Lighthouse Horror Podcast - If you're alone in the sewers and they see you, DONT EVEN BREATHE | Scary Stories

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

Story written by Stephen & Rachel of Lighthouse Horror. For usage rights or more information, please contact us at [e-mail] Art from NinerioMore of the artist’s works at ninerioartsOriginal YouTube link: If you're alone in the sewers and they see you, DONT EVEN BREATHE    Merch: lighthousehorror.shopFor more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonSocial MediaINSTAGRAM - @lighthousehorror FACEBOOK -  Lighthouse HorrorTIKTOK - Lighthouse HorrorMusic:Lucas King - YouTubeMyuu - YouTube IncompetechDarren Curtis Music - YouTubeThank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

My name's Ethan. I'm 34 and I work in sewer maintenance for this small town. You wouldn't think 34 is all that old because it's not. That really. But here in Dry Creek sure feels like it. The teenagers at the cinema, I mean like I don't belong, even though I've been going to Friday night movies since before most of them were born. I usually sit alone. Second row from the back, seat six. I don't eat popcorn anymore. Instead, I sip on a Coke and watch whatever's playing, usually horror or action.

At work, they still call me greeny. I started five years ago, which makes me newer than most, but nothing new. See around here once you're something, you stay at something. Folks, remember. I've heard men older than me still get called kid at the diner. Well, I work the sewers now, maintenance mostly. It's not glamorous, but, but its work. My folks grew corn, their folks did too. Miles of stalks, gold as sunset, swaying in fields under big blue skies. But that was before the rain stopped coming regularly. You don't notice drought all in once. It creeps in. One dry season, then another. Then you blink,

and the dust thicker than your memories. Folks started selling. Some moved out. Others, like us, stuck around and tried to find other work. That's when the watermelon company showed up. Big trucks, bigger promises. They bought the land cheap, said they were building a factory. Good jobs, clean energy, economic rebirth. Words like that. People smiled for the papers.

I was 13 when they broke ground on the hill above Lake Florence. Lake Florence used to be the place families would go for camping, fishing, swimming, firecrackers on the fourth. Now it's fenced off, and nobody talks much about what happened to the fish. The water looks different too, but folks don't like to mention that either. Just got runoff, they say. Anyway, the company poured money into a goodwill project after that, said they'd build us a better sewer system. keep the infrastructure strong, safe. Problem is, it was rushed.

Cheap parts, quick labor. Stuff breaks a lot. Which is how I got a job in the first place. They were always hiring maintenance. It's funny, I never thought I'd be the first in my family to not work the land. There's still a rusted tractor in our barn back home, broken belt hanging off in like a snake skin. I leave it there, out of respect, I guess. My dad used to sit on that thing every morning like it was a church pew.

My mom lives two towns over now with her sister. She said the air's easier to breathe up there. I guess she means the people. And as for me, I stayed. Got this job. Bought a trailer just outside town next to an old pecan grove that's more sticks than trees these days. I keep it clean. Fix what breaks.

Got a little dog named Marble. She's part terrier. Part something scrappy and mean, but she is loyal. Sleeps next to my boots every night. Likes to bark at wind for some reason. I wake up at six. Drink coffee with powdered creamer. Drive into town in my truck,

a red 99 ranger with a busted stereo and two mismatched mirrors. I parked by the maintenance shed behind some. City Hall. I checked the calls for the day. Most of them are routine, blockages from roots, broken valves, rats chewing the insulation off wires. You ever been down in a sewer? It's not what people think. It's not always disgusting, though it can be. Mostly it's quiet, cold even in summer. Sometimes I like it down there. It's the only place where nobody bothers you. No phones, no neighbors, No, I don't know, looks. Now the company gave us all these laminated maps when we started, said the lines were designed to be modern.

