Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I work at a Cinema from H*LL. We have a STRANGE Set of Rules | Scary Stories

Episode Date: April 19, 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 ninerioarts  Original YouTube link: I work at a Cinema from H*LL. We have a STRANGE Set 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 - 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!

My name's Jackson. I'm your manager. Midnight shift. It's probably not what you expected to hear first thing. No clipboard, no badge, no, hi, welcome to the team. Just me. Standing here with a warm cup of vending machine coffee and a mop that's older than you are. That's how we do things here. If you showed up and your name's on the schedule and it's after midnight, even you're hired. You got the job. It doesn't matter. who trained you, doesn't matter who interviewed you. You're here now, and that's what counts. You'll pick it up fast, most people do. Not because it's easy, but because there's not much else you can do but learn. You make a mistake, someone let you know, usually me. You forget something,

you remember the next time. That's how it works. Not a lot of moving parts on this shift and not a lot of people either. I have been doing this for hell and I stopped counting. 20 years, maybe 23, somewhere in that stretch of time, I think. I started around 02. I was in my 20s, early 30s maybe, now I'm in my 40s. Anyway, I didn't start off here. Nobody ever does. I went to film school first. Thought I'd make something out of that. Thought I had a future in editing, directing, even writing, maybe. Everyone who drops out of film school says they were going to write.

Big ideas, tight scripts, long days in dark rooms, cutting reels with razor blades and coffee-stained fingers. I like the machines more than the movies, though. That's the part I remember. sliding film through the spools, threading the reels, snapping in those metal bits with that thick clack. It was the rhythm of it I liked. You cut a second here, you lose a breath. You add a second there. You make a moment.

Felt like magic. Didn't matter. I dropped out second year. Couldn't keep my focus. Couldn't pay tuition. Lost my ID halfway through the semester. and just stop showing up. Nobody chased me. Nobody ever does.

After that, I worked night security at a pawn shop. Nothing exciting. Tiny place, one hallway, two windows, and a stool that leaned to the left. Most nights, I just sat there and watched a roach try to climb the vending machine. Then one night I came here. I wasn't looking for a job.

I just wanted to catch a movie. Theater 3, back row. Popcorn, soda, the whole deal. I remember the movie to some forgettable thriller. Fog, screaming. A twist that, you know, it didn't twist hard enough. I didn't even stay through the credits. Money was tight back then, and I just had too much free time. So I picked up a part-time gig here a few weeks later. Nights only. Just floor clean up and, and trash duty. Wasn't glamorous, but it filled the hours. Get me out of trouble. I didn't know the place well yet. Hadn't learn the rules. Hadn't even met most of the staff.

Just clock in, sweep, popcorn, go home. That was the start of it. So now I'm here every night. Midnight to close. Except we don't really close. That's what you're here to learn. See, most people think the shift ends when the last Showtime does. They figure once the final credits rule, you mop up the soda spills, lock the doors, and head out.

That's not how it works here. We run a midnight shift for a reason. It's not just about cleaning up after the crowds. It's because strange things happen in this building after dark. The kind of things that don't make sense unless someone's here to watch them. Call it a pattern. Call it a containment method. I don't have the right word for it.

All I know is when no one's on shift overnight, things get worse. Lights come on in empty theaters. Doors unlock themselves. You'll find lost items scattered on the floor like someone's been there. A red backpack. A Nokia cell phone from the two. 2000s. A left shoe. One time, we skipped the night shift for a holiday just once, and the next morning, Theater One was flooded with three inches of water. No source, no leak. Just standing water and

popcorn floating on top like lily pads. That's why there's always somebody on duty. Always, no exceptions. And yeah, the projectors are part. part of that. Most of them shut down like they're supposed to. But not all. One or two will keep running, even when there's no movie listed, even when no one's in the room. Doesn't matter if the theater's locked. You'll still hear the real turning if you stand outside long enough. You'll still see the flicker under the door. There's a clipboard on the wall next to the cleaning supplies. It has the rules written down in plain marker. That's not for me.

It's for you. Because when the shift gets long and your brain starts playing tricks on you, you'll be tempted to ignore this. Trust me, everyone thinks they'll follow the rules until they don't. And once you break it, there's no putting it back. So keep your eyes open. Do your rounds. Everything else you'll figure out as you go.

