Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I Work Climbing Cell Towers. I Found a List of Rules At The Top

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Join Lighthouse Horror Backstage on Patreon:Lighthouse Horror | PatreonPatrons get extra lore that never reaches YouTube, early looks at new merch, and insider updates from the creative floor.Shop at the Lighthouse Horror Giftshop: https://hauntedstuff.com/Straight from the stories: patches, shirts, and haunted stuff you won’t find anywhere else.Thumbnail art by Ninerio: ninerioartsBusiness contact: [e-mail] Original YouTube link: I Work Climbing Cell Towers. I Found a List of Rules At The Top.Social MediaINSTAGRAM - @lighthousehorror FACEBOOK -  Lighthouse HorrorTIKTOK - Lighthouse HorrorYOUTUBE: Lighthouse HorrorMusic:Lucas King - YouTubeMyuu - YouTube IncompetechDarren Curtis Music - YouTubeCopyright © 2025 Lighthouse Horror. All rights reservedThank 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!

I wasn't looking for work when the offer came. I was bouncing between odd jobs, roofing warehouse shifts, little construction here and there. But the truth is, I cared more about chasing adrenaline than chasing steady pay. I've always been that way. Cliffs, towers, bridges. If it was high and dangerous, I wanted to climb it. That's probably how he found me. I posted a video online a couple months back.

me free-climbing an old water tower outside town. No ropes, no harness, just bare hands on rusted steel. Got passed around, got a few thousand views, then vanished, pulled down for safety violations. So when a man slid into the booth across from me at the diner one night, I knew right away who wasn't there by accident. He was tall, too tall for his frame. thin as a scarecrow, dressed in a loose charcoal suit that didn't seem to fit. His skin was pale, the kind of pale that makes you think of the morgue.

His cheeks were sunken, lips bloodless, his eyes flat, watery gray, not a spark in him. And when he smiled, it didn't look like a man smiling. It looked like someone bearing teeth. You're Paul, aren't you? He asked. I hesitated. Yeah, who's asking? He extended a hand, and against every instinct I took it.

It was like grabbing a corpse, cold, clammy, no strength in the grip. I'm from mortis communications. He began. We're expanding service. When he climbers, good ones. And you... His voice flickered. You like climbing.

Oh yeah, how would you know that? I replied. The grin widened a little. We saw you climb. From inside his coat, he pulled out a manila envelope and slid it across the table. My name was written on the front in thin, shaky block letters. Inside, a contract, a glossy flyer with a cell tower stabbing into the sky, and a check, an advance, enough to make me stare.

Hazard pay, he began. It's not for everyone. But I think it's exactly. Exactly what you're looking for. I should have walked. But I wasn't afraid of the climb. That's the thing. Heights don't rattle me.

I'd scaled cliffs without ropes, towers without permits, bridges with nothing but chalk on my hands. I had dangled hundreds of feet in the air and laughed with the wind in my teeth. If this pale weirdo thought a little danger was going to send me running, he didn't know me. What did get under my skin wasn't the climb. It was him. The way his hand felt like death in mine.

The way his voice didn't rise or fall like he was reading lines. The way mortise communications sounded like it belonged carved on a headstone instead of a business card. But the check was real. Paper was thick. The ink fresh. And the number on it was more than I had made in money. So I signed. The contract was short, weirdly so.

No clauses about safety procedures, no HR boilerplate, just a date, a location, and a start time. At the bottom, a line for my name. When I slid the paper back across, he stood in one fluid motion towering over the booth. He didn't bother with pleasantries. just turned and drifted toward the door, the bell jingling weakly as he pushed into the night. And then I was alone, staring at the envelope and the money

that was going to pay my rent for the next three months. The next morning, I drove. The address led me miles outside town, down dirt roads that turned rougher the further I want. No landmarks, no houses, Just flat fields and sky. By the time I spotted the tower, the road had narrowed to little more than gravel and weeds. And there it was.

