This Book Is Full Of Spiders: Seriously Dude Don't Touch It

Fan favourite David Wong takes readers to a whole new level with this blistering sequel to the cult sensation John Dies at the End, now a movie starring Paul Giamatti. As the sequel opens, we find our heroes, David and John, again embroiled in a series of horrifying yet mind-bogglingly ridiculous events caused primarily by their own gross incompetence. The guys find that books and movies about zombies may have triggered a zombie apocalypse, despite a complete lack of zombies in the world. As they race against the clock to protect humanity from its own paranoia, they must ask themselves, who are the real monsters? Actually, that would be the shape-shifting horrors secretly taking over the world behind the scenes that, in the end, make John and Dave kind of wish it had been zombies after all. Hilarious, terrifying, engaging and wrenching, This Book Is Full of Spiders, the next thrilling installment, takes us for a wild ride with two slackers from the midwest who really have better things to do with their time than prevent the apocalypse.

From Booklist

Wong—in reality Cracked.com writer Jason Pargin—follows up his comic horror novel John Dies at the End (2009) with this wildly out-there sequel. Best friends John and Dave live in a smallish town that seems to suffer from a surfeit of supernatural and suspicious events. The story begins with a local cop being, um, intruded upon by a spiderish creature that turns its victim into, um, a zombie-like individual, and it gets a whole lot weirder from there. Wong, the book’s first-person narrator and also one of its central characters (John being “John Cheese,” a fellow Cracked.com contributor) focuses mainly on the laughs and the strange goings-on, but there’s a very interesting idea here: What if the current pop-culture zombie mania could lead to a pseudo-zombie apocalypse? What if, in other words, enough people believe in something to turn it into reality? And how do a couple of slacker dudes defeat a creature that, technically, doesn’t even exist? Full of laughs and goofiness, the book should definitely appeal to fans of John Dies at the End and to readers of comic horror fiction in general (especially, it should be noted, fans of British novelist Tom Holt, who will be familiar with the same sort of whimsy and ordinary-guy-in-extraordinary-situation environment.) --David Pitt

SF Signal

“Kevin Smith's Clerks meets H.P. Lovecraft in this exceptional thriller that makes zombies relevant again... [Pargin] never has to reach for comedy, it flows naturally with nary a stumble... the most pertinent story of the genre since George Romero's Dawn of the Dead... [Jason Pargin] is a fantastic author with a supernatural talent for humor.”

Washington Post

“The comedic and crackling dialogue also brings a whimsical flair to the story, making it seem like an episode of AMC's "The Walking Dead" written by Douglas Adams of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." …Imagine a mentally ill narrator describing the zombie apocalypse while drunk, and the end result is unlike any other book of the genre. Seriously, dude, touch it and read it.”

Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[A] phantasmagoria of horror, humor--and even insight into the nature of paranoia, perception, and identity.”

Kirkus

“One of the great things about discovering new writers, especially in the narrow range of hybrid-genre comedic novels, is realizing that they're having just as much fun making this stuff up as you are reading it. Sitting squarely with the likes of S.G. Browne and Christopher Moore, [Jason Pargin] must be pissing himself laughing at his own writing, even as he's giving fans an even funnier, tighter and justifiably insane entry in the series.... Anyone who enjoyed the recent films The Cabin in the Woods or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil will find themselves right at home.”

Publishers Weekly on John Dies at the End

“Sure to please the Fangoria set while appealing to a wider audience, the book's smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next.”

Booklist on John Dies at the End

“…strikes enough of a balance between hilarity, horror, and surrealism here to keep anyone glued to the story.”

BookReporter.com on John Dies at the End

“You can (and will want to) read JOHN DIES AT THE END in one sitting.”

FashionAddict.com on John Dies at the End

“[Pargin] blends horror and suspense with comedy--a tricky combination--and pulls it off effortlessly.”

January Magazine on John Dies at the End

“It’s interesting, compelling, engaging, arresting and--yes--sometimes even horrifying. And when it’s not being any of those things, it’s funny. Very, very funny.”

Jacob Kier, publisher, Permuted Press, on John Dies at the End

“This is one of the most entertaining and addictive novels I've ever read.”

The Onion AV Club on John Dies at the End

“The rare genre novel that manages to keep its sense of humor strong without ever diminishing the scares; David is a consistently hilarious narrator whose one-liners and running commentary are sincere in a way that makes the horrors he confronts even more unsettling.”