High efficiency, flood-resistant, but things don't match up anymore. Some tunnels go farther than they shed. Some dead ends aren't. I once found a room down there. Concrete walls, no doors, no pipes, just there. They pay decent, enough to keep gas in the truck and marble fed, enough to buy a movie ticket on Friday. The good, simple kind of life.

Sometimes I sit on my trailer steps at night, drink a beer, and stare up at the hill where the watermelon factory hums. You can see the lights, even from here. Bright white, like hospital lights, and always on. The building's a big square thing with no one. windows. Trucks go in, trucks go out. That's about it. I've never been inside, though I've worked the main lines right beneath it. The smell, it changes there. Some of the other guys say weird things happen sometimes. Lights go out. Machines stalling. One guy, a sworee heard

voices through the pipes. I didn't put much stock in that. Pipes make noise. They're pipes. You work down there long enough. Your brain starts inventing company. Still, there's something about this town, something that changed after the rain left. Or maybe it changed before.

And we just didn't see it till we were dry and desperate. it. But I'm getting ahead of myself again. I'd like to ramble. This is a story about what happened to me, about the strangest job I ever pulled, and about a day I can't forget, even if I want to. Let me start at the beginning. The beginning of that day. I met Oscar, about three months into the job. They called him my mentor, but it was more like being partnered with a cranky uncle. This man is something else. Oscar had a face like dry leather and always smelled like cigarettes, motor oil, and sour candy. He wore this frayed old denim jacket,

even in July, and he had this look in his eyes like he'd seen a lot of things he wasn't quite done thinking about. He was a hard worker, though. Best I ever met. Knew every bolt, every turn in the system. He'd been doing maintenance work long before the watermelon company came around. He didn't like him much, though, said those citymen smiled too wide and talked too fast. Some days, Oscar would ramble on about nonsense, like how raccoons were government spies, or how if you ate too many curates, your fingernails turned seethru. But then he'd suddenly turn serious and give you advice that stuck with you forever.

Like how the soft parts of the sewer near the eastern edge weren't stable. Or how always bringing a honey bun in your lunch kept your blood sugar from crashing during long shifts. You eat sugar when you're deep in. Your brain'll think you. Sewers drain more than water, you know, he'd say. I nodded the first time he said that. Not sure what the hell he was talking about, but I did pack a honey bun after that. Oscar showed me how to do the morning safety checks.

He taught me how to listen for strain in a pipe before it burst, how to measure heat against the wall to check for leaks behind it, in which boots didn't soak through after five hours in standing water. He wasn't the easiest man to like, but once you did, it's still. He had a way of talking that swung like a rusty gate between hard truth and complete nonsense. But once you were around him long enough, you started to pick out the rhythm of it. There was a wisdom buried in the madness and patience under all that scowl. We'd spend hours walking through tunnels, mapping routes, and clearing clogs, barely saying

a word. Then out of nowhere he'd hit me with something like, You ever notice how the rats down here on the damn place? And I would damn near choke, laughing. That's just how it was with Oscar. We worked together long enough that the silence became comfortable. Our Thursdays became tradition. Sitting behind the maintenance shed on old buckets,

nursing cheap beer, and playing rummy. I never beat him fair. He always had a trick up his sleeve. He wore the screen. scratched up G-shock on his wrist. One of those thick rubbery ones built to survive a war. I asked him about it once. Nice watch, I said, flicking a card down.

Oscar glanced at it like he'd forgotten he still had it on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, a gift from my boy. Lives up in Atlanta now. You gonna put it up for a gamble? I asked. What? Ah, no, wouldn't have a part with it. Not unless it got bright off my bones, he answered. I knew he meant it, but I still smiled and asked,

You get that sentimental about everything? He chuckled. Maybe, I mean, you wait having kids, it makes you soft. There was a pause after that. Just the sounds of cards shuffling. and marble barking at the wind. Then out of nowhere, I said, Hey, you ever think it's weird the watermelon company,

you know, doesn't sell watermelons? I mean, not even a sticker. Oscar didn't even look up. Well, you know, I'd probably never even seen a watermelon. They probably think it's a flavor of gum. What do you think they do in that place? I asked. Oh, I don't know. Something secret?

