Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm a Small Town Cop. We have FIVE RULES | Scary Stories

Episode Date: March 18, 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'm a Small Town Cop. We have FIVE RULES.        Merch: lighthousehorror.shopFor more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonMusic:Lucas King - YouTubeMyuu - YouTube IncompetechDarren Curtis Music - YouTube Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

I never thought I'd be the kind of guy who writes stuff down like this. Not for anyone else, anyway. I'm not much of a storyteller, and I was never good at essays back at school. But I guess after five years on the job, I've started thinking differently. I've been a rookie here for longer than I should have been. Not because I'm bad at it or anything, but because no one else ever sticks around long enough to take the title off me. So yeah, I'm Nathan. 33 now.

I grew up not far from here on my dad's cattle ranch. My dad's still out there, just him and a few dozen head of cattle. My older brother, Jake, took over most of the work after I left, so I didn't feel too bad about it. Ranching was never my thing. Too much mud, too much quiet, and too many hours wrestling with animals twice your size. Figured being a cop would be similar. wrestling people instead of cows, but with a badge and a paycheck that didn't depend on beef prices. I joined the department here when I was 28.

Small town, barely a blip on the map. You wouldn't find us unless you were looking for us. And even then you might miss it. No big crimes, no gangs or shootings. Mostly, we deal with drunks who get too rowdy, or neighbors arguing over noisy dogs. Simple work. Sometimes boring, but simple. I was partnered up with Joey from the start. He's been on the force for, hell, I think, 30 years now. Real old school type. Big mustache, loves fishing, talks about retirement like at some mythical place. We get along fine. He's like a second

dad, but without all the lectures about doing more with my life. Joey's got this thing for frozen pizza from Graziano's, the little grocery store downtown. Eats one almost every shift. Swear's there better than any pizza place in town, even though they come out of a microwave half the time. I never argue with him about it. The town itself is strange. On the surface, it looks normal. Quiet streets, well-kept houses.

The kind of place where people wave at each other, even if they're strangers. But there are things, little things. Like no one locks their doors. But every house has salt hanging above the door. Little cloth bags or jars filled to the brim. Nobody talks about it. It's just how it is. Like the salt's more important than a deadbolt.

I didn't think much of a grown-up. Figured it was some kind of old town superstition. But five years on the fours, I've started, noticing more. Things people don't say. Rules they follow without even thinking. And I've been here long enough to realize that I don't know all the rules yet. And that's why I'm writing this down. Someone needs to, in case there's another rookie after me. They deserve to know. Now the first rule is simple. Never go into the red house at the end of Barb Street. Everyone in town knows about that red house. It's been there longer than anyone can remember, standing at the far end of Barb Road, like a fire engine frozen in place.

The paint is a deep, unnatural red that never fades, never chips, never peels. Even the roof is red. The window frames, the glass. It's all the same color, like someone's dunked the entire house into a bucket of paint and let it dry that way. Birds don't land on its roof. Dogs refuse to walk past it. Tails tucked between their legs. Parents warn their kids to stay away,

and even the dumbest, most reckless kids listen. I remember it from my childhood, too. The older kids would dare us to go inside, but nobody ever did. We'd get close, maybe throw a rock at it. But that was as far as we'd go. We'd laugh and call each other. other cowards, but the truth was, none of us wanted to test what everyone in town already knew. People go missing around the Red House. Not often. Not enough to make the news. But enough.

There are rumors, of course. Every town has stories, and this town is no different. Some say the house is haunted, filled with things that steal people away if they get too close. Others say it's cursed, that something happened there long ago, something too terrible to be forgotten, and the house itself remembers. But the most popular story is the one about Bath. That's what they call her. Bath? No last name. No real explanation for the name at all. Just Bath? She was a young woman once, or so the story goes, lived in that house with her family a long, long time ago. But something was wrong with her. Something cruel, something evil. Some say she was a shapeshifter. Others say she was something much worse. Whatever she was, she did something, something so terrible that one by one,

Her family started dying. First, her parents, then her uncle, then her younger sister. They say she killed them, though nobody knows for sure. The only one left was her older brother, and he was the one who stopped her. He trapped her in the basement of the red house, and he ran. Left town, disappeared. But Bath never did. and that was over 100 years ago.

