John The Apostle

Once a teenager had lost a bet and was forced to spend a night at an abandoned house. He wasn’t easily scared, so he took up the challenge, letting his parents know he’ll be out camping with his friends. He packed up a sleeping bag, a couple of bottles of water, and a few snacks.

At dusk, he arrived at the chosen abandoned house, surveying the area for any signs of life. He didn’t see anyone out there but himself. The building was in terrible condition; the walls were blackened with soot and covered in all sorts of profane graffiti markings.

The teen was about to walk inside the building when a gruff voice called out to him from behind. A homeless man stood behind him, appearing almost out of thin air. He was tall and skinny, deathly skinny. One of his eyes was completely clouded and his teeth were brown from decay, what was left of them. He was clad in torn and dirty clothes befitting a homeless person. The man kept rumbling something under his breath before issuing a warning to the teen.

“I wouldn’t go there, boy. Someone already lives there.”

The teen felt cheeky and quipped in return, “One of your buddies lives here?”

“Oh no, no, no… Something else live there…” the man slurred out, almost fearfully.

“Then I’ll be fine.” The teen said before walking inside the dilapidated structure.

“People who enter after dark don’t leave the place, boy, ya hear me? Come out while you can” the homeless man’s shouting echoed through the wreck.

The teen thought the man was absolutely crazy and decided to ignore him. He knew all about the ghost stories surrounding that place, but he didn’t believe any of them. Instead, he looked around the decaying building for anything remotely interesting or dangerous, but could not find anything other than charred furniture and blackened walls. In one room, he found a pile of old ragged clothes in one corner. It seemed a newer than the rest of the stuff in the building, but he couldn’t be sure since it was getting dark.

Feeling tired, the teen set made his bed in that same room and went to sleep there. The night passed peacefully for him.

Right before dawn, though, the sound of a child weeping awoke him. The moon was illuminating the room he was in. It’s golden light caressing what the teen had thought was a pile of clothes.

Fear gripped at his throat as he sat face to face with the skeletal remains of a man. An ancient corpse with too many holes in the skull. The weeping got louder, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he raced outside as fast as his feet would carry him. Leaving his sleeping bag behind, the boy raced out of the wreckage. He ran and ran until he ran into that same homeless man that had told him to stay away from the building.

“Woah, boy… watch where ya goin’” the man croaked as he stopped the teen. The boy was heaving and shaking, his skin as pale as a ghost. “Oh, it’s you… I told you not to go there, did you see it - did da thing see you?” the homeless man questioned.

“C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-Corpf, I saw a corrrr pppse…” the boy choked as his jaw shook with fear.

“You’re lucky, kid, you saw Apostle John out there. Be thankful it was him and not the thing that left him in his current state.” The homeless man remarked, almost gleefully.

“Ap-p-p-postle J-John?” the boy sheepishly asked as he was trying to gather his bearings.

“Yeah, he was one of us. Tall, ugly, abandoned by everyone, but he was a man of God. So, we called him Apostle John, because nobody knew his name. He never told us his name, all he ever talk about was da bible, God’s love… Never work out for him though, you and I both know how he end up – dead!” the homeless man said, almost barking with a tinge of glee in his voice.

Spitting loudly onto the ground, the teen took a deep breath before saying, “I heard a crying child out there…”

The man’s demeanor changed; his good eye almost darkened. “So, you heard it… consider yourself lucky to be alive, boy. Even Apostle John couldn’t escape it, and he had God on his side, boy.”

“What is it?” the teen asked, between heavy breaths.

“Wraith. A vicious specta that has found its home in da burned mess. It comes out at night and won’t let anyone it finds leave.” The homeless man remarked, stroking his gray beard.

“So, the stories are true…” the teen remarked.

“Nah, boy, mosttem are lies made up to keep people like you outta there. If ya heard about this home burnin’ with the boy and his dog inside, that one’s true. They burned inside. Died a horrible death. I was wee small, smaller than ya, when it happened.” The homeless man reminisced. “They tried to destroy the place, but before it came to be, da people in charge all died. Torn to pieces or disappear,” He continued, “so they kept it alone, not letting people in, until they figured its safe when sun is out. Then they forgot, but we neva did. We kept da memories alive…”

“What about the weeping sound? Is that the ghost of the child?” the teen asked.

“Dunno, boy, dunno. Some say da two was joined at the hip. I heard people saying it looks like a werewolf with two kiddy hands dangling on its trunk and a human face on da side of da head. I dunno. Never seen this thing. Apostle John heard about it. He wasn’t local, so he wanted to fix this. We tried to stop em’ but couldn’t. I heard him screaming and beggin for help that night…” tears formed down the homeless man’s eyes. “He was a good man, a man of God… It killed em’…”

The teen stood there watching the homeless man well up before offering his condolences. The homeless man told him to stay away from the building while it was still dark. He told him to stay away from the place at all costs, and when the teen quipped about wanting to get his sleeping bag back, he said that it’s probably torn to shreds by then.

The teen refused to listen and waited for the sun to rise before he went back inside the abandoned building. The first thing he noticed was the vapid stench of wet fur assaulting his nostrils. He cautiously made his way to the room in which he had slept, trying to be as quiet as possible to avoid detection by whatever was inside.

Soon enough, he was once again face to face with Apostle John, the rays of sunlight making his torturous demise all the more obvious. His skull had way too many holes, his chest cavity was crashed and one of his legs was torn off. The teen felt uneasy as his eyes darted for his sleeping bag.

The hairs on the back of his head stood when he saw it was turned into ripped to shreds and the crying of a child tore through the silence right behind him.