Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I took a Job in a Cemetery. There are STRANGE RULES to Survive | Scary Stories

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Story written by Stephen & Rachel of Lighthouse Horror. For usage rights or more information, please contact us at [e-mail] Art from NinerioMore of the artist’s works at ninerioartsOriginal YouTube link: I took a Job in a Cemetery. There are STRANGE RULES to Survive.   Merch: lighthousehorror.shopFor more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonSocial MediaINSTAGRAM - @lighthousehorror FACEBOOK -  Lighthouse HorrorTIKTOK - Lighthouse HorrorMusic:Lucas King - YouTubeMyuu - YouTube IncompetechDarren Curtis Music - YouTubeThank 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!

Hey there, I'm Ben. I take care of things out here, night shift stuff mostly. If you're planning to get into this line of work, I figure it's best you know who's talking to you. I didn't start out in this line of work, though. Back in the day, I was a successful banker at McKinley's. I had this desk that was walnut and longer than most dining room tables. I kept a bottle of 20-year-old scotch in the bottom drawer and only poured it when someone got fired. and I made sure that happened often. I had a view of the river and a girl who brought me coffee before I asked for it.

Her name was Jenna. She wasn't my assistant. She was my assistant's assistant. I still don't know who my actual assistant was. There was a stretch, maybe three years, where I didn't carry a wallet. Didn't need one. Everything was comped. Restaurants knew me by name.

clubs didn't check my ID. The elevator at my building skipped the lobby if I was on it. I was the kind of man who walked into a boardroom and made the CFO shut up with one look. Now, power, it's not some vague idea. It's real. It's your name and bold at the top of a memo. It's private car rods. It's signing someone else's raise or firing them before lunch because you felt like

steak that day. You can smell money when you're in it deep enough. It's in the glue of the leather seats. It's in the ink of your signature. And I soaked it in. They say I slipped up. They say I made the wrong call, insulted the wrong person, touched something I wasn't supposed to. And that's all true. But everyone does that. The difference is. I didn't kiss the right ass afterward. I didn't beg. So they kicked me out. Quietly.

One month I was approving international deals. The next I was getting bounced from my own email account. My badge stopped working. I called building security, and they said, we were told not to let you in. And that was ten years ago. Now, I walk in boot. through wet grass, a flashlight duct taped to a plastic stick in my hand.

They call me a night watchman. They pay me in cash every two weeks. The job's simple. Walk the fence, check the logs, report anything unusual. This is the edge of nowhere. One rode in, one rode out. The graveyard stretches wider than you'd think. They bury people cheap out here. No gates. Just iron chains looped between stone posts. The kind of place where nobody visits the dead. It's like they're dumped and forgotten, which is perfect for what I do. See, I don't care about peace. I care about profit. There's good money in cadavers. Real money. Not that corporate garbage with bonuses and taxes. I'm talking untraceable, unreported, sealed envelope cash.

The kind that smells like plastic and rubber bands. Medical schools want fresh tissue. Rich weirdos want bones. People pay thousands for a real skull. You know that? I bet you didn't know that. The first time I dug one up, I was shaking. not from fear, from excitement, from relief. It wasn't hard. I already had the keys to the storage shut. I borrowed a spade and some bolt cutters, took a look at the burial map, found a name that sounded

recent. They put a little plastic tag on the post when it's fresh. Easier than headstones, saves the family money. Well, it took me maybe three hours. That dirt peels back. like cake if you hit it right after a rain. The coffin was thin. Budget wood. Didn't even need to pry. I just cracked it with a crowbar and reached in. The body was still soft. And that's the best time before the rot starts. When the muscles still stretched like jerky and the skin hasn't gone too black. That's when the schools want them. That's when the collectors pay the most. Well, I wrapped it in tarp, drove it out in my trunk, dumped it in a freezer I bought from a retired butcher. You should have seen the look on the guy's face when I asked if it could hold a

whole deer. I paid him double and he didn't ask again. The buyer came a week later. Quiet guy. thick glasses. It smelled like paper. He peeled off 20-50s and stuffed them in an envelope, said he'd be back next week if I could get another. Oh, that night, I drank scotch from a chipped mug and sat on the floor of my trailer, counting out 10 grand in perfect silence. You wouldn't believe it, but it felt better than any promotion I had. ever got. Now I've got a system. I only pull bodies on cloudy nights, and I rotate the areas. I mark the headstones with chalk, so I don't hit the same row twice. I keep track of name, age, date. You get more for a full adult, especially male, especially recent. Teeth intact is a bonus.

