Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Work At a STRANGE Radio Station | Scary Stories

Episode Date: April 8, 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 STRANGE Radio Station. We have FOUR RULES for the Night Shift.        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 Danny. I work at the campus radio station, tucked inside the old media building at Westbrook College. It's not a fancy place, just a couple of small studios, some outdated equipment, and a break room with a microwave that smells like burnt popcorn, no matter how many times you try to clean it. But it's home in a way. I graduated from here a few years back. I always figured I'd move on to something bigger, maybe a job in commercial radio or even TV. But I guess I got attached. Westbrook has this way of pulling you back in. Or maybe I never really wanted to leave in the first place.

My job is simple. I'm one of the tech guys. I help set up mics and cameras for the broadcasting students, keep the soundboard running, and make sure nothing catches fire. That's about it. I can kick my feet up in the middle of the day and read a book, grab coffee with a co-worker,

and even leave early if there's no. nothing going on. Doesn't pay much, but it's enough. My rent's covered. I've got an emergency fund, and I throw a little into my retirement account every month. I don't need much. On weekends, I go hiking with my buddies. In the evenings, I play video games or watch old horror movies, and yeah, it's a good life. Quiet life. The station itself isn't much to look at. It's in the basement level of the media building, down a hallway, that always smells a little like damp carpet. There are two recording booths, a control room, and a storage closet full of cables and ancient equipment nobody uses anymore. The main studio has a long desk with three

microphones, a computer for running the station's playlist, and a big red on-air sign that lights up whenever someone's broadcasting live. It's a small operation. but it runs like a well-oiled machine. We air pre-recorded shows from students, local indie music, and the occasional live broadcast. Most of the time, though, it's just me in the control room, listening to the same cycle of music and making sure nothing breaks. I have a few regulars who drop by.

There's Jenna, one of the student DJs, who host a late-night show called Night Sounds. She plays weird, ambient music. music and takes anonymous calls. Then there's Sam, my co-worker, and one of the other tech guys. He's been here longer than me. We usually grab coffee together around 10. Most nights, the station runs on autopilot. The playlist shuffles through the usual mix of student-selected tracks, and the control boards lights blink in their steady, familiar rhythm. It's peaceful, really. The station's been here since the college was founded.

Back then, it was meant to be a training ground for journalism students, a place to practice before heading off to bigger networks. And in a way, it still is. But over time, it became something more. People in town started listening in. It wasn't just students running shows anymore. Professors, locals, even alumni, would come back to host segments. Some played music. Some told stories. Some just talked about whatever was on their minds.

Now, the station runs every day. Morning tonight. There's always something playing. Most of the town tunes in, even if it's just background noise while they cook dinner or drive home from work. It's become part of Westbrook, woven into the daily routine. And I'm the one who keeps it running. It's not hard work. I mean, I make sure the equipment stays in one piece, check the levels, and load up the pre-recorded shows when needed. If something breaks, I fix it. If someone new comes in, I show them how things work. It's easy. But lately, while something's changed, a new show spot has opened up, a frequency we didn't have before. That doesn't usually happen.

The schedule has been the same for years, every slot filled, every hour accounted for. But then one day, a gap appeared, a new frequency, like it always been there. The higher-ups didn't ask questions. They just decided to fill it. And to keep the schedule running smoothly, they had to bring in extra help. And that's where you come in. Welcome to your first night on the job. I have a few rules for you to follow.

The new slot runs from 3.13 a.m. to 402 a.m. That's right, just for those minutes. It's weird. Most radio slots are neat, clean blocks. 30 minutes, an hour, sometimes longer. But this one is exactly 49 minutes long. Not an hour, not a half an hour. 49. Nobody really questioned it. The station managers figured it was a good idea. A way to bring in more

listeners, maybe. Westbrook has a lot of night workers, nurses, security guards, call center employees, students with late-night study sessions. They need something to listen to, too. The station's always looking for ways to reach more people. The way they saw it, it was a perfect fit. a late-night slot for the late-night crowd. But things have been strange since it started. The last guy quit? He didn't give a reason. Not really.

