My Favorite Band Does Not Exist

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Reacher flashed her a look of alarm.

  Clementine laughed and patted his shoulder. "Just kidding, young man. You can relax. Not only is there a photo of Donny Basquette and Your Favorites on the wall in front of you, but it is the only actual photograph in the place."

  "Okay." Reacher nodded. He was relieved to have someone confirm what he'd seen ... and not seen. "Then why is everyone acting like they see pictures in that scrapbook?"

  "Wishful thinking," said Clementine. "They see what they want to see."

  A roar of laughter erupted at the bar, and he looked over. Laszlo was holding up the scrapbook and pointing at a blank page that everyone seemed to think was hilarious.

  "I don't get it," said Reacher.

  "It's like this." As old as she was, Clementine still had touches of toughness and sexiness in her throaty voice. "We had the makings of a great band, maybe the best band ever, but we never made it big. The fact is, we never really tried. We never performed in public." She paused and gave Reacher a knowing look. "We were the world's greatest secret band that nobody ever heard of ... and we were secret on purpose."

  REACHER gaped at Clementine as if she'd just turned into a giant fish. "Secret?" he repeated. "On purpose?"

  Clementine nodded. She ran a finger down the glass over the image of the bandleader in the photo. "Donny Basquette was what today you might call obsessive-compulsive. Back then, we just called him a perfectionist. Donny made his mind up that we wouldn't play in public until we were better than everyone else. Problem was, the band never got good enough for him."

  The musicians at the bar howled with laughter.

  "At first, we all thought it was a great gimmick," said Clementine. "Like a secret weapon ... a secret band. We didn't think it would go on as long as it did. After a while, some of us got tired of it and left. That just built our reputation, because the ones who left told people about the band and how great it was and how it was supposed to be secret. We got to be like a legend for some people. Some of them even ran around trying to track us down."

  Clementine sighed, tapping her fingernail on the glass over the woman in the photo. "But we never took advantage of the publicity. Some of us said Donny was crazy, and some said he was scared. Maybe he was a little of both. Maybe it was more about stage fright than being a perfectionist. But Donny just kept saying the band wasn't ready."

  Reacher listened, mesmerized. He couldn't believe how similar the story was to Youforia's.

  "And you know what?" Clementine squared her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Some of us quit, but some of us stayed. We believed him, or maybe we were crazy or scared like he was." She smiled, gazing off into space.

  Reacher leaned toward her, dying to know the rest. "Did you finally go public?"

  Her smile faded, and she shook her head. "Pretty soon, it didn't matter if we wanted to be secret or not. The big band sound wasn't popular anymore. The times had passed us by."

  Clementine turned from the picture on the wall to watch the musicians gathered around the bar. She slid her arm around Reacher's back as he followed her gaze. "Now all they have are their imaginary photos of the way things should have been. After all these years, they tell the same stories about each page every time. I think they even see the same pictures there."

  "But not you," said Reacher.

  Clementine laughed and rubbed his back. "I never said that."

  At that moment, Eurydice broke away from the gang at the bar and strolled toward them. "Hands off my man, sister." Her face was flushed from all the laughing she'd done.

  "I don't see a sign on him." Clementine hugged Reacher closer.

  "How about if I put a sign on you?" Eurydice cracked her gum and sneered. "Either 'Out of Order' or 'Condemned.'"

  "Sounds like a challenge," Clementine retorted. "How about it, young man? Would you like us to fight over you?"

  But Reacher was in a daze and didn't answer. He kept watching the old men with the empty scrapbook as he struggled to digest the story Clementine had told him.

  "What was that?" Eurydice leaned closer to Reacher, as if she were trying to hear something he'd said. "Well, okay, if you say so." She took his arm and tugged him away from Clementine. "He said he'd rather just pick me over you."

  "Have your fun, Enid," said Clementine. "But if I were a few years younger, we both know I'd give you a run for your money."

  Eurydice patted Reacher's arm. "We'd better get going. His kidnapper's waiting in the parking lot."

  "Splendid," said Clementine. "Good luck with that."