Something quiet. That's when the raccoons show up. The raccoons? I asked. He nodded, dead serious. Government spies. I've said it before. You think they're digging through trash for scraps? They're not.

They're downloading data through their. Air whiskers?" I just stared at him. Right, yeah, yeah, of course, and pigeons or drones, huh? Oscar frowned. That's ridiculous. Oscar felt like family. Not the kind you see on holidays.

More like the kind you find in the dirt. The kind that shows up when your boots are full of sewer water, and the world's gone quiet. He was like a cranky uncle. Frankie uncle, you never knew you needed. Someone who wouldn't let you fall, but sure as hell wouldn't coddle you either. Small towns are like that. We don't use big words for how we feel, but we build things in the space between silence and work. In time, Oscar started reminding me and my dad. Not because they looked alike, but because they both carry that same kind of quiet weight. that no-nonsense, get it done kind of attitude. And just like my dad, Oscar would get all bashful

anytime someone said something kind about him. Shrug it off, grumble, change the subject. Then came the job. They told us during the morning meeting. There had been a collapse somewhere deep in the interior system. One of the older tunnels, unused, sealed all for years. years. The watermelon company sent word that the collapse had opened up something new, some chamber or corridor further down. They didn't give details, just said they wanted it scouted,

probably to use for storage, or maybe they wanted to dig. This town had gold rush history back in the 1800s. Folks found flakes in the hills, and the whole county went mad with shovels and dynamite. Most of it was gone now, mined out and forgotten, but old habits die slow. Some of the higher-ups at the company were always sniffing around for ways to turn a buck. Oscar and I were chosen for the job. Recon only. Go down, take notes, snap a few photos, and report what we saw. Standard stuff, just further out than usual. But that morning, I woke up feeling rough. I had the worst migraine of my life.

I sat on the edge of my bed for an hour, marble whining at my feet. My head fogged over. I called it in, told him I couldn't make it. Oscar didn't say much when he heard. Just grunted over the phone and said, Hey, yeah, no, it's all right. You stay at home. I don't do it solo.

I offered to make it up to him. Said I'd cover his next weekend shift. Ah, bring beer Thursday and we'll call it even, huh? He replied. And that was the last conversation we ever had. Oscar didn't come back that day. At first, people made up excuses for him. Maybe he'd taken the long way around. Maybe he dropped his radio and was hiking back to the surface. You'd be surprised how much. He'd be surprised how much much of that kind of wishful thinking happens when folks don't want to believe something's gone very wrong, but by sundown, it started sinking in. They sent a team down into the shaft, two guys from a different crew, and one of the

Watermelon Company safety officers. They had flashlights, ropes, maps. They went down and stayed a few hours, then came back up looking pale and quiet. didn't say much, only that they didn't find anything. No tools, no footprints, no Oscar. After that, the panic started, but not the kind that comes from losing a friend. The company's higher-ups weren't worried about Oscar the man. They were worried about headlines. Maintenance worker lost in tunnel collapse wasn't a good look, especially not for a corporation, trying to paint itself as clean and modern.

He could feel it in their voices, in the way they kept saying incident instead of disappearance. Small town people hate attention. We like our problems local. But the story still spread. You couldn't keep something like that quiet in a place like Dry Creek. People whispered about it in the pews at church and passed notes during bingo night.

Some said Oscar had found something down there, something he wasn't supposed to. Others just shook their hands and said it was a tragedy, plain and simple. But no one believed the company's version of things. Not really. They ruled that an accident, said the ground had shifted, that Oscar must have fallen and gotten trapped. No body was recovered. The funeral came quick. Bare bones, quiet.

