John Dies at the End is a comic lovecraftian horror novel by Jason Pargin, under the pseudonym David Wong.

David and John are a pair of paranormal investigators who live in an unnamed Midwestern town (referred to in the novel as "Undisclosed").

Mysteriously, David receives a call from John urging him to escape custody in the chaos that has ensued from him flatlining in the other room.

After a brief fight with a demon masquerading as an officer, David follows the instructions of the John on the phone to go to the trailer home of Robert Marley.

While there, David sees a TV displaying the last moments of Robert Marley: he explodes into a massive swarm of flying, wingless bugs that look like grains of rice.

Appleton arrives shortly after David to burn down the trailer, gripped with the desire to purge the town of the evil he believes has come.

Shortly after, Molly begins to "speak" in the voice of John, which urges David to go to Vegas to seek out Albert Marconi.

David wakes up in the back of a liquor truck with John and other survivors of the party and they seem to be headed to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas to meet with Albert Marconi, an expert in the paranormal.

A climactic battle scene takes place at the Luxor and involves many strange scorpion monsters and a portal into what is apparently Hell that unleashes several entities called Shadow People.

After Amy reappears, David and John take more soy sauce to gain the supernatural awareness that they feel they need to confront the source of the Shadow Men and stop them for good.

In an epilogue, John and Dave find another dimensional portal inhabited by members of a paramilitary organization, who tell the two friends they are chosen ones who will save them.

Arnie Blondestone: A journalist investigating paranormal affairs, his interview with Dave provides a framing story for the main events of the novel.

Jennifer Lopez, "Big" Jim Sullivan, Fred Chu: Three party-goers who were all present at the party at the start of the story that sets the plot in motion.

Doctor Albert Marconi: A former priest, and current lecturer on Paranormal Activities, he acts as an advisor of sorts to Dave and John.

Shitload's natural form consists of a swarm of small, white insectoids comparable to rods described in cryptozoological theories.

Reviewer Bryan Gatchell considered it "a horror novel parody," saying, "The story combined the horror of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and the surrealism of Heironymus [sic] Bosch painting with the early 20s (i.e., their age) asininity of its two main protagonists, David Wong and John... [T]hey can see things no other human can see such as shadow men, demons, floating worms, obscene fast food murals, ghost doors, men observing them through the television and dog-sized, wig-wearing, scorpion-like creatures... Wong is much more at home when it comes to the humorous aspects of the story... Strangely enough, the best moment of the novel has neither to do with horror (in the traditional sense) or humor.

[3] A review in Publishers Weekly was positive, saying "the book's smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next".

[5] Sandra Scholes, writing a featured review on SF Site recommended the book, stating "for those who like to delve into the realms of the unreal and offbeat, this is a really good one".

Part of the book was originally hosted on the official website under the title of John and Dave and the Temple of X'al'naa'thuthuthu, but was removed from the site.