"Do You Believe in Miracles" by Wils Hosken

“Do you believe in miracles?”

What?

“I said, do you believe in miracles?” It asked again, its voice hollow and vacant, as if its throat was down a long tunnel, where it could only speak in forgotten tones. It stood at the end of the hall, beside the entrance to the kitchen, staring at me as I exited the bedroom.

It was soft spoken, calm about it. It didn’t seem upset or angry, but resolute, like it had made a decision for me. I don’t think I was awake enough to understand what it was. Whatever it was, I know I didn’t expect it to talk. I didn’t expect it to speak or even be able to. I didn’t think something with a mouth like that could articulate words. Did it even move its mouth when it spoke? I don’t remember. But it asked me, though I couldn’t answer for fright as I had come out of my room just looking for a glass of water, my form now frozen in place as I beheld it, petrified.

“The reason… I ask… is because your windows are locked.” It inhaled, exerting itself to speak again, the body inflating and deflating like a bagpipe of misshapen parts vaguely resembling a person, “You wouldn’t have time to open them… if you went back into your bedroom.

“You cannot move forward down the hallway, and you cannot move back. You can try to turn into the bathroom, maybe, the one where you sing in the shower. I will miss your singing. It was terrible… awful… but so full of life.” It sighed, as if disappointed, but it already knew its decision. It chuckled a bit, then said, “Maybe you should call someone? At this hour. Who here would even care to miss you but me? Who would you even call who could get here in time?”

I said nothing and stared.

It did the same, motionless, relaxed, its body hanging onto the ceiling and the floor and the walls with no clear connection point. It sighed, “So, I ask again, do you believe in miracles?”

I was too frightened to act. It tilted that thing it called a head to one side, contemplating, the bagpipe frame wheezing.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to answer. I have time, even if you don’t. We can wait all night.”

I put one foot back towards the door, squinting at it, hoping my eyes were deceiving me. It made a coughing noise, a hacking, that I realized was a chuckle in reaction to my behavior.

“Maybe I’m not real.  Just a dream, you think. Just some bad food you ate, that expired ham sandwich you had for dinner, plus the dry chips you were eating in bed instead of, I don’t know, a salad? Or… maybe not. Maybe I’m not something out of your imagination… maybe I’m not some bad meat… Well that would be quite bad, wouldn’t it? What would you do then?”

A deer, in the headlights, staring down… this thing. I couldn’t move.

“Maybe you would go back for your phone, sitting on the bedside table that you stare at every night, staying up far too late as your eyes burn, reading about things you never cared about. That drama… I bet it seems so… distant now… doesn’t it?” It laughed again, the shudder of its laugh causing its head to molt into itself, spawning a new head in the process, peeled free like a banana or opened like a bloom. The flesh didn’t look human, didn’t bleed, the texture looked like it, but the elasticity was all wrong, it was too static.

“Maybe you will try to fight me. You could try. I don’t think you’d like that. Thirteen years, you’ve kept that gun in that safe, no practice, you shot it, what, once? When you were a child. You were a bad shot then, too.”

The petals of its old head slithered back into itself, gone without a trace.

“Maybe you call for your neighbor, hope he gets here in time, try desperately to call for help, maybe he’s armed, maybe he reaches you before I do, maybe… maybe. Or maybe not.” Its shadow darkens, stretching to cover the whole of it, a warning. A promise. It seems to extend to the ceiling and then past it, space itself having no control over it, with only the teeth visible, unchanging, unmoving.

“Maybe you’ll try to distract me with something. That was a fun one. Throw something at me. Make me hesitate. The issue is then that you still only have two directions to go, back into the bedroom with no way out, or down the hall… to me. I don’t think you’d like that. I don’t think you’d like that at all, do you?” It craned its head again.

“Or… maybe just maybe, you do the smartest thing you can do and accept what happens next. You go back into your bedroom with your glass of water, and you force yourself to pretend you can sleep, and I come then and make it fast. So… I’ll ask again. Do you believe in miracles? Because you need one right about now.”

I couldn’t move, but I mustered the strength to speak and I asked, “I’d like a glass of water.”
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It reached back into the kitchen without changing from its position, then offered me a glass of water, room temperature, like it had been waiting there for my arrival. I couldn’t tell how long it had been waiting there, while I had been asleep, while I had been looking at my phone, while I had been living my life. I took it, then went back to my bed, drinking the water and trying to force myself to sleep, wondering if I would ever wake up. 

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Wils Hosken is a fantasy and horror author with a novella on the way, two novels seeking publication, and multiple published short stories and is always looking to publish more and work on their next project. They graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a MA and want to share their love of artistry and inspire more artists to do the same, spooky or otherwise. ​