They laid out one of his old uniforms at the front of the chapel and framed a photo from back in his younger days. That's when I met his son, the one staying in Atlanta with a big tech job, showed up in a gray suit, tied too tight, hands fidgeting in his pockets. He looked around like he didn't quite remember the place. We stood outside afterward, each holding a blue one. black coffee from the church kitchen. It tasted, burnt. He, um, you ever talk about me? The sun asked, eyes on the gravel. Every day, I replied. He smiled. The kind of smile you wear

when you don't want to cry in public. We didn't talk much more after that. He shook my hand. thanked me, then got into his rental and drove away down the dirt road. The next morning I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the shaft, about how something didn't feel right about the whole thing. Oscar was careful, smarter than people gave him credit for. He wouldn't just disappear like that. And if he did, if something did happen down there, then something was being kept from the rest of us. By noon, I was driving out to the site.

The shaft had a line of faded caution tape across it, strung between two traffic cones. That was the company's idea of security. No one watching. No cameras. Just a few warning signs and the assumption nobody would poke around. I stood at the edge, boots scraping the dirt. The shaft yawned beneath me. deep and dark and silent.

I squinted down, not really expecting to see anything, but something caught my eye, just a shape, tucked into the debris on the lower slope. I climbed down before I could talk myself out of it. My foot slipped once on a loose rock, and I caught myself hard on the wall. The smell hit me next. damp, sour, like something had been left too long in the sun. I kept going. Halfway down, I saw it.

A hand. It was sticking out from under a chunk of broken concrete and torn metal, gray skin, dirt-packed fingernails. But it wasn't just the hand. It was the thing I'm a man. It was the thing I'm wrist. A G-shock watch, scratched and worn, same one I had seen a hundred times. For a second night, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but it was real. The second hand still ticked, slow and steady, like it didn't care the man wearing it hadn't moved in weeks. I reached down and pride it loose. The fingers crunched a little when I shifted the wrist. I didn't look at the face.

Couldn't. I just took the watch and shoved it into my jacket pocket. Then I scrambled back up the shaft, kicking roots and choking on dust. I sat in the truck afterward, staring at the dashboard. When I got home, I laid the watch on the kitchen table and just stared at it. The numbers glowed in the dark. I reported what I found. Send an email to the site supervisor.

Called the main office. Left voicemails. Gave coordinates. No one called back. Not a single word. I waited and nothing. And that's when I knew. If I wanted answers,

I wasn't going to get them from some corporate rep in a button-down shirt. So I packed my flashlight. Tools, backup batteries. Laced up a pair of boots, Oscar had given me, ones that didn't soak through. I tucked the G-shock into my shirt pocket. I went down the next morning before the sun had fully risen. I geared up like I would for any other recon job. Flashlight, backup batteries, tool belt, gloves.

A honey bun in my jacket pocket, just like Oscar told me, and his old G-shock, ticking steady from my wrist. The shaft was quiet when I got there, no sounds but my own boots scraping against the concrete. I climbed down softly, flashlight leading the way. The old tunnels were damp, as expected, but something felt off. It wasn't just the smell of the stale air, it was something else. No rats. Now, let me say this clear. Rats and sewers go together.

That's a fact. Like how sunflowers are yellow, or how everybody hates fruitcakes on Christmas. Rats live down here. You see them, hear them, smell them. They scurry, scratch. Knock over bottles. I'd spent years doing this job and never had a shift where I didn't come across at least one. But this time, nothing, not even a squeak, just empty pipes and puddles.

I kept walking, flashlight beam jittering as my boots echoed with every step. My breath was loud in my own ears, and my hands were. grip the light tighter the deeper I went. Half an hour passed, then a full hour. And that's when I found him. Bones, nut piles, just scattered, like breadcrumbs dropped by something that didn't care to clean up. They were fresh, too, still white, no rot, no signs of chrots. No signs of chewing or gnawing. I crouched down beside one and held my light to it. A rat's skull, clean and sharp-edged. Next was a skunk. Its stripes still visible on the thin layer of stretched skin that hadn't fallen away yet. That a raccoon, its tiny hands curled like it died reaching for something. I stood

slowly and backed away. I wasn't a nature expert, but I'd seen enough roadkill and dead livestock to know how things were supposed to break down. These weren't decomposing right. And no gator did this. Gators don't leave bones like that. They bite, roll, swallow whole.

