Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I work as a Night Guard at a Strange Museum. We have a List of Rules | Scary Stories

Episode Date: May 14, 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 work as a Night Guard at a Strange Museum. We have a List of Rules.Merch: lighthousehorror.shopFor more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonMusic: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!

My name is Clint Walker. I'm 54 years old. Born and raised in Pennsylvania. Still live not too far from where I grew up. I have two grown kids, a wife, and a basset hound named Buddy, who choose through anything soft if I leave him alone too long. I like old trucks, black coffee, and minor league baseball. I am a plain man, and I like plain things. I was a security guard long before I came to this museum. Over two decades now. I've worked just about everywhere you can imagine. Hospitals, construction sites, banks, even a pharmaceutical lab once.

That was boring. Long hallways. Endless locked doors. Zero action. I've walked the floor at concerts and stood guard over big shot politicians. I was good at it. I still am. But nothing I did before prepared me for this place.

I remember the ad? It was in the back of a local paper, one of those half-page things with weird listings. It just said, Knight's security wanted. Must be calm under pressure. Excellent pay. No experience with the supernatural required.

Apply in person. Weird wording, my thought. Sounded like a prank. But I needed the money. My oldest had just started college, and I didn't want him. drowning in loans. So I circled it with a red pen, drove down the next day, and parked in front of a gray stone building tucked between two overgrown parks. Looked like a government place.

Quiet, cold. No signs of life. I thought it might be some kind of archive, a place for old records and dusty maps. But it wasn't. There was ivy on the walls and a bronze plaque by the door that read The Museum of Monstrous Natural History. I chuckled to myself. Yeah, that's cute. I bet they've got a Bigfoot footprint and a couple alien posters in there. But inside, it was something else. I got the job fast.

They didn't ask many questions, just gave me a clipboard, took my fingerprints, and had me sign a pile of papers, I didn't read closely enough. They did a background check while I sat in the lobby. 15 minutes later, I had a key card, a uniform, and a start date. That same night. That was 23 years ago. I have not missed a shift since.

If you're reading this, well, that means you're next. New night guard. Congrats, you passed the test. Cleared the check and nodded at the rules without asking too many questions. That's the trick. You're not supposed to ask. I'll be honest with you right now. This job pays better than anything else out there for someone like us. Health insurance, full pension, hazard bonus every quarter.

You stick around a year, they give you an apartment upstairs. You make it five years, they wipe your debt and give you a retirement option with beachfront property. But that money's not free. It never was. You showed up tonight wearing those stiff new boots and carrying that blank expression I've seen on every rookie. That, what did I just sign up for a look? Don't worry, it fades. You won't be fresh-faced for long.

I watched you from the cameras for about an hour before I came down. That's how I like to do it. Gives me a feel for how someone moves. You are jumping, but you followed protocol. You didn't wander. You stuck to the lighted path, and you didn't touch anything, and that is good. You'd be surprised how many new hires just start poking around like it is a fun house. It's not.

This building, it's a containment facility. Every item on display, every bone, every jar, every scrap of folklore sealed behind glass. It's all real. Not metaphorically. not based on legend. It's real. The vampire skull and hall B belonged to a thing that drank the blood of 37 people

before it got caught in a housefire. The fairy wing that everyone makes TikToks about? That came off a dying screecher from somewhere deep in an Irish bog. It lived for hours after losing the wing. They had to put it in liquid iron to get it to stop moving. We don't display myths here.

We store threats. The public? They think it's all theater. They laugh, take photos, run around like it's Halloween year-round. We let them. The less they believe, the safer they are. But you?

Hell, you need to understand. You're not here to entertain. You're here to follow the rules. and the rules keep things from noticing you. You've already agreed to everything in writing. That's what the clipboard was for. You signed your name at the bottom. That means you follow protocol.

Every single step without fail. No shortcuts, no improvising. No acting brave. This job has no room for heroes. Your shift starts at 10 p.m. You don't leave your post until 6 a.m. sharp. You sweep the museum once every 90 minutes using the pre-approved route. You do not enter any exhibit unless it's labeled with a green card. Yellow means locked. Red means do not open under any

circumstance. If a red-tagged door is open, you don't go inside. You radio me, and you wait. There's a list taped to the wall in the security office. Yeah, you've seen it. The white one with black ink. That list is everything. It changes sometimes. Never ask who updates it. Never ask why something's been added or removed. Just follow it.

