I Work at a Highway Rest Stop. We have 6 STRANGE RULES

Lighthouse Horror Podcast

A night shift worker at a West Virginia highway rest stop recounts the surreal and dangerous task of managing supernatural customers. Betwee

Key takeaways

• The rest stop exists only at night; the building vanishes at sunrise.
• Red shirts are mandatory for employees to provide protection from creatures.

Main topics

• Supernatural Rules
• Night Shift Survival

Notable quotes

The red shirts are what make the work possible.

Conclusion

A chilling look at the hidden, dangerous reality of a job that require

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) My name is Curtis Rocco, and I work the night shift at a highway rest stop in West Virginia. It's a small place just off the turnpike with six pumps, a store, and a counter where we serve hot food. The Appalachian Hills rise behind the building, and the nearest town is a few miles away. If you've driven the West Virginia turnpike late at night, you might have stopped there. You might have bought a cup of coffee from May or passed where the bathrooms were. We get truck drivers. families, and people who want something hot to drink before getting back on the road. I started working there last spring. I pulled in for gas one evening and noticed a Help Wanted sign taped to the door. At the time, I was driving 40 minutes each way to a hardware store. The rest stop was 10 minutes from my house. I wrote down the number, called when I got home, and left a message. The manager called me the next afternoon. His name is Wesley, and he sounded like a man who'd been answering the same questions for a long time. He wanted somebody who could work nights, handle the register, and show up on time. I had done all three before. We arranged to meet at nine that evening. I arrived ten minutes early. I recognized the turn from the road and the two white posts beside the entrance, but beyond them was a patch of bare ground. No store, no gas pumps, no parking lot. I sat in my car, looking from the post to the empty clearing, trying to work out where I'd gone wrong. Wesley was parked on a strip of gravel beside the entrance. When he saw me, he got out and waved me over. I parked beside him and got out. he was a broad man with thinning gray hair and a red work shirt his name was stitched above the pocket he shook my hand checked his watch and told me we had a few minutes to wait And at nine, the rest stop just appeared. I was looking directly at the clearing when it happened. One moment I could see the weeds at the foot of the hill, and the next I was looking at a brick building with lit windows. A white roof stood over the pumps. Beyond it were painted parking spaces, trash cans, and a picnic table. Wesley waited while I walked a few steps down the gravel and looked again. He seemed to expect that. Then he took a folded red shirt from his car and explained that the job was a little different from the one in the advertisement. The rest stop opens at 9 every night. At sunrise, the whole property beyond those white posts disappears. The entrance road and our gravel parking space remain where they are. Employees leave their cars on that gravel, and everybody has to be off the property before morning. He gave me time to leave. I stayed to hear the rest, because I just watched a building appear out of nowhere, and he was the only person there who could explain it. He told me about the customers. the uniform, and the six rules I'd need to follow. The shirt, he said, would keep the dangerous customers from hurting me. Before we went inside, he made sure I had it on. Wesley stayed beside me for that first shift. He showed me where to stand when something came through the door and which customers needed watching. By morning, I'd helped him get a family safely back to their car. I understood why he wanted another person there. I've been there eight months now. The work itself is ordinary enough. I make coffee, serve food, wipe tables, and ring up people who are tired of driving. Wesley handles most of the cooking and paperwork. Between us, we keep an eye on the parking lot and try to get our customers safely back onto the road. Some of the customers aren't human. They buy things and use the bathrooms just like anybody else, but they sometimes need reminding what they're allowed to eat. A few travelers recognize them. Others assume they're looking at masks and costumes. I've seen a man complain about somebody's horns blocking the television without once asking whether the horns were real. Now I could quit I think about it now and then but I know how to do the job and I know what happens when a frightened customer looks around and Can't find anyone to help I'm still the man behind the counter. Wesley keeps the six rules pinned beside the register. Each one has a story behind it. These incidents happened on different shifts. Some customers listened when I warned him. Others needed a little help before they understood what sort of place they'd stopped at. Speaker 1 (4:39) Rule 1. Always keep the vending machines stocked. Our vending machines stand in a row beside the hallway to the bathrooms. We have three of them. A red one, a blue one, and a white one with a light that Wesley has been meaning to replace since before I started. They hold candy bars, little bags of sweets, and enough snacks to get an ordinary person across several states. Our other customers get through it a lot faster. The demons are particularly fond of Snickers and Skittles. I don't know why. I wasn't expecting that to be part of the job either. You could feed a schoolroom of children with what we keep in the stockroom. The boxes reach almost to the ceiling, and most contain candy. The machines are what keep certain customers coming back. Once the machines are empty, those customers tend to look for something else. Someone walking past with a sandwich can start looking a lot more interesting than a sandwich. One busy evening, I'd pulled every row before the first customers arrived. I put spare boxes under the counter and checked that all three machines took coins. Wesley was warming the grill when two cars pulled up outside. A couple came in for coffee. An older man in a red cap bought a piece of pie and carried it to the table near the window. Our first demon arrived behind him. It wore a yellow raincoat with a hood drawn low over its face. It was large enough that people moved their chairs without being asked. You could see its hands, which looked swollen and much too smooth, and an occasional flash of teeth inside the hood. The rest was hidden. I was grateful for that. It stood in front of the red machine and bought six Snickers, one after another. Each time a bar dropped, it reached into the tray and lifted it beneath the hood. Why? Speaker 1 (6:42) It said as it kept counting to six, looking around with a big smile. The wrapper went in with the candy. I could hear the plastic tearing as it chewed. Yum, yum. Speaker 1 (6:56) The man eating pie watched for a while, then looked toward the counter. He seemed amused. I could tell he wanted to know what event the costume was for. Fortunately, his pie was good enough to keep him in his chair. More customers arrived. Most bought gas or used the bathrooms. Three things in dark coats gathered around the blue machines and began feeding coins into it. They started with the Skittles, emptied the blue machine, then moved to the white one. One held a shopping bag beneath the tray while the others pressed buttons. I could hear them talking to each other. I want Skittles. I watched it all, too, the other said. I kept refilling rows between sales. Should have been enough. That night though, they were eating almost as quickly as I could stock. Whenever I went back to the counter, I could hear more candy eating the trays behind me. Then the card reader froze while the woman was paying for gas. I had to call Wesley out to help. He stayed with her while I got more candy. I was halfway across the store when I noticed how quiet the machines had become. The three customers in dark coats were leaving. The one in the yellow raincoat remained at the red machine, holding its hand inside the empty tray. Behind the glass, the metal spirals were bare. I looked along the other two machines and saw the same thing. It pulled its hand out very slowly. Then it turned toward the tables. The older man had finished his pie. He was taking a tablet from his bag, settling in for a little break from the road. He didn't notice the raincoat moving toward him until it stopped right beside his table. The man smiled and said, Oh, hello there. Nice weather we're having, huh? The thing leaned over him, blocking his view of the counter. It spread one hand across the tabletop. Its fingers left pale dents in the hard surface, as if the table were made of dough. I set the box down and called the customer in the raincoat back to the machines. It didn't turn. The man in the chair stopped smiling. He was staring into the hood now, and his hand had tightened around the edge of his tablet. I pulled the Snickers from the box, tore it open, and held it where the thing could see it. Its head moved slightly. I was close enough to hear it breathing. A deep, wet sound that grew faster whenever the man shifted in his chair. Hey, hey, I got plenty more, I said. I put the bar on top of the red machine and stepped back. The thing remained beside the table for a moment. Then it straightened and came toward the candy. I folded back the box flaps as it passed me, giving it a clearer view of everything inside. It ate