The Cliche – Get Out
I know it sounds cliche’, believe me, so much so i HATE to write it. But it is what happened in Jinny’s world.
My husband and I were asleep when we both heard it. The only solace was I was not the only one to hear it.
“Get out.”
I jolted upright instantly. The voice hadn’t echoed it sort of drifted, close, intimate. It had come from my husband’s side of the bed. The room was dark except for the glow of our alarm clock. Neon red numbers cut through the darkness: 3:17 AM.
My husband was already awake. Eyes open. An odd smile on his face.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, rubbed his eyes, and glanced down toward the floor on his side of the bed. At the time, we had four small dogs that slept on the floor by our bed; two slept on his side, two on mine.
“That was funny,” he said.
Funny wasn’t the word I would’ve chosen.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
He chuckled lightly then rolled on me, squeezed neck, and in a creepy voice that dragged on, whispered,
“‘Get out.’”
I kicked him off me and stood up. The dogs on my side were wide awake and gazing up. A pug and a Shitzhu, both dogs had oversized, large brown eyes that were perpetually “ bugged out”, but they both seemed confused.
I walked around to my husband’s side of the bed, where our Chihuahua and Jack Russell were curled together in a tight tan-and-white knot, fast asleep. But my Shih Tzu, who had followed me. was different. Her body was rigid. Her normally flamboyant black tail, usually wagging like an ostrich feather, was tucked tightly between her legs.
That wasn’t normal.
I scooped her up. She was shivering. On the other side of the room, our elderly pug had returned to sleep, and snored peacefully, oblivious.
“Calm down,” my husband said. “It was probably Pippy.” (The Chihuahua and our most vocal dog)
I looked directly at the Chihuahua, who stared back at me, alert but silent.
“Pippy?” I said. “He’s never done that?”
“Well what do you think it was?” My husband dismissed me , pulling the covers over himself. “A ghost? Come on. You have work in the morning. Come to bed.”
He fell asleep almost instantly.
I returned to bed, holding my Shih Tzu against my chest. She didn’t relax. Not once.
The incident faded into something we didn’t talk about. Anytime I brought it up, my husband laughed it off. Life moved on.
Until the psychic came.
The Psychic Reading That Changed Everything
Months later, I hosted a psychic party reading. The kind where friends gather, drink wine, each quiche, and take turns sitting with a psychic. This woman cam recommended by a few housewives on the street, and was known for reading Greek coffee grinds, examining the residue left at the bottom of an espresso cup.
She was warm and round, with kind brown eyes and frizzy hair pulled back in a banana clip, and an accent I couldn’t place, either Staten Island or Ling Island.
After each reading, every one of my friends walked away impressed at her skills. Names, details, events uncannily accurate.
Then it was my turn.
She mentioned a name that sounded like my son’s, described a situation that didn’t quite fit, and another situation that “could have “ referred to my father-in-law, but nothing jaw-dropping to be honest. But throughout the reading, her attention kept drifting to my Shih Tzu, who had quietly sat beside her for every session.
After my mundane reading, the psychic asked,
“May I hold her?”
I agreed.
My dog was dressed in a green dress, yes, a dress, with emerald bows. She looked like a tiny princess. The psychic held her up, legs dangling, tail wagging, and looked at her face.
Then the psychic’s expression changed.
“There’s a woman who comes to sit with your dog when you’re not home,” she said softly. “She has a child with her.”
“What?” I asked.
“Yes. A young child. I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl… maybe three or four years old.”
My dog leaned away, reaching towards me like a toddler. I took her back into my arms instinctively.
“Has your dog been acting strange lately?” the psychic asked.
I nodded.
I told her about the voice.
About the words “Get out.”
She paused.
“Hm. Interesting.”
Then, as if nothing else mattered, she added,
“Take her to the vet immediately. There’s something wrong with her left eye.”
That was it. We ate quiche, laughed, and I opened another bottle of wine while the women paid her for her services.
Christmas Morning
Two months later, on Christmas Day, my Shih Tzu woke up with her left eye swollen and red, twice the size of the other. We took her to the vet the next morning.
She died two months later.
Lymphoma.
The Truth Across the Street
Months after that, at a tense town hall meeting, I met an older womanin her 60’s named Camille. She was loud, she was boisterous, and when she noticed we were on the same side of the town’s dispute, she approached me at the end of the meetings and asked where I lived.
When I told her, she smiled.
“Oh my gosh. I grew up on that street.”
She described her childhood home, one of two small bungalows at the top of the hill we used to call the “chicken houses.”
Carefully, I asked about the house across the street. The mansion which had now been purchased by a young family who was restoring the house to its original glory.
“Oh, I knew the J—— family,” she said. “Especially Jinny. She was so sweet. I was best friends with her son, Alan.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did you stay in touch?” I asked.
Her expression darkened.
“No. Alan died in a car accident when we were 15. We moved a few years later.”
She hesitated before continuing.
“It was a terrible storm. He came to my house, crying, begging me to go for a ride. My mother wouldn’t let me. He wasn’t supposed to have the car… and the rain was so bad that night. Like a northeastern.”
She grabbed my elbow, eyes intense, they seemed to burn through her thick glasses, suddenly not an older woman, but a teenage girl again.
“He drove away from my house, lost control at the bottom of the hill, and slammed into a tree at the bottom of the street.”
She swallowed hard.
“Right in front of his house. DO you know the Big House on the corner? ”
“Oh yeah, I live across the street.” There was a quiet pause as if her mind drifted somewhere else before I asked quietly, “What about his girlfriend?”
She snapped back instantly, “What about her?”
“Oh. I didn’t really know her. She lived in one of the houses across the street.”There were three houses “across the street,” and mine was in the middle.
Some Voices Don’t Leave
A woman.
A child.
A voice that said “Get out.”
A dog who sensed what we couldn’t.
This wasn’t just a true ghost story.
This suddenly became mystery.
Haunted and Waiting 
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