Second Helping

I can't fucking stand being a waiter.

Droves of foul hedonistic customers shoveling countless fork-loads into their fat gobs absolutely sicken me, none more so than the slovenly Mister Beaumont.

Every night as soon as the buffet opens, he's there dolloping mountains of slop on his flimsy foam plate before retiring to a booth at the back of the restaurant to gorge himself until he returned to the spread to collect his second plateful.

Every night he would eat two dinners, each of which could easily feed an entire military platoon.

My manager loves him as he is the best customer that he's have ever had; forgetting that he treats the entire staff like crap and leaves the booth looking like his food had exploded.

Most nights I've wandered over to his booth and found food-waste painted over tables, walls and seats in reckless overabundance.

I have never liked folk who could let themselves go like that nor could I ever stand for undeserved rudeness and Stanley Beaumont was the poster-boy for both.

A hog in a suit ought to be aimed towards the slaughterhouse, should he not?

A few months ago I decided that I needed to get rid of Mr. Stanley Beaumont permanently and so decided to try to poison him just as I had done my aunt many years prior.

My Aunt Lydia was a horrible old spinster with whom, as a child, my guardianship was thrust upon after my parents both passed in a fiery automobile accident.

She beat me daily with sacks of oranges, locked me in cupboards when I misbehaved, scalded my legs with boiling water, berated and belittled me, then wondered why I wouldn't learn.

The mean old bitch had it coming.

When I was about fifteen, I found a crate of sealed rat-poison in her shed, which my grandfather was a distributor of In the fifties and sixties, an old brand which the government banned in the seventies named Thalli-Rat-Killer.

Deciding that I had nothing to lose, I began stirring small amounts into her tea every day.

All of the doctors thought that she had some sort of cancer, even though none of them could find from where it was spreading.

She died a slow, intensely painful death and I was free.

Thinking that this Thalli-Rat-Killer could do the same to Stanley, I began stirring small amounts into his soda.

After a few weeks, I noticed that the poison was not having any effect, I gave him consistently higher dosages yet night after night he returned in good health to voraciously devour literal tonnes of food.

I wondered how long it would take for management to erect a trough at his booth.

For the past few weeks however, I have upped the dosage so much so that I have stirred entire vials of the toxin in his beverage to no effect.

Last night I waited until he had consumed his second plateful and left, told my boss that I was taking my smoke break, followed him at a distance until he turned up an alley about three blocks away from the restaurant, pulled out my newly purchased thirty-eight calibre revolver and plugged him six times before I walked over and planted the last two into the back of his skull.

On my way back to the restaurant, I carelessly tossed the gun into the river which ran along the roadside.

After this grisly act I felt no remorse or guilt, only a momentous surge of unbridled joy.

I was finally rid of him.

After my shift ended, I went home, had a shower and hit the sack so hard that the seams almost burst.

This morning I awoke to a new beginning; birds sung their happy songs, flowers blossomed before my eyes, nature's balance restored by my hands.

Air tasted cleaner since I knew that it wasn't being shared by the likes of Beaumont.

His demise made everything better.

I walk the streets with a newfound freedom that I hadn't felt in years,

My shift started and even though I was doing the same mundane routine that I had repeated so many times before, I was happy.

Now clearing tables and serving beverages seems much less a chore and more of a pleasure.

As I exit the kitchen to bring a tray of soft drinks to a small family sitting at the far corner, I nearly drop them; sitting at his booth just like always was Mr. Beaumont, forcing an ungodly amount of food into his gaping maw.

As I get closer I notice that his head is tightly bound in a filthy bandage, blood still seeping from where my bullets penetrated.

"Waiter! Cola."

Large pieces of sauce-laden mystery meat tumble out of his mouth as he speaks, all I can do is stare in abject shock and revulsion.

"Co-la! Cola. Now waiter, or is that too much information for your little brain to process?"

I have never detested anybody more than I do this fiend at this exact moment.

Words don't escape me as I fetch him a drink.

"You haven't spit in this, have you boy?"

He chortles a feral laugh as he scoffs the entire beverage in one gulp and waves me off with his free hand, flicking god knows what all over my uniform.

Stanley Beaumont must ultimately perish tonight.

I watch him as he finishes his second meal of the night.

As soon as the undying glutton's out the door, I turn to my manager, silently toss my apron at him and give chase.

He waddles the same route that I followed yesterday, passing through the same alley without a care in the world.

At the end of his short journey, lies a brick apartment building which I quickly follow him into.

We are alone, ascending a concrete stairwell, this could be the place.

I reach into my pocket and retrieve my trusty flick-knife, the cold blade extending with the swift press of a button.

No, if I kill him here then his enormous weight could crush me as his body rolls down the steps.

Heck with that much weight and that much momentum, I might just crack the earth in two.

As stealthily as I can muster, I close the distance between us.

He is unlocking a door, now's my chance.

The moment that the handle turns, I forcefully slam him through the doorway to the thick shag-carpet inside, storming straight in after him before locking the door behind us.

"Hello Mister Beaumont."

Why is that blubber-ball smiling up at me from where he fell?

"Waiter-boy. I thought it was you. I have to say, I was kind of surprised, I guess you'll do."

His lips didn't move; why the fuck didn't his lips move?

"Nice ventriloquist trick you chunky fuck. I only see one dummy here though and he's about to die."

"You tried that remember?"

Again no movement from his lips.

His gaudy vocal tricks send me over the edge; I launch myself at him, maniacally stabbing into his thick fat over and over, oft-times digging in past the hilt and burying my hand deep within his rolls; his stupid smile still plastered under hollow eyes.

My hand gets trapped within him during a deep thrust; it was as though the fat itself took a firm hold of my wrist.

"Are you finished?"

"What the fuck are you, lard-arse?"

"Instead of telling you, it might be better to show you. I'm going to release you now and you are going to cut this mortal from neck to navel, got it?"

I nod; it seems to understand as it releases my hand.

With one swift motion, I withdraw my blade from his gut and swiftly disembowel this plump creep.

To my horror, two long red tendrils extend forth and slowly peel back his flesh to reveal a large pulsating blackened diabolical tumour where his intestines should dwell.

"Fresh air, gross! So are you ready for this or what?"

Shock overtakes me as one of the tendrils shoots up at my face, knocking me into unconsciousness.

I awaken in a strange bed; was all of this a dream?

Swinging my legs to the side of the bed and looking down, I can't help but let loose a bellowing scream.

My stomach was swollen to nearly five times the size it was before I blacked out.

"Hey waiter-boy. You're finally awake. Pretty cool right? You don't mind if I take over now, do you sport? I don't know why I even bother asking, it's not like you've really got a choice in the matter. Time to feast."

That same voice resonates from deep within me as my body begins to move of its own accord.

I am now a mere passenger inside my body; this vessel overtaken by an arcane force I can't explain.