John Dies at the End

Nothing else.

John gestured to our left and said, “Check it out.”

It wasn’t a monster. But still I stopped in my tracks, let out a long breath and said, “Shiiiiiiiiit.”

There was a painting on one wall to our left. On the wall, on the ceiling, on the floor, on the two-by-fours stacked next to the wall. I recognized the style.

The painting was abstract, yet strangely realistic. It was a three-dimensional picture of a ring intersecting another ring in a way that seemed to shift as you looked at it. Like the landscape I saw in Robert Marley’s bedroom, it seemed to draw you in, to take on complexity as you stared.

It’s a picture of time.

I tore my eyes off it and said to John, “I think your Jamaican friend was here.”

“I think he was actually living here.”

He nodded toward a nearby nest made up of an ancient sleeping bag and about half a dozen plastic milk crates. The surrounding floor looked like the aftermath of a bloody battle between empty Captain Morgan bottles and faded candy bar wrappers.

I thought about Wexler, ranting about hidden doors. Now here was where our guy, our Patient Zero, had set up camp all those months ago. I felt like there were dots that I was intentionally not connecting. I wanted to go somewhere warm and bright to think about all this. Or, even better, not.

I wandered out to the center of the floor, crunching glass and leaves underfoot. John lit up a cigarette and said, “Man, if you could flood this place in the winter and let it freeze up, you’d have a kick-ass place to play hock —”

A shriek, from behind me. Krissy, screeching my name.

A shotgun blast split the air.

I spun, scanning the room through the sights of the automatic.

John screamed my name, bellowing instructions I couldn’t make out. Then I saw it, the black shape zipping through the air, like a Hefty bag blown around in a hurricane. I spotted it, lost it, caught it again, then—

It vanished. I spun around. No sign of it. John and Krissy were staring at me, horrified.

“It’s okay! I’m okay! Where did it go?”

I was okay, now that I thought about it. Felt great, in fact. The adrenaline must have been working because all the fear evaporated in an instant.

A veil lifted from over my thoughts.

John and Krissy. Two of six billion humans on the planet. One American, I heard, consumes enough calories to keep forty African children alive.

John routinely burned half a gallon of gasoline to get a pack of cigarettes. The girl bought special shampoo for her dog while Somali children starved. She warded off her guilt with a gold symbol around her neck, the intersecting strips of gold the last thing millions saw before their limbs were ripped from their bodies in medieval torture machines. Two locusts, standing before me, blazing through resources by the ton.

I had been such a fucking fool.

“Uh . . . Dave?”

John dragged me here for one reason: his attention span demanded new and loud experiences, links to add to his chain of distractions until the day he would finally drink himself to death.

And the girl, I could save her life a dozen times over in this room and she would still climb into bed with the guy with the great eyes and the promising TV career. She could never contaminate her precious genetic material with mine.

When was I going to stop letting the world bleed me dry?

“Dave, can you hear me?”

Without a word, I took a step toward the pair. I kicked something metal. It was a rusty utility knife, an inch of blade protruding from the end. I stuffed it in my pocket, thinking I would need it later.

The gun aimed nonthreateningly at the floor at my side, I strode toward the girl and was pleased to see a look of crippling fear ooze into her eyes, an expression that broke those sculpted porcelain features like a hammer.

Have you ever been truly scared of anything, princess?

I had a second to look over Krissy from the neck down, those perfect thigh muscles, soft curves under softer skin. The hint of perfect little breasts hiding under the sweatshirt. I suddenly had an idea for this girl that would win my dick the Nobel Prize.

Footsteps.

John, running toward me.

I spun.

Raised the gun.

Shot him in the head.

He tumbled forward, spray of blood droplets arcing through the air as he fell face-first onto the floor.

I moved toward him, to put a second and third and fourth round into his brain.

Movement behind me—

POP! POPBZZZZZZPOP POP POP!

Pain.

A crackling sound, like popcorn.

Every muscle in my body first clenched, then went slack. The tiled floor rose up and smacked me in the face.

I lay there, plywood pressed against my cheek, a bug’s-eye view of the world. I was paralyzed, my brains scrambled.

Looks like Krissy needs new shoes. Hey, look! A smashed cigarette butt!

I felt the gun twist out of my fingers. With a huge effort I turned my head enough to look up and see Krissy holding the gun on me while she inspected John. He shifted and moved, sitting up.

He took off his flannel shirt and pressed it against a wet wound on his scalp, his hair matted with blood.

She helped him to his feet. They towered over me, Krissy with the Taser in her hand.

I strained to move a limb. Random muscles started to flex under my command again, but I couldn’t organize them.

John, bloody rag pressed to his skull, looked me right in the eye.

“David, if you’re still you at all, you know why I’m doing this. Are you in there?”

I met his gaze. I tried to talk, tested a few words to get my lips moving.

“John . . . John, I understand, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me just now. Really. But I’m thinkin’ clear now. It’s me. Don’t let her shoot me, okay?”

He studied my face. I grasped the situation, with growing horror.

“John,” I said, eyes pleading. “Please.”

All I needed was for him to turn his back. I had the utility knife. Just hide it in my hand and, with a quick and decisive move, I could slit his throat. Use him as a shield, get the pistol away from the girl. After that, then she’d do whatever I wanted under the barrel of a gun.

Everything would be fine.

John took Krissy aside. They whispered to each other while she kept the gun on me, the barrel tipping up and down in her delicate hand.

I tried to move my legs. I could feel them but couldn’t make them obey me. I ground my teeth so hard I felt like they would shatter.

Gotta stay cool. I couldn’t hear, but the girl was doing all the talking now, the bitch trying to convince John to do something. He finally agreed, and came back to face me.

“Dave, here’s what I think. I think the thing that was in Wexler was in you. Maybe it still is, maybe it isn’t. Now, we’re gonna do something here. Krissy’s gonna give me the gun and I’m gonna put it on you, it’s nothin’ personal. And on top of that, she’s gonna press the zappy thing against your skin while she does this. So do not move. You know I won’t kill ya, Dave, but you jump or grab for her or anything, she’ll zap you and I’ll shoot you in the thigh. Then I’ll come over there and kick you in the crotch repeatedly.”

I showed no emotion, just nodded.