I don't drink much anymore. I don't need to. The sound of the shovel slicing down clean into a new patch of earth. That's better than a buzz. The first tap of metal on cheap pine. The way the body shifts when you lift it, and the joints pop like bubble wrap. That's the kind of thing that sticks with you. Lately, I've had this itch to write things down. I don't want to confess.

And no, I'm not done. It's like what they say about killers going back to the scene, you know. It's not because they feel bad. It's because, well, they feel proud. It's that cold little thrill that comes from knowing you're better than the people trying to catch you. You don't want to get caught, but deep down, you want someone to know how good you really are. And so that's why I'm telling you this. These are the rules of the trade.

I have come to know and now I'm passing them on to you. So listen well because there are some strange rules to follow. All right, so let's get tuned. Rule number one, don't crack open sealed crypts. You'll know when you see them. Stone boxes, usually above ground, or half buried into hillsides. Big brass nameplanes. Marble lids with bolts sunk deep.

They're sealed for a reason. And it's not just for looks. The inside pressure builds after a while. Gases, fluids, whatever the hell happens in there once the rot starts baking in. One winter, about six years ago, I got a little cocky and I decided to try one. We were still figuring things out back then.

Me and Danny, my first partner, He was smaller than me, wiry. Never shut up. Thought this job was some big horror movie. Kept quoting books and saying creepy stuff to sound smart. I tolerated him because he could work fast. Well, we got a tip that this one crypt at the back of the South Lod had a woman in it who died young and rich. Some kind of embalming test case supposedly, I don't know.

They said she was almost perfect, still. The kind of thing medical labs would pay double for. We hit it at midnight. Fog in the air, boots crunching under gravel. We brought bolt cutters, chisels, and a carjack, just in case. Took us 40 minutes to get the bolts loose. I kept checking over my shoulder, not for cops, you know, just out of instinct. Danny unhooked the last bolt and wedged the lid up with a jack.

The second it gave, we heard a low, wet crack, and then it blew. I was a few feet back, digging through the tool bag. He was right in front. The sound was sharp, like snapping a water balloon with a nail gun. Brown-red fluid shot out across his arms and face. Steam rose off it. I remember the way he screamed, not loud, more like greeting his teeth throughout. We dragged him to the truck, stripped his jacket off, dumped bottled water over his arms, anything we had. His hands were the worst. He kept him wrapped for months, still asked to wear gloves

in the summer. He doesn't dig anymore. Last I heard, he was working security at a Walmart outside Kingston. So yet, don't open Crips, not unless you're wearing full gear and getting paid triple. And even then, ask yourself how fast you can run with acid on your face. Rule two. Never steal from a grave with coins on the lid. Doesn't matter how fresh the burial is. How nice the body. How good the cash. If there are coins, old pennies, foreign currency, casino chips doesn't matter. Leave it alone. They're not decorations. Sometimes it's military.

War veterans. Certain branches leave coins as a code. A quarter means that the person who left it was there when the guy died. A dime means they sort. serve together. Each coin has a meaning, and people who care what those meanings are also care about where the body ends up. Sometimes it's worse. There was a guy I knew named Kyle, worked two towns over. We crossed paths a few times, shared a few tips. He was faster than me, stronger too. Thought he was slick. Thought he could outdig me. Last time I saw him.

