked my pockets, but I couldn't find my keys. I could only find the folded list of rules and my tiny can of pepper spray. I ran back to the living room and I searched for my keys. They were gone. Someone had taken them. And someone had locked me inside. Thankfully, the back door was still open.

I went out through the kitchen door and I saw the miserable thing they called the back garden, two long patches of bright synthetic grass with a stone pathway down the middle. There was a man standing at the edge of the path, facing the high stone wall that surrounded this garden. His back was turned to me. He wore a red satin shirt and gray dress pants. His hair was gray, blonde and gelled down neatly, plastered right down the back of his neck. He stood perfectly still, his arms flat by his sides, and his hands completely limp.

He didn't move. Hello? I called out to him, trying my best to sound somewhat unafraid. I guess you're the one who left me the list around. rules, huh? He seemed to register what I said. His neck tilted to the right until his ear rested on his shoulder. The other side of his neck strained with effort. He lurched backwards, and he started moving. His steps clumsy and unsure. I realized that he was walking toward me backwards. I I jumped back and I slammed the door shut.

I didn't trust it to stay locked, so I ran up both flights of steps. I knew it would buy me sometime. I made it all the way up to the top floor and hid inside the bedroom on the left. I opened my phone. At this point, my fingers were so sweaty I could hardly type. I slid a fingertip along my screensaver. It was a picture of my daughter, and that got me moving. I dialed 911 and I told them my location and that there was an intruder.

But they seemed a little wary of me. I don't think they wanted to drive all the way out to Starlight Estates. They told me an officer wouldn't be able to get here for about an hour. They asked if I had a weapon and when I mentioned the pepper spray they said, I'd be just fine. And I mean, what could I do? I had an hour. An idea occurred to me then, that I could message Andrew. Whatever he'd seen at the house made him quit the company he'd worked in for decades.

Maybe he knew something useful. I didn't message Andrew very often, only when I absolutely needed to. I remembered most of his replies being flippant or condescending, always ending with thumbs-up emojis. I found him in my contacts and texted. Did you have any trouble when you were in house number eight? He texted back almost immediately. You broke the rules, didn't you?

I tried to play dumb. What rules? I asked. Oh, come on, Doug. I left you a list of rules earlier today. Did you really break them that quickly? He ended that text with a laughing emoji. I could hardly believe it.

I didn't reply and instead watched him type out another message. Well, I guess you've seen the man walking backwards by now. He doesn't want anything from you. You might as well just walk right past him. I thought about the man I'd seen again. I remembered his hair plastered back with hair gel, graying blonde, the red satin shirt. I'd seen Andrew wear the same thing at a Christmas party once.

Are you the one in the house with me? I asked. He texted back, In a way I am. It didn't make me feel better. Even though I'd known Andrew for a good 20 years, I didn't trust him. If I saw Andrew, I decided I was just going to face him and get my keys back. I didn't care if he was,

walking backwards. I just wanted to go home. I cautiously walked out into the second floor hallway, and I peeked down the stairwell. There was no sign of Andrew. Maybe he was stuck somewhere, or still lurking around on one of the lower floors. Andrew? I called out. Please, I've had enough, man. We've worked together for a long time. Can you just come upstairs and talk this out? I got no response, and I didn't know what he'd do if I went downstairs and tried to ambush him. It seemed like he'd completely lost his mind. The stairs creaked below. Each creek was very labored and very slow. Once the creek rang out, it'd be about a minute until I heard the next one. With almost all my options exhausted, I reached into my pocket and I looked

at the list of rules again. It told me that if something was pursuing me, I had to just walk down and face him. What kind of a rule was that? How would that possibly help me? But it was Andrew who left me these rules, and he was the one. attacking me. I thought about the three things he told me not to bring. Glass, a mirror, and photographs of people. I felt like the mirror was the most important. His reflection was what he feared the most. Maybe that's why he walked backwards. He was in some way ashamed of his face. It all all made sense to me. Perhaps something went wrong while he was in this house. He'd quit the company and just hid out here for months. Maybe he hurt himself. Maybe he somehow disfigured himself.