They don't strip a creature clean like it's been picked apart with fingers. Plus, there wasn't enough water down here. Not deep enough, not wide enough. The ground was smooth. Still. I kept going. Deeper towards the coordinates where Oscar was last sent.

The path dipped lower than I expected, like the whole tunnel was sloping towards something below. Eventually, the old brick and metal ended. I stepped through a double. gap in the wall, crouching slightly to fit. My boots met different ground. It wasn't concrete anymore. It was stone, carved, smooth stone. It looked like a cave. The walls curved and coiled like something had dug it out with huge claws, or with machines built for scraping and boring. Every inch of the place was polished. No jagged bits. No broken rock. Just long sweeping tunnels, stretching in directions I couldn't guess. Like badger moles, I thought. Like something that didn't want to be seen from the surface had been digging for a long time. My flashlight caught strange grooves in the walls.

lines that move like veins, or like something had slid across them a thousand times and worn the stone down. The smell changed, too. What was supposed to be the smell of sewage turned into something that smelled like burnt iron. And then I heard it. A dragging sound. A slow, wet pull, like something large was sliding across the, a stone just out of sight. I turned off my light, stepped behind a wide rock that jutted out from the wall, and crouched low. Then I saw it. It slithered into view from the far end of the tunnel, pulling itself forward on long, thick arms. It looked like a human fetus, huge, Wrong. Its head was large and smooth, like a balloon stretched too tight. But it had a face.

Eyes, though they didn't blink. A nose that didn't twitch. A mouth that. The mouth stretched open wide, like it could swallow a full-grown man. The jaw unhinged like rubber. Skin. pulling back to show a dark, endless maw. It mumbled as it moved, words I could barely hear. But one word came through over and over. I crouched behind the rock and kept my flashlight off. The creature was just around the bend, maybe ten feet away, maybe less. I could hear it dragging itself forward. slow and steady. Every few seconds, it would stop and mumble the same word. I stayed where I was. My knees were pressed into the stone. My back hurt from holding still so long, but I did not move.

I didn't even shift my weight. I thought about running. Really thought about it. If I left now, and quietly. I could get out. I knew the tunnel layout. I had the map in my head. I could find my way back to the surface. Maybe no one would ever know I came this far. I could tell the company. The collapse blocked something off. Blame it on gas. Say I smelled something weird and turned around. It would be easy. Safe. But the idea didn't sit right. I tried to picture myself in my trailer that night, feeding marble, sitting on the steps, drinking a beer, watching the hill where the factory lights stay on all night, pretending nothing had happened. Pretending Oscar hadn't gone down here because I called out sick. No matter how I looked at it, I knew I wouldn't sleep.

This town had never asked much of me. It let me stay when I had nowhere to go. It let me work. Gave me space. But it had rules. Old ones. Quiet ones. If you see something broken, you fix it.

You help your neighbors, even if sometimes you really don't like them. You give to charity, even if it's just a nickel. and some black coffee. Most of all, you never turn your back when you see something wrong. Oscar sure wouldn't have. He taught me how to listen for pipe strain, how to measure tunnel depth by echo, how to pick boots that wouldn't soak through. He'd shown me the slow, careful way to move through these sewers.

He didn't deserve to end up as a hand with a watch. watch poking out of a pile of rocks. I reached into my jacket. My fingers touched cold metal. The emergency flare. Still sealed. I slid it into my palm and gripped it tight. I remembered something else, he said, maybe a year into the job.

We were sitting behind the maintenance shed drinking warm beer. He pointed at the sky. and said, You know, there's gas pockets in the old tunnels. Low areas. I'll never tell you where, but you'll smell them. You smell something sharp. Don't light a cigarette.