And here's my first real piece of advice for you. Don't try to understand this place. You won't. You can't. The rules don't make sense. The layout changes when no one's watching. The lights flicker, even with brand new, It's not broken. That's just how it is. You're not here to understand. You're here to survive.

The rulebook they gave you is thick. 50 pages, small print, no index. You won't get through it tonight, and well, that's okay. That's why I'm here. My job is to walk you through the ones that matter right now, the ones that keep you breathing until morning. We'll start small. Just listen close and don't skip steps. You'll be on your feet most nights anyway, so we might as well start moving. Come on, let's take a walk through the exhibit while we talk. I'll point things out as we go. Stay close and don't touch anything.

Rule one. You've probably passed by the fairy wing on your way to meet me. It's a nice place. Decorated like a forest and all that jazz. That's where most visit is. stop to take selfies. Looks pretty. Magical, even. But there's darker stuff in this museum I need to talk to you about. Let's head toward the back rooms. It's a short hallway marked authorized personnel only. You've got the clearance now. That badge they gave you, you earned it. Whether you live long enough

to renew it, well, that's up to how well you follow the rules. Here's rule one. It's the first one I ever learned here, and it's the most important rule in this entire building. Never open a crate sealed with red wax. That's it? No exceptions, no explanations. You see one? You stop whatever you're doing and call collection security. There's a dedicated number taped to the wall in every vault room.

You use it. Then you get out of the room and you wait. Don't touch the crate. don't try to read the label don't even stand near it longer than you have to I have seen five in 23 years only five

and that's more than most get in a whole career these crates they come from our partner agencies yeah that's right there are real teams out there they hunt trap and subdue things that shouldn't exist most of the world

never hears about it Quiet work, classified, but they're out there. And when they find something that can't be destroyed or shouldn't be, well, they ship it here. Sometimes it just bones, harmless. Sometimes it's mummified tissue from a creature that's been dead a thousand years. Other times, it's pieces of artifacts that needed to be separated. We have specialists who sort and log all that.

But when the red wax shows up, that's a different story. The red wax isn't for decoration. It's a warning code. If it's sealed in red, it means someone, somewhere, already tried everything else. And the only option left was to box it up and hope to God it stays that way. You might wonder why we even take deliveries like that. Why not destroy it? Why not sink it in the ocean or lock it in a vault a mile underground?

Because sometimes destruction makes it worse. Some entities, they return if you break them, or if you say the wrong words near them. Some are linked to specific locations. Others wake up if they feel movement or pressure. So instead, they're packed tight with ceiling wards. Etched with symbols I couldn't read if I tried. And they're sent here, where the walls are lined with neutralizing stone and reinforced with silver mesh and layers of salt and iron.

A crate marked with red wax is either holding something that looks dead but isn't, or something that looks very much alive but locked down so hard it can't even blink. Doesn't matter which, you don't open it. You don't check what's inside. You don't lean close to here if it's moving. You don't lift the lid or test the seal. That seal is all that's keeping the world on one side and the problem on the other. Your curiosity.

It's not worth your life. Not worth anyone's. We had this case in 2011. I remember it too well. Kid was new. Maybe 19. 20 at most. Assigned upstairs for admin work.

Nothing to do with vaults or handling, but some crates were rerouted that week due to renovations, left sitting in the intake hall for 12 minutes. Twelve minutes. That's all it took. Kid was walking by. Saw the crate? Maybe you thought it was mislabeled.

Maybe he thought the red wax was just decoration. Part of the show. He took a crowbar and he cracked it open, didn't even get the lid off, just cracked it enough for air to slip in. All we found afterward was the crowbar's tip, melted down to slag, and a single tooth buried six inches deep in the drywall, small, sharp, like a shark's, but twilight. The rest of him. Gone. Not a drop left. Clean up took a week.

