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  DEAD MAN’S CHAIR

  KIMBERLY A. BETTES

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2016 Kimberly A. Bettes

  Case Publishing, USA

  The old man at the bar reeked of bourbon and sweat. His gray hair was long, his beard even longer. Both were equally unkempt. Adam Davis watched as the man raised the glass to his lips and downed what was left of the drink. He then set the empty glass on the bar and asked for another.

  “What did you say?” Adam asked. He’d heard the man clearly enough, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around the words.

  “I said your girlfriend’s gonna die.” The old man didn’t even look at Adam as he spoke. He just sat there, watching as the bartender poured him another drink.

  “How do you know that?”

  “She’s sitting in Barnaby’s chair.”

  “Barnaby’s chair?” Adam looked around the room and found his girlfriend Anna sitting in a chair in the front left corner of the bar. The chair looked like all the others. Old. Wooden. Worn. “Who the hell is Barnaby?” Adam scanned the room, studying the other patrons, looking for anyone who might be upset that their chair was currently occupied by a gorgeous, petite brunette named Anna.

  “Barnaby Black.”

  “Where is he? I don’t see him. Is he the guy over there shooting pool?”

  The old man laughed. “No, he ain’t in here.”

  “Then how could he be upset about a chair.”

  The old man swallowed a mouthful of bourbon before turning his head to look at Adam. “Barnaby Black is dead. And that’s his chair.”

  It was at Anna’s suggestion that the two had stopped in to the bar for a drink. It was a place called Spades that neither of them had ever been to before. Adam told her to grab them a table while he went up to the bar for a couple of drinks. He was now wishing they’d gone somewhere else.

  “Well if he’s dead, it isn’t exactly his chair anymore, is it?”

  The old man laughed again, a coarse laugh that ended with a cough. “You’d think that, wouldn’t ya?”

  “You’re not making any sense.” Adam dismissed the old drunk. He picked up the two cold bottles of brew from the bar and turned, planning to take the beers over to Anna and pretend the old man had never said a word. But the man grabbed Adam’s forearm and grew serious.

  “Your girlfriend is doomed. She’s gonna die. She should’ve never sat in that chair.”

  Adam jerked his arm free of the old man’s grasp and walked across the bar to where Anna sat waiting. He handed her one of the bottles of beer before sitting in the chair next to her. She must’ve been able to read his face, where the confusion was written in his creased brow and squinted eyes.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Glancing at the old man, Adam said, “Nothing. Just a rambling drunk at the bar.”

  “What did he say?”

  Adam shook his head. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  “Well it must’ve been something to have you so worried. What was it?”

  Seeing that she wasn’t going to let the matter drop, Adam gave in and said, “He was just saying that you shouldn’t have sat in that chair. Apparently it belongs to some guy who’s not even here. Isn’t that stupid?”

  Adam took a long pull from the bottle of beer. Then he noticed that Anna hadn’t laughed off the matter as he thought she would. She hadn’t said a word, in fact. When Adam lowered the bottle, he saw the concern on her face. She was using her thumbnail to pick at the label on the beer, a beer which she still hadn’t taken a drink of.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Everyone stared at me when I sat in this chair. And I don’t mean they just looked over at me. I mean they stopped what they were doing for a few seconds and watched as I sat down in it. I thought it was weird, but I shrugged it off. Maybe there really is something about this chair.”

  Adam shook his head. “No. No. There is nothing wrong with you sitting in that chair. The old man at the bar told me that Barnaby is dead. So you can sit in his chair all you want if you ask me.”

  “Barnaby?”

  “Yeah. Apparently that chair belongs—well, belonged to some guy named Barnaby. But he’s dead, so I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  Adam took another drink of his beer, watching over the top of the bottle as Anna slowly took a drink of hers. He wondered whether or not he should tell her that the old drunk had seemed sincere when he stated that she was going to die. He decided to leave it unsaid. There was no need to make her worry over something so ridiculous.

  The couple left the bar after just one drink, eager to be free of the leering eyes and judgmental stares. They went straight home and crawled into bed, where they fell asleep in each other’s arms, both trying to put the incident at the bar behind them.

  The next morning, Adam woke just as the sun began to light the world outside. He blinked away the sleep and rolled over, intent on cuddling with Anna. He was surprised to find her side of the bed empty.

  Anna never had insomnia. She never woke in the night with the urge to pee or rummage through the fridge. When she went to sleep, she was asleep till morning. This fact made her absence strange and unnerving.

  Adam sat up in bed and stared at Anna’s empty spot beside him. Where could she be?

  He looked at the door of the master bathroom. It was ajar, as it usually was.

  “Anna? Anna, are you in the bathroom?” He waited for a response, but none came.

  Slipping from between the covers, Adam stood. Clad in only his boxers, he went to the bathroom first, pushing open the door and peering into the room. No Anna.

  Turning, Adam walked back through the bedroom, glancing at the empty bed as he headed toward the door. Looking at the messed covers, he faintly remembered something that had happened in the night.

  “Adam. Adam wake up,” Anna whispered.

  Adam rolled over, mumbling. “What is it?”

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Downstairs. A noise. Did you hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” he grumbled, rolling back over and closing his eyes.

  So she had heard something downstairs in the middle of the night. A noise of some sort. Knowing Anna, she’d probably gone down to investigate, determined to find the source of the sound.

  Kicking himself for not waking up and going to look so his girlfriend could sleep peacefully, Adam walked out of the bedroom and headed downstairs. Halfway down, he froze. He blinked, hoping that what he saw wasn’t really there. But it was. Lying on the floor at the bottom of the steps was Anna, the love of his life. The woman he planned to wed. The woman who would bear his children.

  “Anna,” he shouted. He ran down the rest of the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. He fell to his knees beside her, brushing the hair off of her face. His throat clenched at the sight of her unseeing eyes, her slightly parted blue lips, and the awkward and unnatural angle of her neck.

  With a trembling hand, Adam reached down and pressed his fingers against her neck, just beneath her jaw bone. He felt for a pulse, though her cold skin told him he wouldn’t find one. And he didn’t. There was no pulse to find. She was gone. Anna was dead.

  Just like the old drunk at the bar had predicted.