What the Hell Did I Just Read

AFTERWORD

Author here. Let me get serious for a moment.

Some of my fan mail is from readers who do not believe these books are entirely fictional, seeking advice because they themselves see or hear strange things that others cannot. To them, I want to make it clear that I have never encountered the supernatural and do not expect to in this lifetime. The creatures that roam these pages are either from my imagination or from the long tradition of horror tales humans have been telling each other over campfires since before the advent of the written word.

I believe that anyone can “see” a ghost, monster, or “shadow person” under the right circumstances—the brain is an imperfect organ and it misfires from time to time. If, however, you see unnatural things that frighten you or interfere with your life, I would urge you to see a doctor. We know as a matter of scientific fact that the entities that stalk you are almost certainly the result of a treatable condition. Your doctor will not mock you or demand you be restrained and banished to an island of misfits. You will not be their first such patient and, in fact, they’ve probably seen your situation enough that they don’t even find it particularly interesting anymore (about one in twenty adults say they’ve had at least one hallucination, and that’s just the ones who’ll admit it). It’s nothing to be ashamed of—often the greatest difficulty faced by people suffering from mental illness is society’s inexcusable ignorance of the subject.

Other business:

Special thanks to Mack Leighty, my childhood friend who invented the character of John and who, by the way, has an audience of tens of millions of readers thanks to his day job at Cracked.com. You can find many of his hilarious and insightful posts here:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/author/John+Cheese/

This novel, if you didn’t realize it, is actually the third in a series. The first was called John Dies at the End (which was made into a fabulous movie by horror legend Don Coscarelli) and the second was titled This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It. That one was my first New York Times bestseller, a fact that I loudly share with every single stranger I encounter on the street.

Then, there is my most critically acclaimed, yet equally stupid novel Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. It is a cautionary tale of cybernetically enhanced morons and the smooth-talking team of suits who try to keep them from wrecking the world. I may have written a sequel to that book by the time you read this. I have no way of knowing, your present is my future and for all I know, I was shot to death trying to hold up a liquor store a week before this went to press.

Likewise, I have no idea if there will be another book in the “John and Dave” series. I would assume there will be and that it will presumably contain fewer butt references than this one (I mean, it’s not like I can fit in more) but you’ll just have to stay tuned. If you want to keep up with news of upcoming titles and other noteworthy things in my life, assuming the Internet still exists, I can be found at:

Johndiesattheend.com

or on Facebook at:

www.facebook.com/JohnDiesattheEnd.TheNovel

Or you can read my humorous nonfiction essays at Cracked.com, where I am the executive editor as of the writing of this Afterword:

http://www.cracked.com/members/David+Wong/

Even more special thanks go to my wife, who tolerates all of this. You can probably guess that the type of person who would write a book like this is not terribly easy to live with in person.

—David Wong aka Jason Pargin

January 2017