Just came in one morning, dropped his key card on my desk, and left. No two weeks notice, no explanation. When I asked him what happened, he just shook his head and told me to find someone else. But he'd been acting weird before that. Always showed up on time, but he looked like he hadn't slept in days. Sometimes there were red handprints on his arms or smudged onto his shirt, like red paint. I asked him about it once. He just stared at me for a second, then rolled his sleeve down and changed the subject.

Then you applied for the position when he left. I don't want to get ahead of myself and scare you off on your first night. Maybe the last guy just couldn't handle the hours. Not everyone's built for overnight work, you know. But just in case, I have a list of rules for you to follow. So? Grab a coffee and listen. Rule number one.

Don't follow the coordinates. It's normal for radio stations to get calls. That's part of the job. People like to interact. They request songs, ask for shoutouts, or just call in because they're bored during a night shift. It breaks up the routine. Keeps things feeling a little more alive.

You'll have a script. It's taped to the desk. Simple stuff, you know, introductions, station identification, filler banter for when things get too quiet. Nothing complicated. You take the calls, read off whatever the station managers want you to read, keep things running smoothly. But sometimes, a particular call comes in.

It's not on the request line. It's not from a regular listener. It's an old man. He reads off a set of random numbers that don't make sense to anybody listening. Eight, six, nine. Then he hangs up. The numbers change every time

no one's ever gotten the same set twice. At first, The DJs treated it like a prank. They'd laugh it off, maybe make a joke about winning the lottery or guessing someone's birthday. They'd drop the call and move on with the show. No big deal. But the calls didn't stop. Every night like clockwork they came in.

The same voice. The same slow delivery. A new set of numbers every time. The managers tried blocking the number, but it didn't matter. The calls always got through. I got curious, and I started digging. At first, I just wanted to see if there was a pattern. Maybe the numbers repeated.

Maybe it was some elaborate prank by a board student with too much time on their hands. So I started writing them down. 4-2-36-7105, 3405-118-2. Every time the call came in, I jot the numbers down in a notebook I kept under the desk. At first it felt pointless. Just a habit. Something to do to make the weirdness seem a little less weird.

The managers told me to ignore the calls. Just drop them, they said. It's nothing. But it didn't feel like nothing. After a while, I had pages of numbers. Pages of something I didn't understand. They never repeated, not once. And then I started plugging them into the internet. At first, I thought they'd lead to nothing, just a bunch of random digits with no real meaning. Maybe an old landline number, an IP address, some hidden website filled with cryptic nonsense, something explainable, something normal,

But they weren't. They were coordinates, longitude and latitude. I remember the first time I realized it. I typed one of the sets into Google Maps, half expecting an error message or some irrelevant location in the middle of the ocean. But it wasn't. It was a street corner in Boston. I didn't think much of it. And then I tried another.

A forest clearing in Tennessee. Then another. A bridge in London. I kept going, clicking, searching. Each one led somewhere specific. A real place. And then I started seeing the news articles. Each coordinate lined up with a missing person's case. Different time periods. Different parts of the world. world. Some from decades ago. Some recent. Some well-known. Others just a footnote in old police reports. But all unsolved. All people who had vanished without a trace. I thought it had to be a coincidence. I mean, it had to be, right? But the more I looked. The worse at God. A set of numbers from last week pointed to a arrest stop off a highway in Nevada. A woman disappeared there three months ago. Another led to an abandoned gas station in Portland where a man was last seen in 1987. Another to a beach in Florida, a kid gone missing in 2004.

Dozens of them, maybe more. That's when I found the latest set of coordinates At first, it didn't seem any different from the others. Just another string of numbers, another pin on the map. But when I looked up, there was nothing. No news articles, no old reports, no case files buried in the back of some archive. Just a location. It led to an abandoned gas station off a Texas highway, a few miles from here.

And that was the first time I hesitated. Every other coordinate had a story behind it, a name, a face, a brief summary of someone who disappeared. This one had nothing, just a spot on the map. But by now, I understood the pattern. I knew what it meant. Someone had gone missing there. They just hadn't been reported yet. I told myself to forget about it.

