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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/camwalker22 on 2024-09-10 12:18:10+00:00.

Most of what we serve is on draught. Lager or ale, though the regulars insist on calling the latter ‘beer’—like I’m supposed to care. I’m a nineteen-year-old history student, not a crusty old barfly. Do they think I care about using the correct term to refer to their dancing juice? I’ve worked at The Opal Pendant pub for a month, and I’m already sick of the tedium. Functioning alcoholics. The smell of spilt drinks. Fridges that buzz too loud. The glasswasher’s rumble. It can get busy on the weekends. But midweek? In the off-season? Nope. It’s just me and the regulars. 

“I’ll have another one, boy,” Colin said. He’s an Irishman who openly admits to living in a tent by the river.

“Alright.”

I bent for an empty pint glass, tilted it beneath the tap, and pulled the lever. A stream of russet liquid began to fill it, and I held the pose, squinting. Pulling pints can make you feel like you’re on a stage sometimes. It’s an act that draws eyes, even when the mind is elsewhere. Added to that was the curiosity of watching the new guy behind the bar. Pint poured, I handed the drink to Colin under the surveillance of covetous eyes.

“Three-seventy, please.” I said. He pulled out a blue plastic bag filled with coins and delved into it, grubby fingers shaking. He fished four out.

“Here you go, boy. Say, would you mind giving me a top up? Head’s a tad big.”

They can be very prissy about their beer, I’ve learned. Fingernail hygiene or liver vitality may not matter a great deal to a Pendant regular, but value for money of their primary vice does. The creamy layer at the top of Colin’s pint was a centimetre beyond the ‘fingers-width’ I’d been told to leave by the landlady herself, Ally. A rebuttal nearly escaped my lips, but then I remembered her advice:

“There’s three or four who are the lifeblood of The Pendant in the off-season. They’ll turn up every night and drink seven or eight pints a-piece. As much as they might wind you up, do try to keep them happy as best you can, love.” 

“No problem.” I said, giving Colin his change and returning to the ale tap with his pint. Hoarse laughter erupted from the other side of the bar, slicing through the quiet. 

“You serve pints, not ice creams, lad!” a man with huge ears and tufts of hair protruding from each nostril said. 

I blushed. The heckler’s name is Pete, and he’s a paint-stained-work-overall-wearing lager guzzler who laughs at his own jokes. His wife, June, accompanies him to The Pendant, matching his pints with halves for herself. She purrs along to his japes from her barstool, stroking his arm and instigating the occasional public display of affection.

“Leave the boy be. He’s doing his best.” Colin said as I handed back the topped-up pint. 

“He knows I’m joking! Don’t you, lad?” Pete said in his gravelly voice.

I nodded and leaned back on the counter, wishing the next three hours of evening away. Raindrops dribbled down the slanted windows, sometimes racing, sometimes stalling. Stout wooden beams criss-crossed above, and a deer’s head stared blankly from its wall-mount. Gold-rimmed frames displayed portraits of Victorian-era aristocrats. I’d been trying to work out if they were specific people or just generic. Generic, probably. Originals or copies? Copies.

I’m studying in one of those British cities that was in its bloated pomp hundreds of years ago, and like an estuary at low tide, the waters of its significance had receded. What remains are cobbled streets, a grandiose church, a leafy riverfront and places like The Opal Pendant, which try to transport gullible tourists backwards in time. The name holds a certain mystique for them because it isn’t your average ‘Dog and Duck’ or ‘Red Lion’. Outside, above the door, hangs a creaky sign depicting a lavish necklace resting on a cushion. The chain slithers in lazy curves along the cushion to the opal itself, which leans forward on its bottom edge. To my eye, the place the artist has painted on an exaggerated gleam gives the impression that the jewel is winking. Like it knows something that the passerby doesn’t.

The door handle rattled. Stopped. Rattled again. Then flew open, smashing into the wall. A drenched couple walked in and fought to shut out the gale. 

“Bloody ‘ell. Door’s closed then!” Pete exclaimed, causing June to giggle.

“Sorry about that. Is this The Opal Pendant, by any chance?” One of them asked.

I went to answer, but before I could respond, Pete was motoring away again.

“It is, aye!”

“Great!”

I served them while Pete kept them in a conversational stranglehold. He strode out from his perch to show them the flood chart, wincing all the while at a protesting joint.

“This wooden chart has the water level recorded inside The Pendant since 1874, when its been flooded, that is. You can see it almost reached the ceiling there in 2021.”

