Machine of Death
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FICTION/ANTHOLOGY “Existentialism was never so fun. Makes me wish I could die, too!” — Cory Doctorow THE MACHINE COULD TELL, FROM JUST A SAMPLE OF YOUR BLOOD, HOW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE. It didn’t give you the date and it didn’t give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words DROWNED or CANCER or OLD AGE or CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN. And it was frustratingly vague in its predictions: dark, and seemingly delighting in the ambiguities of language. OLD AGE, it had already turned out, could mean either dying of natural causes, or shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion. The machine captured that old-world sense of irony in death — you can know how it’s going to happen, but you’ll still be surprised when it does. We tested it before announcing it to the world, but testing took time — too much, since we had to wait for people to die. After four years had gone by and three people died as the machine predicted, we shipped it out the door. There were now machines in every doctor’s office and in booths at the mall. You could pay someone or you could probably get it done for free, but the result was the same no matter what machine you went to. They were, at least, consistent. — from the introduction FEATURING STORIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY: Camille Alexa Randall Munroe Scott C. Karl Kerschl Ramón Pérez NORTH, BENNARDO, & MALKI e Matthew Bennardo Ryan North Mitch Clem Kazu Kibuishi Jesse Reklaw d i t e d b y Daliso Chaponda Pelotard Danielle Corsetto Adam Koford Katie Sekelsky John Chernega Brian Quinlan Aaron Diaz Roger Langridge Kean Soo Chris Cox T. J. Radcliffe Rene Engström Les McClaine Cameron Stewart Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw Gord Sellar Jess Fink Brian McLachlan Kris Straub Alexander Danner Jeff Stautz Dorothy Gambrell Kevin McShane Marcus Thiele James Foreman James Lafond Sutter KC Green Dylan Meconis Kelly Tindall Tom Francis J Jack Unrau Matt Haley Carly Monardo Dean Trippe Rafa Franco Bartholomew von Klick Christopher Hastings Nation of Amanda Shannon Wheeler Shaenon K. Garrity Julia Wainwright Paul Horn MACHINEOF DEATH.NET William Grallo Jeffrey Channing Wells John Keogh C. E. Guimont David Michael Wharton Sherri Jacobsen Kit Yona Douglas J. Lane John Allison K. M. Lawrence Kate Beaton David Malki ! Brandon Bolt Erin McKean Vera Brosgol TM Camron Miller Jeffrey Brown ! e dited by RYAN NORTH, MATTHEW BENNARDO, & DAVID MALKI ! ©2005 Ryan North / qwantz.com FLAMING MARSHMALLOW • FUDGE • TORN APART AND DE- VOURED BY LIONS • DESPAIR • SUICIDE • ALMOND • STARVATION • CANCER • FIRING SQUAD • VEG- For ebook and audiobook downloads, visit machineofdeath.net ETABLES • PIANO • HIV INFEC- TION FROM MACHINE OF DEATH Cover design by Justin Van Genderen 2046design.com NEEDLE • EXPLODED • NOT WAV- ING BUT DROWNING IMPROP- Book design by Ryan Torres • ryantorresdesign.com ERLY PREPARED BLOWFISH • This book is typeset in ITC New Baskerville and DIN LOVE AD NAUSEUM • MURDER © 2010. Some rights reserved. This volume is released under a Creative AND SUICIDE, RESPECTIVELY • Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives 3.0 license. This license permits non-profit sharing, downloading, and reproduction of this MACHINE OF DEATH book as an unbroken unit, provided that attribution is properly assigned. To learn more, visit creativecommons.org. CANCER • ANEURYSM • EXHAUS- TION FROM HAVING SEX WITH A MINOR • AFTER MANY YEARS, Copyrights to individual stories are reserved by each contributor to this book. STOPS BREATHING, WHILE For full copyright information, see page 452. ASLEEP, WITH SMILE ON FACE Published by Bearstache Books, Venice, CA 2554 Lincoln Blvd #214 • Venice, CA 90291 • KILLED BY DANIEL • FRIENDLY bearstache.com FIRE • NOTHING • COCAINE AND First Edition, October 2010. PAINKILLERS • LOSS OF BLOOD ISBN-13: 978-0-9821671-2-0 • PRISON KNIFE FIGHT • WHILE 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 TRYING TO SAVE ANOTHER • MIS- Printed in the United States of America CARRIAGE • SHOT BY SNIPER • HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE • DROWNING • ? • CASSANDRA Machine of Death A collection of stories about people who know how they will die Edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo & David Malki ! © Copyright 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retriev- al) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book is set in ITC New Baskerville and DIN by Ryan Torres at Ryan Torres Design, Boston, Massachusetts, and was printed and bound in the United States of America or maybe Canada. Not sure which. Library of Congress stuff BEARSTACHE BOOKS VENICE CALIFORNIA Table of Contents Author • Illustrator Preface vi Aneurysm 213 Alexander Danner • Dorothy Gambrell Introduction viii