Nobody talks about it now. Official report said transport loss, but ask anyone in collections, and they'll all tell you the same thing. He opened a red wax crate. Now, if you see one, and I hope you never do, it'll look like this.

blackened wood, heavy iron hinges, sealed all the way around with a thick red wax strip. The wax will smell strange, like copper, and something sour. Don't lean in, don't test it, and don't think you'll just peek. There is no just when it comes to red wax. Sometimes they hum, not loud, but enough that you feel it in your feet. That's not your imagination. That means it's aware. That means you're already too close.

The collection team wears gear just to be in the same room. Suites lined with mirror fabric and breathing masks with filtered silver threads. Even then, they rotate and shifts. No one stays too long. Some crates are marked for relocation, some for deep storage. the worst, they're never moved again. You don't need to know where those are, not on your first night. Tonight's walk is just about orientation,

getting your eyes used to the dark corners, getting your gut used to ignoring the little things you think you see out of the corner of your vision. But most of all, it's about getting your head wrapped around one simple truth. This place is not safe. It is managed, and that's different. Safety implies control. Management just means the danger hasn't slipped out yet.

So if you ever see a crate sealed with red wax, don't be a hero. Don't be curious. Don't even breathe near it longer than you have to. Just walk away and let the people with the gear and the guts handle it. Well, you've made it through the front. Hall, the fairy wing, and the back corridor. So far so good. You haven't broken anything. You haven't seen anything you can't explain. That's how the job usually starts. Quiet, almost boring. But don't let your guard down. Here's the second rule. It's easy to remember, but not easy to

believe. If you see a child sleeping in the fairy exhibit, do not wake them. You might feel the urge to help. that's natural. We're wired that way. You see a small figure curled up under the display lights, maybe wearing a school jacket or a dusty hoodie, and you think somebody's kid got lost. You imagine a school group wandered off. You think maybe they hid behind the glass when the lights dimmed. That's what they want you to think. But that's not a child. Not anymore. You follow this rule or you won't make it through your first week. If you see them. Blocked, still in sleep.

Head tilted just slightly. Hair too neat. Skin too pale. You don't get closer. You don't call out. You don't take a step forward and whisper to them or ask if they're all right. You lock the exhibit doors immediately.

Then you call me. Not security dispatch, not the front office. me. The child is not a child. It's something else. Something left behind. In European folklore, their cold changelangs, creatures put in place of the real thing. Sometimes, it's just a disguise. Sometimes the child was taken, and the thing left in their place is meant to fool everyone around him. In older stories, parents figured it out too late. They'd look into the crib and notice their baby's eyes had changed, or that the baby didn't cry, or it laughed in ways it never had before. We don't get many changelings here. They're rare, but when they do show up, they end in the

fairy wing. We don't know why. The wing is filled with delicate things, preserved wings, bottled pollen, hair clippings from forest dwellers. But when one of those sleeping things appears, it's never in a sealed case. It's always out in the open, nestled under a silk flower, or resting against the root sculpture. And it always looks like a real kid. It's not. The eyes give it away. When they open, and they do, if you speak or move too close. They're entirely black. No whites.

No pupils. Just deep and less dark. If you're unlucky enough to be there when they open, don't run. Don't speak. Don't meet their gaze. You won't win. The stories say they can smell kindness.

They sense the ones you want to help. And they use that. not with strength or teeth, but with confusion. They twist things. They say the right names. They use the right voices. Sometimes they cry. It's not real.

The real child might still be out there. That's what we call the hunters and detectives. They have ways. Pals, spells, contacts in the old woods. We don't. Our job is to secure the area and not interfere. We are guards. Don't forget that. Not rescuers. There's a small metal box bolted to the wall just outside the ferry exhibit. You'll see it next time you patrol. Inside is a coil of iron wire wrapped carefully and measured out for this exact purpose. You take the wire, uncoil it.

and place a ring around the exhibit room. Not the figure. Not the wing. The room. Make sure it's one continuous loop. That is very important. Iron keeps them contained. Salt might help too, but we save that for later steps.

Ferrys do not like iron. It burns them, confuses them. It stops them from slipping through cracks. After the iron ring is placed, you leave. You close the door and don't look back. The thing will be gone by morning. They always are. And if they're not, well, we bring in containment.

