It gets more interesting! I thought I would throw a SIG{DIE} in there just to see where the route goes and got a very odd result (note the double S): 
perl -we "sub fail{die 'test'}; END{ print qq'\nF\n'; fail() }; 
$SIG{__DIE__} = sub{print qq!\nS\n!; fail()}; fail()"

S
test at -e line 1.

F

S

S
test at -e line 1.

[download]
Update

I like line numbers, so I wrote this up as little program: 

#!perl -w
use strict;
my $counter = 0;
sub fail{ ++$counter; print "$counter: Fail called.\n"; die "DEATH ". 
+__LINE__ ."\n" } 
END{ ++$counter; print "$counter: End called.\n"; fail() }
$SIG{__DIE__} = sub{ ++$counter; print "$counter: SigDie called.\n"; f
+ail() }; 
fail()

[download]
and the output: 
1: Fail called.
2: SigDie called.
3: Fail called.
DEATH 4
4: End called.
5: Fail called.
6: SigDie called.
7: Fail called.
8: SigDie called.
9: Fail called.
DEATH 4

[download]

In reply to RE: END failed--call queue aborted by Adam
in thread END failed--call queue aborted by Adam

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