Steel? Straight up. It punched into the clouds like a spear. So tall, my neck hurt trying to look up. It seemed way higher than it should have been. But hell, I was up for it. I parked my truck at the base. There wasn't much else there, just a chain-link fence with a gate wide open and a little concrete pad with a locked utility shed.

Nobody around? No foremen, no co-workers, no safety briefing, thank God. Just me in the tower. I tighten the strap on my helmet, clip my harness to the first rung, and set my boots against the steel. This was it? Left hand, right hand, one rung at a time, and the climb began. At first it was easy. The steel was cool under my gloves, the harness clipped in tight at my hip.

The rhythm of it set in quick. Grab, step, pull. Every few feet I stopped to hook my lanyard higher and kept going. Fifty feet up, the truck was already shrinking behind me. As I went up, the world started flattening out, the fields turning into a patchwork quilt, roads thinning to faint lines. I grinned through the sweat. This was what I lived for.

By a hundred feet, the wind had picked up. Not enough to throw me, but just enough to remind me how exposed I was. It whistled around the tower's frame, tugging up my jacket. making the steel grown now and then when I shifted my weight. 200 feet. That's when I saw the vest. It was caught on one of the crossbars. A bright orange safety vest faded from the sun.

It hung limp. One strap shredded like it had been ripped. For a second, thought maybe another worker had left it there. But the way it flapped in the wind, stiff and stained at the edges, didn't look recent. I kept moving. Another hundred feet up, and there was a helmet wedged between the rungs. White cracked down the side, the chin strap dangling. No logo, no name, just sitting there like someone had dropped it on the way down and it got stuck.

I unclipped, shifted my lanyard higher, and climbed past it. My gloves brushed it by accident, and the plastic felt brittle. like it would crumble if I squeezed. Weird, yeah, but accidents happened. Dure got lost. Maybe somebody had gotten careless. And me, I wasn't stopping. The higher I went, the quieter everything below seemed to get.

My breathing filled my ears rough and steady. My arms ached. My thighs trembled, but, you know, it felt good. every pole brought me closer to the top. 500 feet. The truck was the size of a toy now. The horizon stretched forever, flat and empty in every direction. My chest hurt a little from the effort, but I wasn't slowing down.

This was why I signed up, you know, the danger, the height, the view. Weird vest, broken helmet, whatever, I kept climbing. 1,000 feet. Most people would have been crying in their harnesses by now, but me? I was steady. Boots locked to the rungs, gloves biting down, breath even. This was what I came for. 1,200. My truck looked like a speck of dust on the dirt road. The fields were just colors now. The horizon blurred by distance. The wind was harsher up here, colder, but I kept moving. Hand, foot, pull. 1,500.

Every muscle burned, but not in a weak way. In that good way. The way you feel after a fight or a climb, you know you're winning. I muttered under my breath, grinning to myself. Come on higher. 1800. The ladder just kept going. I forgot towers even got this tall.

My lungs were working harder. The air, a little thinner than I liked, but that wasn't slowing down. 2000. Finally. The rungs ended, and a small platform weighted at the top, barely enough for me to stand on. I hauled myself up, boot scraping steel, and straightened. My chest heaved, the wind tearing into my jacket. And that's when I saw it.

In the center of the platform was a shallow iron basin blackened around the edges, like something had been burning there. Empty now, but scorched and waiting. The steel beneath it was stained, warped from heat, and nailed right into the rail beside it was a sheet of paper. The corners fluttered in the wind. the edges were stiff and crusted and smeared across the surface dried to a dark red was something that looked an awful lot like blood the handwriting was jagged like had been scratched in with a shaking hand at the very top scrolled larger than the rest were the words hello paul if you follow these rules and complete your task, your debt of $119,427 will be paid. I froze. My name and that number.

Just a few nights ago, I'd sat at my kitchen table with a stack of crumpled notes, I owe use, credit slips. I'd added everything up. The gambling losses, the money I'd, I'd borrowed, the cards I'd maxed out. And that was the exact number I'd landed on. $119,427. It was exact. Nobody could know that. Not my mom, not my sister? Not my boss at the warehouse. No one knew this, except apparently. Mortus. My hands shook. The paper rattling in the wind. They hadn't just hired me to climb. They knew me.