  Eurydice started to walk away, pulling Reacher by the arm. Then she stopped and turned back to Clementine. "Thank you," she said. "Thanks for your help."

  Clementine sniffed and shrugged. "Just remember you owe me one. You know I'll collect."

  "Yeah." Eurydice looked away, then back at Clementine. "You want to come along, for a change of scenery?"

  "Change of scenery?" Clementine smiled ruefully. "That's what dreams are for, dear."

  IN the cool night air outside the bar, it hit him.

  Ever since his conversation with Clementine, Reacher had been in a daze. The daze had followed him through the enthusiastic goodbyes from the musicians and right out the door of Dusty's Wigwam, only to blow away a few steps later. For the first time, he realized something he thought he should've noticed much sooner.

  "Your Favorites," he said, stopping in the parking lot in front of Dusty's. "Youforia."

  "What is it?" asked Eurydice.

  "This is too weird." He frowned and scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his scalp.

  "What's weird?"

  Reacher pointed at Dusty's. "Did any of that really happen? Clementine said something about dreams."

  "What makes you think it was a dream?"

  "Oh, I don't know," Reacher said sarcastically. "Maybe the band of old-timers playing at this hole in the wall to no one in the middle of the night? The scrapbook with the blank pages they all think have photos on them? Not to mention that their band is freakishly similar to my band. Even the names are alike! Your Favorites ... Youforia. Youforia ... Your Favorites."

  "Wow," said Eurydice. "That is wild."

  "Like you didn't notice."

  Eurydice cracked her gum. "I didn't say that."

  "I must be dreaming." He rubbed his eyes with the sides of his fists.

  "No," said Eurydice. "Not a dream."

  Reacher stopped rubbing his eyes and stared at her. "So you're trying to tell me that right along our route, there just happened to be a secret band with a name almost identical to the name of my own secret band?"

  Eurydice nodded. "Lucky, huh?"

  "So it's all a giant coincidence."

  "Call it what you will, but those are real people in there, and they told you the truth." She stepped closer to him and cupped his chin in her hands. "Maybe you should ask yourself why it bothers you so much."

  "I didn't say it bothers me." Reacher shrugged his shoulders to adjust his blue and black bowling shirt.

  Eurydice gazed into his eyes, her face glowing red in the light from the neon sign. "All those wasted years, and now it's too late for those people." She paused. "But there's still time for you. There's still Maysville."

  Softly, Reacher touched her hair. "Maybe I don't care anymore. There's such a thing as life without being in a band, you know."

  She turned her head and kissed his wrist. "I don't like it when you lie to me."

  "I'm sorry." He sighed. "So you think the band should go public in Maysville?"

  "Here is what you need to know." Eurydice's face glowed with fresh intensity as she stared at him. She pressed her palm against his chest over his heart as she said the next words. "Your family was wrong about you, and you have nothing to fear."

  Reacher frowned, looking puzzled. Eurydice smiled and kissed him on the lips.

  Just then, a car horn honked, and both of them jumped. The triple headlights of the van flicked on, aimed in their direction.

&nb
sp; "Sundra." Reacher watched as the van rolled across the street toward them. "I'll bet she saw us kissing."

  "We'll tell her it was love at first sight," said Eurydice. "We couldn't help ourselves. Either that or I'm just a hopeless groupie with a thing for musicians," she added with a wink.

  Back at the van, Reacher sat in the front seat beside Sundra. Without a word, she thumped him in the chest with Fireskull's Revenant. He took the paperback and flipped it open to where he'd left off. Looking over his shoulder, he winked at Eurydice in the back seat, then snapped on the dome light and started to read.

  "COULD you not have picked a better time to come see me?" said Johnny Without as he fought off two enemy swordsmen at once.

  In the middle of a raging battle, Scrier Inevitas floated above him, upside down, bobbing at the edge of his vision. Instead of falling straight down, her long black hair flowed all around her head like ribbons in a pool.

  "If you and your foe do not unite, both your kingdoms shall be lost before the cock crows tomorrow." As always, her voice sounded as if she were speaking from the heart of a windstorm.