Do not speak to it? Not even if it says your name. Especially if it says your name. One guy back in 2004 didn't follow that part. He was new, friendly type. He heard a voice calling from the exhibit and thought a child was locked in overnight. He walked in, talked to it, asked questions.

We didn't see him again. All they found was his lanyard, hung neatly on the glass edge of the display case, and a note scrolled in what looked like charcoal. I've gone home, and said. His real home wasn't listed anywhere in our records. Background checks didn't find a trace. Birth certificate vanished from the system.

It was like he'd been rewritten. That's what they do. Fairy lore, it's not all glittering wings. The old stories are full of warnings about the importance of respect, silence, and boundaries. They don't think like us. They don't care about rules or laws or decency. They have their own systems, their own ideas of fairness.

Offer nothing. Take nothing. Speak nothing. The fairy wing is deceptively peaceful. Most nights it's silent. Still, visitors love it. Kids take photos. Couples hold hands in front of a glowing pet peevely. and soft crystal lights.

But every now and then, you'll walk by and see something out of place. A small shoe. A curled hand. A soft breathing sound. You might even smell lilacs, even though we haven't used scent machines in years. Don't be fooled.

So remember Rule 2 and remember well. If you see a sleeping child in a fairy wing, it is not a child. Don't talk to it. Don't touch it. And for the love of God, don't wake it up. Rule number three. Some rules here are meant to keep you from making a fatal mistake. They're strict, because if you break them, something dangerous gets out, or gets in. Other rules don't protect you from harm, but guide you toward the little slivers of help that still exist in this place. Those are rarer, but they matter just as much. This rule falls into the second category. If you ever see a black cat in the museum, jet black from ears to tail, with a distinct

patch of white fur under its chin shaped exactly like a bow tie, you stop whatever you're doing and follow it. Doesn't matter what time it is, which wing you're in, or how strange the situation feels the moment you see him, you follow. Immediately, no hesitation. No questions. We call him bow tie. That's not just a nickname. It's the only name that's stuck over the decades. He's not officially listed in any museum database, not on any staff logs or animal control reports. But we've all seen the surveillance footage. His image appears clear. Never blurry, never obscured, going all the way back to 1947. Same markings, same calm, deliberate walk. Always the same cat. Not just the same species or pattern, the same cat.

There's no official explanation for that, but the unofficial one goes back to the origins of this building. Before it became a public museum, it was a private collection. The kind of collection people gossiped about but never visited. It was owned and curated by a man whose name has been stripped from every record. No living person remembers his face and no image of him survives. All that remains is a sealed office in the sub-levels, bolted shut with 14 iron locks and an unknown symbol carved into the door, one that no one here has been able to identify, even after all these years. The story goes that this curator vanished during a live demonstration. It involved a preserved soul vessel from the Philippines, an artifact that had been sealed by a religious order

and protected for generations. It was supposed to be a controlled event. It wasn't. Whatever that night erased him and most of his staff without a trace. No bodies. No evidence. Just a whole lot of questions and a private collection full of dangerous artifacts. Bowtie disappeared the same night. Two years later, he reappeared. Exactly the same, completely unchanged. Since then, He's been seen only a few times each year. Each sighting has happened just before something nearly went wrong. He's not a normal cat. That much should be obvious.

But this place is filled with things that defy biology and logic. The working theory among long-term staff is that bow-tie is a familiar spirit, something bound not to the building itself, but to its purpose. Familiar in old folklore are creatures or spirits that serve a master. When that master dies, some familiars fade. Others keep going. If they believe the work isn't finished, they carry on with whatever instinct or memory is left in them.

