John Dies at the End by David Wong Page A

beer bottles stood between me and the lamp.
    “John?”
    Nothing. I tried a tentative step into his apartment, my shoe kicking over a stack of magazines. I tried to step over them, cracked something glass or porcelain on the other side.
    “John? Can you hear me? I’m going to call the— ooomfff!!! ”
    I was hammered by either a flying body tackle or an unnecessarily aggressive hug. My assailant and I landed hard on the carpet, pounding the breath from my lungs.
    “It almost killed you!” John screamed, inches from my face. “You’re an idiot, you know that? You’re an idiot for coming here. We’re both gonna die now. You could have brought help but now we’re both gonna die in this room.”
    He sat up off me and in the darkness I could detect his head whipping back and forth, as if searching for a sniper. He put one finger up to my face.
    “Shhhhhh. I don’t see it. When I say ‘go,’ we’re goin’ to the other side of the room as fast as physically possible. You can clear it in three steps, dive at the end. Move like the Devil himself were after you. Ready?”
    “John, listen to me.” I paused, forced air into my lungs and tried to think. “You can’t miss any more days at work. If you let me take you to the hospital, we’ll tell them you’ve been poisoned or something. I don’t think they’ll go to the cops. We can get a note from the doctor there. If we’ve got a note I could talk Jeff into keeping you on.”
    “Go!”
    John pushed himself to his feet, sprinted across the room and flung himself over an overturned sofa next to the wall. He sailed over it, arms flopping about like a rag doll, smacking into the wall behind it with a heavy thud.
    I calmly stood up, walked to my right and turned up the floor lamp. I looked over to see John peer over the overturned sofa. Next to it was an armchair, on the other side a capsized coffee table. The man had built a furniture fort on that side of the room.
    “John . . .”
    He stood up, eyes wide. He put his hands out to me, fingers splayed.
    “Dave, do not move.” He spoke flat, low and dead serious.
    “What?”
    “I’m begging you,” he said, almost whispering now. “I know you don’t believe me. But when you turn around, you will. But do—not—scream . If you do, you’re dead. Now. Very slowly, turn around.”
    Very slowly, as asked, I turned.
    For a split second I was sure I would see something. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, as if swept by a puff of warm breath.
    There was nothing there. I sighed, pissed at myself for getting sucked into this.
    I faced John again, my raised eyebrows telling him I saw nothing more threatening than a very large and very naked poster of what appeared to be a female professional wrestler.
    “No, it moved,” he said. “There.” He pointed to the corner, near the ceiling.
    Very slowly, I turned and craned my neck, eyes following his pointed finger to the spot on the wall he so desperately needed me to see.
    Still nothing.
    “John, you can either come with me to the hospital, or I’m calling an ambulance. But what I’m not going to do is—”
    “The door! Go!”
    John hurdled the sofa, then ran and threw himself through the open door. I stood watching as he tumbled onto the carpet and then smoothly unfolded into a dead run down the hall outside. I faintly heard him thump through the stairwell doors, shouting victoriously.
    I sighed and looked around his apartment. I found and pocketed his keys, then poked around some more and found his jacket on his bed. I grabbed for it, then yanked my hand back in pain. Something jabbed my finger, left a dot of blood on it. I reached into the jacket’s front pocket . . .
    A syringe.
    It was one of those cheap disposable ones they sell to diabetics. There was residue inside and it was fucking black. Like used motor oil. I broke off the needle in the trash and stuck the rest of the syringe in my pants pocket. I had never done this before and I