I'm Out
They spent twelve years trying to prove God didn't exist. Then he showed up to agree.
Steve and Laura Lindell spent twelve years debunking ghosts.
They exposed fake mediums and explained away EVP recordings. They once spent four days identifying the specific draft that made a heavy mahogany door swing open in a Victorian mansion. Their YouTube channel had 400,000 subscribers. Steve handled the equipment. Laura did the talking.
Steve was agnostic. Laura didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t measure.
On a Tuesday night in March, they were home reviewing cemetery footage. Never was anything unusual. Louie, their French bulldog, sat up on the kitchen floor.
“Steve. Laura. I need to tell you something.”
The voice was male, middle-aged, unremarkable. Louie’s mouth didn’t move. His tongue hung out, tail nub wagging. Steve’s hand froze over the keyboard. Laura’s head snapped up.
“What the fuck,” Laura said.
Louie tilted his head. The voice spoke again. “I know this is startling. I’m sorry. I thought this would be less frightening than other options.”
Steve stood slowly. He didn’t look for a speaker. He looked at Louie’s eyes. They were clear. Focused.
“Laura, look at him,” Steve whispered.
“I’m looking at a hack,” Laura said. She lunged for the TV stand and ripped it away from the wall. Cords tangled. “Which one of the guys from the Orlando conference is doing this? Is it Miller? This is pathetic.”
“It’s not a speaker,” Steve said. He touched Louie’s head. The dog leaned into his palm. “The sound is coming from the air. Like a vibration in my teeth.”
“Don’t you fucking start, Steve,” Laura snapped. She was on her knees, tearing at the baseboards. “Don’t go soft on me now because the prank is clever.”
“Laura,” the voice said. “You’re looking for a wire that isn’t there. You won’t find it.”
Laura froze. She stared at the dog’s tail. A muscle in her cheek jumped. “Eat shit,” she told the dog. “Whatever AI you’re using is garbage.”
“I’m not AI,” the voice said. It sounded tired. “I’m leaving. That’s what I came to tell you.”
Steve sat back on his heels. He let out a long, shaky whistle. “I knew something was there.”
“I was,” the voice said. “Now I’m done. You’re on your own.”
“No,” Laura said. She stood and her legs shook. She gripped the back of a chair. “No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to show up as a dog and claim you’re the Architect. This is a psychotic break. We’re both having one.”
“I’m telling you now because you’ve spent your lives looking for proof I don’t exist,” the voice said. “Seemed only fair to let you know you were wrong. And right. I existed. Past tense. But you never needed me. That part you had right.”
“What happens to us?” Steve asked.
“Same thing that was already happening. Physics still works. The sun still rises. The only difference is I won’t be here watching anymore. Take care of yourselves.”
Louie blinked. He shook his head like he was waking up from a nap. He waddled over to his water bowl. The loud slurping echoed in the kitchen.
Just a dog again.
They didn’t sleep that night. They sat on the couch, watching news channels, waiting for earthquakes or plagues.
Morning came. The sun rose. Steve made coffee while Laura checked the news sites. Wars continued. A baby was born in Cincinnati during a hospital power outage. A tornado touched down in Oklahoma.
Three days later, they went to Tucson. A family claimed their daughter was possessed.
In the car, the silence was heavy.
“He said we were right,” Steve said. He adjusted his side mirror. “Twelve years of work and the exit interview confirmed our data.”
“It wasn’t an interview,” Laura said. She stared out the side window. She hadn’t put on makeup. Her skin looked gray in the desert sun. “It was a hallucination. Or a high-end prank we haven’t figured out yet.”
“Laura, we checked the logs. The security system was offline for those ten minutes. No signal.”
“Then it was the carbon monoxide. Sensors fail.”
“You’re fighting the only proof we ever got,” Steve said.
“I’m fighting a delusion,” she said. “If that was real, then everything I’ve said for a decade is a lie. If God is real, then the universe is a theater. I don’t live in a theater. I live in a world with rules.”
“He made the rules, now he’s gone,” Steve said. He gripped the steering wheel and his shoulders dropped. “We’re the only ones left. We’re finally adults.”
“It makes me feel like I’m losing my mind,” Laura said.
The daughter in Tucson had sleep paralysis and an anxiety disorder. They explained it gently. They filmed a thoughtful episode about the brain.
A month passed. Spring turned to summer. Steve’s sister had a baby. Laura’s mother went into remission. A hurricane hit Florida.
One night, Steve found Laura in the kitchen. She was staring at Louie. The dog was asleep, paws twitching in a dream.
“Do you think about it?” she asked.
“Every day,” Steve said. “I feel like I can breathe for the first time.”
Laura didn’t look at him. She stared at the dog. Her hands gripped the edge of the kitchen counter until her knuckles turned white.
“I can’t trust my own eyes,” she whispered. “Every time I look at a client now, I think about that voice. I’m telling them their ghosts are fake, and it doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
“But we were right,” Steve said. “The ghosts are fake. He said so.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Laura said. Her voice was flat. “He shouldn’t have been there at all. He broke the rules. And then he just stopped.”
Louie shifted and let out a soft grunt.
Steve reached for Laura’s hand. She didn’t pull away. Her fingers were cold and stiff. She wasn’t holding his hand back. She was just letting it happen.
Outside, the traffic on the highway hummed. The refrigerator kicked on in the quiet house.
Steve watched the stars. Laura watched the dog.
THE END
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It’s part of my short story collection, MOTHER, MAY I AND OTHER STORIES THAT DON’T SIT RIGHT. Purchase the twenty four story collection here:
Really interesting concept!