David Wong - This Book is Full of Spiders

“When did it come?”

I mumbled, “Couple days ago.”

The front was a festive Christmas scene over the words FELIZ NAVIDAD. Inside, scrawled in red Magic Marker, were the words:

MERRY XMAS TO WALT AND AMY AND DOG

There was no return address.

“That is so cute! She’s just as bad at names as you are.”

“Mmm.”

She said, “David?”

“Hmmmmm?”

“I don’t know if I told you, but I’m seeing somebody.”

“Mmm. Okay. Is he good-looking?”

“A counselor, I mean. For the post-traumatic stress and all that.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure, that’s good. Let me, uh, know if he’s a supervillain.”

I drifted off again.

“David?”

“Hmm? What? Is it morning?”

“Do you ever wish you didn’t know any of this? Like if you could just erase it from your brain so you’d be like everybody else?”

“Sure. Actually… no. Because if somebody came along and offered me the chance, like if they told me if I took a pill I could make it all go away, I wouldn’t do it. I’d be afraid the good stuff would go away, too. Like maybe I imagined all of it but then maybe I imagined you, too.”

“I’m not saying you imagined it all, obviously.”

“That’s exactly what you would say, if you also were imaginary.”

“All right, go to sleep.”

“Hey, you started it.”

Silence. I drifted off.

She said, “I was going back and reading Marconi’s last book again, and there’s this part that always gets me. He points out that the amount of the universe a human can experience is statistically, like, zero percent. You’ve got this huge universe, trillions of trillions of miles of empty space between galaxies, and all a human can perceive is a little tunnel a few feet wide and a few feet long in front of our eyes. So he says we don’t really live in the universe at all, we live inside our brains. All we can see is like a blurry little pinhole in a blindfold, and the rest is filled in by our imagination. So whatever we think of the world, whether you think the world is cruel or good or cold or hot or wet or dry or big or small, that comes entirely from inside your head and nowhere else.”

We laid in silence for a while. Finally, I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if that was true?”

Amy’s answer was a soft snore.

The character “John” is the invention of my “friend” and long-time “writing partner,” popular Internet columnist Mack Leighty (pronounced least-ee, for the audio book narrator). Mack allowed me to use the character of John and demanded nothing more than at least one scene per book in which he “ramps something,” along with a flat payment for each time I use the name in print (this is why I frequently construct sentences in a way that lets me avoid using the name completely). You can find Mack’s columns on the subject of addiction, parenting, and his boner at comedy megasite Cracked.com under the username John Cheese. Unless, of course, you’re reading a dusty copy of this book a hundred years after its writing, in which case I cannot say whether Cracked.com or the Internet in general still exists. All I know is that Mack and I and everyone else involved in the publication of this book will be long dead, and that the royalties will go to my ungrateful heirs, who will surely use the money to buy some kind of futuristic space drugs.

While on the subject, I should thank Jack O’Brien and Oren Katzeff and all of the rest of my bosses at Cracked who were accommodating to this project in every possible way and who, again, are naught but still bones in a forgotten grave here in the year 2112.

Also, here’s to horror filmmaking legend Don Coscarelli, who somehow turned the first book in this series into a cult classic featuring Oscar-nominated Paul Giamatti, thus putting me and these books on the map and possibly saving me from ever having to work at a real job again. Do not blame him when I self-destruct a few years from now, that would have happened anyway.

And finally I should thank my wife, who is the only reason I ever do anything.

John Dies at the End

DAVID WONG is the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, senior editor and columnist for humor megasite Cracked.com. Visit him at www.johndiesattheend.com.