At least that's how the story goes. Some say she's still down there, trapped beneath the red house, waiting. There's even a nursery rhyme about her. The kids in town don't sing it anymore, but I remember it from when I was younger. We'd sing it during sleepovers, daring each other to say it out loud near the red house. No one ever did. It went something like this. Bath, bath, bath behind the door.

Bath, bath, crawl on the floor. Bath, bath, don't let her see. Bath, bath, don't set her free. I used to think it was just a creepy song kids made up to scare each other. Now I'm not so sure. The Red House has been quiet for a long time. No disappearances. No strange happenings.

Just an old empty house that no one wants to go near. The town leaves it alone, and it leaves the town alone. That's how it's been for decades. Every now on them, the station gets a call. The number pops up on the old caller ID, same as always. The red house's landline. The one that hasn't been in service for years. But it still calls.

Joey and Barker know better than to answer. But every now and then, one of the new dispatchers forget, picks up the line, asks who's there. No one speaks. Nothing comes through the receiver. No voices, no breathing. Just silence. They don't stay in the line for long.

If no one speaks, they hang up. That's another rule. Never listen for too long. Most of the time, that's the end of it. The phone rings, somebody picks it up, no one speaks, the call ends. Joey and Barker say it's just protocol. You don't ignore a call, even if you know where it's coming from. You pick it up, listen for a few seconds, then hang up.

No one wants to be the guy who ignores the phone the one time somebody needed help. But then there's the story of the last officer who went in, side. That happened 30 years ago. Back when Joey was younger, before he became the old timer with a bad knee and a love for frozen pizza. There was a rookie back then, fresh out of training, eager to prove himself, the kind of guy who didn't believe in small town superstitions. One night, on a dare, he went into the red house. He came out running less than a minute later, pale and shaking, his right arm broken. He never said what happened, never talked about what he saw in there.

He quit the force not long after, packed up his things, left for the big city. Nobody ever saw him again. All I know is this. Never go into the red house at the end of Barb Road. The next rule is just as important as the first. Don't ever stop on Road 6. You wouldn't think much of it if you saw it during the day. Just another long, empty stretch of road leading in and out of town. The asphalt is cracked, the pavement worn, and the old red poles that mark both ends have faded under the sun. There used to be lights on top of them, but they burned out years ago.

No one bothered to fix them. Nobody sees the point. Because lights don't work on Road 6 anyway. You can drive through it just fine. but the second you try to use your brights, the world in front of you turns pitch black. The first time it happened to me. I thought it was my car. Turn the lights off, turn them back on, and nothing changed.

Just darkness stretching on for miles. Then I drove past the last red pole and just like that. Everything was normal again. It's been like that for as long as I can remember. There's something else I should tell you about. about Road 6. It's where most of the accidents happen. We don't get a lot of crashes in town. But when we do, it is almost always there. Some are small, fender benders, a dented bumper, a shaken up driver. But sometimes they're bad. Cars flipped over. People missing.

Wreckage scattered like something tore through the vehicle mid-drive. You'd think a small town like this wouldn't have so much road rage, but we do. And it happens on that road each and every time. People stop their cars in the middle of the road, get out, screaming, swinging, losing their minds. Mild-mannered folks. People you wouldn't expect to snap, losing themselves in the stretch of asphalt. There was a man a few years back, quiet guy who ran a hardware store downtown. One night, he pulled over and started smashing his own windshield with a tire iron.

By the time someone found him, his hands were bloody, his face was cut, and he couldn't explain why he'd done it. Most of them can't explain why. Engines fail there too. People's cars just shut down, right in the middle of the road. Toe trucks won't go out there at night. Then they're the hitchhikers. Every few months one of them goes missing. A drifter, a backpacker, someone passing through. Someone who doesn't know the rules.

They walk along the side of the road, thumb out, waiting for someone to pick them up. But if they don't get a ride before nightfall, they're gone. No trace, no body. Just their bags, sometimes. Their belongings scattered along the pavement, as if they drive. them mid-stride. That's bad enough. But the strangest thing about Road 6 isn't the accidents. It isn't the missing hitchhikers. It isn't even the way the headlights stop working. It's the people who get lost. Road 6 isn't long. It's a single stretch that loops through the town before leading

back to the highway. No exits, no turns. Should be impossible to get lost on it. But it happens. Every six months or so, someone will come running into the station, wild-eyed, panning, drenched in sweat. They'll be shaking, crying, dehydrated like they've been wandering for days. Some of them collapsed right there on the floor, and some of them beg for help. They all say the same thing. They were walking on Road Six. They don't know how long they were out there. They just kept walking, thinking made reach the end, but it never came.

