Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Work At A Strange Gas Station. I've Got Some Stories To Tell | Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

You won't believe what happens here.     Story from C.J. Darcy Original YouTube link: I Work At A Strange Gas Station. I've Got Some Stories To Tell.      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!

Working at a gas station might not sound like anyone's version of a dream job, but if you're hoping to become a veterinary assistant, it'd be nice to be able to study at work. That's what I thought three years ago when I got this job. My name is Cooper, and I found out how strange this place really is my first night at the gas station. I needed a job to be able to pay for my first semester of classes at the local community college. I was driving around when I saw the help wanted sign in the window of a run-down old gas station. Milton's gas and convenience store was a few miles outside town on the edge of a small national forest. I'd never seen it before, but then again

I'd only moved here two weeks ago. The owner, Milton Jackson, was behind the counter watching a rerun of supernatural on a small TV. He looked up as the bell hanging over the door jangled. You here for the job? He spoke slowly, looking me over. Uh, yeah, how'd you know? I mumbled. Tick-Tack told me you were coming. Tick-Tac?

I asked. Yeah. He nodded towards the front. That's Tick-Tac there. Over the sign. There was a rusty metal sign that read Milton's gas and convenience store above the door and perched on top was a huge black and white crow. I named her Tic-Tac because she likes Tic-Tac's and popcorn and gummy bears.

But I wouldn't name her Gummy Bears because, I mean, that's not dignified. Uh, sure. I mumbled. Now starting to wonder if there really was a job. You able to work nights? If you are, the pay is twilight. $20 an hour from six at night till six in the morning. Sunday is off. I take the day shift, that's the busiest.

And you take nights. It'll be just the two of us, he said. The thought of making $20 an hour, working at a place that looked like it barely gets 10 customers a week, it seemed like a good deal to me. So without the slightest hesitation, I took the job. I showed up for work the following evening at 545. Milton told me I was expected to keep the shelves and counters clean and stocked, showed me how to work the register, and gave me his home phone number and a key to lock the front door in case of emergency.

He said I could help myself the snacks and there was an electric hot plate in the office, if I wanted to heat up a can of soup. And then he unlocked a drawer underneath a cash register and brought out a red notebook, written in bold black letters across the top, were three words, always keep, watch. Now this here, he said, is what you really do. Read this after I leave. You're not going to believe everything at first, but eventually you will.

Just do your best, and Tick-Tac will warn you if anything is. if anything is coming. I started to ask what could be coming, but he just shook his head. Tap the notebook and said he was going home to cook dinner. He said he would see me at 6 a.m. and then he walked slowly out to his old truck and just drove away. I stood at the front door, looked up at the crow and said, Okay, Tick-Tac. I guess it's It's just you and me for the rest of the night.

The first thing I did was familiarize myself with the store. I also wanted to make sure there was no one else in the building, so I checked out the bathroom, the storage room, and the small office. All clear. That done, I got myself a can of coke from the refrigerated section, settled onto the stool behind the counter, and I opened up the red notebook. in numerical order in careful hand-printed letters were several pages of instructions. Number one, do not alter this book. Do not erase or change any words. When new information is discovered,

add to the back of the list. Number two, customers. If customers ask about campsites, direct them two hours north to the Hadley Preserve. Tell them about Hadley's beautiful views, clean restrooms, and the campsite right next to the river. Play it up as best you can. If they insist on staying in one of our seven campsites, check their clothes for the color red. Do anything you can from offering cash to outright stealing to get them to remove anything red. Number three, the color red attracts the watcher. Never go into the woods wearing red. In fact, it's best if you don't wear red while you're working here. No red t-shirts, no red tennis shoes, and don't have a red car parked out front.