And if something ever goes wrong, well, just remember they built this place to burn if it had to. I'd smelled gas 20 minutes ago. sharp and dry, came out of a cracked pipe by a collapse section, old metal, unsealed, no airflow. It was still there. I shifted my weight slowly and stood up behind the rock. My flashlight was still clipped to my belt. The thing was farther down the tunnel now, still muttering, still dragging itself.

forward like I didn't have bones. It didn't seeming me. I walked fast but quiet, keeping my steps even. I didn't turn around. The cracked pipe was still leaking. The smell was stronger now. The air felt wrong. I crouched beside it and twisted the valve once more. A loud hiss filled the tunnel. The last thing I remember was stepping back, pulling the cap off the flare as the creature shuffled towards me. And then everything went black. They found me face down in a drainage pool, a few miles north of town.

Someone from one of the pump stations saw something bobbing near the grate and called it in. I thought I was dead. My shirt was half burned, and my face was caked in ash. One of the paramedics told me later. My eyes were open, just staring. I don't remember that part. I remember fire. Then rock. Then black. I woke up three days later in a hospital bed. Ribs taped tight, skin scrubbed raw. Marble was curled at my feet. And for a while, that was all that mattered. A week passed before the watermelon company came knocking. They sent three suits. Not local guys. One had a clipboard. The other two just sat and watched. They asked me questions. What I saw,

what I was doing down there. Why I went past at the marked zone. how the explosion started. I listened, drank the bad hospital coffee they brought, and said, I don't remember. They asked again, this time quieter, one at a time. They offered hazard pay, then bonus pay, then legal immunity if I'd just walk them through my shift that day. I shrugged, told them I'd been sick, said I must have slipped and hit my head. They didn't buy it. But they couldn't prove anything either. They didn't fire me.

Maybe they thought I was a hero. Maybe they wanted to keep me close. Or maybe. Just maybe. They already knew what was down there. Oscar used to joke about that. He told me they've done. got secrets in those tunnels, that some things are buried for a reason. I used to roll my eyes. Now I think

he was right. The company sealed off the collapse section, said it was unstable, danger to workers. Internal memo only. Town never heard a word about it. They replaced the access door with a steel plate and a fresh padlock. But I don't think that's what kept them up at night. I think they were scared of what almost got out. They wired me a hazard bonus, three times bigger than my annual salary. I spent exactly $32 of it. Bought Marble, the good kibble, the kind that comes in shiny bags with too many vowels in the name. She licked the bowl clean and wagged her tail, so hard, she knocked it over afterward. I didn't spend a dime on anything else. Just kept the money sitting in the bank untouched. People in town started whispering, of course, said I must have seen

something, that I came back different. Someone at the diner asked if I found gold down there. I told them the truth. Nope, no gold. Nothing worth finding. But I still have Oscar's watch. I wear it on my off days now. When I walk marble around the grove and the air gets real still, I check the time, even when I don't need to, still works fine. Still tick in like it always did. I still work the sewers.

They offered me a desk job upstate. I said no. Told them I like it down there. That part was true. The tunnels are quiet, familiar. I know them better than I know most people. They don't lie to you. Not really.

If a pipe burst, it burst. If something's leaking, you hear it. And if you pay attention, they don't surprise you much. But I keep a few new rules now. I never go deeper than I have to. I always bring a second flare just in case, and I listen for the rats to know they're there. Simple as that. This is the first time I've talked about what I saw, and if you've made it this far,

and you're one of those people who's curious about things, about dark places, forgotten paths, mysteries people don't talk about. then maybe this story is for you. Maybe you're the kind of person who walks past a locked door and wonders what's behind it. Maybe you've looked down a manhole cover and thought about climbing in. Don't.

But if you ever do, if something drags you into a place that's older than maps and stranger than dirt, bring a lighter. And a honey bun just in case. You're gonna need them.