Scary Stories and Rain
Episode 209 – Scary Stories For A Rainy Night: Run, Rabbit
Host: Being Scared
Date: August 26, 2025
Episode Overview
Episode 209 of Scary Stories and Rain delivers three eerie tales—each set against the podcast’s signature backdrop of soothing rain. With calm, immersive narration, the stories explore secret architecture, supernatural playground horror, and the unnerving dangers of sharing your name with a stranger. The subtle blend of creepiness and near-whispered storytelling aims to lull listeners into uneasy dreams.
Story 1: The Crypto Architect ("Plainness Hides Strangeness")
[01:34 – 16:58]
Key Points and Insights:
- Secret Lives, Plain Exteriors: The narrator is a “crypto architect,” specializing in creating rooms and spaces that defy known physics—hidden behind bland, unassuming facades.
- Winchester Inspiration: Sarah Winchester is revealed as the secret founder of crypto architecture, her real talent not in escaping ghosts, but in crafting spaces that shouldn't exist.
- “Plainness can hide all sorts of eccentricity.” (Host, 01:43)
- Rules of Hidden Spaces: These secret constructs are made so subtly that most minds can’t comprehend them—usually people flee and forget, but sometimes they become trapped or obsessed.
- “The ordinary mind, unconditioned to encounter such illogical spaces, will often crack under the pressure and instinctively flee the room while blocking any memory of it having existed. ...A more troublesome contingency is what we in the business call a fly trap.” (Host, 06:11)
- A High-Stakes Job: The narrator takes a lucrative last-minute job at the Egyptian Embassy in LA: create a secret concrete bathroom cubicle “up to you” in size, for $3 million.
- Execution and Consequences: The construction of the room involves surreal rituals—finding an imperfection in the cistern, visualizing the space. A light fixture and manacles appear, surprising the narrator.
- Sudden Threat: The client abruptly terminates the contract via a terse text:
- “Asset compromised. Our professional relationship is terminated. Consequences to follow.” (15:11)
- Aftermath and Psychological Horror: The narrator becomes isolated and paranoid, unable to leave their home. Doors and windows start sealing up, as if the strange architecture is now consuming them.
- “At night I dream of that little room behind the cubicle in the embassy. A shadowy figure hangs there and I can see his heartbeat through his chest. ...My windows will be the next to go.” (16:28)
- Meta Warning to Listener: Ends with the host unnervingly breaking the fourth wall, suggesting maybe you too are trapped:
- “By the way, when was the last time you pulled your eyes away from the screen? Does something seem off about the familiar place that you’re huddled up in right now? Plainness can hide all sorts of strangeness. You might want to try your nearest doorway.” (16:49)
Story 2: Run, Rabbit
[18:54 – 28:34]
Key Points and Insights:
- Schoolyard Bullying Meets the Supernatural: Carlos, a boy tormented by classmates for his "accidents," faces cruelty at the hands of Charlotte and her gang.
- Harrowing insults and humiliation are commonplace:
- “Eat it and be grateful. My daddy saw your daddy at the soup kitchen so you must be hungry.” (19:00)
- “Her voice sounded like it was emanating from all around me. Bring her to me.” (21:08)
- Harrowing insults and humiliation are commonplace:
- Introduction of the Tunnel Entity: After another humiliating incident, Carlos is beckoned by a ghastly woman lurking in a playground tunnel, demanding he “bring her” Charlotte or another child.
- Escalating Encounters: Carlos finds himself a target, both of the entity and neighborhood bullies. The woman grows more forceful in her calling, and his world grows more terrifyingly surreal.
- Disappearance and Revelation: Carlos, after a chase involving the bullies and the tunnel, survives while his tormentors vanish—apparently taken by the tunnel’s inhabitant.
- He’s questioned by police after the girls disappear. The story takes a chilling turn when bones are discovered—his missing mother’s remains.
- “They found a single set of bones buried inside. My mother's. They still don't have any leads… but I think I have an idea.” (28:20)
- He’s questioned by police after the girls disappear. The story takes a chilling turn when bones are discovered—his missing mother’s remains.
- Open-Ended Dread: The haunting ends with the tunnel entity now asking for him:
- “When my dad came to pick me up, a low, guttural growl poured from the top tunnel. Bring him to me.” (28:30)
Story 3: Never Give Them Your Name
[29:34 – 41:37]
Key Points and Insights:
- Charming Bakery With Chilling Rules: A new bakery assistant revels in the early-morning joys of baking, but is strictly told never to share her name with customers.
- “There was one weird thing, though. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone my name and we didn’t have name tags.” (29:58)
- Subtle Warnings: Susan, the bakery owner, is anxious about boundaries after a past employee’s unexplained disappearance. The rule seems excessive—until a customer named Nathaniel grows intensely interested in the narrator, asking personal questions.
- Stalking and Strange Scratches: Nathaniel’s interest is unsettling, and after a slip revealing her neighborhood, scratching noises begin at her windows at night.
- Atmosphere Decays: The bakery’s energy and clientele turn hostile. The narrator is sleepless, paranoid, and starts making mistakes.
- Final Mistake—Giving Away Her Name: After a coffee spill with a charming stranger, she absentmindedly gives him her name (“Calliope”) on a pad of paper, though she only ever uses “Callie.”
- “He took it from me and smiled. ‘Excellent. I'll be in contact soon. Calliope—oh, it's just Callie,’ I frowned. There was no way I wrote out my actual name. ...I should have known you never give them your name.” (41:30)
- Moral: Some personal information should never be given—especially in stories where reality and threat blur.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- Meta Fear: “By the way, when was the last time you pulled your eyes away from the screen? Does something seem off…? Plainness can hide all sorts of strangeness.”
(Host, 16:49) - On Hidden Dread: “Fly trap. The intruder becomes convinced that the simultaneous feelings of strangeness and familiarity… make them the only safe place left in a mad outside world.”
(Host, 06:23) - Childhood Horror: “Her voice sounded like it was emanating from all around me. Bring her to me.”
(Carlos, 21:08) - Dark Irony in Safety: “You never give them your name.”
(Calliope, final line, 41:30)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- [01:34] – Start of Story 1, The Crypto Architect
- [06:11] – Explanation of “fly trap” and psychic architecture
- [15:11] – Threatening client text and unraveling of narrator’s world
- [16:49] – Meta, fourth-wall-breaking warning
- [18:54] – Start of Story 2, Run, Rabbit
- [28:34] – Resolution and ominous ending of Story 2
- [29:34] – Start of Story 3, Never Give Them Your Name
- [41:30] – Sinister reveal and lesson of Story 3
Tone and Style
The narration is intimate and straight-faced, blending mundane childhood anxieties, adult paranoia, and surreal urban legends with a gentle, rain-soaked delivery—even as the dread slowly intensifies. The host maintains a subtle, almost conspiratorial tone: like a friend whispering chilling secrets just before sleep.
Final Thoughts
Episode 209 weaves together tales of things hidden in plain sight and dangers lurking just beyond our perception. Whether it’s secret rooms, haunted tunnels, or the danger of a name shared too freely, the message resonates: Everyday life hides uncanny terror—plainness, after all, can mask strangeness.