David Wong - John Dies at the End

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 ALIENSwho 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.

We strode toward them. My heart skipped a beat. This is as far as we had planned.

As we neared I glanced through the partially opened door to see if anything was happening in there, such as Lucifer crashing up through the floor. He wasn’t.

What I could see was that the ballroom was huge, a floor like half a football field. In the center was an enormous ice sculpture that had to have been fifteen feet high. It was an angel with its wings spread, hands upstretched to the ceiling. It must have had water pumping up through it because a rain of liquid rolled off its crystalline wings like a waterfall, splashing into a pool at its feet. The crowd sat in rows of folding chairs around it. Every seat was taken. Each member of the audience had their eyes closed.

The amplified voice of Dr. Marconi drifted into the lobby:

“Okay, everyone. Settle down. I know this is frightening for some of you but what we’re dealing with is real, real as the person sitting next to you. But I need all of you, all of your concentration, all of that power, that openness of the mind for this to work. Now we’ve just heard from Betty, who says her husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances last year. His name is Harold Alexander. Let’s all concentrate on Harold Alexander. Now clear your minds. Each of you picture, in your head, an apple…”

I had left the six thousand dollars from my envelope with a ponytailed roadie who gave us fifteen minutes alone with the concert truck while he went off to smoke. The guitar slung over my back was made entirely of a crystal-clear glass or polymer. I was wearing a white leather overcoat trimmed in long, luxuriant green fur and an enormous white sombrero edged in a pattern of fiber-optic lights.

Jennifer had donned a tailed white tuxedo/ringmaster coat over her T-shirt and shorts, the coat long enough to leave only bare legs emerging from the hem. A black feather boa gave her an outfit that sort of looked intentional. Big Jim was wearing an incredibly tight roadie jumpsuit with a flashy Elton John logo on the back. He had a huge Casio keyboard under his arm and pulled a dolly behind him loaded down with two black boxes the size of footlockers.

John wore a black jockstrap, a pair of white chaps and a small purple Robin Hood cap that covered his groin. He was naked from the waist up save for a tight leather vest and a bundle of gold chains. We all wore sunglasses.

As we arrived at the table, Marconi’s voice boomed, “Now, now, everyone be calm. Who’s next? Does anyone else have someone they’d like to contact?”

The guards and check-in lady stared at us in confused amusement as we approached. The lady at the table, trying to suppress a smile, finally said, “Uh, do you have tickets?”

John said, “No. We’re Elton John.”

“We’re, uh, the band,” I said, cutting him off quickly. “We’re playing in there after the séance. Show us the back entrance and we’ll-”

“Dave!” shouted John. “Look!”

It was Shitload. He was at the far end of the ballroom, shuffling between seats, moving toward the stage. He wore an ill-fitting suit jacket, jeans and a cowboy hat that we knew covered a lumpy head wound.

“Yo, I gots an old homey I’d like you to contact for me, fool,” he said as he approached Marconi.

Dr. Marconi’s smile faltered at the sight of Shitload, limping with joints bent at odd angles, his body puffy and stretched as if ready to burst. The jacket didn’t completely conceal the gaping shotgun wound in his midsection.