John Dies At The End Poster

Plot Summary

The main characters, John and Dave, are friends from an undisclosed town in the Midwest.

The story opens as Dave is discussing the unusual events he has experienced with a reporter. The first story opens as Dave goes to help John's band play at a local party, just outside of town at a lake. At the party, Dave finds Molly, the dog, and meets a strange "Jamaican" dealing a drug called "Soy Sauce." After taking the drug, John begins to see things. Thinking John is having a bad trip, Dave decides to take John to the hospital but, after Dave receives an impossible phone call, they end up at the home of "Big Jim" Sullivan and his sister Amy, trying to return Molly to its owner. Amy tells Dave that she's afraid that Jim is dead, and he didn't come home after the party. Not knowing what else to do, and wanting to put the whole episode behind them, the two go to work at the local video store.

At work, Dave accidentally cuts himself on the syringe that contained John's dose of the Soy Sauce and begins having unusual experiences as well. Dave and John are brought down to the police station for questioning regarding others who have taken the drug, and are now missing or dead. While they are being questioned, John mysteriously collapses and is taken to the hospital. Dave receives another strange phone call, telling him to go to the pseudo-Jamaican's trailer. Dave finds the fake Jamaican's stash of 'Soy Sauce', but is interrupted by the police, getting shot in the process. However, due to a miraculous occurrence (the bullet not having the proper amount of gun powder due to an error at the factory, which may have been caused retroactively by Dave while he was tripping on the Soy Sauce), he survives relatively unharmed. Molly rescues him from the burning trailer and leads him to John's comatose body, which has been kidnapped by an evil force on its way to Las Vegas. That evil leads them to the Luxor Hotel, where Dr. Albert Marconi is having a conference on the paranormal. The conference descends into chaos as the evil attacks, and Dr. Marconi helps send it back to where it came from.

The second major incident Dave explains to Arnie happened a year later. Dave and John are called in to help investigate a strange death apparently caused by Molly. It turns out that the evil is on the loose again in Undisclosed in the form of a sports reporter, Danny Wexler, who has been possessed by a shadowy entity, likely after taking Soy Sauce. With the help of Wexler's girlfriend, Krissy, John and Dave have a car chase with a man made of cockroaches, and are led on a video-game inspired chase through the abandoned mall, where they have a stand off with the entity that has taken Wexler. There the evil possesses Dave, but it is ultimately defeated.

The third story starts the next summer as Dave notices that someone is watching him through his television set. The feeling continues until one winter night he has an episode of missing time just as Amy disappears. While they investigate Amy's disappearance, Dave begins to feel that he may have killed her, and peeking into his tool shed and seeing what appears to be a dead body, he is sure of it. When Amy reappears, however, the mystery deepens. As the darkness descends on them, Dave has to come to terms with how his paranormal encounters have irreversibly affected him.