THE HUNGRY TABLE

The table in the centre of The Harp eats pork scratchings. It arranges its own beer mats into impossible patterns. And tonight, for the first time in twenty years, it's waking up.

The Harp is a decent pub. Decent pint. Pork scratchings that vanish when you're not looking. Arguments about who took the last one. Friendships tested. Decades of quiet, simmering resentment.

Brian sits in his usual seat every night. He can't remember what you're drinking– even after ordering the same pint for twenty years. But he remembers exactly who stole whiskey from his cabinet in 1982. His memory works like a spiteful bouncer: only the grudges get in.

Gary retired from the police to make vindaloo from scratch and nurse a secret delusion: he believes he looks exactly like Bradley Cooper. He does not. He has never looked like Bradley Cooper. This has never stopped him.

George downs five pints in fortyfive minutes. One pint, fast. Another. Another. The women behind the bar have learned his rhythm. They don't panic anymore. Neither does he.

They've been drinking in The Harp for years. None of them ever sit at the table in the middle of the room. They don't know why. They just don't.

But the beer mats are shifting. The floorboards are whispering. Something that's been waiting since before the pub was built is finally hungry.

And the zerobeer drinkers think sobriety is a psychic shield. One of them is about to attempt a dry exorcism with a bottle of Peroni Zero.

It will not go well.

The only thing exorcised will be the lad's dignity.

Praise (entirely made up, from voices in the author's head):

"Dark. Funny. Unsettling. I checked my own beer mats."–The Albrighton Advertiser (circulation: 12, mostly confused)

"A pub horror novel that understands the true terror of someone taking the last pork scratching."–A Regular

"I tried the zerobeer exorcism at home. My fridge is now haunted."–A NonDrinker (regretfully)