David Wong

The travelers out there, the beasts I mean, they do have a weakness.”

John said, “We know. Chairs.”

“Uh, not exactly. They’re natural discordians. It’s a product of where they’re from, you see. When you live in a world of black noise, melody is like a blade to the ears. Angels and their harps and all that.”

I asked, “What does that have to do with-”

A hole exploded from the center of the door. A little pink fist and a segmented leg curled through, reaching around between John and Big Jim. John grabbed it by the wrist and Jennifer severed the arm with the switchblade. There was a feline shriek from the other side. John held the detached arm in his hand for a moment, then shoved it back through the ragged hole.

Marconi said, “I see you have your instruments. Can any of you sing? The old spirituals work best.”

John said, “I can sing.”

I said, “No, you can’t, John.”

“Well, I play the guitar.”

“So can I,” said Big Jim. “We have two guitars.”

I said, “This could not be any stupider.”

John said, “Dave, you remember the words to ‘Camel Holocaust’?”

“Ah, once again, you prove me wrong, John.”

Marconi looked down at the two carts stacked with amps and cables and said, “How long is it? I’ll need several minutes.”

John stepped around and lifted the guitar off my back, said, “ ‘Camel Holocaust’ is as long as you want it to be, my friend. I’m lead, Jim is rhythm, Jen sings backup. Jen, just repeat everything Dave sings, only like one second behind. The sound system will be on the stage. We duck out there and plug in and wail. Okay? Guys, this is just retarded enough to work.”

“Okay. So is there more story, or should I pack up? Do you have any documents you’d like to copy me on, like your tax returns from the year your dog won all the money at the casino? Which form does the IRS have you fill out for that?”

I took a deep breath, said, “Look, not every little single thing in the story is true, but the meat of it is. I swear it. I admit I get silly when-when the truth is hard to explain. It’s my way. But those people in the Luxor, they did disappear, Arnie. And I mean they totally disappeared. That guy with the beard who lost his wife? He came back later and said he had no wife and, you know what? He didn’t. He didn’t have a wife named ‘Becky’ and there was no ‘Becky’ at the show. They went down the guest list; everybody is accounted for.”

“So she was never there. Okay.”

“No, I don’t. Let me ask you, did they do any psychological testing on you when you had your incident in school? The one that got you sent away? And the report they wrote, did it have the word ‘sociopath’ on it?”

I groaned.

“Don’t make this about me. The people in Vegas, the ones who vanished? They never existed, Arnie. No, listen. This is hard to understand, but the moment they were sucked into that hole, or whatever it was, they didn’t just stop existing in the here and now. They were erased from the past, too. That’s why there’s no report of them being gone. At that moment, they were never born. If I had fallen in there, you’d be able to go back and see that my mom never had a male child and she never named him ‘David’ and we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“Assuming this is true, which, incidentally, I’m not drunk enough to do, how can you possibly prove that?”

I took a breath.

Here goes…

“I have dreams, Arnie. And in my dreams the whole thing from the Luxor plays out, only we’re with another guy. And I know his name. Todd Brinkmeyer. A year older than me. Long blond hair. In the dream he’s with us, he’s toting the second dolly of sound stuff, he’s with us in the SUV. He’s carrying the second guitar-”

“Okay, okay, back up-”

“I heard her say his name, Arnie. I heard Jennifer shout ‘Todd’ plain as day. I think that was him getting sucked into the hole, the vortex thing. And as of that moment, he was gone, he got sucked in and he was zapped out of the past, present and future, out of our memories. They have that power somehow. But one night, me and John got really drunk and we sat around telling Todd Brinkmeyer stories, real stories, stories that happened but didn’t happen. I think of his face and sometimes I can see it, and it’s like a dream you can’t quite remember the next morning. And I go back and go over the chain of events and there’s places, holes where I know Todd should be. He was there and he helped us, Arnie. He fought with us. And I’m not even allowed to remember him, to mourn his death. At least Jim got a funeral. But Todd, I can’t find his picture in the yearbook. Can you even imagine what that’s like?”

Arnie sighed and for a quick moment looked genuinely sympathetic that someone could dream up something this elaborately sad. He said, “We both got places to go tomorrow. Is there any more?”