Exhaustion From Having 227 Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw • Cameron Stewart Sex With A Minor Flaming Marshmallow 1 Camille Alexa • Shannon Wheeler After Many Years, Stops 239 William Grallo Scott C. Fudge 13 Kit Yona • Vera Brosgol • Breathing, While Asleep, Torn Apart and Devoured by Lions 21 Jeffrey C. Wells • Christopher Hastings With Smile On Face Despair 35 K. M. Lawrence Dean Trippe • Killed by Daniel 251 Julia Wainwright • Marcus Thiele Suicide 47 David Michael Wharton Brian McLachlan • Friendly Fire 263 Douglas J. Lane • Kelly Tindall Almond 55 John Chernega Paul Horn • Nothing 279 Pelotard • John Allison Starvation M. Bennardo Karl Kerschl 77 • Cocaine and Painkillers 287 David Malki ! • Jess Fink Camron Miller Les McClaine Cancer 99 • Loss of Blood 317 Jeff Stautz • Kris Straub J Jack Unrau Brandon Bolt Firing Squad 105 • Prison Knife Fight 329 Shaenon K. Garrity • Roger Langridge Chris Cox Kevin McShane Vegetables 121 • While Trying to Save Another 341 Dalisa Chaponda • Dylan Meconis Rafa Franco Kean Soo Piano 131 • Miscarriage 365 James L. Sutter • Rene Engström Brian Quinlan KC Green HIV Infection From 137 • Shot by Sniper 375 Bartholomew von Klick • John Keogh Machine of Death Needle Heat Death of the Universe 383 James Foreman • Ramón Pérez Exploded 139 Tom Francis • Jesse Reklaw Drowning 407 C. E. Guimont • Adam Koford Not Waving But Drowning 159 Erin McKean • Carly Monardo ? 421 Randall Munroe • Kazu Kibuishi Improperly Prepared Blowfish 169 Gord Sellar • Jeffrey Brown Cassandra 427 T. J. Radcliffe • Matt Haley Love Ad Nauseum 185 Sherri Jacobsen • Kate Beaton Contributors 441 Illustration by Mitch Clem & Nation of Amanda Murder and Suicide, Respectively 187 Ryan North • Aaron Diaz Copyright 452 Cancer 193 David Malki ! • Danielle Corsetto The illustration on the preceding page is by Katie Sekelsky. vi Preface Machine of Death vii of an oracle or a blood-testing machine and have to choose between knowing and not knowing. Perhaps that’s why so many of these stories end badly for the characters who do want to know. We all want perfect knowledge of the future, but we can’t have it, so we make up stories to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t want it. Sour cosmic grapes. But don’t Preface think for a moment that this is a book full of stories about people meeting their ironic dooms. There is some of that, of course. But This book, unlike most others, started its life as an off hand many more of the stories take the premise as an invitation to explore comment made by a bright green Tyrannosaurus rex. This all kinds of different and surprising worlds. All told we received 675 particular dinosaur is the main character in Ryan North’s “Dinosaur submissions from writers on five continents, amateurs and profes- Comics,” and just a few pages ago, you saw how excited he got about sionals alike, ranging across adventure, horror, mystery, fantasy, his story idea. sci-fi, humor—every existing genre and a few new ones as well. And he was far from alone! After Ryan published the comic in You’d think that after the first 500 stories or so, we’d have seen which T-Rex laid out his “machine of death” concept, readers imme- it all. But right up until the very end of the reading period, we were diately began to speculate about this machine and the world it might still discovering gems—new insights, new characters, new worlds, inhabit. So we posted an open call for submissions, inviting writers new twists to the premise. As editors, our biggest challenge soon to take the idea and run with it however they liked. Now, a few years became picking stories that not only were all excellent (that was the later, here are thirty of our favorite submitted stories, as well as four easy part), but that also represented the true diversity of ideas and by us, that explore that premise. It turns out that T-Rex was right: approaches that we received. it’s a fantastic premise indeed. So sit back and take a moment to look over the table of contents. Of course, some of the oldest stories in the world are about the Start at the beginning or just pick the title that sounds most intrigu- dangers of knowing too much about the future, and a lot of these ing to you. Either way, there’s no telling for sure exactly what you’ll deal specifically with how people are going to die. (T-Rex would get. Prepare to have your tears jerked, your spine tingled, your funny probably point out that he beat Shakespeare and the Greeks to the bone tickled, your mind blown, your pulse quickened, or your heart punch by at least 65 million years, but we’re still waiting for the warmed. Or better yet, simply prepare to be surprised. Because even dated documentary evidence to back that up.) when people do have perfect knowledge of the future, there’s no tell- But the funny thing is that these kinds of stories have a way of ing exactly how things will turn out.