  Metal clanged and clashed as Johnny parried the attacks of his enemies. He brandished a sword in each hand. As he flicked and swung the gleaming blades, his arms continuously changed shape, confusing his opponents.

  "It's not that I do not believe you." He grunted out the words as he withstood a particularly vigorous advance. "It's just that I don't really have a choice right now! Did I happen to mention my kingdom's under attack at the moment?" One of his opponents' swords banged against Johnny's gold breastplate, and he shunted the blade aside with a tricky twist and lunge.

  "Your choice is clear," said Scrier. "Surrender."

  With a cry of exertion, Johnny simultaneously swept aside both enemy swords and slashed their owners, one across the midsection, one across the chest. "So you are working for him now?" His fragmented voice changed constantly, making it sound like every syllable was spoken in a different tone and pitch by a different person. "For Fireskull?"

  "I work for no one." Scrier dropped down in front of him so that he could see the grave expression on her face. "And I never lie," she said, bobbing back up out of the way.

  "Then answer me this," said Johnny as one of his combatants lashed his blade perilously close to Johnny's throat. He had to deflect the enemy sword's next pass before he could resume talking. "If it is so important that Fireskull and I join forces, why is he attacking me?"

  "It does not matter."

  "It matters to me!" said Johnny as both opponents launched especially aggressive barrages. Fortunately, thanks to his distorted body, he literally had an eye on the back of his head; he could see and meet attacks from behind as well as in front of him, holding off both of Fireskull's men at once.

  "There is still time," said Scrier. "If you surrender now, your forces, combined with your enemy's, will be in position to repel the next threat. If you continue to resist, all will be lost by morning."

  "If I surrender," said Johnny, "I will not live out the night! Fireskull has been waiting decades to kill me. He will not put off slaughtering everyone else in my kingdom, either!"

  "There is still time," Scrier repeated. "You have been warned."

  "I'll tell you what." Johnny unreeled blistering combinations of thrusts and slashes with both swords. "If you can guarantee that the citizens of my kingdom will not be massacred by Fireskull's troops, I will consider it."

  Scrier fell silent. Glancing up between sword clashes, Johnny saw that she was staring into space as if deep in thought.

  Finally, she spoke. "I cannot guarantee that. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps there can be no trust."

  Gritting his teeth, Johnny fought off a flurry of strikes from both directions. "But I thought trust was our only hope."

  "Then there is no hope," she said. "Your kingdoms are lost."

  Slowly, she began to spin. Johnny realized that she was about to leave.

  "When next we meet, you will have nothing left but each other." Scrier spun faster and rose higher above the battlefield. Someone shot an arrow at her, but it shunted in a different direction when it got within a few feet. "When that happens, and you both have nowhere else to turn, I shall offer the same advice."

  "Please, wait!" Johnny's head blew apart into bubbles that danced around and recombined.

  "We shall see what your answer is then." Whirling like a weathervane in a tornado, Scrier suddenly shot straight up and disappeared into the bright orange sky.

  With a burst of raging energy, Johnny stormed both of his opponents at once, his swords becoming glinting blurs of motion. The rest of him became a scream the size of a man, an enormous dark maw releasing his fury in an earsplitting blast.

  Seconds later, he stood over the inert bodies of his enemies. His own body reverted from monstrous screaming maw to a form that was more or less normal for him—boulder-sized hands, accordion legs, and eyes orbiting his inflating and deflating balloon of a head. His gold breastplate, white tunic, and brown leather pants all reverted to their original forms along with him ... and all were spattered with blood.

  "She says that all is lost," he said, watching another enemy soldier stalk toward him. "Yet, as always, what choice do I have?"

  It was while Johnny was preparing to fight this latest opponent that his chief aide and best friend, Shut Stepthroat, hollered from across the battlefield. "Look to the ridgetop! The ridgetop!"

  Johnny stole a glance over and upward. Atop a ridge on the far side of the valley, he saw a single rider on ostrich-back. Light glinted off something that the rider was holding in front of his face.

