Wake up, Dead Man

A 100 word short story

The pub door crashed open, spilling in stale night air, and the sorriest looking character John had ever seen.

He had been a bartender for twenty years, witnessed a lot of strange things, but it’d been a moment since he served someone already dead.

Alabaster skin and soulless eyes glittered through the gore.

“I woke up,” was all he said.

“Through the back,” John signalled.

Not waiting for a response, he lifted his cruciform shotgun from the wall.

Grabbing a box of shells, he shook his head.

“Knew I should have closed early.”

When the vampires burst in, he was ready.

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So, I thought I would return to this storyline for the first time in a while after being inspired by a prompt by the wonderful

Caro Henry

to use the word “Bartender” in a 100 word story : -

One Hundred-Word Wonders

I have written three stories already about our mysterious night time visitor. I’m finally beginning to figure out where his tale might be going and how it might intersect with another one of my characters : -

Night

Cursed

Forever Night

Also, the cruciform shotgun was a nod to my favourite comic book character, John Constantine (Hellblazer), who was played by Keanu Reeves in the flawed, but still enjoyable movie from 2005. It didn’t get close to capturing the essence of the character, subsequent TV shows have also fallen short, but I’m intrigued to hear there’s a sequel in the works so we’ll see where that goes.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.