Then the next night, the station ran at the station. national missing persons report. We aired those sometimes. Part of an effort to spread awareness, keep the public informed. The anchors read off the details like they always did. Name, description, last known location. She was a college student, driving through Texas on her way to meet friends in the next city over for Spring Brigg. She stopped at a local diner named Jerry's, then got back on the road. That was the last time anyone saw her. She never made it to her destination.

Her last known location. The coordinates I'd plugged in the night before. I stared at the screen, barely listening as they moved on to the next story. My mind was stuck on the numbers, on the voice reading them out over the phone. The slow, deliberate way he spoke. He'd given me her list. last known location before the news even broke, before the police had even made it public. That was the night I stopped looking. I closed the notebook. Put it in the back of my desk drawer.

Told myself I was done. So follow my advice. Don't ever follow the coordinates. Here's rule number two. Ignore the dead DJ in the back room. More than a decade. go. The station had one of the best DJs we'd ever seen. A guy with real talent. People loved him. His voice was smooth. His timing was perfect. And he had this way of making every listener feel like they were in on the joke. Didn't matter if he was talking about the weather, an upcoming concert, or some dumb story from his morning commute. He made it sound interesting. He had this rare gift, the kind he can't teach. Some people just. just know how to talk, how to hold a room, even when that room is made up of people, scattered across

a hundred radios and car speakers. His slot was the most popular at the time. Every night, he'd take calls, crack jokes, play music that fit the mode just right. Callers felt like they were talking to an old friend. And in a way, they were. He had that effect on people. But it didn't last. He had a heart condition. Nothing too serious, or at least that's what he thought. The doctors weren't sure what caused it, just that something wasn't right. His blood pressure was off. His heart rhythm was irregular.

He went on medication, kept an eye on his health, but he didn't slow down. Then one night it happened. He was on air, right in the middle of a sentence. One moment, he was laughing at something a car, The caller said. The next. He stopped. Just went silent.

The co-host covered for him, smoothed it over so well that most listeners didn't even notice anything was wrong. They got him to the hospital, but he didn't make it. The station lost one of its best that night. The thing is, though, he never left. The back rooms are where we keep all the old equipment and props It's a mess back there. Rows of metal shelves stacked with cardboard boxes full of forgotten things. Costumes that smell like mothballs. Cameras pass their prime. Stage lights missing bulbs.

Tangled piles of wires that connect to who knows what. It's a graveyard, for things the station doesn't use anymore but refuses to throw away. It's also where the dead DJ hangs out. Now, before you get any ideas, he doesn't look dead. He's not some zomified corpse, not a rotting thing crawling out of the walls. If you saw him, you'd think he was just another guy working late. Except he's not. You'll know it's him by the red jacket. That's the one thing that never changes.

No matter when or where you see him, he's always wearing that same red jacket, the one he wore the night he died. He doesn't do much. Just walks around like he's inspecting the place. Looking at cameras, facing corners like he's thinking about something. He never talks. If you see him, ignore him. Act like he's not there if he can. But sometimes on rare occasions, he'll try to talk to you.

If that happens, make up an excuse. Say you got to get back to work. Keep it short. Maybe give him a quick hello, then take what you need and leave. My first night at the station, I didn't know about the DJ and the Red Jacket. I was still a student back then, going through college, just another kid trying to get experience in broadcasting. I'd volunteered to help set up for next week's set and was told to check the back rooms for props. And that's where I met him. He was standing near a shelf, flipping through

an old records leave like he was considering playing it. I thought he was just another staff member, maybe an alumnus coming back to help out. He looked normal, solid, real. We talk for a while. Five minutes, maybe more. Hey, kid, how are you? How you doing? You look new around here, huh? It's your first night? Yeah, that's good. How are you doing? How are things? You got a girlfriend? Why? You look like you have a wife, huh? I know how it is. He had this easy way of speaking, like someone who'd spent years behind a microphone. We talked about music, old records, the way vinyl had a warmth to it that digital sound would never match. Hey, let me ask you something, he said. Now what kind of music Do you love?

