Andrew heaved a sigh of relief.  It had been a busy night but now the bar was empty and he was looking forward to cashing out and going home. Not bad for a summer gig but it was exhausting work.  As he turned around to polish down the bar one more time, he noticed a man sitting at the end.

“Hey man I didn’t see you sitting there, sorry about that.  What can I get you?”  Andrew looked expectantly at the man and wondered if he’d seen him somewhere before.  He looked familiar.

The party in question raised his head slightly and quietly said “beer, whatever you got on tap”.

Andrew hurried to comply.  The sooner this guy drank up his beer the sooner Andrew could get out of here.  As the bartender turned back to his patron, he noticed the man looking at the five shots of rum that were always kept at the end of the bar.

Ever a friendly sort, Andrew proceeded to explain.  “There’s a cool story about those shots of rum.  The original owner of the bar and his four shipmates went down at sea in a storm.  These are to honor them.  Cool story don’t you think?”  Andrew expected this patron to react the way everyone else did: to smile and then to go on to talk about something else.  No one likes to talk about death too often it’s, well, depressing.

“It was’na cool, it was cold.  Bitterly cold.  You have’na got the story right.”  The person speaking barely raised his head and he spoke so quietly that Andrew had to stop what he was doing and pay attention.

“Only four died that night.  Tonight.  100 years ago tonight, there was a storm.  They thought they were safe.  They anchored in a small bay and left one on watch to make sure everything was okay.  Everything wasn’t okay.  It was cold.  Just one quick little sip of gin would warm you up.  Problem is one little sip ended up becoming a whole bottle.  It was a bugger of storm.  But sailors are used to sleeping when the boat rolls.  They count on their shipmate on watch to let them know if there’s any danger.  But he fell asleep.  Too much grog.  When the big wave hit, he got tossed into the drink.  Saved his life.  Shipmates were asleep below deck.  The sea took ‘em.  The sea doesn’t give back what she takes.  She’s a jealous mistress.”

Andrew was stunned.  “How do you know this?  How do you know what happened?  And what happened to the fifth guy that went overboard?”

The man looked up and Andrew could see his face and realized that he was an old man.  He looked broken and sad.  Andrew looked a little more closely and realized where he’d seen his face before.  He took a step back and watched.

“Insurance money paid for this bar and its name tells the story of what happened that night: The Broken Anchor.  One man survived and lived with the guilt of what he had done.  He lived and for the next 40 years made a toast to his four shipmates every night with four tots of rum.  Their ghosts can’t drink them but everybody should know how they died.”

“Cecil.  His name was Cecil.  I remember now. He was buried at sea. When he died, he asked that the name of the bar never be changed and a measure of rum be added to the others so that there are now five.  I love the history of the area and that one is definitely one for the books. Man, that is so cool!  You must be a relative, you look just like the picture in the office. ”   Andrew was excited and turned away to grab a pen and a piece paper to write down this newfound knowledge.  When he turned back the party he had been speaking to was gone.  There was water pooling on the stool and the floor.  There was another damp spot on the bar along with a piece of seaweed and an empty shot glass.

At first, he was confused thinking he’d imagined all of this but when he looked to the end of the bar the remaining four shots of rum were also gone, emptied.  A chill went up Andrew’s back and for the first time in a very long time he grew afraid of the dark.

At that precise moment he heard the local church bell ring 2 o’clock in the morning.  Gusts of wind rattled the panes of glass in the front window and Andrew for just a moment was sure he heard several men singing.  He couldn’t quite make out the words but was pretty sure he heard the name Cecil B.  That was the name of the boat that so many years ago . . .

The end