I lowered the page and glanced down and steady myself. But my stomach dropped because the entire tower was gone. All of it? Every rung, every beam, every bolt vanished. There was nothing below me, no ladder stretching back into the earth, no patchwork field, no dirt road, no truck, just a flat, endless void, dark and shifting like a storm. The only thing left was the small platform under my boots, floating somehow alone. two thousand feet above nothing my breath caught i gripped the railing until my knuckles ached the paper snapping in the wind beside me the steel bit into my palms through the gloves slick and sweat i pressed down harder half expecting to feel the tower shuddered beneath me but there was nothing the wind screamed past my ears colder than it had been a moment ago, sharp enough to sting.

My stomach rolled like I had stepped off a ledge, and I had to lock my knees to keep from swaying myself to look again. Just darkness beneath me, stretching forever, like the earth itself had been carved away. The platform wasn't wide, maybe four feet across, maybe. barely enough room to plant both boots shoulder width one wrong step one slip and i'd be gone i was stranded on a metal plate floating in nothing two thousand feet in the air with no one to go the paper rattled in my grip I forced myself to look at it again. Beneath that cold greeting, more lines waited. Rules for the climber.

Number one, brush away the ash at your feet. When you uncover the symbol, trace it with the chalk hidden under the basin. Number two, prick your palm and smear a drop of blood across the trace. mark. Number three, insert the key into the hole beneath the basin and turn it to ignite the fire. Number four, speak the words malgrim come forth. Number five, keep the key in your pocket. Do not give it to anyone. And number six, descend the ladder with a key. did not look back.

I read the list twice, my mouth going dry. The basin sat in the center of the platform, scorched but empty, like it had been used before. I crouched, gloved fingers brushing the metal at my feet. It felt gritty, dusty. I swept it aside. Beneath the soot, faint lines glimmered. A sigil burned into the steel, thin and jagged. The first rule, I hesitated.

The void below hummed. Maybe it was just the wind. Then I reached under the basin. My fingers closed on something smooth, a stub of white chalk, and slowly, carefully, I began to trace the symbol. It was a pentagram. As the chalk squealed across the metal, the air seemed to shift. The edges of the platform flickered and below me.

A single rung of ladder just shimmered into existence, glowing faintly against the darkness. I stopped, heart-hammering. This wasn't just the checklist. It was working. I crouched lower, staring at the faint rung that now glowed below me. Looked real enough? Solid steel. But I wasn't about to trust it yet.

The second rule burned in my head. Prick your palm and smear a drop of blood across the trace mark. I slid my glove off, inserts the platform. My fingers brushed something wedged in the seam near the basin. A tiny little knife with what looked like a gold handle. Whoever left this hadn't left anything to chance. I pressed the blade against my palm and pulled quick, just enough to sting. A thin line opened and a bead of blood welled up. fast. I clenched my fist and let it fall under the chalked sigil. The drop hit the lines, then spread fast, sinking in like the metal itself was thirsty. The platform jolted beneath me.

My eyes snapped down as the void rippled and bent. Steel screamed back into place. Not a few rungs this time, but whole sections of ladders and beams slamming into existence like they'd been hidden just out of sight. The structure stretched downward for what looked like hundreds of feet before the darkness swallowed it again. I gripped the railing, chest heaving. Peace by piece. The tower was coming back, and I was the one bringing it. What the hell's going on? I muttered. My voice cracked, the wind tearing it away as soon as it left my mouth.

My pulse thudded in my ears, and for a second I thought my knees might give out. None of this made sense. Chalk, blood, glowing rungs, steel just appearing. I didn't care anymore. I just wanted off. I jammed my glove back on, the inside slick with my own blood, and I forced my eyes back to the list. Insert the key into the hole beneath the basin and turn it to ignite the fire. The third rule.