He was bragging about a tall body he pulled just east of here. Said the guy was six four, forty-something, fresh from out of state. Said there was a nickel sitting right in the middle of the lid. I asked if he left it. He laughed and said, You superstitious? And that was the last conversation we had. They found his truck parked crooked on the roadside,

driver door open, engine cold, the gear was gone. No body, no tools, just a torn receipt stuck under the wiper from a gas station to counties south. I didn't find out what really happened until weeks later. A friend of mine used to run with one of the syndicates out of Syracuse, told me straight. Kyle had stolen from a grave he shouldn't have touched, said it belonged. to one of theirs. Not a boss, not anyone special. Just a soldier who died quiet. They put that coin there for a reason. It meant hands off. Kyle didn't listen. Three nights after the dig, they caught him at the bar he liked up in Roscoe. Didn't make a scene. Just waited for him to walk out the back. They beat him with a pipe and a tire iron, broke both his left. He broke both his eggs in most of his ribs. Didn't kill him, not yet. They wrapped him in tarp and dumped him back in the

same grave he'd robbed, slammed the coffin shut, with him still alive inside, nailed it, covered it, smoothed the dirt. Nobody called the cops. No one filed a missing person's report. That's how these guy's work. They don't care about you until you piss them off. So don't touch they're dead and you're fine. That's the rule. Since then, I've seen maybe a dozen marked graves like that. Coins lined up carefully, balanced so they don't fall. Once, I found a whole ring of quarters stacked like a crown around the headstone. I turned around and didn't come back for a month. Don't you. Don't you. try to guess which ones are probably fine. Don't touch the marked ones. There's enough dead to go around. Rule three. Talk to the guy in the green hoodie. He's not staff, not police. He's not even

a person, far as I can tell. But he shows up like he is. I started seeing him during my third year out here. Cold night, no moon. I was doing my rounds near Section D. carrying a lantern since the flashlight was dead. I looked up and saw someone leaning against a tall headstone, one of those statues with angel wings and praying hands. The guy was wearing this deep green hoodie, the kind you find in gas station bins. The hood was pulled way down, real low,

and I couldn't see his face. Not even a nose? Just the black under that hood like it went too far back. He had this cigarette between his fingers. I could smell it from ten feet away. Floral, sour, not right. Like perfume from a funeral home got burned into paper and ash.

Asked him if he was lost. He said, No. I used to work here. That's all he said. Didn't introduce himself. didn't move, just smoked and stared. I call him Jimmy now.

I don't know why. He doesn't seem to mind. First few times I saw him. I thought maybe he was casing the place. Some kind of rival, or maybe a collector who liked to watch. Once, I told him to stop following me. He looked up, still couldn't see a face, and said, I wasn't.

He doesn't show up every night, but if I'm working a sight, odds are he'll be nearby, leaning against a headstone, sitting cross-legged on a slab, lurking just outside the glow of the lantern. And he never changes. Same hoodie, same jeans, same awful cigarette. He doesn't age, doesn't blink. He's been the same since the first time I saw him. I stopped asking questions. Now when I see him, and nod and say evening, Jimmy,

sometimes he nods back, sometimes he doesn't. One time I found him digging alone, quiet little corner of the graveyard near a tree line. There was no shovel, but the dirt was flying out like someone was tossing it from underneath. I stood there and watched for maybe five seconds, before I turned around and laughed. Didn't speak, didn't ask. All I know is this. If you see Jimmy, talk to him. Don't ignore him.

Don't yell at him. Just say hi. Tell him I said hello too. He seemed to remember me. And you know what they say? Always be polite to the dead. Rule four. Never dig into a grave with no headstone.

Unmarked graves are bad business. I used to think they were gold mines. No visitors, no records, no risk. But that was before I saw what happened to a guy named Morris. Morris was new. Big arms, prison tattoos. Said he used to be a mechanic. Said he wasn't scared of dirt or death.

Always talking tough, always grinning, like nothing out here could scare him. He asked if he could tag along on a job, and I said no. Two weeks later, he called me up in the middle of the night, said he found a grave I must have missed, said it was fresh, still had a ridge in the dirt, but no headstone, no cross, no tag, just a bare patch of land near the east border, down by the older burials. I told him to leave it alone.

