David Wong - John Dies at the End

And just like that, flashes of memory came pulsing in, like forgotten fragments of a dream.

You do remember. You remember rushing into the house and digging out the big book from the nightstand. You yanked the gun free and plunged out into the cold-

With the key clasped in my hand, I crossed the yard, continued around the house. The trail of prints that led back there were gone now, the space between the houses a wind tunnel that seemed to burn my ears right off my head. The Andersons lived next door; they were in Florida. The next house over was vacant, a Realtor’s FOR SALE sign buried under snow in the front yard. A single gunshot, carried by the wind? Who would call the cops? You wake up and you’re not even sure you heard it.

In the backyard now, dimly lit by a dusk-to-dawn light off my back door. Just enough light to see the pool of pink slush right in the middle of the snow. A metal wire tightened around my gut.

Did you actually feel sorry for yourself a few minutes ago, having to live your life in an institution or jail? That’s an actual girl’s actual blood, Dave. She was warm in her home and ready to curl up in bed and next she was wrestled away or knocked cold. What do you remember? You remember the flare of light and the gun jumping in your hand, then digging around the snow for the brass casing and not finding it, night-blinded from the muzzle flash, ears ringing with the sound. And just like that night with Jennifer, you knew it was the last thing you wanted to do but still you did it and did it and did it. You never stop, Dave .

I reached the door and tried to wedge the key into the frozen padlock, my fingers shaking. I dropped the key once, twice, then wrapped the frozen lock in my palm to warm it. Finally I got the key in and twisted it and popped the lock free.

A burst of fire in the darkness, the sharp crack of a gunshot, night blindness, panic, frozen breaths, blue canvas-

I pulled open the door, scraping it along the frozen ground. The piano wire around my gut tightened again and I thought I would have been sick, had I eaten anything.

I have this tarp, a blue one, one I always used to keep my firewood dry before I ran out of firewood. Right now it was in a loose roll along the gravel floor of my toolshed, above another frosted stain of cranberry-colored slush. There was something wrapped in the canvas, something the size of a body, something I knew was a body, rolled up like-

A murder burrito!

– a gutted deer in the bed of a pickup. I could have confused this for a slain young deer, in fact, had there not been three pale fingers extending just over the edge of the canvas.

I turned away, stepped outside, put my hands on my knees.

Breathe.

Slow, deep breaths. I stood upright, let the steam rise past my eyes, my soul making a run for it. Knees felt like Jell-O. I lay back against the door frame of the shed, then felt it sliding against my back. My ass was cold suddenly. Snow soaking in. I was surprised to see I was sitting, legs splayed out in front of me, no strength to stand.

You guys know my sister, who’s back home at this moment. In that big, old house.

If one of you makes it out of this instead of me, I want you to look in on her, make sure she’s taken care of .

She ain’t never been on her own .

I want you to promise me .

In the end, the people riding in the back of that beer truck couldn’t protect her. They couldn’t protect her from me.

There was no question in my mind I had done it. I didn’t want to do it, to be sure, but I had done it just the same. And the thought, the gargantuan thought that swallowed me the way the impossible idea of eternity will swallow me upon arrival in Hell, was that nothing would ever, ever, ever be right again.

Christ. The weight of it.

No shit, asshole. That’s why you have to act. She’s dead, you’re not. Think. Do you know what they do to guys like you in jail? The river isn’t frozen over yet, just take the body and dump it, cut off the head and the hands and dump it. This isn’t your fault-

No. I wouldn’t do that. I had a vision of friends and family-and she had to have family, somewhere-living the rest of their lives not knowing what happened to Amy Sullivan. No, they deserved to know. They deserved to know I did it and to see me strapped to a table with a needle in my arm.

I made myself breathe. One step at a time, that was the only way to handle things after they spun out of control. Step one: breathe. Step two: stand up. Go inside the shed, take a look, make sure it’s her-

Oh, hey, that’s right. You might have a whole collection of corpses stacked around here-

– then go to Amy’s place and tell John. Just tell him, no bullshit. Then call Drake and show him the body. Tell him the truth, tell him I blanked out and there she was. Let’s face it, if I’m this dangerous it’s better that I be locked up. For everyone’s safety.

I climbed to my feet, put my hand on the door-

Okay, fine, just go in and unwrap her and face this thing, just face what you did

– and closed it. I snapped the padlock shut, then trudged inside the house.

LOOKING BACK, IFI had gone in and seen what was in the toolshed, I would have put a bullet in my own skull one minute later.

I FOLLOWED MYown tire tracks as I made my way back through town. I kept the dome light on and threw nervous glances behind me every four seconds or so. At Amy’s house I found John hunched under the hood of his Cadillac. I walked past him, the horrible news coiled inside me like one of those chest-bursters from Alien . I said, “Your battery dead?”

“I hope not.” I noticed a set of jumper cables coiled in the snow around his feet. Hooked around one elbow was a knotted string of what looked like Christmas tree lights. “Christmas is coming late for that motherfucker. As soon as I find it. You got my gloves?”

“Uh, no.”

“Okay… can I have a brownie?”

He caught a glimpse of my face as I passed. He stood upright, alarmed. “Dave? What’s up? Did you change your shirt?”

“Put that stuff back. I, uh, think I got it figured out.”

“What? You do?”

I stepped into the warm house, thinking this was going to be another of life’s little awkward conversations. I absently rubbed the cold from my fingers. I heard John approach the door and suddenly ideas hit me, quick and desperate. Panicked wild fastballs of thought.

I could tell them it was an accident.

Yeah. You can make it work. You can march people up to testify about the time you severed an artery in your arm trying to carve a pumpkin. You can pull the emergency room records from the time Jennifer had to rush you to get half a cup of candle wax scraped off of your scrotum. There was the hot glue-gun incident. People would believe it, would see that you’re not a murderer but are merely an incredible dumb-ass. You see, officer, I was driving past the house and I observed through the window what appeared to be some kind of shaved baboon, apparently escaped from a nearby circus. The animal was clearly thin and malnourished, which I believed made it an even greater threat to the inhabitants of the home. Naturally I produced a weapon and subdued the creature with a single gunshot. Now, interestingly, it was at this moment that my penis accidentally fell out and I found myself-

CRUNK. CREEE-UNK.

Above me.

Creaking floorboards.

I stopped, held my breath, listened. The wind? Above me, a door clicked shut.