I told him Classic rock Classic rock. I knew you had good taste. Classic rock. That is the right answer, my friend. We laughed. Finished talking. And I didn't think anything of it. Then my friend called me from the hall.

I glanced away for just a second. Told him I'd be right back. And when I turned around, He was gone. I still remember that conversation like it happened yesterday. Every word of it. The way he nodded when I talked, the way he held that record in his hands. I didn't know I'd been speaking to a dead man until later.

Now, when I see him, I wave. I give him a nod if he's facing me, but I don't stop for conversation. He's not violent. Never has been. But it's best not to take chances. My dad once told me that the dead like to linger when they have unfinished business. They cling to the places that mattered most of them. Roaming around, searching for answers to questions they never got to ask.

Some pass on their own. Others need help. And some just stay, stuck between here and whatever comes next. The station managers tried to deal with. him once. He popped up one night and scared the hell out of the owner's girlfriend. So they hired a guy named Sam

Carver, not a priest, not the kind of person you'd expect to perform an exorcism. Just an old man who looked like Clint Eastwood and carried himself like he'd seen too much. He walked into the back rooms, stood there for a long time,

and just started talking. Not chanting, not praying, just talking, like he was catching up with an old neighbor. He stayed for about an hour. When he came back out, he shrugged and told us some souls aren't ready. Then he left, didn't even charge a fee. After that, the ghost became quieter. We saw him less and less. Maybe he's finally starting to move on. Maybe not. Either way, if he ever, if he ever, run into him, just leave him be. Let him have his peace. Some people don't know they're dead. All right, rule number three. Always take the dead calls. Part of being a good DJ is knowing how to

take calls and keep them going. We've already covered that. Some DJs are great at it. Natural entertainers who can turn even the most awkward caller into good radio. Like the great art bell. Some are mediocre, stumbling through conversations, letting dead air stretch too long. If you're worried about fumbling, don't be. There's a script taped to the desk. Just follow it. I recommend drinking a red bull before your slot. You don't want to fall asleep on the mic. But there's something strange you should know about the calls you get, something besides the numbers. The station calls them dead calls, and you must always pick up. It started years ago. Back when the station first experimented with horror programming, it was supposed to be a one-time Halloween special.

The idea was simple. Listeners would call in and share their scariest stories live on air, ghost encounters, strange happenings, urban legends, anything eerie was fair game. It was a hit? People loved it. Callers flooded the lines, eager to share ghost stories, urban legends, strange experiences they swore were real. Listeners couldn't get enough. The response was so strong that the station decided to expand it beyond Halloween. Soon enough, we were running horror story segments throughout the year. Westbrook just loves a good scare. We built a reputation on it. The station became known for its horror slots. People tuned in, expecting something eerie, something unsettling.

It made good money. The managers leaned into it hard. And then the dead calls started happening. They started off small. Calls that appeared with no number on the station's dial. Just blank? No caller ID, no area code, nothing. Just an incoming call for.

nowhere. First, we thought it was a technical issue. A bad line. Maybe someone calling from a busted phone that couldn't display numbers properly. It happens sometimes. You pick up, there's a little interference, and then the voice comes through. Except these calls weren't normal. The DJ would answer like usual, ask who was calling, try to get a name. And then nothing. Five seconds of pure silence. Now, usually, callers are excited to be in the radio. They talk too loudly into the phone, their voices jumping with energy, eager to tell their stories. Some of them ramble. Some of them laugh too much. That's just how it is when people know they have an audience listening. But these calls were different. No excitement. No stammering or nervous laughter. Just silence.

bad connection. Like the person on the other end wasn't sure they were really being heard. Then, finally, they'd start speaking. It was never the same person twice. The names, the voices, they were always different, but the pattern was always the same. They were people the town had lost. They talked about how they died. Where it happened. Sometimes, if it had been murder, they even named the person who did it. Other times, it wasn't gruesome at all. Just a quiet story about getting lost in the woods and never coming back, about missing their family, about how much they wished they could see them one last time. They never stayed on the line for long. Fifty-five seconds. Always the same. Then they'd hang up, and we'd never hear you. We'd never hear

from them again. First, the town thought it was a cruel prank. We got angry calls from people, asking why someone would pretend to be their missing spouse, their dead daughter, their brother who had drowned in the lake years ago. We tried tracing the calls, but there was nothing to trace.