I crouched and ran my fingers along the warped steel. There, just beneath a basin, was a narrow black slot, and beside it, waiting like, had been left just for me was a brass key. It was cold, heavier than it should have been. My hand shook it as I slid it into the hole and turned. The basin exploded with light. A blue flame surged upward, steady, painting the whole platform in its glow. It didn't flicker, didn't waver, just burned, tall and silent, as if nothing could touch it. Below me, the void rippled. More of the towers slammed back into existence. Ladder, beams, crossbars, stretching downward for hundreds of feet before vanishing again. I staggered back,

the heat prickling my face, the key still hot in my hand. I shoved it deep into my pocket and gripped it tight. I wasn't thinking about rituals or symbols or what any of this meant anymore. I just wanted down. The fire hissed beside me, blue light washing across the paper. I forced my eyes down to the next line. Speak the words. Malgrim come forth.

I groutes. brushing ash and soot off the steel lip of the basin. Malgrim. The word crawled in my head before I even opened my mouth. Malgrim, I started, then stopped cold. My throat locked. Wait, wait. The chalk, the blood, the fire, the tower rebuilding piece by piece.

And now this, saying that name, not just a name, a command. Come forth. My fingers clutched the paper so hard, it nearly tore. And I understood that this was all much bigger than me just getting down. It was a ritual. And if I finished those words, I wasn't just climbing out of here. I was calling something in. I lowered the paper, eyes darting to the end of the platform.

The ladder stretched below me, steel rungs and beams further than before. Hundreds of feet, maybe more. For a second, I let myself hope. Maybe it went all the way down. Maybe the climb was back. Maybe I could start down right now and beat Dunnard. with this. But I knew better. Even from here, I could see where it ended, fading into the black, cut short, like someone had erased the rest with a stroke of ink, and passed that. The ground?

Fainted first, like a watercolor bleeding through paper. The world began to take shape again, the dirt rode, the fields. It was all that. hazy but real, waiting at the bottom. It shouldn't have been possible, yet the ground slid into my vision, swaying faintly, as though gravity in the world itself had bent, just to show me how far I still had to go. To get back down, I had to finish the sentence, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know what I thought about my debts, about the number on the paper, about the way it matched exactly. Yeah, I wanted it gone, all of it, the calls, the threats, the shame.

But right now, standing on a plate of steel floating above nothing, I didn't care about money. I just wanted down. I just wanted the hell out of here. The fire hissed beside me, hot and cold at the same time. My fingers tightened down the paper. There was no other way. I decided I'd do it. I'd finish the rules.

Get the ladder back, climb down. Then I'd run. Call a priest. Two priests. The army, the government, everybody. Tell them what Mortis was doing. here. Some eye knew that this was really bad, could feel it in my bones.

But I told myself I would finish this up and get help. I swore I would. Better me than some other guy, right? Some other climber who unleashed whatever the hell this is and just never even told anybody. I knew I was bullshitting myself, but I made the decision. I opened my mouth and spun my mouth. spoke. Mound grim. The sound left my lips, like a stone dropped into water. It echoed in a way it should nath, carried off by the wind. The blue flame hissed higher for a heartbeat.

I cleansed the paper tighter, knuckles white. My throat was dry. This was it. I drew in a slow breath, Come forth. The platform started to vibrate. The flame bent toward me. And then the rumbling began. It rolled out slow at first, a distant growl. So loud I felt it in my ribs before I heard it. The sound grew deeper and heavier until it was like the earth itself was cracking open.

I gripped the rail harder, eyes straining into the dark. The black wasn't empty anymore. In the distance, the earth itself seemed to shift and churn. Vast shapes moved against the dark, too far to make out. But massive enough that I could see them from here. The fire hissed higher, its blue light stretching across the dark. the platform. My pulse hammered as the rumbling continued, rolling back and forth like thunder. Something had heard me. I leaned over the rail, squinting down. The ladder stretched farther now,

not just a few sections, but long, endless lengths of steel. The path downward had grown. I turned back to the paper. The blood. red letters shivering in the blue light. Number five, keep the key in your pocket. Do not give it to anyone. I slid a hand into my pocket, feeling the weight of the brass pressing against me. I gulped. Then my eyes dropped to the last line.