No matter which direction they turned, no matter how many steps they took, the road stretched on forever. Some of them remember passing the same landmarks over and over, a dead tree with a split trunk, a rusted-out mailbox with no house nearby. A set of old tire tracks burned into the dirt. They swear they were walking for days. But it never takes me more than ten minutes to drive the length of that road. Most of the time, these people aren't from town.

They're outsiders. The kind that rule through thinking they don't need to listen to warnings. Tourists who think the stories are just that. Stories. They don't believe me when I tell them not to stop. They laugh, shake their heads, and go on with them. their business, but I still warn them, because bad things happen to the people who don't listen. And I don't like seeing new faces show up at the station. Their lips cracked from thirst,

their hands scraped raw like they fell over and over again. I don't like the way their eyes dart around the room, looking at the windows, the corners, the door, like they're expecting something to follow them. They all say the same thing when they finally catch their breath. I was walking, but I couldn't get out. But that's not the worst part.

The worst part is that some of them don't make it back at all. I do my best to find him, the ones who never made it back. Most of them are strangers, people passing through, people who didn't know better. They all have different reasons

for being on Road 6, but the ending's always the same. They stop? Something happens. And they don't come back. I keep a drawer for them at the station. It's not official. Nothing the department keeps records of, just something I put together over the years.

Inside are copies of missing persons reports. Old driver's licenses, blurry security footage from the gas station downtown. Anything I can find. Anything that helps me remember. Because I never forget a face. Whenever someone disappears, I take their photo and I pin it to the bulletin board in the break room. The board's an old thing, covered in faded notices and half-forgotten reminders. Some of the papers have been up there so long they've turned yellow at the edges.

But my section is newer. The missing posters stand out, fresh ink on clean white paper. staring back at me every morning. There's no pattern to the disappearances, no clear reason why some people get lost and others don't. It doesn't happen often enough for people in town to talk about it. Not like the red house. Not like the other rules.

Road six just sits there. Empty most of the time, a stretch of cracked pavement with two old red poles on other side. But I know what it does. I've seen what happens. Sometimes, I drive out there just to look. I don't know what I expect to find. Tire tracks that lead nowhere.

A shoe abandoned on the side of the road. Something, anything, that explains why people walk into that stretch of highway and never come out the other side. But it always looks the same. long, empty, quiet. I tell myself I'll find an answer someday, but I don't believe it. Still, every morning, I stop in front of that board, coffee in one hand, a stolen pizza slice, and the other. It's not just about the people who've already gone missing.

It's about the ones who still have a chance. The ones I might be able to stop before it happens again. That's why I keep warning people, even when they don't listen, even when they roll their eyes, mutter about superstitions, and drive off like it's just another road, because I know better. And I don't want to add another face to that board. Most of the rules in this town are unspoken, pass down in quiet conversations or learn the hard way. But this one is different.

This one is written down. It's the only one recorded in the official department manual. The first thing you learn when you take the job, use the red tape. If there's an accident, mark the area with red tape. If someone goes missing, put red tape where they were last seen. If something feels wrong, you mark it. No questions, no hesitation.

Just do it. The town is covered. in these warnings. Poles wrapped with strips of red plastic, old buildings with an X slashed across the door, even vending machines with a single band of red tape stretched across the side. Some of them have been there for years. The tape sun bleached and curling at the edges. Others are new, fresh and stark, against whatever surface they cling to. And no one removes them. People are new. People are new, town know better than to touch the tape. Joey told me once, back in the old days, folks used red ribbon instead, said it was an old

tradition, a way of marking places where spirits lived, or were something unnatural had happened. A warning, a barrier, a reminder to stay away. This is an old town, full of old fears. People still salt their doors, they avoid the red house, they don't stop on road six, and they don't break the red tape. I grew up around these kinds of superstitions, so it never seemed strange to me. It's just what you do. I kept rolls of red tape everywhere.

My car, my lunch bag, my desk drawer. I never let myself run out. I don't know if it actually worked, if it did anything real. But I know what happened when the tape wasn't there. People forgot. They went where they shouldn't. And sometimes they didn't come back. The Red House and Road Six aren't the only things in town that don't make sense.