Now sit with me a second. Lobby's quiet, lights flicker sometimes, but they always come back. That sound you hear, that rattling hum. That's just the ice machine in the break room. Kicks on around now every night. You'll get used to it. We've got five minutes before rounds. You might as well enjoy the silence. You and me. We're night people now. Some nights, when it's real quiet like this, when the soda fountain stops dripping, and the vending machines finished humming. I like to think about the bones of this place. Not the beams or the dry wall, I mean what's under it.

What it was before. The theater was built in 1927. This building, I mean, not the chain, not the company, just this one location. Back then it wasn't a movie theater. It was an opera house, or what was left of one. There had been a fire a year before, a bad one. Nobody likes to talk about it now, but the old papers sometimes show up in the break room. Newsprint yellowed to hell.

Stories half torn. Edges all brittle. You'll know them when you see them. Most of the pages just crumble if you touch them too hard. The opera house It had three balconies Gilded railings Red velvet curtains

The whole old world fantasy They say it could hear the soprano From outside on the street If the wind caught her voice Just right One of those kinds of places Too fancy for this part of town And it didn't last long

The fire hit fast It was mid-performance some show nobody remembers now. People say the chandelier came down first, right through the middle of the audience like a comet. After that, everything caught. Curtains, chairs, costumes, even the piano up on the platform. By the time the fire crew got there, the walls were still standing, but the inside was nothing but ash. They pulled out 17 bodies the first night. More over the next week. Some were never found. That's what the article says anyway. Rather than tear it down, they built over it. Same footprint, same corners, same front doors. They brought in an architect from the city. First one didn't last

long. He disappeared somewhere between the first and second drafts. Vanished, they said. Left behind a coat and an unfinished sketch. They found it rolled up inside the mouth of the air duct, just the front of the lobby and part of the left stairwell drawn. Nothing else. He was never seen again. Second one didn't last either. Showed up for a month, signed in every morning, and then one day stopped answering his calls. The plans he made, they were all wrong. Doors that led nowhere. Staircases that bent at impossible angles.

Bathrooms placed where the screen should have been. People said he was under a lot of stress. Claimed he worked at night sometimes, sketching in the back rows long after everyone else laughed. But nobody ever saw. him doing, he just said he did. The third guy, they found. At least most of him.

Wold up inside the crawl space that runs along Theater 2 and Theater 3. Took months before anyone noticed the smell. When they broke open the wall, there he was, kneeling forward like he'd fallen asleep. Pencil still clutched in his hand. There was a flashlight. too. Flicked off. Batteries long dead. No blood, no marks. No sign of struggle. Just him.

Halfway through redrawing the lobby for the third time. Not a single correction on the page. Every line's sharp. They buried him without a name, I think. The page is still in the back room. Taped to the filing cabinet, I think. You'll know it when you see. see it. Well, after that, they stuck with the last version. No more architects, no more changes. Construction started that same summer, and within a year, the new place was up. They called it the palace. Gold letters out front, fancy box office windows, little ticket booths with a fold-down stools inside. Still got one of the stools in the storage closet. Seat cracked, legs rusted, but it folds, like it's supposed to. The palace opened with exactly 666 seats. That is not a guess.

That's not just a number someone rounded to. It was on purpose. The original owner, a man named Mr. Vale, insisted on it. Not 665, not 667, exactly 666. He called it a sacred number for the stage. Set it with a straight face, too, according to the articles. Theatre folks back then had their own ideas about numbers and space and spirit. Everything had to be arranged just so. Seats, aisles, angles of light. Some called it superstition. Others called it math. Veil called it devotion. He can The tempted desk and the projector room. Not an office, an actual desk. Old oak slab with claw feet and a lamp that ran hot as an oven coil. He didn't run the reels himself, but he sat in there

during the first showing every night. Never missed a night, not one. People remembered that. Even when his leg went bad and he had to use the lift, he still got up there. Always in a gray suit to always wearing gloves. Nobody knew why. He died up there too, sitting in his chair, facing the window that looks out over Theater 1. They didn't find him until the second showing. He was still sitting straight, no sign of anything wrong, except his eyes were open, and his tea had gone cold. The palace ran for years after that. But it didn't last forever. Trends changed.

