And Then They All Died A Fourth Time: And Then They All Died Again, #4

By Andrew Stanek

Yet another terminally mirthful book in the hysterical dark comedy And Then They All Died Series. Thomas reluctantly regains consciousness after the events of the previous books only to discover he is now a billionaire... or is he? Being adopted by orphans, breaking into a mime funeral disguised as suicide pill salesmen, faith prescription refills, and theoretical executionology, not to mention worryingly large numbers of alpacas, all in And Then They All Died A Fourth Time, a farcical and extremely mean dark comedy novel. Written by author Andrew Stanek, whose book series are long-running only because they are running away from him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Stanek
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215301906

Book preview

Prologue

Nobody knows everything, whatever they might pretend when they attend parties in mixed company or claim in their election literature, and there are a lot of things in life that are only known to one person. For example, hurricanes are caused by a butterfly flapping its wings, and more astonishing still, they are all caused by one butterfly. Exactly which butterfly is known only to a brown labrador-poodle mix named Mr. Fluffers, who spends his days barking at lepidopterists, trying to tell them to kill the butterfly before it again enacts vengeance on the town of Lake Charles for refusing to award it first prize at a gumbo cookoff one hot night in 1977. Entropy can be reversed by camping outdoors and going back inside again, a secret known only to homeless physicist Cogniblast Gargletoes, who has now remained outside for so long that once he finally goes back indoors, he will have single-handedly saved the universe. The X202 supermassive black hole of no particular fixed address in the Pleiades constellation is a gravitational trap of such tremendous attractive force that no matter can escape it except winning lottery numbers, a revelation known only to the United States intelligence services operating out of Area 51 and Stanford University’s suspiciously well-funded astronomy department.

Another unknown unknown, as it is impossible to know whether or not Donald Rumsfeld would have put it, has to do with insurance. Insurance, as it turns out, is the source of all evil in the universe. Through the principle of moral hazard, by owning insurance, we become more likely to be afflicted by that evil against which we have insured ourselves. Our story today is about the only man in the universe who knows this. He is not a brown labrador-poodle mix or a homeless physicist or Stanford University’s suspiciously well-funded astronomy department. Instead, the hero of our story is Thomas Norm Truman, a mediocre photographer and son of a bankrupt alpaca farmer. Thomas and his friends, due to a series of near fatal run-ins with an array of increasingly sinister insurance providers, had learned that insurance is the source of all evil in the universe. He had also, after a series of appalling insurance mixups, learned that his insurance provider had killed his father. We rejoined Thomas now as he regains consciousness under the supervision of what I will very wrongly term his doctor, and in the company of those persons who I will very wrongly call his friends. What will happen next? Well, there are some things in the universe that are secrets known to only one person. In this case, that one person is me. But you won’t have to wonder for long because I’m going to tell you right now.

And then they all died a fourth time.

Chapter 1: It Was The Best Of Mimes, It Was The Worst Of Mimes

Thomas pulp fictioned awake on a cold metal slab, and as he stared up at a ceiling of dizzying bright lights and hallucinated that alpacas were spitting on him and telling him that he was bad at photography, a very unwelcome figure in a multicolored doctor’s coat and rainbow colored spectacles thrust himself in a most intrusive manner into Thomas’ field of vision. This unwelcome figure, as he so often was, was holding a sparking and sinister-looking electrical protrusion connected to a large lightning rod.

They said I was crazy, Dr. Saw screamed crazily. But now I have at last devised the means to create artificial orphan and extremely ugly life by channeling a lightning bolt into this disfigured corpse. Throw the switch! Igor, throw the switch!

Behind him, Kevin and a series of somewhat familiar orphans, who weren’t hunchbacked but had been forced to hunch their backs as if they were, moved to throw a switch that would channel a bolt of lightning into Thomas’ body. Thomas quickly rose from the metal slab and slapped their hands away from the switch before they could electrocute him.

It’s alive! Saw said. I’m a genius!

Oh, it’s you again Saw, Thomas said, unimpressed. He tried to walk away.

Immediately, Saw attempted to restrain him and force him back down onto the metal slab.

You can’t get up yet, Saw said in annoyance. I’m about to turn you into Frankenstein! The best part is we don’t even have to change your appearance.

Frankenstein was the name of the doctor, not the monster, you idiot, Thomas told him angrily.

He’s got his sense of insufferable pedantry back! Saw said jubilantly. He’s cured! I am the best doctor ever!