He laughed and said, Come on, Ben, you scared? Next morning, I found his car parked sideways against the cypress tree. Door wide open. Radio still playing some old country song on repeat. There were drag marks in the grass. We followed him. It took five men in two hours to get the soil cleared.

The dirt was packed wrong, like it had been folded from the inside. And it stank? Like old milk and burnt hair. We hit bone within minutes. Then we hit Morris. He was curled up under the thing he'd found. His arms were wrapped around his chest, his eyes wide open. He'd been dead for maybe a day, but his face looked older.

Skin drawn tight. Hands shredded from clawing upward. They said he died of a heart attack. But the weird thing, the body below him wasn't a normal one. It wasn't even whole, just ribs, a jaw. And something else, something with fingers longer than mine, and no eyes at all. The guys that helped me re- bury them didn't ask questions. We dug deep, poured lime, sealed it.

planted a proper stone this time. Morris is buried, right beside the thing he found. I don't know what it was, but I've seen graves like that since. No marker, no flowers, just hard-packed dirt and nothing else. And I don't go near him. I don't even step over him. I walk around every time, even if it takes an extra hour. Now, I'm not a religious kind of guy.

I grew up in the South, went to church because my parents made me. We'd eat corn muffins afterward, and pretend the preacher didn't fall asleep halfway through his own sermon. I stopped believing a long time ago. But unmarked graves are unblessed. That's the truth. And they don't stay down. Sometimes it's 60 days.

Sometimes it's six years. Sometimes it's six years. Doesn't matter. When they rise, they're not people anymore. They're not even ghosts. They're things with hunger, hunger bigger than mine. And I have got a hell of an appetite. They don't eat like people. They feed. You touch one of their graves and it wakes them up. They follow you. And they follow you. And they'll won't stop until you're under the dirt next to them. So don't touch them. Whatever stories you've heard about vampires or ghouls or zombies, those are bedtime stories compared to what comes out of an unblessed grave. There's no profit in it. No price high enough. So stay clear. Rule 5. Never rob a grave, guarded, by a dog. They look like German shepherds at first glance.

Big ones, taller than you'd expect. Clean black fur, no patchy spots, no collar. Just all black like they've been dipped in ink. They don't bark. Don't growl. They just stand there, close to the grave. Watching. If you see one, don't move fast.

Don't talk loud. Don't even look it in the eye. Just turn around and leave that plot alone. I've only seen three since I started. And that's three too many. There's a story that goes with the first one. I wasn't there when it happened, but I saw what was left afterward. It was a guy named Patrick.

Young, a little dumb in the way all youngsters are. New to the job. thought it was all superstition and stories, thought I was trying to scare him off good turf. The first time he saw the dog, he thought it was astray, said it looked calm, sitting next to a headstone, marked Walter C. Hamley. Nothing else. No dates, no flowers, no coin, just a name and a slab of greystone. The dog sat real still. tail curled tight around its legs. Didn't blink?

Didn't breathe either from what he said. Patrick tried to scare it off by shouting and nothing. He threw a stick. That's when it stood up? It didn't bark. Didn't make a sound at all. Just stepped forward and closed the space between them like a shadow, quick and smooth. Patrick reached for a.

his shovel. He didn't make it five feet. They say the dog bit his face clean off. He was still alive when the first truck got there, died six minutes later on the back of a gurney. I saw the photos, didn't eat lunch for two days. We tried to trap the dog the next night. Two of us brought a cage, raw beef, sleeping pills, a taser. Never even saw it. Grave was there, same as always, but no dog. The dirt looked smooth, like someone had brushed it. That's when we figured it out.

It wasn't a dog. It was the dog. A gravehound. You ever hear about the god of the underworld? The one with a three-headed mud at the gates? This is like that. same blood maybe a smaller version the kind that guards one grave not the whole afterlife and once it's set it stays grave hounds don't wander they don't get lost they don't chase cars or dig holes or beg for scraps they don't respond to meat treats whistles none of it you can throw steak at them and

and they won't even twitch. They're tied to a grave like chains, and you don't want to find out who they belong to. Sometimes it's witches. Sometimes it's vampires. The real old ones that hide underground and sleep for decades. Sometimes it's just someone rich enough or sick enough to put a blood contract on their bones.

