The Third Guy

The Third Guy
Title	The Third Guy
Anthology	Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird
Published	2023
Length	16
ScottSigler.com Library link

The Third Guy is a short story in the Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird anthology, published in 2023. The full name of the story is The Third Guy From the Left, Bottom Row, in the Old-Timey Picture Above the Left-Side Urinal at McTeague’s Bar, but the title was drastically abbreviated in the table of contents for the book, though the full title appears on the splash page of the story.

Summary

Sam, a sports enthusiast, frequents McTeague's Bar, a local San Francisco sports bar, with his buddies Matty and Phil. Matty, Phil and Sam all worked together in the past, but Phil has moved on to another company while Matty and Sam continue to work together. Their friendship sustains, and they frequently gather at McTeague's to watch sporting events.

Drunken sam visits the men's room and has a lucid hallucination warning him of impending danger that he must avoid, though he can tell no one. As the evening comes to a close, Matty, Phil and Sam head home, though Sam is shaken by his vision. The next morning starts with bad news, frightening Sam, who returns to McTeague's to attempt to find more information out about the predicted danger. Instead, he receives another lucid vision warning him to intervene in two strangers' relationship. Sam sits at the bar, drinking, when the strangers arrive and he must decide how or whether he should intercede.

Characters

• Sam, a regular at McTeague's; a friend of Phil and Matty, and Matty's co-worker
• Matty, another regular at McTeague's; a friend of Phil and Sam, and Sam's co-worker
• Phil, a regular at McTeague's; a friend of Sam and Matty, and their former co-worker
• The Third Guy, a person in an old-timey picture who has information about the future
• Charles Bowman, a visitor in town at the American Nuclear Society convention
• Marina Adamovich, another conventiongoer

Short Stories by Scott Sigler

A Glow in the Dark • Another Mother • Bag Man • The Case of the Haunted Safeway • The Case of the President of Hell • Chuckles Mulrooney, Attorney for the Damned • Complex God • Dale & Mabel • Dangerous Prey • Dead Man's Switch • Dear Diary • The Fifth Day of Deer Camp • Fifth Girl • The Final Blow • A Glow in the Dark • The Great Snipe Hunt • The Hate • Hero • The Hippo • The Hippo II • Iowa Typhoon • Introduction to "Plants and Animals" • Kissyman & Screamin' Jesse Dupre • Kissyman and the Succubus •  Kissyman & The Last Song •  Lady and the Wolf • The Last Child • The Laundry Demon • Little Murder Machine • The Love • Mister Double-M • Nosferatu, Brutus? • Number One With A Bullet • Passenger • Pink Torpedo • Plants and Animals • Public Domain • Puppet Master • Red Man  • Reunion • Sacred Cow • The Sadness & Joy • The Seventh Day of Deer Camp • The Sixth Day of Deer Camp • Simple Silas • Splashing Contest • The Third Guy • Those Gaddam Cookies • Throwdown • Vacation • Victim with a Capital V • The Wolf