That's what Bowtie is. He's not serving us, but he's still doing his job. And that job seems to be warning me. us. Every sighting means something is about to happen. One time, Boat Ty sat outside the staff break room for almost 20 minutes. Didn't move. Just watch the door. Not long after he disappeared, a boiler line overhead burst. The water scalded at the counter and melted the coffee pot. If the janitor had been there, like he was every other night. He would have been very painfully dead. Another time, bow-tie circled the east corridor near the entrance used by the school

groups. It was just before closing, and no one thought much of it until an old glass exhibit in the fairy wing cracked from the inside. Nothing escaped, but the artifact inside started emitting a sound. Not like music, more like something deep and sharp, like a chime being played wrong. That, sound caused half the emergency systems to activate. Took us a week to stabilize the area. So when I say he warns us, I don't mean it metaphorically. He shows up when something's going to go wrong and gives us a chance to stop it before it starts. That's why this rule exists. It's not complicated. It doesn't ask you to solve anything or intervene directly. All you have to do is follow. Don't call anyone, don't try to take a picture. Don't try to trap him or feed him or talk to him. Just follow.

He doesn't run. He walks at a slow, steady pace. He'll be able to keep up. He'll lead you somewhere. A stairwell, a locked door, an overlocked vent, even just a storage shelf. Where he stops will seem unimportant at first. You might not notice what he's pointing you toward. But, something will be wrong, and if you're smart enough to look closely, you will see it. He has a particular sensitivity to children. We're not sure why. But whenever a child has gone missing inside the museum, and it's happened more than once, bow tie has been the one to locate them.

He won't bring him out, but he'll linger nearby. He meows once. Someone finds him. And then we find the child. Some say he remembers the curator's family. Others think he once failed to protect someone and has been trying to make up for it ever since. But I don't believe in stories.

I believe in results. And every time I followed him, I have found something that needed attention, something that might have become a problem if it had been ignored any longer. If you're lucky enough to see him, don't hesitate. Don't think. Don't wait, just follow.

The moment you see him is the moment the clock starts ticking. He's never shown up without a reason. Not once. That's rule number three. If you see bow tie, follow. Always. Rule number four. This last rule isn't about stopping a threat.

It's not about responding to a specific incident or handling some anomaly that wandered in from the woods or the archives. It's about respect. Not for the staff, not even for the museum itself. But for whatever watches over this place when we're gone, and I promise you something does. You must leave one thing behind every night. Before you clock out,

before you hang up your badge or shut the locker door, you leave something. Small, personal. Doesn't have to be valuable. It doesn't have to be fresh. Just something. Most people leave food. That works. Something sweet or something bitter. Doesn't matter if it's a wrapped candy or a single sugar cube. Some people leave crackers or instant coffee packets. I once knew a woman who left a single sour plum every night,

neatly placed on a napkin. Never once missed a shift. She made it seven years before. for retiring. Still sends our offering in the mail every winter solstice. We call it an offering. A thank you. You're not giving it to anyone directly. There's no collection tray, no donation box. You just leave it in your locker. Top shelf is best. Right there where your things would be. The item disappears sometime between closing and morning. Doesn't matter if the building's It doesn't matter if no one's around. You come back and it's gone. Always.

There's never crumbs. Never a wrapper left behind. Sometimes, the food looks like it was never even touched. Just gone? Like it blinked out of the space it sat in. When I first started, I didn't take this one seriously. It sounded like a superstition. I thought it was a joke, the older staff told to make room.

Rockies waste snacks. So I didn't leave anything my first three nights. Figured it didn't matter. On the fourth night, when I opened my locker, every item of food I had brought for the shift was ruined. Completely. My apple was brown inside. My granola bar had a sour chemical stink to it. Even my sealed thermos of coffee had turned to something bitter and bitter. and metallic. I threw it all out, thought maybe the fridge was broken, or someone had tampered with it. But it kept happening, day after day, until I finally left something behind a single piece of candy from my pocket. Cheap, wrapped, half melted. Next morning, the candy was gone, and my food was fine again. That was the final warning.

You see, they don't get violent right away. That's not how it works. First, they mess with you. Just enough to get your attention. You'll find all your food gone bad, even the sealed stuff. You'll get thirsty, no matter how much water you drink. Something will always feel just a bit off. And it'll stay that way, until you remember what you're,

you owe. If you ignore the signs for too long, things escalate. I've seen it happen. One guard forgot his offering for three nights in a row. On the fourth night, he slipped on the main stairs and broke his wrist in two places. There was no water, no obstruction, said it felt like someone nudged him. Not hard. Just enough to throw him.

off balance. Another guy ended up in the hospital for nearly a week. Kept complaining about headaches, said the air in the museum felt wrong. Heavy. Said it hurt to breathe while he was inside. Doctors couldn't explain it. But the moment he left the building, symptoms stopped. First thing he did after being discharged was mail in three jars of honey. That was 10 years ago. He has never missed a night since. It's subtle at first. You want to brush it off. And that's the mistake.

