John Dies at the End

We had ducked into a truck stop restroom just outside of the city and washed as much blood off ourselves as we could. Jim spat out two teeth. John was pretty sure he had a concussion and would still be vomiting if he had anything in his stomach. I had double vision in one eye, and in general I felt like I had been run through a wood chipper. We bought four first-aid kits and fixed ourselves up as best we could; Jennifer patched her thigh with a roll of Ace bandages and a tampon. We bought armloads of convenience-store food and sat eating as we drove around looking for the Luxor. This parking lot was as far as we got before somebody asked what the plan was.

“The Justin thing is in there. Right now,” Jim said, nodding toward the Luxor. “So what are we waitin’ for? This whole thing, it could be going down right this minute for all we know and we’re out here doing nothing.”

John said, “If he summoned Satan, we’d see it from here, right?”

This was the most any of us had spoken since the accident and the ensuing clusterfuck.

I said, “First problem is we got to get into this thing. Guy like Marconi, probably attracts a lot of nutjobs. Got to think the doors will be guarded and I don’t particularly feel like shooting my way in there.”

Jim said, “Think, David. The seance or whatever it is is happening inside a casino. You won’t get five feet inside the door with a gun before nine guys in suits tackle you.”

“And shove your head in a vise,” John added, helpfully.

I said, “Well, I don’t like our chances without the gun. Unless Jim wants to try to quote Bible verses at it.”

Jennifer put up her hands, said, “Guys, let’s not make this a dick-measuring contest, okay?”

There was silence for a moment, then John said, “That’s good, because it wouldn’t be no contest at all.”

Silence again.

“That is, I’m referring to my cock being bigger than either of yours.”

I sighed and said, “John, I don’t think anyone in this vehicle is in the mood to—”

“John, let me make one thing clear,” Jim said, cutting me off in his most stern, evangelical voice. “Every man is blessed with his gifts from the Lord. One of mine happens to be a penis large enough that, if it had a penis of its own, my penis’s penis would be larger than your penis.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, then I heard Jen start laughing so hard I thought she would choke.

“Fuck all of you,” John retorted. “You don’t even exist. We’re all just a figment of my cock’s imagination.”

Jim tried to suppress his laugher, and failed. One more victim, sucked in by John. You get in the room with him and you just fall into a warm pool of beer and video games and penis jokes, staring out at the universe with him and saying, “Do you believe this shit?”

I thought, not for the first time, that John could start a pretty fucking successful cult.

I looked down at the shotgun in my lap, a heavy, cold, hateful thing still coated in grit and blood. I noticed something else, a broad lump in my pants pocket. I dug into it and pulled out the folded envelope of cash I had gotten from the alley guy yesterday. I wondered if I wound up not using it if I should go find the guy and give it back to him. From behind me, Molly barked.

John was looking off across the parking lot now where a massive, customized RV sat like a beached whale. Behind it was an eighteen-wheeler, painted white with neon outlines, some kind of logo airbrushed on the side. He asked, “I wonder what’s in there.”

Big Jim said, “Shipment of fags probably.”

The asshole’s a comedian all of a sudden.

This seemed to anger Molly, who stared out the windshield and went into a barking frenzy. I reached back and, for the first time in my life, smacked a dog across the nose with an envelope full of cash. Jennifer said, “Thank you.”

John said, “There might be some clothes in that RV. We could change, look normal. Get Dave an overcoat to conceal the gun. Then charge into the Luxor, find Justin and open a can of kill-ass.”

“We can’t break into somebody’s RV,” I said.

John squinted at the logo on the side of the truck.

“That RV doesn’t belong to a person. It belongs to Elton John. You know, the band.”

Jen said, “Seriously?”

Molly retreated to the rear and started biting at the luggage the newlyweds had stacked in it. They probably had packed some sausages in there or something.

John said, “Yeah, look at the sign. I bet the truck is their concert stuff.”

Jim said, “Elton John is a guy, not a band.”

“Please, don’t get him started,” I said. “There was that one video where he was in different outfits and —”

“For the last time, those were all different guys, Dave. I looked it up. They’re brothers.”

“Oh, Jesus, forget it. Who cares.” I gripped the shotgun and considered shooting myself in the head.

A slow smile spread over John’s face. He turned to me and said the five most horrifying words he knows.

“Dave, I have a plan.”

IF THE ALIENS who helped the Egyptians build the pyramids returned to Earth and opened a casino, it would look like the Luxor Las Vegas. The thing was a massive, gleaming, black glass pyramid with a line of white lights that pulsed up its four corners.

We had just pulled into the Luxor parking lot and were watching two cop cars and a tow truck messing with Justin’s abandoned beer hauler, which had been carelessly run up onto the curb. The cops and tow guy all looked a little confused by the scene.

I said, “Let’s go.”

We filed out of the SUV and strode toward the front entrance, giving the cops a wide berth. Jennifer looked up at it and whispered to me, “I don’t like this place.”

“You already said that.”

“It looks like—like the end of the world. Somehow. Like those huge, scary future buildings in Blade Runner, black with the fire coming out the tops and all that.”

Big Jim said, “Yeah, yeah, and those gigantic big screens with huge Asian women on them. I watched that movie when I was a kid and I started cryin’.” Big Jim adjusted his cape.

The entrance was ahead, opened wide like a maw, the guts inside showing gleaming solid gold.

“You know what else scared me?” Jen said, reaching up to scratch where a bundle of black feathers was tickling her neck. “In de pen dence Day. That alien invasion movie. The first part, where the aliens come and they look up between the buildings and the sky is gone and, like, all they see is metal. Just as far as you can see, that steel ship looming up there. I remember thinking, that’s what the end of the world will look like. It won’t be wars or a meteor. It’ll be something we never could have thought of . . .”

Awe choked off her voice. We all had entered the lobby and stopped in our tracks. The cavernous inner chamber of the Luxor was gold upon gold, gold floors, gold walls, gold ceiling. The place was a temple, and there was no question who God was.

The lobby was a pulsing crowd of people and we were pushed ahead by the current. Everyone stared at us as they passed, eyes flicking from me to Jen to John’s naked ass. I nervously adjusted the guitar strap around my neck.

The shotgun was at my side, concealed under my coat. We probably drew the eyes of a dozen security guys working the floor. But at the sight of us, not a single one of them was thinking, “gun.” They were thinking “retards,” sure, but not “gun.”

John said, “Over there.”

He had found an entrance labeled EGYPTIAN BALLROOM, outside of which were two huge stand-up posters featuring a smiling fifty something man who must have been Dr. Marconi, since his name was boldly displayed under the picture.

A lady sat at a table with a laptop PC and stacks of programs and brochures fanned out on a table. There were two guys in suits with thin cell phone headsets on, guarding the door.