Go on, keep eating. You haven’t got long now, you ungrateful prick.

 

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the window he peered out of began to mist. He could feel the heat rising from himself as his oldest friend once again took control.

 

He couldn’t shake these temper tantrums, but thanks to mum and some very expensive therapy, he had managed to channel the extraordinary fury that dwelled within him.

 

That wasn’t what the therapist had offered, nor instructed, but Kurt had taken the best parts from what he learned while stretched out on a pretentious and un-ergonomic chaise-longue, and incorporated them into his minds inner workings.

 

Now, when the red mist not only descended, but broiled into view, he had fail-safes, switches behind the veil of his conscious mind. Switches that funnelled the hot magma of temper and poured it into a vessel for creative thinking, a body that boosted his mind.

 

So, instead of being cooped indoors when he felt his demons rising, he could now operate normally.

 

Well, normal for a killer anyway.

 

He knew that as far as defining normal was concerned, he was not exactly within the confines. Did normal allow for daydreams of murdering the people he worked with? For no reason, and in awful circumstances?

 

Normal certainly didn’t throw a tarp over his previous errors either.

 

His mum did though. He was always her boy. Her only boy, and no-one would ever change that.

 

Sweat forced painful blinks and brought Kurt back from his mother’s bosom to his rather boring Ford saloon. He grabbed his bottle of water and slurped greedily, and opened the window to disperse the condensation that was beginning to impair his view of the sideshow he was enjoying.

 

The slit at the top of the window was contrastingly vibrant to the misty white of the window below. It renewed his vigour for what Kurt was looking at – an overweight man eating heavily.

 

The man in question was morbidly obese, there could be no doubt. Movement from his sofa – that resembled an armchair under the girth of the overweight person – would be difficult enough, but from room to room? Kurt knew from previous viewings that there were two windows of opportunity. The first was his initial transit from his king size bed to the couch. The only other time he would move would be at night, when he would reverse the movement.

 

This would be interspersed with regular deliveries from various restaurants, with food in hand for the nearly stricken couch inhabitant, who would beckon them to open the door – unlocked always – and drop the food by his ample frame.

 

Kurt knew he could walk in, in between deliveries of course, and gut this poor excuse for a human. Kurt also knew that this fun, but ultimately unnecessary step, would go against his plan.

 

And that just wouldn’t do.

 

So he would hold his desires in, and watch slowly, and take his opportunity each time, daily. It was satisfying to see the man slowly suffocate himself with his own neck fat.

 

But that wouldn’t be what killed him.

 

Each and every evening that Kurt settled in to watch this freak show stuff his fat face with fast food, there were regular moments where the target, the godforsaking, ungrateful target, would fall asleep. Kurt didn’t need to remain too alert to catch this, with so much excess skin, air had a hard time entering and exiting the windpipe, and the air made its struggles in a very vocal way. So vocal, that Kurt always wondered how the neighbours didn’t complain.

 

On the neighbours front, Kurt didn’t have to worry. There was never a twitch of the curtains. You would think that the same strange car parked outside would cause some suspicion, but he never raised an eyebrow. Plus, having a client in the same street helped create a decent cover.

 

It left Kurt able to perform his ‘manoeuvres’ in a serene manner, and that made every movement he made free from the usual mix of neurosis and sweat.

 

These methods were aimed at putting an end to the ‘life’ that currently stuffed its gaping mouth with Dominos Pizza while watching the same puerile nonsense on the widescreen TV directly in front.

 

They were also painstakingly designed to do it as slowly and as painfully as possible.

 

When the fat mess would give in to its sleep apnoea, that was when Kurt would exit his car. He made no effort to slink, or stay in the shadows, and with his uniform, he looked like he belonged.

 

Plus, if you get caught looking suspicious and actively trying to stay out of sight? That’s worse. If you strolled up to the door? That’s normal, and sets off no alarms in anyone’s mind.

 

He did just that this time, just like the dozens of times he had before. Just like the hundreds of times for the three he had snuffed out previously. Each one, his methods became cleaner, more exciting – and quicker.

 

Kurt was becoming more and more entranced with seeing the life trickle out from these wastes of resources. The first was merely a process of ironing out the kinks, plus, the worry was palpable and almost snuffed out the joy he expected.