He usually never comes this far out of the woods, but better safe than sorry. I stopped reading, picked up my can of coke, and I walked over to the front door. When I stepped out onto the porch, the old boards creaked under my feet. Tick-tack tilted his head to give me a one-eyed stare. I sighed and walked out to the road. There were no cars inside. To the left, the road passed through flatland and scrub, weaving its way back to town. Five hundred feet to the right, the road began to rise into the foothills and disappeared around

a sharp curve into thick old-growth forest. This was my time for a decision. I stay or did I go? 20 bucks an hour was a lot to give up for such an easy job. Was the old guy crazy? I didn't know. But at least he didn't seem dangerous. I decided I'd give it two weeks and see how things went. I'd agreed to this job and I would make the best of it, period. I went back inside and taking my place behind the counter, I continued reading. Number four. The crow is an early warning beacon. She will tell you when something's coming.

She is never wrong. When you hear her caw, you may expect visitors to arrive shortly. Every morning at dawn, retrieve the step ladder from the storage room and use it to fill Ticktack's silver cup. It's at the end of her perch over the door. Fill it to the brim with fresh popcorn. and a sprinkling of green tic-tacks. That's the only color she likes. This is her payment as guardian of the South Road. Do this every morning never forget. Number five, if you see a black

and gray German shepherd out in the road, listen to him. That's old Sarge and he's here to help when things go bad. Number six, every 30 minutes, stir the cheese for the nachos. If you don't keep stirring, the cheese will harden into a brick. Number seven, if you ever see green thunder in an approaching storm, get out the flashing hazard lights and the road closed sign from the storage room and shut down the road into the park. Number eight, if the sky over the mountains ever turns a deep purple, this is a cold the road purple. Load all the emergency supplies into the tow truck.

It's always parked out back. Then close the road and evacuate all hikers and campers. Search all seven campsites looking for parked cars. Get the campers and hikers out immediately. Say whatever you have to. Just get every single person out of the park. Number nine. Keep the coffee pot full.

If it goes below the halfway mark, make a fresh pot. And that was the end of the weird instructions. There were several more pages, but they were mostly scribbled notes. I kept reading until I got to a paragraph titled, Possible Weapons in a Code Purple. It read, The beings may be affected by bright light, but this needs further testing.

I close the notebook. The watcher, green thunder, the color red and color purple, this was completely ridiculous. And more than that, I was getting a little spooked, you know. The sun was setting, and the world passed the bright sodium lights over the gas pump, was getting dark. A loud triple caw nearly made me jump out of my skin. Tick-tack hopped twice on her perch, gave me a hard stare, and flew off into the night. I was alone, and apparently, something was coming.

Fifteen minutes later, a hatchback pulled up to the pumps. The back was piled with camping gear. I breathed a sigh of relief when a woman got out, swiped her card, and started filling the tank. I'd been here since six, and it was nearly nine now. This was the first person I'd seen in almost three hours. I watched her check to see that she had her keys, and then head towards the front door. She was tall, thin, and dressed for hiking, in jeans and heavy boots, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. I could see a plaid shirt under a lightweight jacket.

I was looking forward to having some interaction with another human being. When the bell jangled over the door, she walked in, and the smile froze on my face. The jacket she wore was bright red. I watched as she went through the snack section, picking out three packs of beef jerky, marshmallows, and a giant-sized three musketeers. My mind was racing through possible scenarios. So I tell her she's the one thousandth customer and she can trade her jacket for anything in the store. Nope.

I mean, her jacket looked pretty expensive. She probably wouldn't go for that. Do I put my hand in my pocket and tell her this is a stick-up? Give me your jacket? I mean, that sounded ridiculous, and it will probably land me in jail. I could just ignore the crazy old man. But no. I mean, I said I would do this job to the best of my ability.

So? She placed her items on the counter. And as I rang her up, I asked her where she was heading. Smiling, she said. I'm headed up to Red Rock Canyon. It's not much further, is it? I'm new around here, I replied. But I think it's about forty-five minutes up the road.