  "That is not one of ours!" said Shut. "And when was the last time Fireskull's troops rode ostriches?"

  Johnny's heart pounded so hard that it leaped forward, pushing out a throbbing, heart-shaped piece of chest on a rubbery tether.

  The ridge was directly above his beloved Castle Vanish.

  "That's not one of ours," Lord Fireskull said to himself. "I do not think it's one of theirs, either."

  Fireskull and his Lunatic Guard had just killed an eight-man patrol at the riverbank. After the attack, he had risen above the treetops with great flaps of his leathery wings, seeking fresh victims and signs of the overall progress of the invasion.

  It was then, thanks to his elevation and inhumanly strong eyesight, that Fireskull had spotted the man on ostrich-back atop a distant ridge. Even from so far away, he could tell that the man's uniform belonged neither to his side nor to Johnny's, and was in fact completely unfamiliar.

  As Fireskull rose higher for a better view, the man was joined by another rider ... then another. And then, all at once, a line of riders rose up around the first three, occupying the entire length of the ridge.

  "Reinforcements?" Fireskull wondered if Johnny's supporters from one of the eastern kingdoms had broken through the lines.

  But even as he thought that, he knew it was wrong. He knew in his heart that the troops on the ridge had something to do with the new threat promised by Scrier.

  Fireskull had refused her request that he join forces with Johnny. The only promise that he had made to her was to ruin every last square inch of Johnny's kingdom and turn every last one of Johnny's subjects into slaves, Lunatics, or sausage.

  Now, as he gazed at the long line of unknown riders poised above Castle Vanish, Fireskull wondered if perhaps he had been a little hasty in refusing Scrier's guidance.

  Someone on the ridge blew a signal on a bugle. Seconds later, the entire line of riders charged down the hillside into the valley.

  ONCE again, there was a parallel between Idea's life and Fireskull's Revenant. Like Johnny and Fireskull, Idea was encountering a long line of unknown riders, although in his case, the riders occupied cars, vans, SUVs, and campers, extending as far as his eyes could see.

  Traffic was at a standstill on the flat rural two-lane road leading to Maysville, Kentucky. The first sign of the jam had come less than a mile ago, when Eun
ice had steered the green Beetle around a bend and nearly collided with the tail end of the lineup. Now the Bug inched forward, hemmed in by what seemed like an endless stretch of vehicles.

  "Just look at them all." Idea fiddled nervously with the buttons of his shirt as he stared out the window.

  "They're here because of you." Eunice was fixing her hair with both hands while she steered the car with her knees. "Because of what you created."

  "Because of someone else exploiting what I created is more like it."

  "But you still started it all," said Eunice. "You're the one with the magic touch."

  Idea snorted, but he knew she was right about one thing: all that traffic was on the road because of Youforia.

  Some of the cars had window or bumper stickers with slogans like I ♥ YOUFORIA, YOUFORIA = EUPHORIA, AND I BELIEVE IN YOUFORIA. People waved homemade signs asking if anyone wanted to buy or sell tickets. Car stereos blasted "Chapter 64" and other songs he didn't recognize.

  Idea found it all mind-boggling and infuriating at the same time. On the one hand, he was blown away by the sheer enormity of the interest in his Internet hoax. On the other hand, when he thought of how strangers were making a fortune off the fans by pretending to be Youforia, he grew more and more angry.

  "When is the show supposed to start, Bart?" asked Eunice.

  "Seven o'clock tonight, according to Bud's tickies."

  Eunice whistled with amazement. "You do realize it's only seven in the morning right now?"

  Idea nodded. "It's going to take us all day just to get there."

  "At least we know we're headed in the right direction," said Eunice.

  "Lucky us."

  She reached over and took his hand. "Try to relax," she said, smiling at him. "Everything's going to work out."

  Immediately his mood softened. As angry as he was about the Youforia impostors, just thinking about kissing Eunice made him happy. "I hope you're right. It's just, now that I see what a big deal this is, I'm wondering if I even have a chance."