 

The second and third though? They reinforced his beliefs, and the moment that they died, knowing he was the one who made it happen?

 

Nothing, before or since, has felt the same. Every cell in his body cried out for it. He was hooked, chasing the dragon. It meant that number two and three required less ‘visits’ as he simply couldn’t wait that long again.

 

As he approached the door, he justified this to himself again. It wasn’t just to satisfy that crazy itch in his mind, that thirst that needed to be sated. It was also a service.

 

These pigs had all had stomach surgery. That surgical procedure that had enjoyed a 3000 percent rise in just two years on the NHS, and was also bandied around on daytime TV as a ‘prize’ for ‘sufferers.’

 

Victims? It wasn’t these baseless animals. It was the people who worked and saw their taxes being pumped into surgeries to stop these human balloons from popping.

 

And for what? Their eating abated for a while, but it always returned, and so that waste of money was wasted once more.

 

He needed to do this. And if it felt good? How could that hurt.

 

Wiping his feet on the mat, not because his shoes were dirty, but it was what everyone did, right? And he needed to blend in, so there were no corners cut.

 

Door open as always, and there it was, the smell. A mix of old chinese chow mein, unwiped arse and a fugue of sweat. Not the same as Kurt’s sweat of course, Kurt ensured that even though he couldn’t stop the torrents of liquid seeping from his pores, but he could eradicate the majority of bacteria on his skin with a rigorous regimen. It meant no smell, no more embarrassing situations.

 

The smell wrapped itself around Kurt’s brain and lured the fury from him. the old failsafes kicked into gear, and it would heighten the satisfaction when the beast finally toppled into death.

 

Kurt was careful not to upset the careful structures of takeaway containers that littered the floor and every available surface. He sauntered over to the subject, and in one swift movement, unsheathed the syringe.

 

The real genius in Kurt’s method? The concoction didn’t target any cellular part of the animal currently guttural snoring in front of him. It targeted the plastic that currently cut off 90 percent of their stomach. It would degenerate, and fizzle into the bloodstream, little by little. It would poison its blood supply. That wouldn’t kill them though.

 

It would be the infection that would emanate from the infected blood, finding a home in the wound around the stomach.

 

Slow, painful, irreversible.

 

The concoction was made from materials found in any hardware store, and Kurt marvelled at his mastery as he got in close. He needed to drift away when he did this as the smell became more accrid the closer he got. So, he thought about how he came to the discovery of this material and how perfect it was, how perfect this plan was.

 

How close he was to another kill. Another kill for his mother, who would be looking down on him now.

 

The hand clasping the syringe was heading to a part under the apron, an apron that must weigh about 100 pounds. It would need lifting a little, but this behemoth never woke. Not once.

 

His free hand settled on the tracksuit bottoms that housed the enormous fold of skin that needed to be raised a little. A little waft of murky smell found its way to Kurt as the skin aired a part of it that hadn’t been touched by fresh air for quite some time. Kurt swallowed the rising bile.

 

The skin was cold, and moving….

 

The body lurched forward, knocking the syringe out of Kurt’s hand. The movement was swift, one felling swoop as the body slumped, falling directly on top of the far smaller frame of Kurt.

 

The thud was sizeable, but muffled with Kurt underneath.

 

Panic rose in his throat, as the plan took a back seat to the need for escape.

 

That wouldn’t be possible. Kurt’s entire body, save one of his lower legs, was engulfed in the skin of the intended victim.

 

Kurt had succeeded in another kill, but there was no satisfaction in this one.

 

His obsessive cleanliness was causing him to sweat compulsively. the smells mattered very little, as oxygen was at a premium. He heaved with all his might to move this lump, this thing that was suffocating him. Not an iota of movement, and that was no surprise. The lump weighed nearly half a ton, and Kurt was on the slight side to say the least.

 

It normally did him a favour, his slender frame. It was unassuming, but it was severely lacking for this task – and it would kill him.

 

Three days later, Kurt was discovered. He had clawed at the body that entombed him at first, taking away the top layers and the blood had congealed. It had conjoined the two bodies, leaving a mass of skin, and legs and arms jutting out at alien angles.

 

It made you look away before your eyes even focused on it.

 

The mess was cleaned rapidly with the minimum of fuss,  just another fatality.

 

No one would really know what happened here, and on this occasion, ignorance was bliss.