If you drive another hour farther north, you could camp at the Hadley Preserve. I hear it's beautiful, and you can camp right on the river. No, she said. I've been driving for five hours. It's getting dark, and I'm ready to set up camp. Heat up some dinner and go to sleep. But, I mean, maybe I'll check it out another time, thanks. All right, well, that'll be $18.42.

cents," I said. And is she rummaged in her purse? I stammered out the only thing I could think of. You shouldn't wear red out in these mountains. She stopped rummaging, and she looked up at me. Oh, why is that? Well, because it attracts mosquitoes. Yeah, yeah, there's this new terrible breed of mosquito.

And this breed, you know, it attacks people wearing red. I smiled awkwardly, feeling like an idiot. Okay, I'll keep that in mind, she sat. As she slid a 20 across the counter and said, keep the change. As she headed back out the door. And I'm sure that as soon as she got in her car, she hit the door locks. Well, that went well. And, I mean the rest of the night was quiet, and in the morning I found the step-ladder, made some fresh popcorn in the popcorn machine, and I filled the cup on Tick-Tax's perch above the door. I sprinkled in some green Tic-Tac's as instructed, but the crow was nowhere to be seen.

Milton relieved me at 6 a.m., sharp, and I told them about my one and only customer. He nodded and said, You can only do much you can do. The next two nights were uneventful. I had only one customer, and he wasn't wearing red. I resigned myself to making $20 an hour for doing very little work. I just had to follow Milton's instructions. After straightening the store, I spent the night reading and watching YouTube on my phone. At 5 a.m., Tick-Tac gave three sharp cause,

before she flew off into the dark. Twenty minutes later, a police car pulled into the parking lot. An officer got out and walked into the store. He identified himself as Officer Jim Langston, and he was investigating a missing person. When he showed me a printout of a woman, my heart sank. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she was wearing a red jacket.

My first customer. And I told the officer everything. Well, I mean, everything but the mosquito story. I'd left that out. He wrote down what time she left, where she was headed, what her car looked like, and what she purchased. He asked if anyone was with her, and I said she was alone. Before leaving, Officer Langston handed me a photo

and said to put it up on the bulletin board. with the others. It was 5.45. The sun was just starting to break through the clouds, and I stepped out onto the porch and watched the flashing lights of the police car fade away. The bulletin board was on the left side of the porch. Until today, I hadn't paid any attention to it. It was large, maybe six by eight, and it was covered with paper notices. There was the typical notice of a car for sale or a lost dog, but mixed in among those was an unusual amount of missing people. There was no certain age or race, but they all had one thing in common. They were all wearing something red.

Maybe there really was something strange going on in these woods. After that morning's visit by the police, I started to take my job more seriously. Every night at work, I looked over the park maps, and I tried to memorize the campsites and various trails. I started keeping a record of where people were going and how long they planned to stay. I even got Milton to write down people's names, what they were driving, and which campsite they were staying at. I tried getting him to explain The Watcher and Code Purple, but his answer was always the same. You'll have to see those things for yourself, boy. Two weeks later, a couple stopped for gas.

They had a little boy with them in an old Volkswagen van. I noticed a red tent tied to the roof. So I told them we were having a promotion at the store. They could trade in their old tent for any tent we had. We did have an excellent selection of camping supplies. While they considered my offer, I said I'd throw in a new camp stove. And that closed the deal. A few weeks after that, a guy drove up with his gear piled into the back of his pickup truck.

While he was in the restroom, I stole the red sleeping bag out of his truck and replaced it with a top-of-the-line green one. He never even noticed. My scariest moment was around seven in the evening one night. A mom was camping with her little girl, and they stopped for gas and supplies. The girl looked to be around maybe five or six. She wore a purple t-shirt with her name Bella written in sparkles on the front. She also wore a pair of little red tennis shoes with white laces. When I found out they were headed up to the Red Rock Canyon, where the last woman disappeared.

