What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End Book 3)

by David Wong

“You want to hear a story? Well, buckle the fuck up.”

It rained like we were a splatter of bird shit God was trying to hose off his deck.

The “man” with the Toblerone gun had screamed, “WHERE IS IT?” in a voice like a spider that had learned to imitate human speech via some online courses it had taken.

John said, “When they get here, let me do all the talking.” I said, “Amy, when they get here, I want you to do all of the talking. I’ll be busy restraining John.”

A psychic once told John that his last words would be, “Hold my beer.”

His senior year, he started a garage band that was quickly banned from every club, bar, park, and concert hall in the region due to his insistence on playing a song called, “This Venue Is a Front for Human Trafficking, Someone Call the FBI, this Is Not Just a Joke Song Title.”

Just in the past twelve months, the situations that John felt warranted a call in the wee hours of the morning included: A) a dream/vision he had of me dying violently in Bangkok, with a warning to stay far way (note: we live in the American Midwest and I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to Bangkok even if I sold myself into the Thai sex trade upon arrival);

But, of course, I couldn’t just ignore his calls because there was always the chance it was something apocalyptic. That was the hell of knowing John.

Behind the dummies was a piñata that the previous owner claimed was indestructible. So far, we’d tried shooting it with a shotgun and running it over with John’s Jeep and, sure enough, the candy was still safely rattling around inside. Again, that’s pretty weird, but what possible use is that to anybody? It’s just a waste of perfectly good candy. If you’re saying we should give it to the government so they can mimic its witchcraft or whatever to make better body armor for the military, I’m thinking you trust the government way more than I do. If it’s a bona fide Object Cursed with Black Magic, handing it over to the feds would be like giving a toddler a chainsaw to cut his birthday cake with. “Oh,” you’re probably saying, “so it’s better off in your apartment?” I don’t know, dude. Do you want it? Send me your address. You pay for shipping.

It was next to a pile of random junk that had been mailed to me in the last few weeks but had not yet been filed away (and here “filed” means angrily flung into the junk room while muttering fuck words).

“Fuck you and all of the ancestors who led up to you.”

If you’re in this situation, you can combat it using a technique known as “Getting the Fuck Over It.”

7. If You Have Seen a Man-Shaped Figure Made of Inky Blackness with a Pair of Eyes that Glow like the Embers of Two Smoldering Cigars Congratulations! You’re one of the few humans to have ever seen the universe as it truly is. If it happens again, run

He let me inside just enough to get out of the rain, then put up a hand to stop me. I said, “I’m David Wong—” “I know. I remember you from your involvement in every single horrible thing that has happened in this town for the last several years.” “What about the mayor’s bestiality scandal? I wasn’t involved in that.” “That we know of.”

He yanked off his reading glasses and said, “Dave, this girl is just missing as fuck.”

“Did you see anything else unusual leading up to Maggie’s disappearance?” “Five days ago, a man named Nymph showed up and said he was going to abduct her soon.” John and I exchanged a look. John said, “I think that might be our first lead.”

I’ve seen plenty of women and little kids torn to pieces, and the culprit wasn’t no monster. Men do it just fine.”

Ted said, “Let me get a weapon.” “A thing like this,” I said, “probably cannot be killed with a gun.” “He’s right,” said John. “It will take several guns, at least. Can you dual wield?”

“You know how the earth is mostly run by assholes, who got their jobs either by accident, or by being the kids of other assholes, or via some other backroom assholery? Well, it turns out if you keep going up the ladder, past humans and into spirits and demigods and such, it’s just more assholes for several more levels.”

The ancient Hebrew word for Hell is “Gehenna,” which was an actual location outside Jerusalem back in Bible days, a valley where people tossed their garbage to burn it. They used to roll the corpses of sinners down into that putrid burning trash pit as a final posthumous insult, and New Testament writers just took that idea and ran with it.

“Once,” I said, “we had a dainty young woman come in asking us to investigate a haunting in her parents’ house. We walk in, the door slams behind us, and the woman falls apart. All that’s left is a pile of snakes where the girl had been standing, patches of their scales colored like the dress she’d been wearing.” Ted tried to picture it. “The whole time you talked to her, you didn’t notice she was snakes?” John said, “They have, uh, techniques, for that.” I said, “And then John started dating a girl named Nicky who I assumed was made out of snakes but it turned out that’s just the way she is.” “She has been nothing but nice to you, Dave.”

I shrugged. “Past experience has only taught us not to rely on past experience.”

John parked with the Jeep facing away from the building and left the engine running—in this line of work, you always assume that you’re thirty seconds from needing to fly off into the horizon in a mad panic.

“Only two doors. Those are choke points. I’ve got line and hooks. I say we get up on the roof, rappel down to the windows, come crashing in on the fuckers.” I said, “I’d break both of my ankles the moment I landed, before breaking my neck a half-second later. This is going to have to be a traditional ‘walk in the front door’ entry. At least for me and John.” Ted seemed pretty disappointed by that, but didn’t argue.

I would be carrying a small, faded wooden cross—supposedly carved from the very beams upon which the actual crucifixion was performed on Jim Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ.