Doesn't matter what the reason is. If you see a gravehound, that patch of dirt is off limits forever. I watched one for 20 straight minutes once. Didn't move, didn't blink, just stared at me from 30 yards out while I walked my route, sat next to a child's grave with an unlit lantern by the stone, like someone expected visitors. It never growled, but my hands wouldn't stop shaking. I didn't even try to dig that night, just packed up and went home early.

They say the only way you can recognize one for sure is the eyes. It's not just that they're red. I've seen bloodshot eyes before. I've seen animal eyes glow under lights. This isn't that. These dogs have red everywhere, the pupils, the iris, even the parts that should be white. no veins, no color shifts, just full-on deep, slow-burning red, like someone left hot coals behind their sockets. And when they look at you, you feel it, like they've already chosen where to bite.

They don't chase you unless you cross a line. That's the only good thing. They won't leap out of the dark and rip your throat out just for looking. But once you dig, that said, that's your last act. I've seen grown men cry just standing near one. There was a guy, Marty, who thought he could distract one with a squirrel carcass he found in the woods, tossed it 20 feet away, and tried to circle behind the grave. Thought he was clever? He lost two fingers and a kneecap.

Still limbs to this day. doesn't work with bodies anymore, spends his nights fixing vending machines. You can't trick something that doesn't want anything. That's what gravehounds are. They don't eat. They don't sleep. They don't fetch. They exist for one job, and they do it better than anyone.

So if you're out there one night, walking through the rows, and you see a black shape curled beside a head, headstone with red eyes watching you don't be brave don't be clever don't be anything except gone never rob a grave guarded by a dog rule six never stay in the same place more than six months that's the max after that you pack up doesn't matter how good the turf is doesn't matter how much cash you've got stashed under the floor board, you move towns, move counties, maybe even states if you're smart. And no, I don't mean to dodge the cops, though that's smart too. This rule isn't about the law.

It's about them. The dead. You stay too long. They start to recognize you. Not right away. The first few digs are easy. You're new, you're quick. The bodies are fresh and dumb, but after a while, they start to notice. I don't know how it works exactly. Maybe it's memory. Maybe it's something deeper. You ever dug someone up and thought the body looked like it was trying to move? Not twitch, not spasm. I mean trying. Like the fingers were already curling before you touched them, like the lips were just waiting for your face to get close. That starts around month four. By month five, you'll wake up some mornings and find your tools moved, not stolen, just shifted, like someone dragged the shovel three inches to the left

while you slept. I once woke up to find the burial map I kept tucked under my mattress, covered in dirt smudges. I don't live with anyone. But it was month six where I learned what happens if you stay too long. It was three years ago, small town west of Athens, Georgia,

flat fields, cheap plots, no one visited the dead except the lawn crew. It was good work, made more in five months than I had in my best year in the city. So I stayed. even though I'd already started to feel it, that prickling weight behind me when I walked between rows,

that tugging my hand every time I lifted a body, like they didn't want to let go. I ignored it. And then right around the start of month six, I pulled the dig on a Tuesday night, quiet one, solo plop, man in his 70s, heart failure, I think. The file said he'd been buried with a gold ring and three teeth replaced with capped metal. Easy payday. I opened the coffin and reached down with my gloves. His eyes were open, not crusted open, not shifted during decay.

I mean open wide, like he'd been waiting for me. I stepped back fast. My hand slipped on the lid, and I nearly dropped the crowbar. When I looked again, the eyes were closed, just like a normal body. I took the ring, grabbed the teeth, and wrapped him like usual, told myself I was imagining things. I didn't go home that night, slept in my truck, didn't sleep much. Two nights later, I woke up to someone not to. on the trailer door, not pounding, just slow tabs.