I panicked. I tried everything. telling the mom there were daily glitter craft parties for campers at the Hadley Preserve. Nothing worked. I was seriously thinking of following them in my car to stage a minor accident when Tick-Tock saved the day. As mother and daughter were headed out the door, the little girl heard a soft cooling from above. She stopped to look up at the huge black and white crow. And as she did, Tick-Tock left her a present.

A large puddle of bird crap landed right on her on one of her little red shoes. The mom swore, gave me this dirty look, grabbed her daughter and hurried to the car. From the counter, I could see her removing her daughter's tennis shoes, thrown him into a plastic bag, and putting him in the trunk. Mission accomplished. As a reward, Tick-Tack and I split a full bag of gummy bears. And things went on like this for a while. I was beginning to think that I had things under control. When everything went to hell, all in a single night.

It started when I arrived at work at six, and I found the gas station empty. The store was unlocked. His truck was parked in the lot, but no Milton. I searched everywhere, inside and out, and nothing. I called his home phone number, but Milton didn't have a cell and there was no answer. And as I was standing there, phone in hand, I heard a dog barking. Walking outside, I looked to the right, and there in the middle of the road stood a large, black and gray German shepherd barking his head off.

That must be old Sarge, I thought, remembering his name from the notebook. And hadn't it said, I should listen to him? Standing there, not sure of what to do. I felt a current of air rushed past as Tick-Tac flew by. She glided over the barking dog and flew up over the trees towards the park. My eyes followed her flight. And that's when I noticed that the sky over the park was this deep, dark purple, and it was slowly turning, like the formation of a tornado.

Oh, shit. What did the books say? Evacuate the campers and hikers? Shut down the park, right? Load all the emergency supplies in the tow truck. I ran back into the store, and I grabbed the keys to the tow truck. In about four minutes, I'd thrown all our emergency supplies into the back, and was pulling out of the parking lot, I made one quick stop at the park entrance to throw out some orange cones and the road closed sign, and then I floored it. And I followed that dog.

As fast as I drove, that dog, it was always 100 feet ahead of me. And when we reached Campsite 1, the dog turned off the road, ran past a blue SUV in the parking lot, and dove into the trees. I slammed down the brakes and I followed running. Every couple of minutes, old Sarge would bark, so I followed the sound until I burst out into a clearing. It took me a minute to register what I was seeing. There was a dad, his teenage daughter, and a little boy. They were

sitting by a campfire roasting marshmallows with old Sarge barking frantically. not three feet away. He was right in their face and they didn't even see him. I think maybe the little boy could because I saw him draw back and move behind his dad. They did look startled when they noticed me, standing by the woods trying to catch my breath. You, uh, you got to go. Didn't you, didn't you see the sky? The tornado coming. I managed. The dad looked up at the darkening. purple sky, and he finally did start to question. I didn't hear any storm warnings when we drove in today. He said, it came up suddenly, emergency personnel around the way, but you need to go now.

I said, leave everything behind, take only what you can load in five minutes. I have to go warn the other campers. I said, the dad paused, then looked at the kids and not a said, okay, thanks, he said. He poured water on the fire and started packing up. The dog seemed satisfied. He stopped barking and headed back towards the main road. When I made it back to the tow truck, old Sarge was standing in the middle of the road just waiting for me. I started up the truck, and I followed. The dog ran right past campsites two, three, and four, which I assumed meant there were no campers or hikers there. But when we got to number five, he just flew past a green Toyota, the only car around,

and headed back into the woods. As I jumped out of the tow truck, the wind began to pick up. And I followed the barking. And this time when I broke through the forest, I was at the top of a long hill. At the base of the hill was a river. There was one large tent set up, and I could see two adults sitting in camp chairs along the river. A little girl must have been napping inside the tent, because the adults didn't notice when she stepped outside and walked behind it. She was wearing a red sweater, and that's when I saw the ball. A large red plastic ball was moving slowly. slowly towards the trees against the wind. And the little girl was following it.

