About[]
"A Person in the Rain" is the second tale in the tenth episode of the eleventh season of The Nosleep Podcast. Written by Jen Marshall, it has a runtime of 57:20 and was read by Jessica McEvoy, Elie Hirschman, Jesse Cornett, Nikolle Doolin, Erin Lillis, and Nichole Goodnight. It is the 1337th tale overall on the podcast.
Summary[]
A substitute teacher, Erin, takes a job at an old school after the primary teacher, Mrs. Cross, injures herself and needs to recuperate. Her classroom is on the top floor, converted from an attic. At the back of the space is a long hallway around a corner that leads to a private bathroom for the class. There is a mural covered with student's drawings on the wall.
On her first day, Erin notices an empty desk and checks inside, but finds nothing except a blue crayon. Noticing there is no name attached to it on the seating chart, she asks the class whose it is. A student, Miles, says it belongs to a girl named Sadie who is dead.
At recess, she contacts Mrs. Cross, who is unable to give an answer. Eventually, Miles and another student, Emmeline, tell her the legend. A hundred years ago, a girl named Sadie was in the school Christmas play. After hours, she snuck up to the attic (where the classroom is now located) to return one of her props. She ended up getting locked in over winter break and dying of thirst in the room, but not before almost scratching her name into the floor three times. She was unable to completely finish the third name, writing "Sadi". The two say if you write her name three times, her ghost will come and try to kill you.
The next day, the desk is back in the classroom despite the note Erin left to the custodian to move it. On the mural, someone has written "Sadie Sadie Sadi" numerous times. Noticing the student's distress, she gives the class the "Person in the Rain" test, where children are asked to draw a picture matching that description. The idea follows how much rain and the presence of umbrellas or raincoats in the drawings will tell her how the class is feeling. Nearly everyone draws downpours and no covering of any kind, indicating severe stress and fear.
That afternoon, she learns of the death of a student ten years previously from the school's art teacher, Holdorff. A girl named Abigail claimed she didn't believe Sadie and wrote her name three times. She later fell off the slide during recess and fatally cracked her head open. Holdorff himself dismisses the legend and suggests Miles may be pulling a prank on her. Erin is unconvinced.
Sometime later, the class is working when they hear heavy footsteps in the hallway leading to the bathroom. Checking, Erin finds no one there. To alleviate the children's fear, she introduces her 'Smile Box', where students can write secrets and get loads off their consciences by inserting them into the box to be read privately. Checking the results on the first day, she finds a disturbing poem about Abigail's death being caused by her writing Sadie's name three times.
The next week, the school's principal, Mrs. House, visits the classroom. Hearing about the class's distress, she chides Erin for going along with their fears and not quashing the imaginary ghost story. On the way out, she lets it slip that Mrs. Cross broke her back after someone pushed her down the stairs. Erin leaves work shaken.
Coming in the next day, she finds that someone has filled in all the "e's" on the mural in blue crayon, so the messages now read "Sadie Sadie Sadie". Holdorff arrives and first thinks Miles is responsible, but after hearing Erin's hysteria, becomes convinced she did it herself during an episode. Just as he leaves to head downstairs, Erin momentarily considers pushing him. She tears down the mural. Checking Miles' desk, she finds a blue crayon, although the one in Sadie's desk is still there.
While using the bathroom the next day, she hears heavy footsteps running in the hallway outside. After jumping out and seeing no one, she searches the coats on the wall and finds Miles hiding in them. He claims he was on his way to the bathroom when an apparition appeared and terrorized him, causing him to hide.
That Friday is "blanket fort day", when students can bring pillows and blankets and make a fort out of their desks. Erin hears Miles begging someone to stop harassing him inside the fort and vows to end Sadie's hauntings once and for all.
After the students leave, she heads back to the classroom. A heavy rainstorm has picked up, tapping on the roof and darkening the building. Thinking that destroying the object Sadie is attached to will make her go away, Erin throws the extra desk down the stairs, where it splinters into pieces. Walking back in, she writes Sadie's name three times in chalk. Thunder erupts suddenly and she backs against the blackboard. Erin flees the room, forgetting her purse, raincoat, and the Smile Box. At home, she is shocked to see Sadie's name written three times on the back of her sweater, but remembers that she backed into the board when startled by the thunder and transferred the name then.
The next day, she gets a call from Mrs. House, who tells her she's been fired for terrorizing the students. Erin returns and collects her things. After arriving home, she discovers a blue crayon in her purse and a slip of paper in the Smile Box. Drawn on it is a crayon sketch of a dark figure at a rainy window, looking down at someone from it. The person being watched, running away in the rain, is Erin, with the words "Sadie Sadie Sadie" written on her back.
Cast[]
Jessica McEvoy as Erin
Elie Hirschman as Miles
Jesse Cornett as Holdorff
Nikolle Doolin as Mrs. House
Erin Lillis as Mrs. Cross
Nichole Goodnight as Emmaline