No number, no signal origin. Just silence on the logs where a call should have been. Still, the horrors said, segments continued. And so do the dead calls. The latest dead call was about a missing person's case from years ago. The girl on the line said her name was Tracy. She told us she'd gone missing on July 12th. I remembered that case. Everybody did. Back when I was in college, Tracy's face was everywhere. Milk cartons, store posters, news broadcast. Her name was burned into the country's

consciousness. She'd just been a kid when she disappeared, barely 16. One day, she was walking home from a friend's house. The next. She was gone. The whole country was looking for her. For months, her case dominated national news. Every new lead, every witness statement. every tip from some stranger claiming they saw a girl who might be Tracy. It was all covered, speculated on, dissected. People searched the forest, drained rivers, checked basements and abandoned buildings. But nothing ever came of it. Soon enough, the media moved on.

That's just how life goes. The world doesn't stop turning just because you do. people get tired of hearing about the same tragedy, the same unanswered questions. Tracy's story faded, like all the others before. Until the night of her dead call. It was a normal Friday night. The horror segment was winding down, only a few minutes left before the DJ was set to close out the show. Then the call came through.

No number, just blank. The DJ expected. another scary story, maybe a local legend, or some made-up ghost tale. But then a woman's voice came through. She described herself, her hair, her height, the last outfit she'd been wearing the day she vanished, details that matched the posters from years ago. And then, most importantly, she described who killed her. It was Jacob Williamson, she said. Five foot ten. Brown hair.

Green eyes. That was the night. The station became part of a police investigation. Everything changed after that call. The recording was pulled and analyzed. The police listened to it over and over, dissecting every word, every breath. The details she gave were too specific, too accurate, to be anything. but the truth. She went on to give even more details, and it led straight to a man the police

had suspected for years, but could never pin anything on. They arrested him the next morning, and Tracy's killer is in prison to this day. I don't know the full details. The police don't exactly hand out case files to random radio texts. All I know is that without that call, without Tracy speaking from wherever she was. He'd still be out there. So you take the dead calls. No matter how weird they get, no matter how much they unsettle you, you never ignore them. You never know who's on the other end. And if they've spent their last words reaching out to us, well, you better listen. And rule number four, always play the midnight track before you leave. People call it the midnight track. People call it the midnight even when it's played at different times of the day, the name just stuck. Maybe because it feels like

something that belongs to the late hours, something meant for empty streets and quiet rooms. It's an old track. Nobody really knows where it came from. It's just always been part of the station. No artist credited, no official recording, just a simple piece of music stored on an unlabeled vinyl tucked away in the archives. It sounds like gospel, but not quite. It's soothing, if you're into that kind of thing. But I've always found it, well, cleansing. That's a weird way to put it, I know,

but it's the only way I can describe it. The track doesn't just sound peaceful. It feels peaceful. Like something heavy lifts off your shoulders while it plays. like the air settles in a way you didn't realize was off before. Maybe that's why the station has always used it to close out a shift. The rule is simple. Load it up beforehand.

Make sure it's ready. And play it at the end of your slot. A shift isn't done until the midnight record is played. And you're not allowed to leave until the final note. I guess you're wondering why. why the midnight track exists, why it matters, why you're not allowed to leave until the final note plays. I'll tell you, there's a story that floats around the station about where the midnight record came from. It's not in any official records. You won't find it in any old documents or station logs,

but if you stick around long enough, you'll hear someone mention it. The story goes like, years ago, long before Westbrook College bought the lot and built a campus on it, the station was run by a group of religious hippies, not the strict fire and brimstone type. These were the peace-sign, far clover-type man, barefoot and the grass kind of believers. They were happy people, or at least they seemed that way. They wore colorful t-shirts, grew their hair out, and preached love and kindness. They started the station as a way to spread their version of the gospel. It wasn't just sermons.

