Somehow I stumbled into a tavern with no exit...

Help! Someone please help!

I came in here for a drink – since I ran out and the liquor stores are all closed after 9PM where I live. This tavern looked quaint and inviting. The outside was black stone, and there were two statues of devious-looking bronze imps flanking the front door, beckoning me in. They caught my eye when I saw them a few weeks ago – a flourish of creativity that made a mundane place stand out and look different.

Once I got inside, the bartender gave me a polite nod and a little wave to say hello. There were a few other patrons scattered around, none looking too cheerful, but then again it was a Tuesday night and we were all in a dive bar. So, nothing really to be too excited about.

Still, the man behind the counter gave me a pleasant enough grin and the bottles behind him looked full and plenty. The glasses were clean and he fulfilled my request for a gin and tonic, adding a lime for garnish as I had hoped he would.

I sat down on the barstool and looked around, sipping my drink. The people around me looked odd for some reason. The man closest to me looked over in my direction.

His eye was milky white and his face looked loose like a rubber Halloween mask that didn’t quite fit right. The skin appeared ready to fall off of his face. Clumps of his hair fell out when he rubbed his beard thoughtfully.

The man spoke and his words sounded like someone drowning.

“Oh, a fresh face! Have you been with us for long? I didn’t see you come in.”

He got up and stalked toward me. I tumbled from my barstool, terrified. The pain of landing on the floor was quickly overcome by adrenaline when I saw the other patrons had now noticed me too. In the dim light I hadn’t seen their hideous faces. Their dismembered forms. The jaundiced and decaying skin that glimmered with too much sweat in the dim light as they approached me.

Their eyes were milky white like cataracts as well. They held their drinks up high and handed me mine from the counter. Or at least I thought they were going to – they tossed it in my face instead. It went painfully up my nose and into my eyes.

“Aren’t you thirssssssssteeeeeeeeeeee???????? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE a DRIIIIIIIIIIIIIINK!!!!!”

They clustered around me, laughing, spilling their foul-smelling liquors all over me as I crab-walked backwards away from them, terrified for my life.

There was something very wrong with all of them. Their faces were distorted and tumorous. The features too large and the skin the wrong colour. Bulbous red noses and rotten teeth. Sunken skulls dotted with pencil-lead thick blackheads.

I wanted to get out of this place so badly. Stumbling to my feet, I ran for the door. At least, where I thought the door had been.

But it was like a cruel trick. Like a funhouse at a carnival where you run into a mirror thinking that’s where the way out should be. My memory – it isn’t what it used to be. Sometimes when I’m drinking I can’t remember what happened five seconds ago, let alone five minutes ago.

Perhaps the door is over there, I thought to myself. Maybe I just got turned around somehow.

I got up and bolted across the room to the other side where I figured the door leading out had to be. There were only so many options, after all.

Instead of a door, there was only another table full of patrons. Their cackles rang loud in my ears as I backed away from them. The place had been nearly empty when I walked in. Now there were mutants everywhere.

I had just drank too much, I told myself, stumbling away from that spot to another likely way out. But I already knew something was very wrong. There was no way out. Not anymore.

Every wall of the tavern was windowless and without doors. The patrons were all laughing and ignoring me again, drinking their viscous, tarry-looking drinks. They appeared to me like evil creatures from a fairy tale, suddenly. Like trolls keeping me locked up here.

Or imps, perhaps.

“Have a drink,” the voice from behind me said. Its tones silky smooth and bubbling with generosity. “We have all your favourites. And you can stay here with us for as long as you like.”

JG