Number six, descend the ladder with the key. Do not look back. I didn't wait. I didn't think. I gripped the rail one last time and swung onto the ladder. The steel burned cold under my gloves, but it was solid. The weight of it thrummed through my arms like I'd been waiting for me. I started down, hand, foot, drop.

The wind ripped harder here, cutting across the steel. Twice my boot slipped, the rung slick with frost, and both times my stomach lurched. My harness clipped, my hands squeezed, my whole body jerking tight, and I kept going. Don't stop. Don't look back, just down. Shapes moved in the horizon. At first, they looked like hills rising. But they weren't hills. They crulled.

Vast limbs heaved themselves up and out of the ground, dragging bodies the size of mountains. Horned silhouettes twisted into the sky, glowing faintly with fire. Their heads turned slow like they were sniffing the air, searching. My jaw locked. My breath stuttered in my chest.

I clung to the ladder, staring at those towering monstrosities. But I kept climbing down. Hand, foot, drop. Faster now. The rungs rattled under my boots. And then I saw them. The other direction. Not dark shapes rising from the pit.

but bright ones, burning white in gold against the darkness. At first I thought it was lightning, and then wings unfurled, huge and blinding, beating soundlessly as the figures streaked toward me. These things were endless fire and blinding light, shapes too sharp to look at. They weren't human. They weren't human. They weren't. anything close to human. But whatever they were, I was even more terrified of these things than the demons clawing out of the earth. The air shook as they crossed the void, their light scattering sparks across the steel. I jam my eyes shut, clinging to the ladder, scrambling down, wrung after rung. Faster, faster. I didn't care about my gripping.

anymore? Didn't care if my boots skidded. I needed the ground. I needed off this ladder. The tower rattled around me, steel groaning like it wanted to collapse. My breath tore ragged from my chest, each exhale hot inside my helmet. Down, just down. The rungs blurred under my boots, clanging in frantic rhythm. My blood dripped from my cut palm, leaving streaks along the steel. And then. Earth? Not far now.

I could see it. Rising up like salvation. I shoved myself harder. Arms and legs burning. Lungs on fire, nearly falling twice more as the ladder swayed. The light was closing behind me. The fire, the wings,

the soundless roar that shook the sky. I almost there, almost there. No, stop. The voice boomed against the steel and seemed to echo all around my, the light behind me grew brighter, hot against the back of my neck. I didn't want to see it. My chest hitched. The rungs trembled under my grip.

And for some reason, the voice, maybe the light. I started thinking about my life. Not the good parts. The bad ones. Women, drugs, wasted years. All the wrong things I knew were wrong even when I did them. Every stupid bad, every lie I told. Every time I had turned away from somebody who needed me,

It all came rushing back. I pressed my forehead against the rung. Eyes closed shut. Please don't. I knew what it was then. It'd been a long time ago now, but I've been raised in the church. I remember that feeling of confession, kneeling in that dark little booth, whispering sins through a screen

while the voice waited on the other side that feeling of guilt shame fear of judgment this was that but times a million and I didn't need to open my eyes to know every part of me understood what was behind me

it was an angel Not the kind on prayer cards, not the gentle ones from stained glass. This was something vast and blazing, wings like burning iron. Presence so heavy, it pushed against my skull. It carried judgment on its breath. I had never been so terrified in all my life. The light behind me was blinding, hot enough to sting my back through my jacket. Paul, the voice said again, not shouting this time, but low and heavy, like the whole sky was speaking.

I kept my eyes shut. The rungs trembled under my hands, my breath shuddering out of me. And then, like a switch flipping, I knew. I knew I could just step off right now. The louder was only feet from the ground. If I let go, if I dropped, everything would stop. The angel would vanish. The tower would vanish.