Squinting my eyes, I looked to where she was headed, and from the distance I could just make out a man standing in the trees. He was dressed in black with a long coat, and it looked like he was wearing an old-fashioned top hat with a bright band of red along the bay. I saw his long, bony fingers pointing at the red ball like he was calling it forward. I realized right then that this was the watcher. And my heart sank. I knew I'd never make it there in time.

And that's when the dog took off. and snapping, he headed for the man in black. The little girl was only about 20 feet away from the woods when the dog reached her. He stopped a few feet in front of the girl blocking her path, and the girl could clearly see the dog because she reached out to touch him, and old Sarge turned and licked her face. She laughed, and I could see the dog slowly begin leading her. her back to her parents. I was running now, halfway down the hill, when I noticed that both the man with a top hat and the big red ball were gone. At the river, I told the parents about the tornado warning and that got them moving. They were packed and heading towards

the city by the time I got back to the top of the hill. There were only seven campsites with parking. Old Sarge raced past number six, so there was only one more to check. Camp site seven was known by the locals as Red Rock Canyon. I'd spent many nights looking through the trail maps, and I knew there was a small maintenance road that ran alongside the trail, all the way down the river. So this time, instead of running through the woods behind the dog, I turned onto the maintenance road. It was barely wide enough for the tow truck to make it through, but I drove as fast as I could. The tow truck jolted its way over large potholes and rocks along the road.

Coming around a wide curve, I had to slam on the brakes. There was a hiker standing in the road. He had a large rucksack on his back, and he was staring directly at me. But he didn't move a muscle. He looked terrified. I could see he needed help. My hand moved automatically to the door. handle and that's when I saw something huge move through the trees 10 feet behind him and I

never would have seen it if it wasn't moving it was at least 20 feet tall and I could only really see its outline the creature's torso head arms and legs were nearly invisible it was like looking through water it was clear but wavering its body was massive massive, and its arms reached almost to the ground. It stopped a few feet into the trees, and then its heads snapped around to the hiker. The creature lumbered forward until it towered over him. Now it was right behind him. His eyes were just locked on mine. I thought about honking the horn to distract it, but the hiker was between us, and if it took one step, I think it would have crushed him. And that's when I remembered the notebook. There was something about light being used as a weapon.

I hit the switch for the bright lights that ran across the top of the tow truck, praying that maybe that would work. And the creatures screeched and stumbled back. And that's when the dog ran out of the woods, across the creature's path. Old Sarge was growling and barking as he backed up, drawing the beast away. from us. It screamed again, and then it went after the dog. And they both disappeared into the forest. As soon as it seemed safe, I jumped out of the truck and I ran to the hiker. I quickly shoved him in his gear into the passenger seat, and then I floored it back to the main road. And by the time we got back to the gas station, I found out that his name was Samuel. He'd been doing some solo hiking for the past two weeks. This had been his life.

last stop before going home. Samuel, still in shock, laughed and said, Hey, this really was almost my last stop, you know, like, like, permanently. And then almost in a whisper, he said, what was that thing? I answered honestly. I don't know, Samuel. We got back to the store around midnight. He called a friend to him pick him up. While we waited, I got us a couple of Cokes, chips, and some beef jerky. He asked if the dog would be okay, and I said, I hope so. I almost said, you can see the dog? But I stopped myself, thinking that would lead to a lot more questions. Questions that I couldn't answer. After he left, I got a call on my cell. It was Milton. Turns out he'd had a heart attack.

A random customer found him collapsed on the floor of the gas station and called an ambulance. Luckily, it was a mild one, and with medication he should be back on his feet in no time. In the end, I decided to stay. I'm needed here. And maybe I can't exactly explain what's going on, and I still haven't seen the green lightning. But I think I'm going to stay, you know. know, at least for a while. When I first got this job, I thought Milton was just some crazy old man.

But now, I think that maybe he's the gatekeeper. And I guess that makes me the gatekeeper's apprentice. All right, so I work at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, where strange things happen every day, but you know what, it's not boring. the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. My name is Cooper, and I think this might be my dream job.