Library Journal on John Dies at the End

“A loopy buddy-movie of a book with deadpan humor and great turns of phrase...Just plain fun.”

Fangoria on John Dies at the End

“John Dies at the End is like an H.P. Lovecraft tale if Lovecraft were into poop and fart jokes.”

i09.com on John Dies at the End

“The book takes every pop culture trend of the past twenty years, peppers it with 14-year-old dick and fart humor, and blends it all together with a huge heaping of splatterpunk gore…. Successfully blend[s] laugh-out-loud humor with legitimate horror.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

48 Hours Prior to Outbreak  “I’m not crazy,” I said, crazily, to my court-appointed therapist.He seemed bored with our session. That actually made me want to act crazy, to impress him. Maybe that was his tactic. I thought, maybe I should tell him I’m the only person on Earth who has seen his entire skeleton.Or, I could make something up instead. The therapist, whose name I had already forgotten, said, “You believe your role here is to convince me you’re not crazy?”“Well … you know I’m not here by choice.”“You don’t think you need the sessions.”“I understand why the judge ordered it. I mean it’s better than jail.”He nodded. I guess that was my cue to keep talking. Man, psychiatry seems like a pretty easy job. I said, “A couple months ago I shot a pizza delivery guy with a crossbow. I was drunk.”Pause. Nothing from the doctor. He was in his fifties, but looked like he could still take me in a game of basketball, even though I was half his age. His gray hair was cut like a 1990’s era George Clooney. Type of guy whose life had gone exactly as he’d expected it. I bet he’d never shot a delivery guy with a crossbow even once.I said, “Okay, I wasn’t drunk. I’d only had one beer. I thought the guy was threatening me and my girlfriend Amy. It was a misunderstanding.”“He said you accused him of being a monster.”“It was dark.”“The neighbors heard you shout to him, and I’m quoting from the police report, ‘Go back to Hell you unholy abomination, and tell Korrok I have a lot more arrows where that came from.’”“Well … that’s out of context.”“So you do believe in monsters.”“No. Of course not. It was … a metaphor or something.”He had a nameplate on his desk: Dr. Bob Tennet. Next to it was a bobblehead of a St. Louis Cardinals baseball player. I glanced around the room, saw he had a leftover Halloween decoration still taped to his window, a cardboard jack-o’-lantern with a cartoon spider crawling out of its mouth. The doctor had only five books on the shelf behind him, which I thought was hilarious because I owned more books than that and I wasn’t even a doctor. Then I realized they were all written by him. They had long titles like The Madness of Crowds: Decoding the Dynamics of Group Paranoia and A Person Is Smart, People Are Stupid: An Analysis of Mass Hysteria and Groupthink. Should I be flattered or insulted that I apparently got referred to a world-class expert in the subject of why people believe in stupid shit?He said, “You understand, the court didn’t order these sessions because you believe in monsters.”“Right, they want to make sure I won’t shoot anyone else with a crossbow.”He laughed. That surprised me. I didn’t think these guys were allowed to laugh. “They want to make sure you’re not a danger to yourself or others. And while I know it’s counterintuitive, that process will actually be easier if you don’t think of it as a test you have to pass.”“But if I’d shot somebody over a girl or a stolen case of beer, I wouldn’t be here. I’m here because of the monster thing. Because of who I am.”“Do you want to talk about your beliefs?”I shrugged. “You know the stories that go around this town. People disappear here. Cops disappear. But I can tell the difference between reality and fantasy. I work, I have a girlfriend, I’m a productive citizen. Well, not productive, I mean if you add up what I bring to society and what I take out, society probably breaks even. And I’m not crazy. I mean, I know anybody can say that. But a crazy person can’t fake sane, right? The whole point of being crazy is that you can’t separate crazy ideas from normal ones. So, no, I don’t believe the world is full of monsters disguised as people, or ghosts, or men made of shadows. I don’t believe that the town of—*   *   **The name of the town where this story takes place will remain undisclosed so as not to add to the local tourism traffic.**   *   *—is a howling orgy of nightmares. I fully recognize that all of those are things only a mentally ill person believes. Therefore, I do not believe them.”Boom. Therapy accomplished.No answer from Dr. Tennet. Fuck him. I’ll sit like this forever. I’m great at not talking to people.After a minute or so I said, “Just … to be clear, what’s said in this room doesn’t leave this room, right?”“Unless I believe a crime is about to be committed, that’s correct.”