There are other stories. There's this storm drain tunnel that runs under part of town. It was built decades ago, way before my time, meant to help with flooding when the rains got heavy. It's simple enough. Just a wide concrete tunnel, about five feet high, running beneath the roads. The kind of place kids dare each other to crawl through, even though they're not supposed to. But there's something off about it. I first heard the stories when I was a kid. A boy named Kyle, he was a great above me, crawled into the tunnel from the entrance near the old post office.

It was supposed to come out on the other side of town, near the side of the side of the side, soccer fields. That's what everyone thought. But Kyle never showed up there. His friends waited at the exit for almost an hour before they ran home and told their parents. A search started, of course. Whole town got involved. Cops, volunteers, even my dad went out looking. They expected to find him stuck somewhere in the tunnel, maybe hurt. But then hours later, Kyle came stumbling out of the woods, on the east side of town, nowhere near where he was supposed to be. He was covered in mud, shaking, like he'd seen something that didn't make sense. He didn't talk much after that.

I remember seeing him at school the week after it happened. He was quieter, kept his head down, and no one really pushed him for details. But the story spread. People started saying the tunnel didn't work like a normal tunnel. that if you went in at one spot, you couldn't be sure where you'd come out. Over the years, there were other stories, kids mostly. Someone would come in and come out somewhere else, sometimes way off in the woods,

sometimes by the train tracks that haven't been used in decades. No one's ever been able to map where the tunnel actually leads. A few people tried, bringing flashlights and string to trace their path. but they'd always come back out at the same entrance they went in, even if they swore they'd been walking straight the whole time. And then there's the cat. Sounds dumb when I say it out loud. A black cat feels like something out of a Halloween decoration set.

But people around here take it seriously. The first time I saw it, I was maybe ten, it was sitting on the sidewalk near the grocery store. Just sitting there, tail curled around its feet, staring at nothing. I remember thinking it was weird how still it was. Most cats twitch their ears or shift around. But this one just sat there, completely still. When I got closer, it turned its head and looked right at me.

Yellow eyes, wide and glassy. I don't know how long we stared at each other, but I remember feeling like it was waiting for something, like I was supposed to do something. Then it stood up, stretched, and walked off behind the store. I didn't think much of it at the time. But as I got older, I started hearing the stories. The cat's been seen around town for decades.

Same solid black fur, same yellow eyes. longer than any cat should be alive. People say it shows up when something bad's about to happen. Not always big, end of the world bad, but something. An accident, someone getting hurt, a fire breaking out. It just appears. It has this habit of sitting right where people will see it. On porches, at the edge of the woods, in front of shops downtown.

It doesn't let anyone get close, walk toward it, and it'll dart away, but it always watches. Like it knows something you don't. The weirdest thing, though, is how it shows up near the tunnel, especially when kids are involved. Joey told me about a time years ago when a kid went missing for a few hours. Same deal, went into the tunnel with his friends, and didn't come out where he was supposed to. While the search was going on, someone spotted the black cat sitting right at the entrance of the tunnel, staring down into it, just sitting there, like it was waiting for something. The kid showed up later that evening, covered in dirt and crying, but unharmed. When they brought him back, the cat was gone. People say the cats connected somehow, to the tunnel, to the town, maybe even the red,

head house. Nobody really knows. But every time I see it, I get this feeling in my gut that something's about to go wrong. So if you ever see the cat, pause for a second. Give it a treat. Maybe scratch it behind the ears if you can. It might be trying to tell you something. Most of all, never enter the tunnels after dark. There's one last place I need to warn you about. The old post office downtown. Doesn't seem like much at first glance, just a squat brick building with peeling paint and broken blinds in the windows. The flagpole out front has been empty for as long as I can remember.

No one uses it anymore. Not for real business anyway. There's a newer post office out on Main Street that handles the town's mail now. But the old one still lingers. Most days it's quiet. Dusty windows, doors locked up, nothing moving inside. But every so often, letters still come out of there. That's the part that doesn't make sense.

People started noticing it years ago. They'd find envelopes in their mailboxes. Plain, white, no stamps, no return addresses. Just their names written neatly on the front, in handwriting they didn't recognize. At first, folks thought it was a prank. Some kid messing around, sneaking letters into mailboxes for a laugh. But then they started reading them. The letters weren't just random notes or jokes.

They were personal, specific. Things only certain people would know. A woman on Elm Street got one from her father, who'd been dead for over 15 years. The letter talked about the garden she'd planted that spring, how proud he was the way she kept the house looking nice. It was written as if he was still alive, still watching over her.

