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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/OnlyABlur on 2024-11-19 22:20:52+00:00.

I’ve worked at this bar for the last year and a half. It’s been just like every other bartending gig i’ve had before, got some regular drunks who wait at the door for you to arrive for your morning shift, young college kids trying to use their fake ID’s on nights when we have cheap specials, and bumbling idiots who are only looking to cause a ruckus. That was all until about six months ago when I began experiencing events that are not only weird, but make me want to believe in the paranormal. 

I’ll give you some background as to who I am and the place that I work at. My name is Anthony, but most of my co-workers and regulars just call me Ant. I’m 23 years old and have been working in the service industry since I was 17, so I’ve seen my fair share of shit while working. I won’t bore you with details of the past places I’ve worked because there is nothing noteworthy to say about them. I also won’t give out the name of the place I am currently at because I don’t need any crazy people online trying to visit me. I will say it’s a local dive bar not on the best side of town, but also not the bad side of town either. Not much to write home about on the inside, the bartop seats about 12 people, we’ve got a pool table that runs on quarters, and a small tv we keep up in the corner for big sporting events. We get a wide variety of people coming in, but they are usually on a schedule so it’s easy to predict what type of crowd will come when. Morning shift is usually populated by locals from the baby boomer generation that like to sip on Budweiser and Jameson. During the weekdays the night shift is typically pretty slow and consists of those same morning dwellers sleeping on the bartop and needing a cab called for them. On the weekends we usually get a solid bunch of college kids from the local state school who like to come for the cheap beer and special on red headed slut shots. 

Like I mentioned before I’ve begun dealing with something at work that nobody else seems to understand other than me. Around six months ago there was a new guy that came in during one of my morning shifts. I was working solo like usual because we don’t often get that many people on weekdays. He’s about five foot ten inches tall, looked about 30 years old, and was wearing dark khaki pants, a black dress shirt, tan shoes, and a white blazer with multi-colored large polka dots on it. He didn’t seem like a weird guy when I first interacted with him, he politely asked for a miller high life and a cold pint glass to go with it. He would then sit there for exactly 3 hours, stare forward, and only break his gaze or talk to anyone when I asked him if he needed another beer. He would have anywhere from 12-15 beers per sitting, but would never show any sign of intoxication. He did this every day for a month straight at the same time every morning that I was working.

After a month was when things began to change. He would still come in at the same time and in the same outfit that day, but this time he ordered something different with his miller high life. He ordered a shot of 151 proof rum which I found to be a little odd because people offered to buy him shots in the past, but he always ignored them. When I gave him the shot he took a lighter out of his pocket and lit the shot on fire, he then asked for a double shot of rum so I gave it to him just to see if he was really gonna drink all of it. When I gave him the double shot he instantly threw it on his chest, splashing the alcohol all over his clothes and face. He then took the lit shot and threw it in the exact same spot, igniting his whole body in an instant. He began to char and turn a sickly blackish, reddish, amalgamation of flesh and fire. His face was the first to start seeing any serious deformities, his left eye was beginning to wither out of its socket and dropped out like a pinball going into the starting slot. His ears crisped up as if they were slices of potatoes in an air fryer. It was all very reminiscent of the melting of the nazis in that one Indiana Jones movie. I began to panic because of course I’d never been trained to deal with a customer committing suicide before. I looked around at the couple of other patrons in the area, but they didn’t seem to notice anything, they just kept laughing and joking with each other while they sucked on the teat of their bottles. I ran to grab the fire extinguisher from the back and when I got back I closed my eyes and started blasting at him with no regard for anything or anyone around me. 

When I opened them up I saw the bartop and some of my customers covered in extinguisher foam, but I didn’t see any sign of the polka dot man or any burn marks made by the flames. The regulars all just laughed and busted my balls about “spraying my white foam” on them. I asked them about the fire and they told me I just suddenly freaked out, grabbed the extinguisher, and foamed them. I gave them all a free round for their trouble, but I just couldn’t get over the fact of how it all felt so real to me. When I left that day I just hoped I would never have to see that polka dot guy again and that he was just a weird day dream that my mind wanted to make up.

The very next day he walked in right at 11:35 just like he had for the last month before, he sat down, ordered a miller high life, and stared forward. I had a thousand yard stare on him from the moment he stepped through the threshold of the doorway. I figured I had to have imagined what happened the day before because fact was that the man who burnt to a crisp in front of my eyes was now sitting in my gaze without so much as a scratch on him. After he ordered his beer from me I began to question him about what happened the day before. I asked if he was okay, if he went to the hospital, how he got out of the bar without me seeing. He wouldn’t answer a single thing I said and just looked forward with those soulless pale blue eyes. The only words that would leave his mouth were “Miller High Life” between every few questions that I’d ask. Once I realized that talking to him was pointless I just placed the cold bottle in front of him and watched him out of the corner of my eye for the shift. He never did anything out of the ordinary (for him anyway) and at 2:35 sharp he asked for his check, I gave it to him, he paid, left a 30% tip, and began walking to his car. 

His car was parked on the other side of the road in perfect view of the propped open door. I watched as he walked to his car, unlocked it, settled down in the front seat, adjusted his mirrors, then he turned his head to look at me. He never had much of an expression on his face when he was in the bar, mostly just a blank face of an emotionless void. No expression of malice or joy has ever stricken his face, until he looked at me from the drivers side window of his beat up 1998 Toyota Camry. He had a wide grin on his face, one that curled at the corners of his lips similar to that of the grinch from the old Dr. Suess cartoon. Although his smile was tall and wide his teeth never showed, it was as if he was trying to hold something on the inside of his mouth while experiencing a renowned feeling of ecstasy. His eyes told a different story, they showed the expression of fear. His eyebrows raised so high that they nearly touched the base of his already receding hairline. Eyes squinted as if he had just gotten a fist full of sand thrown directly in them. 

We maintained eye contact for what felt to me like an eternity while he reached into the glove compartment of his car. He pulled out a small six shooter revolver that looked like it couldn’t have been any more than a pea shooter. We keep a rifle below the bar so I knew that if he tried anything funny that I would be able to tag him before he could even step out of the car. 

Although he didn’t make any movements to the door handle or anything like that, he was just there keeping his eyes locked with mine while he slowly pushed the gun towards his left shoulder. He fired a shot, but the gun made no sound, and I could see as the bullet passed through the flesh on his shoulder and out through the back side of the driver’s seat. Faster than I could even think he placed the gun on his right shoulder and did the exact same thing. He then followed with his left and right kneecaps leaving the car door flooding with blood. For his fifth shot he placed the gun on the side of his cheek and let the shot go, his smile was now extended even further on the left side of his face now stretching all the way to the back of his ear. Throughout the entire process he never broke eye contact with me, it was like he wanted me to watch and he only wanted me to watch. I still see that same god damn face every time I close my eyes, it has been burned into my memory for as long as I live. For the final shot on his revolver he placed the gun directly on his temple and pulled the trigger. I watched as the expression on his face left and his body sank lower and lower into the recesses of his car. I immediately ran out to go check on him and call an ambulance, but just as it was with the fire extinguisher, I opened the car door and there was no body, no blood, no gun, no sign that a person had ever even been in the car. 

At this point I was petrified to come into work, I called in sick for the next few days to avoid the man and try to make any sense of what was happening to me. Was I going insane? Was I having a schizophrenic episo…

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