You would think being trapped in an Irish pub would be good Craic, but you’re wrong. It’s a nightmare.

I found the tavern when the light faded. A mist rolled in over the lush hills of Donegal out of nowhere plunging the day into a twilight. My feet hurt from my walking. Pain in my side and at my head from a recent fall niggled at my consciousness.

The tavern, a short squat affair with slanted shingle roofs and warm organs glowing windows, was a welcoming sight to a worrisome traveller.

The waning moon saw the relief on my face. I had forgotten it was Saint Patrick’s Day. The throng of people inside danced and cheered, glasses sloshing over hands and feet.

I ordered a pint and sat in a vacant seat. But as I watched, something seemed weird. Like the lady dressed in beige clothes that had seen better days. How the small boy skimmed around legs disappearing and reappearing at wimb. How the barman was always in the shadows.

Suddenly the lights went out. The facade of the bar shifted to a somber, shabby walled affair. The night speared through the broken walls, invaded the collapsed roof. Eyes turned to me, sitting nursing my pint. I looked down at the dirty glass with the foul liquid inside.

The ghosts came for me. I jumped up and ran only to be held back by an unseen force. Hands grappled my shoulders. Pulled me back. Sat me in a chair and handed me a glass.

“Ye ain’t going anyway, lad.”

“Wh-why?”

The ghost of the barman laughed, making the crowd of spectrals around me join in with eerie cackles.

“He doesn’t know,” said a motherly figure. The boy I had seen early hanging off one leg.

“Ye dead, sweetie. We’re all dead.”

The pain in my head and sides came back. A memory of my fall off the cliffs. How I stumbled up the rocks to the light of the tavern. How I left behind my corporeal body.

I’m dead. I know that now. And I’m trapped in an Irish pub with no way of leaving.