Newer theaters popped up across town with stadium seats and digital projection. This place didn't have the money to keep up. They tried gimmicks, costume nights, vintage films, horror marathons. But people stopped showing. The paint peeled. The rugs frayed. Rats moved in. Eventually the doors closed for good,

and the lobby lights went dark for almost a decade. When it reopened, it wasn't the palace anymore. New owners, new sign, new coat of paint. They tried to keep the charm. Kept the marquee, kept the old ticket booths out front, even kept the same floor tiles. But now was retro cinema. You know, one of those places where the popcorn is real butter

and the posters are fake vintage. They played old favorites. cult films, anniversary re-releases, the kind of stuff that draws in couples and students with ironic t-shirts. But under the paint, still the same place. Still the same beams, still the same bones. I have seen the original luprints, the third version, anyway. The one drawn by the guy they pulled out of the wall. They're tucked in the safe next to the flashlight with his initial scratched into the side. Well, now that you know what kind of place this is, it is only fair I lay down the rules. Not many, but they matter. And if you know what's good for you, you'll follow them. The rules are

there for a reason. All right. Rule number one. This first one, this first one. This first one, about tickets. You probably noticed it already if you've handled the stubs or swept under the podium near the entrance. The tickets here are numbered. Not by date or seats or theater, but just one number on each stub. Nothing else. Just the number printed in red, top center. And they count down. They've always counted down. From 666 at the top. top all the way to zero zero one. That's the order. Every time someone buys a ticket, the stack drops by one. Nobody ever set it up that way. Not me. Not the day manager, not the machine supplier. We have had three different printers over the years, and every time we load a new

roll, it starts where the last one left off. Doesn't matter what company we order from. I didn't think much of it for the first few years. Numbers are numbers. I thought maybe it was some leftover gimmick from the retro theme. But then I started paying attention. Started watching what happened after

certain numbers went out. Most of them don't mean anything. People come in with ticket 5, 4, 2, 320, 118, no different from the rest. But some numbers are indifferent. If someone pulls ticket

032. Something bad happens to them? Always. Doesn't matter who they are. Doesn't matter what movie they see. Doesn't matter if they even stay all the way through. Someone follows them home. I don't mean that metaphorically either. I mean, whatever's tied to that number, whatever it is, it leaves with them. First time I noticed that was maybe ten years ago. College kid, early 20s. Quiet type. Bought a ticket, sat in the back of theater two, left halfway through the show. Next morning there was a story on the news about a fire in one of the apartments, two streets over.

They found his body inside, near the bathroom. Said it looked like he tried to put the flames out himself. wrong instinct you never beat fire with your bare hands i didn't connect it right away not until a month later when i saw the stub again same number zero three two different person that time middle-aged man came alone laughed too loud at the trailers friendly guy gave me a wink when he dropped his ticket in the bin i found out three days later that he drowned in a lake about three feet deep. Park rangers pulled him out, half floating with one shoe missing, and no real explanation. He didn't even live near the lake. No car park nearby, no bags, no phone, just him. Out there, face down in the muck. The worst one, though, and it was the girl. Could have been high school, I don't know, maybe college.

Long black coat, hands full of bracelets. She bought her ticket just before closing. I remember the machine stalling a second when I tore her stub. I glanced down, and I saw zero three two. She didn't say anything. Just walked in. I stood there for a minute longer than I, usually do, just staring at that empty stub in my hand. Then I tossed it in the bin like all the

others. Two days later, I saw a missing person's report on the bulletin board at the gas station. Picture looked familiar. I didn't say anything. They never found her. And after that, I made the rule. If someone pulls 032, you don't let them. in. That's your first move. You smile, you act like there's an issue. You offer them a refund, a voucher, a free drink, whatever. Stole them. Try to talk them out of it. You smile, you stall, you tell them the projectors down. Lie if you have to. You offer a refund, free snacks, another showing. You take out your wallet, and if they still won't budge, you offer them cash, out of your own pocket. I have done it more times than I can count.

$40 once? A hundred. Another time. I paid a guy $200 bucks once to leave the line and walk away. He took it. Some don't. Some get suspicious, or offended. Or they laugh in your face like you're some kind of weirdo. They think you're joking? Or they think you're trying to scare them just for fun, Some get mad. One guy threatened to call the cops. Some just nod and go right on through. Like you never said a word. And if they insist, I mean if they really, truly insist, then you let them go? You step aside. You don't argue. You don't grab their sleeve or block their path. You don't follow. You just don't. You just. You don't. You just. You don't. You don't. You don't grab their sleeve or block their path. You don't follow. You just. You just. You just let them walk in. That's the second part of the rule. If they say no, you let them say no. You can't make people listen to you. Not in this planks. Not when it counts. But you always try. That's the part people forget. You have to try, even if it doesn't change anything. That's the rule. Ticket stubs count down for a reason. And if someone pulls number 0,3, 2, you do everything you can to keep them from going in.