This nightmare would fold up and be gone. I didn't know how I knew, but I did. One step off. That was all. But then what? Behind me the light pressed closer, and in the distance I could still see them. The vast shapes I'd stirred, crawling upward out of the black. If I stepped off, the angel would disappear, the tower would disappear, but the evil would

I wouldn't. I knew that somehow. It would still be there. Awake now. Moving. And if I let go, who would stop it? I pressed my forehead to the run. I wanted down. God, I wanted down. But I also knew, in some deep, awful way, that what I'd done had summoned some. something much bigger than me, and then running wouldn't undo it. The voice spoke again, closer now. Give me the key, son. The words rolled through me like thunder. My grip faltered. The presence pressed against my back.

I couldn't take it. The judgment, the weight, the blinding, invisible light. A blinding, invisible light pouring through me like it was seeing down to my bones. It was too hot. It was just too hot. I wanted down. My forehead pressed to the cold steel, tears coming out. It's okay. The voice said again. Softer now. And the latter itself hummed with a sound. Give me the key.

touched my pocket. The wind roared, the blue fire hissed somewhere above, and all I could do was freeze, caught between the ground and the voice. I want it down. God, I want it down so badly. The ground was so close now, I could smell the damp earth, feel the promise of it under my boots. I could let go. I could just let go in this blinding, thing behind me would be gone, would just disappear. This weight pressing down on me would be gone. Every instinct screamed at me to turn away, but I didn't. Not this time. I pulled it from my pocket, and I held out the key. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The ladder creaked under my The blue fire hissed far above, and the light pressed against my islands.

Then the presence moved. I didn't open my eyes, but I felt it. The shift of air, the warmth folding closer. And then a hand, cool and steady, closing over mine. It didn't snatch, it didn't tear. It simply slid the key from my palm, the way an adult would take something from a child. The heat ebbed. The weight lifted.

I forced my eyes open just enough to see a shape rising in front of me. Wings of light, vast and silent, folding once, twice. The figure nodded slowly Like it was proud of me And then it rose Straight up A column of blinding radiance Shooting skyward

For a moment there was nothing Then the steel shifted The rung jerked under my grip And before I could catch myself It gave way I hit the ground hard, my knees buckling, the back of my head cracking against dirt, and the world went dark. When I opened my eyes, it was night, the air was still, crickets hummed somewhere far off.

A faint breeze carried the smell of dust and grass. I sat up slowly groaning. my gloves were filthing my jacket torn but the tower was gone no steel rising into the clouds no basin no fire nothing but open fields under a pale moon The dirt road stretched empty beside me. My truck sat there, quiet and ordinary, like nothing at all that happened. I staggered to my feet. My pockets empty. No key.

Nothing. No demons crawling in the distance. No titans clawing their way out of the void. No bright shapes streaking across the sky. No angels. Just a flat, empty field under a dead quiet night. My truck sat where I'd left it, headlights dark, windshield glinting with moonlight. The grass whispered in the breeze, like it all been a dream.

I turned in a slow circle, scanning the horizon for anything. A scorched mark, a glint of metal, a single rung jutting for, from the ground. Nothing. Not even footprints. The tower was gone. All of it. I walked toward the truck on stiff legs, every step heavy. The driver's side door creaked when I pulled it open. I slid into the seat, staring at the wheel home, trying to catch my breath. Was it real? and I just imagined 2,000 feet of steel, the basin, the fire, the angel. I gripped the wheel.

My chest heaved, my head ached, and that's when I saw it. Sitting dead center on the hood, pressed flat against the metal by the night breeze, an old piece of paper. my breath caught. I got out slowly. My hand shook as I reached for it. The paper was stiff, edges curled, faintly stained with blood. I knew what it said.

I'd read it before. I folded it once, slipped it into my pocket. Not because I wanted to keep it, but because I needed to know it was real. Proof I wasn't insane. Proof I hadn't dreamt anything. I got back in the truck, shut the door, and turned the key. The engine rattled alive. Headlights cut across the empty field. I drove home through the darkness along the same dirt road I'd come in on. And strangely, I felt peace.