I work nights at a 500 watt AM station. We have 5 STRANGE Rules.

An original horror story. Fiction, written for this channel. I was the overnight operator at a five hundred watt AM station in eastern Oregon. One in the morning until five, six nights a week, alone in a cinder block building, talking to four thousand square miles of high desert. Taped inside the lid of the console there was an index card with five rules on it, written in three different hands. The overnight is never silent. Do not repeat a telephone number on the air. Between three and three forty, never say a caller's name. If you hear your own voice on the monitor while you are not speaking, do not answer it. And at four fifty eight, read the sign off exactly as written. At night the ionosphere thins out and AM signals travel hundreds of miles. Every operator knows the band gets crowded and strange after midnight. What nobody told me was what comes back on our own frequency. The night I was four minutes late with the sign off, the phone rang. Headphones on. Lights off. Do not watch alone. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 It read the sign off and waited 0:26 The overnight 3:27 Merle Vance 6:02 The five rules 8:47 Why the band gets strange at night 11:27 The first four months 12:06 Ten seconds of dead air 14:56 It came back 18:03 Rule two, the number 20:25 Rule three, the name 22:53 The log books 26:06 The null 30:39 Rule four, my own voice 32:46 The sign-off 34:07 The night I was late 37:16 What Merle said 38:53 Eleven nights 43:35 Who wrote rule four 📩 Ever worked a job where you were the only person awake for miles — radio, dispatch, security, night desk? Send it to 3amprotocol@gmail.com — it could be narrated on the channel, anonymous if you want. 🔔 New horror stories every week at 3 A.M. Subscribe and turn on the bell. #horrorstories #scarystories #ruleshorror #strangerules #radiohorror #amradio #creepy #3am