Rule number two, just when you start to think the night has a rhythm, something else comes along, that's where the next rule comes in. It's about the booth. Every theater has one. Upstairs, behind the screens, tucked in where the projector. sit. You'll learn to love those rooms. Quiet, dusty, warm from the fans. You're going to spend a lot of time up there, especially when the midnight screening start to roll. Sometimes, when everything's working right, you can sit back and watch the movie with your feet up, the real clicking along steady. No problems at all. But that's only if you've done it right. There's a ritual you have to follow. Not a figure of speech, a real ritual. Nothing too dramatic. No chanting, no markings,

just one small thing. One flame. Before the midnight screening, every single time you light the candle in the booth. It's not for mood. It's not for scent. It's not even for light, really. It's to burn the watchers away. That's what the old projectionist used to say. Burn the watchers away. Set it under their breath like a habit they couldn't quit. Some of

the older ones used to take the edge of the matchbox three times before they lit it. I don't know why. It's not part of the rule. Just something they did. But every night before the reels rolled, that candle got lit.

No matter what. There's a little stand for it in each booth. Metal, welded to the shelf, too solid to move. The candle fits perfectly, small, white, about as thick as two fingers, and short enough that it burns low but steady. We keep a box of them in the cabinet out of the monitor, next to the old lens cloth and the glass cleaner. If you ever open the box and see it empty,

you come find me immediately. doesn't matter what time it is. Doesn't matter what else is going on. You do not start a screening without that candle. The watchers feed off fear. Not just the usual kind either. It's not like they hang around a rom-com and wait for someone to flinch. It's the right kind of fear they want. The kind you get from dread. From knowing something is coming, but not being able to stop it. That's why they get stronger during horror marathons. They soak up everything the audience lets out. Every held breath, every tensed jaw, every finger digging into a soda-soaked armrest, the darker the room, the louder the screams, the more they take, and the booth is where they wait.

That's where they crowd Just outside the glass Just behind the walls That's where the candle matters It doesn't keep them out completely It just keeps them back Keeps them distracted Gives you enough room to breathe

While you watch the reels turn Gives you a buffer The last time someone forgot It was about six years ago attempt filling in for someone who quit midweek. I didn't train him. Wasn't my night. They stuck him in the booth for theater too, told him to just keep the feed running.

Nothing else. He didn't know about the candle. Maybe he forgot, I don't know, I never found out. All I know, the movie started like normal. It was part of the October slate, some double feature with a slasher and a creature fleck. Big crowd that night. People dressed up, fake blood, plastic masks, laughter that didn't last long.

Fifteen minutes in. The real jammed. That happens sometimes, especially with older film. You get a heat bubble or a bucket in the feed and it throws the timing off. Usually it just snaps. The screen goes dark. people groan and you patch it up. Simple fix. But not that night. Instead, the feed kept running. But the booth went silent. No footsteps, no reaction. The screen jittered like something was shaking the lens.

The audience got quiet. Then the fire alarm tripped in the projection hallway. By the time, Someone reached the booth. He was on the floor. Eyes wide open. Blood. Not a lot, but enough to know it hadn't been quick. His hands were torn up bad. Looked like he'd been clawing at his own face, trying to dig something out, or maybe push something back in. They found him curled against the cabinet door, curled like a quick, question mark. He didn't die. Not right away. They got him to the ER and he stayed breathing for a while, long enough to mumble things that didn't make any sense, long enough to say one word over and over again. Nobody wrote it down and nobody remembered it later. That was the last time anyone forgot the candle. So here's the rule. night before the midnight screening, you go into the booth and light the candle. Do it before you load the reel, before you run the trailers. Before you sit down in the chair, it has to be the first

thing. And if it ever blows out during the movie, you leave the booth, you walk out. You close the door behind you and you don't come back until the film ends. I don't care if the projector dies or the screen goes black, or the film melts through the gate. You let it happen. You stand in the hallway. You wait. You don't relight the candle. That's not part of the rule. You light it once. If it goes out, it means you waited too long. The watchers are already there. and when they're hungry, you're the first one they see. The candle's one thing.

It's simple, even if the reason behind it isn't. It gives you something to do, something solid, a match, a flame, a little flicker of control and a job that doesn't offer much. But not everything gives you that luxury. Some things you don't fix. Some things you don't touch. Some things. You just endure.

And that brings us to the third rule. It's about a reel. Not just any real. Real 13. You won't find it on any schedule. You won't see it in the lineup. It's not part of a marathon, and it's never listed on the marquee.