Humanity is the only species that has insufferable pedantry. The only other species capable of insufferable pedantry was the particularly intolerable trivio-bear of a small island nowhere in the vicinity of Canada, which was obliterated from the face of the earth in an appalling screwup in which the trivio-bear tried to demonstrate the difference between literal and figurative extinction. Subsequently, humans are the only species capable of insufferable pedantry, or at least we are until we go the way of the not-at-all Canadian trivio-bear.

Anyway, Thomas, I’m glad you’re awake, Dr. Saw said as he continued to try to electrocute Thomas with his sinister lightning rod, and Thomas tried to vigorously fight him off. That reminds me of something I wanted to tell you about. The medical malpractice board is investigating a claim from yesterday; they think I killed a patient during surgery! I mean, how dare they say I killed my patient? It turns out he wasn’t even the right patient! And that was a very risky operation to perform. It was very difficult to perform the operation because his parents were trying to stop me the whole time! Besides, how did they even find out? He was an orphan – or at least he was after I killed his parents to shut them up!

I already said I know it’s you, Saw, Thomas said angrily. Why do you always do that right after I wake up? Where am I, anyway?

You’re in Big Disappointment Orphanage, Dr. Saw said happily. Since you are an orphan, I thought it was better to bring you here instead of the hospital. After all, this is your home.

For the last time, Saw, I’m not an orphan, Thomas said angrily. My mother is still alive. I don’t want to be in Big Disappointment Orphanage.

Yeah, I don’t want to be in Big Disappointment Orphanage either! said a nearby orphan.

It was good enough for your parents and it’s good enough for you, Bibrup replied.

Thomas blearily looked up and around and saw he was surrounded by Dr. Saw, Bibrup, the orphans, Mal, and Kevin. Being the very good friends that they were, Mal and Kevin were both completely ignoring Thomas in his struggle with life and death. Kevin was apparently halfway through the process of trying to sue himself for incompetent legal representation at a heresy hearing in which he had tried to represent himself. Meanwhile, Mal was working his customer support job on his phone and telling a customer that they had accidentally shipped him a grenade. To troubleshoot, they had to remove the pin and wait three seconds, and then tell Mal what happened.

Oh, everyone else survived too, Thomas said with unconcealed disappointment.

Yes, you can’t go around thinking you're better than us just for surviving, Mal snapped back at Thomas, right before he heard a loud bang from the other end of the phone and started to giggle furiously. 

At least you got better, Kevin said sympathetically, although it was difficult to tell if he was talking to Thomas or talking to the judge who he had accidentally assaulted.

I want to get better too! Am I going to live? a wet-eyed orphan with long braids told Dr. Saw.

Not if I can help it! Dr. Saw shouted back.

So, what’s the real reason we’re at Big Disappointment Orphanage? Thomas asked.

I’m here to see my patients, Dr. Saw explained. I’m providing medical care to the orphans. I set up a clinic here!

Saw gestured over his shoulder to a rickety sign announcing the existence of his clinic in Big Disappointment Orphanage, then wandered over to the sign and started to examine the huge array of orphans who Bibrup had lined up to receive Saw’s medical ‘care.’

I do have this weird problem where they start screaming nonsense incoherently, Dr. Saw confided in Thomas. Just ignore that.

Help, help, medical malpractice! came a shout from inside Dr. Saw’s clinic.

Remember, I told you to ignore that, Dr. Saw insisted. Ignore it!

Thomas looked skeptically at him.

Don’t make that face at me, Dr. Saw said. I’m a very great humanitarian. Look! I keep distributing ugliness ribbons to people! Find the cure! He pinned ugliness cure ribbons to the chests of several nearby orphans. Not to mention that time I was at Big Game Stadium when there was a terrorist attack. Most of the doctors scrambled to treat the victims of the attack but refused to treat the terrorists, who had inflicted the injuries in the first place. My commitment to impartial and apolitical treatment of every patient for the good of all mankind was so strong that I did not refuse. No! In the name of the common good and health as a universal good and endeavoring to do no harm, I even treated the terrorists!

"That’s fine, but why did you only treat the terrorists?" Kevin interrogated.

Get off my back! Saw said. Anyway, I’m a great humanitarian, and that’s why I’m treating the orphans!

It’s so nice how you’re giving them charity, Kevin said cheerfully.

Charity? Dr. Saw said quizzically as he handed an orphan a bill.

Mal, who was halfway through redirecting his customer service calls to people he didn’t like, giggled hysterically. As he did, Kevin’s phone started to ring.

I’m going to put you on hold for just a second, Judge Lyncher, Kevin said cheerily. I have a call waiting.

And I’m also handing out prescriptions to my patients, Dr. Saw said proudly.

Next to him, Kevin aggressively downed an entire handful of suicide pills.

Now form an orderly line and die one at a time, Dr. Saw was telling all of the orphans.