John said, “Come out where we can see you, you son of a bitch! I have to be in court at eight. So whatever you’ve got in mind, we need to wrap it up.” I said, “Yeah, and I have to pick Amy up from work soon, otherwise she has to get a ride home with this dudebro she works with and I think he’s trying to get in her pants. It’s a long story but the point is we don’t have time to dick around.”

Ted said, “If what you’re sayin’ about imposters and such is true, we should have a system. In case that thing tries to imitate one of us.” I was taken aback. “Man, that’s a good idea. You should do this for a living.”

“Oh,” I said, “and I just want to let you know that I’ve completely forgotten your birthday next week, because I’m a man and thus care nothing about your feelings.” “Oh, okay, thanks for letting me know ahead of time.”

“Don’t know. It’s an iPhone, if that helps. What code would an unholy predator of the night have on his phone?”

Bowman shook off John’s hand. “You want sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”

I stared at the price tags and thought, Why don’t you fucking kill yourself?

“Though, if you were an imposter, I think I’d know within seconds. You think one of ‘Them’ could mimic the stupid shit that comes out of your mouth?”

“I don’t know how you stay that size on your diet. I wouldn’t be able to fit behind this steering wheel.” “I have a painting of myself in my closet, it gets fatter every time I eat.”

The Mustang passed a flooded cornfield and Amy wondered if the road itself wouldn’t be underwater a week from now. Or a day. She wondered if that would be a valid excuse to miss work, or if they’d just fire everybody who didn’t own a canoe.

Shawn said, “You guys have a plan if you get flooded out?” “David says we can get a bunch of those inflatable sex dolls from the shop downstairs and strap them together as a raft.”

Amy had long ago learned the secret to reading people’s minds, a mystical two-step process that involved 1) shutting her mouth and 2) listening to what they say.

The people with health insurance get antidepressants and Adderall, the rich get cocaine, the clean-living Christians settle for mug after mug of coffee and all-you-can-eat buffets. The reality is that society had gotten too fast, noisy, and stressful for the human brain to process and everybody was ingesting something to either keep up or dull the shame of falling behind. For those few who truly live clean, well, it’s the self-righteousness that gets them high.

My brain just froze up. I mean, if they had just succumbed to passion and banged in my bed, I could understand that. I wouldn’t even be mad, as long as Amy was happy and they cleaned up afterward. But coming into another man’s house and making breakfast for his girl in his own kitchen? That’s some serial killer shit.

Oh, that’s the other thing: John’s entire house is now booby-trapped. The doors, for instance, are surrounded by four nozzles that in theory will fire four jets of propane-fueled flames, instantly turning any intruder into an intruder who is on fire. Won’t this almost certainly catch the exterior of the house on fire, you ask? Yep. And, once the flaming intruder stumbles inside, the interior of the house will also be on fire. When I raised these concerns to John he simply said, “It’d be worth it.”

Where a lesser person would have had a dining room table, John had a pool table.

I grabbed at the fingers clutching my arm. Some of the fingers came off, then grew tiny wings and flew away. I was only mildly surprised by that.

John lunged for one of the chainsaws above the mantel. They were very much not just there for decoration (even if, as decoration, John thought they kicked serious ass)—they were always oiled and gassed up, ready to go. See, one thing John had learned about the various creatures they’d faced over the years was that almost none of them liked being sawed in half by motorized metal teeth. Simple biology, really.

It does not take any special intelligence or talent to deceive us. We would do well to remember this

We’d worried that the Waffle House had gotten flooded out already, but not only was it open, but the waitress claimed the chain is so famous for staying open during disasters that FEMA has a “Waffle House Index.” They can actually judge the scale of a natural disaster by how many Waffle House locations have closed in the area.

John wanted to stop by his house to “let his dog out” and neither Amy nor I pointed out that the unspoken second half of that sentence was, “And also do some of the drugs that let me stay awake for fifty hours at a time.”

John reappeared at his door and, looking frantic, yelled that we had to come in and see something. As always, I felt that emotion for which there is no word in English—a momentary anticipation of something either incredibly dangerous or incredibly stupid. Whether he had found in his home a dozen mutilated corpses or a tomato that was sort of shaped like a dick, John would announce it in the exact same way.

John thought carefully, then said, “It’s limp and pink like a dick, and has wings like an insect. I hereby christen this organism ‘the fuckroach.’ ” Amy sighed.

John said, “It’s like it can reach in and just turn off all the logic circuits in your brain. All of your critical thought goes out the window, like in a dream. Suddenly you’re back in high school and a parrot with the voice of your gym coach is pulling all of your teeth out with its beak, but the whole time your only thought is: How am I going to explain this to the dentist?

John said, “Well, we know it plays on fear. Ted is a father and he saw a pedophile. I saw a Wall Street type because, as you know, I am concerned about issues of economic justice and class exploitation. Dave, what did you see? A clown? Your landlord? Fred Durst? Vegetarian meatloaf? Your own sexual inadequacy?” “I saw myself. A cooler, healthier version.” John said, “Well, we’d be here all night unpacking that.”

So, if the rain didn’t stop and the floodwater kept coming, where would we go? I guess the first option would be to stay at John’s place, but his neighborhood didn’t seem to be on much higher ground than mine and about two days under the same roof would surely mean the end of our friendship.