Customers don't ask about it. Staff don't talk about it. You'll never see it in the storage logs, not in the older ones from decades ago. It doesn't officially exist. But it's there. Deep under the building, there's a vault, not a metaphor. A real vault, steel door, double locks, temperature control, concrete on all four sides. I've only seen it once, and that was more than enough.

Most people don't even know it's there. It's down below sub-basement, too, behind a keypad, nobody remembers programming, next to a stairwell that doesn't always exist when you go looking for it. That's where they keep it. Real 13. There's no case, no label, just a small steel canister with deep scratches across the lid. Like someone tried to carve the top off with a little. bare hands. You don't hear anything when you shake it. You don't feel any weight shift.

But you know what's in there. The original owner directed it himself, Mr. Vale, the same man who demanded 666 seats when the theater opened, the same man who wore gloves every night in the projection room and died facing the screen. He wasn't just a theater man. He fancied himself, an artist, a visionary, a filmmaker, they say, though no one ever saw him on a real set. One day, he hired a full cast, actors, extras, even a small crew, paid them up front, rented out the theater after hours, told everyone it was for a private, production, said it would be his masterpiece, said it would change cinema forever. They shot inside the building, no permits, no oversight, just him, a camera, and a locked set.

What he filmed wasn't a story. It wasn't fiction. It was real. He murdered them. One by one, killed the whole cast on film, kept the camera rolling through every second. Some say the deaths were drawn out, staged like a performance but crueller. Others say he didn't plan it at all, that it just happened, that the theater demanded something from him, and he gave it what it wanted. Nobody knows for sure. The reel was buried before the police said, ever got involved. Someone high up, kept it off record. No arrest, no trial. The building just

changed owners. But now was that? Since then, real 13's been under lock and key. At least that's how it's supposed to be. The problem is, sometimes it doesn't stay there. You'll know it when you see it. The canister is old, dented, worn, heavier than it should be. It leaves black streaks on the shelf like oil or soot. Sometimes it shows up in the booth, just quietly sitting by the projector, like it's waiting for someone to run it. You'll swear it wasn't there ten minutes ago. You'll check the logs, the cameras, the doors, nothing.

Just the reel. Sitting where you can't ignore it. Every few years, someone does try to destroy it. I've seen it happen three times since I took this job. Once, a projectionist tried to burn it behind the theater. Out past the loading dock. Set up a barrel fire, tossed the reel in, and waited. He said he watched the film melt,

said he saw the metal bubble and bend. Next night, he came in, opened the booth, and found the reel sitting there. Same canister, same scratches, still warm. Another time, manager dropped it into the river, drove two hours out of town just to do it, tossed it straight into the current, watched it disappear under the surface. By the time he got back to the eater, he was already in the booth. No water damage, no signs aware. The last time, someone tried to smash it.

Crowbar, hammer, whatever they could find. The tools broke. The real didn't. So now we don't try anymore. We don't touch it. We don't move it. We don't even talk about it when it's there.

That's the rule. Don't touch Real 13. Don't look for it. Don't even think about it too hard. If you see it on your shift, you lock the booth and wait it out. Do not run the movie. Do not try to see what's on it. Do not get curious.

I don't care how many times you've seen it show up. I don't care if it's sitting right there next to your elbow like a dare. you leave it be. The dead. They want attention. They want someone to witness it all over again. But it won't save them. They're not asking for help.

They're asking for company. Don't give it to them. Well, that's most of what you need to know, I think. Not everything. You know, some things you'll learn on your own, but enough to keep you upright. Enough to get through your first few nights without ending up in a news clipping or a missing persons file. More than I got when I started anyway. You've heard the rules now, all three? Yeah, there are more, I won't lie to you. There are things

I haven't told you yet. Things I probably won't tell you unless I have to. Not because I like keeping secrets, but because I've learned it's better that way. Some rules only make sense when you're standing in front of the thing that made them. But for now, I think you're ready. You've got your badge, your cart, your flashlight. Your radio, though it only works about half the time and only when it wants to. Don't rely on it. And look, your shift's about to start. Well, if you need coffee, the break room. It's on your ripe, past the second concessions corner. Pots always full. Doesn't matter who drinks it or how much. It doesn't matter that no one ever refills it. It stays hot, hour after hour, night after night. That's one of the perks they don't advertise.

So thanks for listening, and I mean that. Most folks don't. They nod and pretend. Then go right ahead and do the thing I warned them about. You didn't, though. You stayed, you listened. And that matters. Welcome to the team. And I will see you after your shift. Hopefully.