“Anyone seen my glasses?” Ellen asked the bar in general. It was late afternoon and mostly regulars sat around the bar. Some just shook their heads while a few mumbled some version of “No” into their drinks. “Sara?” she asked the tall willowy dark-haired bartender.
Sara looked up from the pint glass she was drying and said, “nope.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ellen sighed. “I took them off for one second…”
“Ellen,” Jake, one of the regulars said, “Those aren’t them are they?” He asked pointing at the hanging lights over the bar.
“Jake, I said I was just wearing them. Why would they—”
“He’s right,” Sara said nodding up at the light fixture where a pair of glasses hung over the fixture that held the florescent tubes.
Ellen squinted and walked towards the light and said, “What the…?” At just over five feet, Ellen had no chance of being able to reach the light fixture. “Sara? Can you get those?”
“Umm…” Sara stood on her tip toes and managed to pluck them off the light fixture. “Here you go, boss.”
Ellen stared at the glasses like they were a scared cat about to bolt. “How in the hell…”
“It’s because the place is haunted,” Steven, another regular said.
There was a general hum of consensus from the others around the bar.
Ellen scowled. “I don’t want to agree with you,” she started, “But a lot of weird things have been happening around here lately.”
“Why do you think I won’t close alone anymore?” Sara said.
“How long have you noticed weird things?” Everett asked from the end of the bar.
Ellen sucked in a deep breath and thought about the question before letting it out slowly. “I don’t know… about a year?”
Jake nodded, tapping his empty pint glass for emphasis. “Look, I don’t want to say anything bad about the guy, but I think it was around the time Dale started.”
“Another?” Sara asked and Jake nodded.
“You’re saying this is because of Dale?” Ellen asked incredulously. “He’s a great bartender!”
“No arguments here,” Jake said taking the full pint from Sara. “He was great when he worked at the Blue Palm Taproom.” He said.
“Oh,” Everett said, his eyes widening. “That place was haunted too!”
Mimi nodded in agreement across the bar, “Yeah, I was there when a pint flew off the bar and hit some guy in the head. Moved completely by itself. Like five people saw it!”
“Okay,” Ellen said, “So maybe he happened to work at the Blue and it happened to be haunted. That’s not Dale’s fault…”
“Umm… I think you’re forgetting he works weekends at the Tilted Swan Roadhouse,” Brett chimed in from one of the booths.
“Oh, shit,” Taylor joined the conversation, “Yeah, that places is haunted AF. There’s a lady in white that walks between the bathrooms and the storeroom. I saw her a few months ago right before closing.”
“How long has Dale been working at the Tilted Swan?” Steven asked.
“Since Dale started working there!” Jake said accusingly.
“Bro,” Alan said from a cloud of vape pen at the end of the bar, “Why are you hating on Jake, man? I mean, yeah, maybe the Swan has been haunted since he’s been there, but, like it’s not his fault, right?”
“I’m just saying,” Jake replied, “Blue Palm, haunted; Tilted Goose, haunted; now the Crazy Lady Saloon, haunted. Dale’s the common factor.”
“Wait,” Mimi spoke up, “Didn’t Dale used to work at the Bittersweet Cat Bar and Grill?”
“You mean the Leaning Squirrel Bar?” Sara asked.
“Yes, honey,” Mimi agreed, “It’s the Leaning Squirrel now, but it used to be the Bittersweet Cat before… oh shit.”
“Before the mysterious fire gutted it?” Dave said coming back to his beer from the restroom.
“What was mysterious about it?” Sara asked.
“It was an electrical fire,” Dave said.
“What’s mysterious about an electrical fire?”
“It was during the flood of 2019 – the town didn’t have any power at all.”
“Oh.”
“Is the Leaning Squirrel haunted?” Ellen asked the bar in general. A general mumbling of “no”. She scowled again.
“Blue Palm, Tilted Goose, Bittersweet Cat, now the Crazy Lady, all haunted, all have Dale as a bartender. But not the Leaning Squirrel where he’s pointedly not working,” Jake summarized.
“I heard,” Brett started, “that Dale was housemates with the River Strangler back in the day. Maybe it’s the Strangler’s victims haunting Dale as some sort of accomplice?”
“That’s bullshit,” Mimi said. “I knew George Owens – the Strangler. That dude was fucked up. Lived alone way up the canyon. Dale never shared a place with him.
“Well, that’s what I heard…” Brett said and took a drink of his rum and coke.
“Didn’t Dale live in the old mortuary?” Dave asked. “Because, you know… mortuary?”
“Still does,” Mimi said. “But Edgar said he’s the best tenant he’s had in that place. Said there pointedly hasn’t been any reported ghosts in the building since Dale’s lived there.”
“So, the ghosts just haunt where he works? Not where he lives?” Jake asked.
A quiet descended over the place for a few moments. Without warning an empty pint glass in front of Taylor slid quickly down the bar with velocity enough to send it a few feet from the edge of the bar where it shattered loudly.
“Fuck!” Ellen groaned. “Thanks, ghost!” She moved to the storage closet for a broom.
“I heard it was someone who died at the Bittersweet Hedgehog Roadhouse when Dale was working there,” Roger spoke for the first time.
“When did Dale work at the Hedgehog?” Jake asked.
Roger blew out a breath, “Long time ago… ten? Fifteen years ago?”
“No,” Dave said, “That’s when he was working at the cemetery digging graves. He wasn’t even tending bar then. The Hedgehog was long gone by the time Dale started bartending.”
“Where’s the Bittersweet Hedgehog?” Sara asked.
“It’s the Singing Lion now,” Mimi clarified.
“Oh,” Sara mouthed in recognition.
The front door opened with a creak and all eyes turned towards the bright doorway. A man in a black shirt and black pants with long black hair stepped in from outside.
“Hey Dale,” Mimi said by way of greeting. “We were just talking about you.”
“Oh,” Dale said in a slow deep voice.
“Jake here says every bar you work in is haunted.”
Dale swiveled his penetrating gaze to where Jake sat. The seated man withered under the stare. “Is that so, Jake?” Dale asked.
“I mean…” Jake stammered, “It just, you know, kinda seems like a coincidence…”
“Hmm,” Dale regarded Jake. “That’s quite an accusation,” he said. “Particularly coming from a ghost.”
“Wait, what?” Jake asked surprised. “You’re saying I’m a ghost?” Everyone was staring at Jake now. “What kind of crazy accusation is this?” he asked shakily, reaching for his beer but his hand closed right through the pint glass without disturbing it.
Sara gasped.
“What?” Jake stammered, starting to become slightly translucent. “I don’t know what he’s talking about!” his voice was fading out as well until everyone could see his lips move but no sound came out. And then, right before their eyes, Jake disappeared entirely.
No one in the bar moved.
Ellen walked in from the storeroom with a broom and dustpan in her hand. She looked around at the bar with no one moving or speaking. “What the hell did I miss?” she asked. “Hey Dale!”