Three, wait. Then two more. I sat there with my knife and didn't open it. After a while, I peek through the corner of the window. No one was there, but someone had dragged dirt up the steps. muddy shoe prints bare feet actually

you could see the arches and toes they went up the steps and didn't come back down i left town that same night didn't even pack my freezer you think the dead like being dead they don't let alone being dug up and sold like scrap meat

You're not just robbing them. You're pulling them back into a world they thought they were finally done with. And some of them aren't really even dead. Not in the medical sense. In the cursed sense. You never know who you're digging up. Could be a man who made a deal with a witch. Could be someone buried alive and left to rot.

Could be worse? Demon cults. Failed experiments. Those ancient bloodlines that come from places the maps forget. They all end up six feet down, same as everyone else. But what they were before they got there, that stays with them. You dig them up after too long. They remember you.

And then they follow. Some people say it's a scent thing, like bloodhounds maybe. Maybe we carry a smell the dead recognize once we start violating them. But I think it's more than that. Grave robbing marks you. It stains, like grease that won't wash off, no matter how many showers you take, like mold under your skin. You can't see it.

but it's there, and it pulls things toward you. You've broken every rule written by man and God. You've stolen from the earth, from the peace, from what little dignity the dead had left. That kind of thing doesn't go unnoticed. So you leave. You take the cash, you wipe down your gear, you vanish. That's the trick.

Move before they start catching up, before they learn your scent, before they start digging back. Because they will. Look, I never said I was a good person. I don't think you can be and still do this kind of work. But I know why I do it. The money's real. Then the risk is real, too. So that's the last rule.

Once you start doing this, you'll see more money than you ever held in your hands before. Fixed stacks, clean bills, enough to drown a man. But you can never stay in one place for too long. Pros and cons of the job, you know? Among other things. Well, six months, that's where I'm at. Tonight's the last night. I've already cleared out the trailer, pack the freezer, and loaded the truck.

The road west is calling, but I'm not wasting time. It's a clean break, just the way it's supposed to be. Never leave footprints, never leave a name. Besides, the signs are there. I saw another grave-hound three days ago, pacing near the edge of the north fence. Same black coat, same glowing red eyes. But this one didn't just sit and stare. It growled when it saw me, low and slow, like it recognized me.

Well, I didn't stick around. Just turned and walked. I've learned not to argue with warnings like that. So I'm getting out of here before something worse shows up. I always do. If you've made it this far through everything I've told you, I figure you are either curious or crazy. Maybe both. Maybe you're thinking about trying the job yourself. Maybe you've already picked out a shovel. Maybe you're eyeing the local cemetery at night, wondering how soft the

ground might be after rain. Well, if you are, then good luck to you. Just stay the hell off my turf, you got that? And good luck to your soul, too. I'm no priest, and never was. Closest I ever got to a sermon was fallen asleep in a church pew, while my mother sank three rows down. I stopped believing in heaven and hell, around the same time I started counting dollar bills with bloody gloves. But even I know when a line's been crossed. And grave robbing isn't just crossing it. It's grinding that line into the dirt and walking away richer. Still, I'm not here to tell you what kind of person you are. That is none of my business. I am the last man on earth qualified to judge anyone. You want the money, the rush, the freedom?

Fine by me, I won't stop you. Hell, I respect the guts it takes to even think about doing this kind of work. Most people don't have the spine for it. Most people wouldn't even dig a hole for free, let alone rob one for cash. But if you do start, and if you survive long enough, maybe we'll cross paths one day. Could be out in the middle of nowhere, some rest stop just off the highway, sharing a gas station sandwich, and a couple warm beers. Maybe we'll trade stories and compare scars and laugh like we both don't sleep with knives under our pillows. But if not, if this is the last time we ever cross lines, just remember the rules. Break one, and something will come for you. Might be slow, might be fast, but it'll come. And that's all I've got to say. I've got a full

tank in an empty highway ahead of me. There's another graveyard out there waiting, and I plan on getting to it before the dirt dries too much. And when they finally get me, I won't beg, I'll just go into the dirt nice and easy, because I earned my place there, and I deserve it.