“The water was that high? In here? You’re telling me all this was underwater?”

“Absolutely. It’s heartbreaking when it floods. It really is. Such an old building and all. Listed. I get upset because it means me and June have to go drink somewhere else, ain’t that right, Juney?”

“Well, we come here even if it’s wet.” She said.

Pete burst into laughter again, revealing his stained teeth. The tourists smiled politely and wandered the room as he harangued them with Pendant trivia. They didn’t stay for a second drink.

“They were friendly.” Pete said, returning to his berth beside June. She smiled and patted his thigh. 

“Another one please, boy.”

I poured Colin’s pint and took payment, careful not to make contact with his unsanitary palm. The more he drank, the longer his pale eyes lingered on things. It was unsettling, but I preferred standing by him and pretending to be busy if it meant I could avoid Pete and June. 

“All that about the flood chart and he didn’t even mention the gods-be-damned necklace.” Colin said.

“Necklace?” I asked.

Footsteps could be heard crossing a room overhead, then descending behind the bar. Colin fixed me with a blank look. 

“Never mind.” He said.

Ally stepped out from the upstairs flat wearing fluffy pyjamas, her dark hair in a loose knot. Wrinkles creased around her eyes as she smiled by way of greeting. 

“Ally, my darling!” Pete bellowed, throwing his arms wide. 

“Hello, you. Hope you haven’t been causing trouble.” Ally said. 

“Me? Trouble? Never!”

“Come on then. Out with ya. It’s shutting up time.”

“Party pooper Ally! Never changes, does it?” 

“You know the drill by now, Pete.” She turned to me. “Everything go OK tonight?”

“Yeah. All quiet.” I said.

“Good. Get yourself home.”

I retrieved my raincoat and went back over to the bar to say goodbye. Pete and June had left, but Ally and Colin were still there. The landlady used a calculator by the till and counted coins while Colin tapped a finger on the polished wood of the bar. I said goodbye and pulled my hood up, marching out into the blustery night. It was a straight ride along the river to get back to my dorm. I untied my bike and pointed it in the direction of home. Well-lit. Smooth tarmac. Off-road. Lovely.

My shift was over and this summer squall wasn’t going to dampen my spirits. The only quirk on my route was a green tent standing behind a copse of trees about a kilometre along the path. I went to push off and saw Colin walking behind, carrying a bulging blue bag that jangled as though it were full of coins. Eerily like coins, actually. But it couldn’t be. He’d gone through all of his money. The coins had gone directly from his bag to the till, via me, all night. Now he was walking home, leathered, with a bag full of god-knows-what. Then it clicked. The tent. Colin lived there! As gross as the guy was, I was in a good mood, so I waved him over. Thankfully, the wind adequately dispersed his body odour. 

“Hey, Colin! Mind if I walk with you? You’re in that green tent, right?”

“I am, boy! That’d be no problem at all.”

I stepped off my bike and wheeled it beside him. 

“Wild night to be in a tent, isn’t it?” I said.

“Ah, it’s not so bad as you might think. And I’ll sleep like the dead soon as my head hits the pillow. That’s what a skinful’ll do for you.”

He had a strange, hobbly walk, and I could see water dripping from the end of his bulbous nose. 

“How long have you been drinking in The Opal Pendant, Colin?”

“Good few years, could be eight. Longer than that loudmouth idiot.”

“Pete?”

He grunted. “All that garbage he spouts, but he knows nothin’. Nothin’! Twas only right that I showed him the… never mind.”

“The necklace?” I asked, and Colin’s sunken eyes caught mine in a glance that wasn’t vacant at all. A pause lengthened between us.

“Aye. The Opal Pendant, that’s what I mean.”

“The Opal Pendant. You have the one the pub is named after? Why didn’t you or Pete mention it to the tourists?”

“I’ll show it to you, and then you’ll understand. It’s only in my tent, just there.” He pointed to the slouching canvas abode, not a hundred yards away. We pushed through wet leaves and branches to come to his campsite. The tent flap had been left open, which sent Colin growling and cursing after he’d launched his jangly blue bag inside. I kicked at fallen leaves while he waded through newspapers and bottles and muddy clothing. He crawled out of view and I thought I’d better give him some space. I looked over at the street-lit path through the undergrowth and listened to the patter of rain as my mind ran drunk on curiosity.

“Are you sure you h…

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