They played music, shared uplifting messages, gave advice to anyone who called in. The kind of things meant to make people feel safe, comforted. They wanted to build a community, one that's true. stretched beyond their little patch of land. Some of them even moved out of the property. They built a small farm behind the station, just enough to sustain themselves. A vegetable patch, a few goats, a handful of tiny cabins where they lived. They didn't rely on anyone else. They made their own food, generated their own power. They even built their own cell tower. They wanted their message to reach farther, beyond the town, beyond the state.

And for a while, everything was fine. But then something bad happened. They tried to reach out to something that wasn't human. Some say they were trying to talk to God himself, that they wanted something bigger, something beyond the songs and sermons. They wanted proof, a sign, a voice answering back. Whoever answered their call was not God. No one knows exactly what happened.

The details are vague, twisted by time and retellings. But the story goes that after they built their tower, after they pushed their broadcast further and further into the unknown, Something pushed back. Then, one by one, the people who ran the station started dying. It was never quick, never peaceful. A man fell from the top of the cell tower. His body found crumpled at the base like he'd been shoved.

Another got locked inside his cabin when it went up in flames. No one heard him scream. By the time they broke the door down, there was nothing left to save. There were others, more deaths, more strange accidents. A woman who walked into the woods one night and never came back, a man who drowned in a shallow pond behind the farm, even though he'd been a strong swimmer. One by one, they disappeared,

until there was no one left to run the station. Eventually the land was sold. The buildings were torn down, the farm wiped away. Westbrook College bought the lot, refurbished the radio station, and turned it into what it is today. But the past didn't just vanish. The first people who walked through those doors found things left behind. Old albums filled with photos. Some of them were normal, pictures of smiling faces, people laughed, laughing, hugging, singing together in front of a microphone. But as they flipped through the pages, the photos changed. There were pictures of how those hippies died,

but always out of frame. A broken arm here, a leg there, then blood seeping into the carpet. Finally, a picture of a goat staring right into the camera. It's red eyes looking straight at you. At least that's what the alumni say. But the strangest thing wasn't the photos. It was the set of rules left on the table.

Taped onto it in plain view, as if someone had been desperate to make sure they were followed. The most important rule was circled in red ink. Always play the midnight record. Somebody had left a note, alongside the rules. The paper was old, yellowed at the edges, but the words were clear. It warned that bad things happen when the midnight record isn't played, that whatever's out there has its eye on the station, and that the song is the only thing

keeping it at bay. At the bottom, one sentence was underlined twice before the note ended. play it and pray and those are all the rules you need to know I have worked here for a long time I graduated here on a Friday and I started working on a Monday morning same station same halls same late nights spent in the glow of the control board

the callers come and go voices drifting through the speakers stories shared and forgotten but the station always stays the same and you, you've been listening this whole time, huh? And it looks like your shift is about to start. Before you settle in, remember the rules. They're simple, but they matter.

Don't follow the coordinates. The voice on the line will give you numbers slow and steady like they mean something. And they do. But you don't want to know where they lead. You don't want to be the one to find out. Some things are better left undecis. discovered. Ignore the dead DJ in the back room. He doesn't speak much, but when he does, don't linger.

Be polite, of course, be quick. He was one of the best we ever had, after all. And maybe that's why he's still here. Maybe he just doesn't know how to leave. Take the dead calls. No matter how strange, no matter how impossible, you answer. You listen. Fifty-five seconds, that's all they get. Some of them just want to talk. Some of them are trying to be found. Some of them are looking for justice. The least you can do is listen. And always, always play the midnight track.

It's not just tradition. It's not just a closing song. It's what keeps the station standing. What keeps something else from stepping through. Play it and pray. Most people tune in for the music. They never notice the silence between the songs. They never wonder what might be listening back.

That's good. That's safe. But now you know better. All right, go on, cue up the next set. The switchboards lighting up, and your first call is waiting. And hey, if you ever hear a voice, you shouldn't. If something on the line doesn't feel quite right, just keep talking. Welcome to Westbrook College Radio.

I will see you after your shift.