The thing, whatever it is, doesn't yell. It doesn't make demands. It just waits. Waits for you to realize this place isn't normal. And normal rules don't apply. It wants respect. It expects ritual. and when it doesn't get it, it doesn't throw tantrums.

It reminds you. Gently at first. Then not so gently. Some of the staff have their own ideas about what we're leaving offerings for. A few think it's the museum itself. That the building is alive in some way. Not conscious, exactly, but aware. Others think it's something older, something tied to the land,

this place was built on. It's possible. The records before the 1930s are full of gaps, and the foundation blueprints were drawn by hand. No official signatures. We don't even know who authorized the excavation for the sub-levels.

They just exist. The old monster-taming text, if you ever dig through them, mention rituals like this. Offerings made at threshold bread on window cells, salt left in corners, bitter herbs at the base of trees. The idea was always the same. If you respect the boundary, the thing on the other side stays there. And if you don't? Well, sometimes the thing on the other side doesn't care for boundaries anymore.

It's not hard. Keep a stash of wrapped candies or tea bags in it. pocket. Single-serving sugar packets. Old mince from the bottom of your coat pocket. Doesn't have to be fancy, just got to be consistent. Every single night. The thing, whatever it is, it seems to like sugar best, or bitter things, but nothing spicy, nothing salty. We've tried, it doesn't get taken. But sweet or bitter, well, that's always gone. Some people like to leave notes. I used to do that early on, just a line or two, never anything long. Little thanks, like, thanks for a quiet night, or saw a bowtie again, hope that was a good sign. I didn't expect a reply, and I never got one in the usual way, but writing them, I don't know, it felt right. Like I was holding up my end of a conversation,

I didn't fully understand. I did it for a year, maybe a little more. Eventually I stopped, not because anything bad happened, but because the habit settled into something quieter. The act of giving was enough. The notes always vanished by morning, right along with whatever offering I left. But sometimes, something else would be waiting in their place. Not often, just enough to know it wasn't random. Once, I found a pen I'd lost three weeks earlier, sitting neatly on the locker store, self. Another time, a small plastic keychain from the gift shop I never remembered picking up.

One morning, there was a single flower petal, flat, pale blue, perfectly preserved, and resting exactly where my note had been. Whatever it is that watches over this place doesn't speak, but it understands. It notices the ones who make time to say thank you. Not because they have to, not because they're scared, but because they want to show respect, because they remember that even a quiet presence deserves recognition. It doesn't happen often. Most staff leave their offering and shut the door fast, eager to be done. I can get it.

But for those who take the time to speak, even silently, even on paper, the museum listens, and sometimes when it feels like it, it replies. The longer you work here, the more you will realize this place is alive in more ways than one. That's why this rule matters, because the moment you forget what this place really is, it will remind you. And that's the last rule for tonight. There are more, of course, a lot more. Some only matter during storms.

others are seasonal. A few only come up if the temperature in the west wing drops below a certain point. You will learn them slowly, one at a time like we all did. Now, I've got to leave you here for a bit. There's a new batch of crates in holding,

and a few of them don't match the manifest. One of them's giving off heat, and another smells like burnt feathers, which is usually not a great sign. I'll need both hands on this paperwork, maybe a fire extinguisher. But I will keep my phone on in case anything happens. You've got the number.

Use it if you need to. And hey, rookie, don't take it personally if I don't come running every time the lights flicker. If something actually breaks the rules, you'll know. And if you're doing what you're supposed to, it won't come for you. That's the truth. Simple as it gets. Well, good luck with the rest of your shift. You'll be fine. Keep your flashlight ready. Keep your eyes open. And whatever you do, don't improvise. Just stick to the routine, okay? The museum likes routine. I'll see you when your shift is over, rookie. And hey, try not to die.