I’m scared, one of the orphans said.

Euthanasia is nothing to be scared of, Dr. Saw told her. Watch! I’ll do your little brother first.

I’m so tired, another orphan said wearily.

Your father said the same thing just before he walked out forever, Bibrup replied solemnly.

When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut, a taller girl with short-cropped black hair was telling Kevin.

I don’t think they let opiate addicts be astronauts, Saw informed her.

But I’m not addicted to opiates, the girl said in astonishment.

Of course not! I haven’t prescribed them yet! Saw said with a frown.

I never want to grow up, another orphan boy in a cap told Saw.

Uh, okay, Saw said. More good news, then!

Doctor, what was my diagnosis? a little boy with a limp asked Saw.

Broken leg, Saw said. Now which leg would you like me to break? he pulled out a hammer.

Thomas, meanwhile, was still trying to collect his thoughts and bearings and stared bemusedly up at the familiar alpaca wool-insulated ceiling of Big Disappointment Orphanage. It was festooned with Christmas lights.

Bibrup, why is the ceiling covered in Christmas lights? Thomas asked with some concern.

We're getting ready to celebrate Christmas, Bibrup replied.

Even though I don’t have any food, I’m leaving out these cookies and milk for Santa this Christmas because I hope he comes, another teary-eyed orphan told Thomas. It's the last food I have.

The tiny boy gestured to a humble plate of cookies and milk that he placed on a countertop. Kevin was absentmindedly eating them while talking on the phone.

Will Santa visit this Christmas? another sad-eyed orphan asked Bibrup.

No! Bibrup declared angrily. I already told you that you’ll never see your father again. Santa is your parents!

I have parents?!? the orphan said excitedly as his eyes lit up with delight.

No! Bibrup howled. Santa isn’t real! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!

Another orphan girl was looking eagerly up at the Christmas tree that Bibrup had forced them to lumberjack themselves.

This Christmas, I want to go to Disneyland! the orphan girl confided in Thomas.

That’s what we call the back room where they trap rats to eat, Bibrup also confided in Thomas.

I want a white Christmas, yet another tiny orphan boy told Thomas.

They only want a white Christmas because they know it will kill them in a cold snap, Dr. Saw interjected.

I hate Christmas, a slightly older and huskier orphan boy told Thomas. All we do on Christmas is mine coal.

And good news! Bibrup said. Now, every day is Christmas!

Santa gives us our own coal back to us, still another orphan complained to Thomas.

And it’s always so cold at Christmas, a little girl added.

That’s what happens when you don’t meet your Christmas coal mining quotas, Bibrup told her.

I hate coal mining, the girl complained.

I’d rather die than keep doing my job, another dimple-cheeked boy agreed.

More good news! Bibrup told him. You get to do both!

Next to him, another little boy was opening a Christmas present. He drew out a small, orange bottle.

It’s exactly what I wanted! the small boy exclaimed joyously. Suicide pills! It’s a Christmas miracle!

Ho, ho, ho! said Mal, who was now unaccountably dressed as Santa. Everyone line up to get yours too!

And he started passing out suicide pills to the orphans who had lined up.

Okay, so what are your problems? Saw was meanwhile asking the orphans.

My heart hurts every time I think of my family, one of the orphan patients told Saw.

That’s why I told you to stop, Saw insisted.

My parents left me with nothing, the orphan continued.

Congenital heart defect? Saw said.

I’m scared to die.

But all of your friends will be there, Saw encouragingly quoted Oscar Wilde.

Will I go to heaven? the orphan asked teary-eyed.

Of course you will! Saw declared. They ordered the coal! Now, let’s see who else I have to see today.

He turned to a fully grown man in a tophat who had anomalously walked in during the clinic for orphans.

You only have six hours to live, Saw told the man gravely.

But you said I was in perfect health! the man exclaimed.

Yes, but you haven’t paid your medical bill, Saw said.

Back over by Bibrup, an orphan was covertly opening a bottle of suicide pills.

I hope you brought enough for the whole class, Bobby, Bibrup reprimanded him severely.

I already handed them out to the whole class, Bobby complained.

At the same time, Saw turned to Thomas.

Do you remember how I started using medical pickup lines the other day?

How could I forget? Thomas muttered.

Well, I’ve invented another brand new innovation in medical communication, Saw said proudly. Medical euphemisms. Watch!

He turned to a coughing orphan girl with a pale face.

I’m afraid that you’re ‘becoming one with the force,’ Saw said, using massive air quotes as he did.

Is that a good thing? the little orphan girl asked hopefully.

No, Saw said. I mean that you’re ‘going to be supporting the funeral industry,’ he said with more massive air