I knew the easiest way to defeat him was to just show him his face. I opened my phone to the camera app, and I aimed it behind me. That was another one. rule I planned on breaking. I wasn't going to face him. I could walk backwards too. I guided myself along by the handrail, slowly moving down each step. No wonder he was taken so long. Walking down the stairs backwards is not easy. I heard the creeks move closer until I was sure that he was standing at the bottom of the stairs right behind me. I saw. stopped close to the bottom and aimed the camera towards him. I couldn't hear any breathing or any movement at all from the man behind me.

I very slowly turned my head so it was resting on my shoulder. I could see Andrew was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his back completely turned. His neck was still awkwardly strained to the right. You're going to have to look at your reflection eventually," I told him. Look, whatever happened to your face, you should just deal with it. For the first time he spoke, and that was when I realized it wasn't Andrew. I can get another one, he said, in a voice that was so raspy and gravelly that it was almost distorted. It couldn't have been him. This was somebody, something else. Slowly, the creature's

neck began to twist, his face swiveling to the left, and a small sliver of his face became visible to me. The skin was very pale. It had this sour, milky tone. I turned my head around fully so I wouldn't see him, and I kept the phone firmly raised up so he could see himself through the camera. I thought this might be my only chance. A sharp hiss rang through the house, as though the image had burned him. I couldn't help turning around to see what happened. The creature had crumbled to the floor.

He was half kneeling, his torso pressed against the wall. and his arms hanging limply by his signs. His neck had turned halfway around, and his neck twisted strangely with the effort. He wasn't just disfigured. He had no face at all. The skin on his face was in parts milky pale and at other parts in angry, glaring red.

There were strange, protrusions at certain points, where his eyes or nose should be, or where they used to be. I watched him for a while, before I realized that he wasn't going to get back up. He was dead to the world. I stepped over him and noticed a set of keys on the floor. I picked him up and I moved down the two flights of stairs like a ghost. And I didn't wait for the police to arrive. I needed to get the hell out of this hellhole

as soon as possible. I drove out of the Starlight Estate and gazed at each lonely house like teeth in some terrible mouth. I had no idea what had happened here, how it had gone so horribly wrong. The police didn't find anybody in the house. I went to the stage.

and they let me watch the security footage again. I watched myself turn the camera around on the creature and watched him slump to the floor. I watched myself step over him and leave. They couldn't see his face on the camera. I don't think they could ever really understand what I saw that day. I have no idea how we got out of the house. The security footage fizzled, and it didn't show him leave or move away from the stairs. He was just gone, like he'd puffed out of existence. And maybe he had. The police tried to recover the missing footage, but they couldn't. And there was no logical explanation. They didn't find anything in House No. 4, even though I fully expected them to.

I learned that the family who lived there, the Cameron family, were made up of an older couple, their adult son and his girlfriend. They hadn't been heard from in four years, but nobody had bothered to report them missing. They were well off and their rent payment was set up automatically, so it kept being paid for years without anyone realizing that something was wrong. And instead of human remains, the police found three spectacular stone statues in the house. Each statue was carved to perfectly resemble a member of the family. The one I'd seen was the son's girlfriend. The stone expressions were an absolutely perfect likeness, down to the finest detail. There was no statue of the father,

Mr. Cameron, so the authorities assumed he'd been the sculptor. The statues were released to his sister who sold them to a museum. Every now and then I visit that museum. I compare them to the photos I found of the family online. I really can't get over this. Just how accurate they are. Every tiny feature is just perfect. I knew Mr. Cameron couldn't possibly have carved them. He had no experience. He worked for a tech company. I spent hours searching through his social media to find any clues to him being an artist,

but there was nothing. Eventually, though, I found a picture of the Cameron family at a party. Mr. Cameron was wearing a red satin shirt. I looked at the photo again. His hair was graying blonde, gelled back so tightly it was plastered with scalp. Now I know this sounds crazy, but had some entity that only exists here on this land taken over Mr. Cameron's body, wearing his skin like a suit of clothes, I remembered then what the creature had said.

I can find another one.