“Can I show you something? On my phone? It’s a video clip. I recorded it myself.”“If it’s important to you.”I pulled out the phone and dug through the menus until I found a thirty-second clip I’d recorded about a month ago. I held it up for him to see.It was a nighttime scene, at an all-night burrito stand near my house. Out front was a faded picnic table, a rusted fifty-five-gallon drum for a trash can and a whiteboard with prices scrawled in dry erase marker. Without a doubt the best burritos you can possibly get within six blocks of my house at four in the morning.The grainy shot (my phone’s camera wasn’t worth a damn in low light) caught the glare of headlights as a black SUV pulled up. Stepping out of it was a young Asian man in a shirt and tie. He casually walked around the tiny orange building, nodding to the kid at the counter. He went to a narrow door in the rear, opened it and stepped inside.After about ten seconds, the shot shakily moved toward the door. A hand extended into frame—my hand—and pulled the door open. Inside were some cardboard boxes with labels like LARGE LIDS and MED. PAPER BAGS—WHITE along with a broom and a mop and bucket.The Asian man was gone. There was no visible exit.The clip ended.I said, “You saw it, right? Guy goes in, guy doesn’t come out. Guy’s not in there. He’s not in the burrito stand. He’s just gone.”“You believe this is evidence of the supernatural.”“I’ve seen this guy since then. Around town. This isn’t some burrito shop Bermuda Triangle, sucking in innocent passersby. The guy walked right toward it, on purpose. And he came out somewhere else. And I knew he was coming, because he did the same thing, every night, at the same time.”“You believe there was a secret passage or something of the sort?”“Not a physical one. There’s no hatch in the floor or anything. We checked. No, it’s like a … wormhole or something. I don’t know. But that’s not even the point. It’s not just that there was a, uh, magical burrito door there, or whatever it was, it’s that the guy knew what it was and how to use it. There are people like that around town.”“And you believe these people are dangerous.”“Oh, Jesus Christ, I am not going to shoot him with a crossbow. How can you not be impressed by this?”“It’s important to you that I believe you.”I just realized he was phrasing all of his questions as statements. Wasn’t there a character in Alice in Wonderland who did that? Did Alice punch him in the face?“Okay. I could have faked the video. You have the option of believing that. And man, if I could have that option, like if I could buy it from you, I’d pay anything. If you told me you’d reach into my brain and turn off my belief in all of this stuff, and in exchange I just had to let you, say, shoot me in the balls with one of those riot control beanbag guns, I’d sign the deal right now. But I can’t.”“That must be very frustrating for you.”I snorted. I looked down at the floor between my knees. There was a faded brown stain on the carpet and I wondered if a patient had once taken a shit in here in the middle of a session. I ran my hands through my hair and felt my fingers tighten and twist it, pain radiating down my scalp.Stop it.He said, “I can see this is upsetting you. We can change the subject if you like.”I made myself sit up and take a deep breath.“No. This is what we’re here to talk about, right?”He shrugged. “I think it’s important to you.”Yes, in the way that the salt is important to the slug.He said, “It’s up to you.”I sighed, considered for a few beats, then said, “One time, early in the morning, I was getting ready for work. I go into the bathroom and…”*   *   *… turned on the shower, but the water just stopped in midair.I don’t mean the water hovered there, frozen in time. That would be crazy. No, the spray was pouring down about twelve inches from the nozzle, then spreading and splattering as if the stream was breaking against something solid. Like an invisible hand was held under the showerhead to test the temperature.I stood there outside the shower stall, naked, squinting in dull confusion. Now, I’m not the smartest guy under normal circumstances but my 6 A.M. brain has an IQ of about 65. I vaguely thought it was some kind of plumbing problem. I stared stupidly at the interrupted umbrella-shaped spray of water, resisting the impulse to reach out and touch the space the water couldn’t seem to pass through. Fear was slowly bubbling up into my brain. Hairs stood up on my ...

About the Author

Nick Podehl has been named a "Best Voice" by AudioFile magazine in 2010 and 2011. He has narrated many young adult, fantasy and romance titles, several of which have won awards, and has appeared in a number of theatrical productions and independent films.DAVID WONG is the pseudonym of Jason Pargin, Senior Editor and columnist for humor megasite Cracked.com. He is the author of John Dies at the End and This Book Is Full of Spiders.

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