Like nothing had changed. Another family got a letter from their son who'd gone missing when he was 17. The letter talked about how he was doing fine, working odd jobs, thinking of coming home soon. But he'd been gone for over a decade. No trace of him ever found. It kept happening.

Letters showing up out of nowhere. Parents who'd passed away, friends who'd been lost, even folks who'd vanished without a word years ago. At first, the town was furious. They thought it was cruel. Someone digging into old wounds for the sake of a sick joke. People demanded the police department do something about it. Joey was around back then, said they tried everything. Looked for fingerprints, check the old post office for any sign of someone

living there. But they came up with nothing. Cameras were set up around town to catch anyone dropping off letters, but the footage never showed anything out of the ordinary. Eventually, people stopped asking for answers. I think there was this moment where everyone realized that no one was behind it, or at least no one they could catch. The letters just happened. And after a while, people stopped fighting it.

Nowadays, when a letter shows up, most folks don't talk about it much. They just read them quietly, and keep it to themselves. Some burn them out. after. Others stash them away in drawers, like they're too important to throw out, but too strange to leave sitting around. The weirdest part, the letters are always current. They talk about things happening now, not just memories of old news, like whoever's writing them knows what's going on

in people's lives. I've never gotten one. Sometimes I wonder what it'd say if I did. Would it be from someone I lost. Or maybe it'd come from someone who hasn't died yet, but will. That's the part that keeps me up sometimes. The thought that one of these letters might show up before someone's gone. Like a warning. There's this old legend my grandpa used to tell me when I was a kid. He was big on that kind of stuff. Old stories, fairy tales, things to keep kids up at night. He's He used to say that the Grim Reaper, the real one, didn't just go around collecting souls all day, said the guy liked to take odd jobs every now and then, blend in with living, observe how we live, maybe even have a little fun with it.

I always thought it was a weird idea, the Grim Reaper working part-time, like some kind of cosmic temp worker. But sometimes, when I think about that old post office, I wonder. Maybe that's what's going on. Maybe deaths sitting there in that dusty old building, writing letters to the living, reminding them that the dead are still around, still watching. Or maybe it's just his way of poking at us, seeing how we react, when the lines between the living and the dead blur.

a little too much. And then there's this thought I can't shake. Someday, there will be a letter about me. I don't know who it'll go to. My dad, maybe, if he's still around. Maybe even some rookie who hasn't joined the force yet. Finding a letter with my name signed at the bottom, talking about things I have no business knowing. It's a strange thought. Not one I dwell on too much, and that's a thought for another day. Anyway, that much has changed since I started writing all this down. I'm still here, working at the department, same desk, same creepy chair that leans a little too far back when I sit down wrong.

The town's the same, too. Still quiet on the surface, still hiding all the strange things just beneath. The red house is still there. The paint is fresh as ever. Nobody goes near it. Road Six keeps stretching out its cracked pavement, swallowing headlights and hitchhikers when it feels like it. The storm-drained tunnel still twist around under the town,

leading kids out into places they were never meant to find. And every now and then, another letter shows up from the old post office, folded neatly into a plain white envelope with no return address. But there's been one change. The department's finally getting new rookies. Whole batch of them, fresh out of the academy. They're coming in next month from what I've heard. And that means I won't be the rookie anymore.

It's strange, thinking about it. I have been the youngest on the force for so long, feels like part of who I am. The one who still gets the worst shifts, the weirdest calls. The one who has to deal with the stuff, no one else wants to. But hey, soon that'll be someone else's job.

Maybe it'll be your job. If you're reading this, then you're probably one of the new guys. Just starting out. Probably still full of that fresh energy, thinking this will be like any other small town posting. Slow, easy. Nothing too exciting.

I get it. I thought the same thing. But you're here now, and this town is not like the others. If you see the black cat sitting near the tunnel, give a little space. If you hear the phone ringing from the red house, don't listen too long. If someone disappears on Road 6, don't waste time trying to make sense of it. Just do what you can. And if you ever get a letter from someone who shouldn't be writing to you, read it.

even if it scares you. And I guess that's all I've got. I'm not going anywhere. At least I hope I'm not. I'll still be around when you get here, probably sitting at the desk closest to the back window, drinking coffee that's been sitting in the pot too long. But I won't be the rookie anymore.

That'll be you. I hope the best for you. I really do. But most of all, I hope you follow the rules.